{NEWS}

{picture taken by Fonnetta of our Weeping Cherry Tree 5-2009}

YAY!!! We have our appointments for our FBI fingerprinting with Homeland Security! We are so excited at the thought of being finished with this paper chase. Our journey has been so smooth, so I really cannot complain. However, I would love to take a deep breath and know that China has our file and have given us a log in date. That should happen in July sometime.

In the mean time, I am working on my cookbook. It too should be completed and ready to sell in July. I have been having so much FUN cooking and taking pictures of all the yummy food that will be in it. I will keep you posted when it is ready to sell. I don't want it to cost more than $20. We are hoping for success with this fundraiser. We need all the funds we can get right now for the adoption.

I have also started preparing to make Makayla a "100 Good Wishes Quilt" or "Bai Jai Bei". I have just finished the letter and will be sending it out soon. A little history about what this is...

When a baby is born, family and friends would donate to the child's mother fabric scraps. It is said that the luck, energy, and good wishes from all the families and friends who contributed the fabric surrounds the child when she is wrapped in the quilt. The quilt is then passed down from generation to generation.

After our coordinator told us about the quilt she made for her daughter, I fell in love with the idea. I am really excited to start sewing this masterpiece. I made a quilt for each one one of our children when they were babies, so it is only fitting. Like I said, I will be mailing out those letters soon. It has a lot more information in it. If you have any questions, please just shoot me an email or make a comment and I will try to answer it.

Have a blessed day!
The Sweeney's

Romans 5:1-4 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through out Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this Grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

{UPDATE}

We have made some serious progress this week:) I forgot to post that our last two documents were authenticated in Olympia on June 5th. THANK YOU Mr. Otis!!! Now we have all of our documents authenticated and ready to send to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco to be authenticated for the last time! Then...lookout GWCA our Dossier will be on its way!!!



We had our second yard sale Saturday, for the adoption and we raised $800.00!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe it?!?! We were so excited. Just about everything we had, sold on Saturday. We are donating the leftovers now.

~A SPECIAL THANK YOU~ to Mike's parent for ALL their help, we could NOT have accomplished this Yard Sale with out YOU!
Also, Thank You to:
The Daniels Family
The Bowers Family
The Otis Family
The Davidson Family
The Fisher Family
and all the fabulous people who shopped here!

I spoke with our Dossier Consultant, Jessa, she cleared up several questions and then reviewed our family pictures which will be attach to our Dossier! We passed with flying colors! I made three scrapbook pages to send. We could have up to 10 photos. So check that off the list! We are so ready:)







~NEWS~
We just got word today that our I-800A was received at Homeland Security!!!! Then in the mail came the Notice of Action!!! I cannot begin to comprehend the speediness of our process with everything! Now, we should get word in a day or two that we need to go be fingerprinted. They will give us a time and date to get that done again.

Have a WONDERFUL day and THANK YOU for your support and continued prayer in our adoption process!

The Sweeney's

Isaiah 43:5
Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
I will bring your children from the East
and gather you from the West.

{several things}

I wanted to give an update on our progress...
On May 30th we received our approval letter form Great Wall regarding our Home Study!!! That was so fast, not the actual Home Study process, but the actual approval letter after it was finished!!! We were so excited, because we needed that to be attached to our Home Study to make it official and for when it is sent for the Authentication, I-800A, and the Dossier. Here is a picture...





Also, I was able to go on Monday, June 1st and pick up our four notarized copies of our Home Study from Nora. That is a huge weight off my shoulders. We are now ready to send our I-800A and begin researching grants for our adoption.



Yesterday, June 2nd, I sent our I-800A by 2 day mail:) They should receive it by Friday!!!! Then, from what I understand, it will take them about 37 days to process the information and we are ready to get our last fingerprinting by the FBI and compile our Dossier!!!! (special thanks to my friend Chris for coming with me to snap my picture)



While that is all happening our last two documents are in Olympia being Authenticated!!!!

Thank you again for all your continued prayers! Our adoption would not be going this smoothly if it wasn't for all of our fabulous friends and family. We know with out a shadow of a doubt that this is His plan and we are so thrilled!!!

I always like end with a scripture and this one just spoke to my heart!!!

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11

{YARD SALE}

Our yard sale was VERY successful yesterday. We made $528.00 for our adoption fund!!! We had a very long day. We opened at 7 am, which means I was up at 5 am preparing to open the doors by 7 am. We had a great turnout of people and finally closed up and cleaned up by 5:30pm last night. There are so many people to thank for the success of this yard sale!!!

The list...
The Bowers Family
The Otis Family
The Johnston Family
The Chambers Family
The Ugrin-Smith Family
The Fisher Family
Elaine Sweeney (our niece)
The Davidson Family
Mike's Parents
My Parents
Our Children
and all the wonderful shoppers...

THANK YOU to all of you!!!! We feel so blessed to have each and everyone of you in our lives.

















Missi really wanted to have a BAKE SALE to help earn money for the adoption and she made $22 selling cookies, lemonade, red vines, and bottled water. She worked so hard...Thank you Missi:)































THE END OF THE DAY and we are wiped out!!! Off to shower and sleep!

{FINDS}

Ooops, I Forgot To Post...
On May 23 we went to a Yard Sale and hit the JACKPOT!!! We found the most adorable rocking chair and Mission style bed for Makayla's room and they were both just $2o, we were so excited!!!!!! It has wood side rails too. I will post a picture when her bed is all together. We brought them both home and started sanding the bed, we are going to re-paint the bed white. The rocking chair was in mint condition, so that got a good scrubbin and put right in to her room. Here are the pictures...

{APPROVED}

..."With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 20:26
















{these are my favorite flowers in my flower bed}

YA!!! YA!!! We finally received word from Jessa (yesterday) that our Home Study is APPROVED!!!! We will now receive 4 original copies from Nora. We will keep one for our records, one goes with our I800A application, one goes to be authenticated for our dossier, and the last one I am unsure of and will hopefully find out tomorrow. We now wait for Nora to finalize everything on her end, then Jessa is sending a cover letter for the home studies and we will be sending in the I800A!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is there a light at the end of this paper tunnel??? YES:) I am off to bed now, but will keep you filled in as we know.

Oh, wait....I also wanted to show you a picture of the end table my Mother in law made me for my birthday. She is very much into stained glass right now and asked me what I wanted...so, I told her and it turned out FABULOUS!!!! It is the Chinese symbol for LOVE...isn't is beautiful! Thank You Charlotte:)
















I wanted to finish with this scripture...I love this one!


When we hope, be joyful.
When we suffer, be patient.
When we pray, be faithful.
Romans 12:12

This just says so much!!!!

{update}

It has been a bit since my last post...I wanted to let you know we finally got Mikes clearances back from California, (thank you Lord) he was cleared! We knew that would be the case, but the wait was crazy! I am so glad our caseworker, Nora, sent in our Home Study without that date! Our Home Study was finalized on 4-23-09 and sent to Jessa at GWCA. I was told it would be about 2 weeks to get that reviewed and sent back to Nora. Well, that finally happened yesterday, 5-14-09...so, that is around 4 weeks! We have 3 things to fix or rather add to and then it goes back to Jessa again. Not sure how long the wait could be this time. We are suppose to go in to a different wait line...this seems to be the slowest process yet, except for the CA clearances for Mike. As soon as the home study is finished, we can file our I-800A. We are almost finished with the paperwork!!!!

We did attend the webinar with GWCA, " Hope Camp Kids" and gained a lot of information, that was the best part. We did not see a little girl that made our hearts stop, so we took that as a sign Makayla was not here yet. We are not sad or disappointed, we are just waiting for God's timing. I am sure He would allow me to have any child I pursued, but we want the blessing He has waiting for us. Too many times in my life I have taken over and finished what I thought was His plan and learned some valuable lessons. I know God is good and His plan will be the best and more fulfilling than anything I could ever do. We will continue to wait.

We still have some money to raise. We are still working on the last part to GWCA, which we are about $1, 000 shy of hitting and then we save for our trip and orphanage donation. The donation to the orphanage is $5,000 and the trip will be around $10-$15, 000. We are planning to take our family, so it will be more expensive than normal. We have several things in line that we are working on to bring in some dollars, I will keep you posted on the dates and places if you would like to attend any or all of the events. Here is our list... yard sale, jewelery, cook book, BINGO night and silent auction.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers, we need all the divine intervention we can get right now!

Thank you,
The Sweeney's

"Those who wait on the Lord will gain renewed strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
The will walk and not become weary".
Isaiah 40:31

~NEWS~

Just checking in to let you know a little bit of news!!! We heard today that out home study is up for review and should be finished by the end of this week or early next week!!! We are so excited...it has been pretty quiet around here. Mike seems to think that this is the calm before the storm! heehee The other bit of news is we are now registered for the Waiting Child "Camp Hope" webinar on May 11th, 2009. This was for the children who went to the Beijing Camp Hope and were NOT placed with a forever family. We have the opportunity to be at the webinar and find out a little more information than normal at this point. From what I understand...we do not have to have our dossier to China to request one of the children. We don't know for sure if our Makayla is there or if we will continue to wait for Gods timing. Either way this is a very exciting opportunity!!!

Here is what Jessa had to say:

Our hope, and our goal, is to now find families for these children. I will be presenting information on each of the children who are still waiting to find their families. A brief description of their special needs will be provided, however, I will focus more on telling you about their personalities and my interactions with them.

Because I will be providing photos and confidential information about the children, this webinar will be limited to only families who have a Waiting Child application on file. Once you register and I am able to verify your application, I will provide you with a password to log-in.

Isn't this AWESOME!!! We could be seeing MAKAYLA!!! We will keep you posted! Please keep us and Makayla in your prayers...Thank you for stopping by:) Have a blessed day!

WE GOT IT!!!!!

We finally got our two authenticated documents back from California!!!!!!!! It took CA closer to three weeks than two, but they are safely back and in our hands again!!!!! Thank you Lord! We are only waiting now for the home study to be reviewed and Cortney called me yesterday to inform us she had spoken to Jessa and the review would only take about 2 weeks now. Another, PRAISE THE LORD!!! As soon as it is completed we will need to get it authenticated and ALL of our documents are ready for the I-800A process. We are jumping for joy!!! The sooner the dossier is in China's hands the better.
Here is a peek at California's Authentication. They offset the documents just enough to add a pretty red stamp that joins the two documents together.

YAHOOOOO!!!!!

It has been pretty quiet around here regarding our adoption. We are still waiting for Mike's clearance from California and also for the two documents I sent to California for authentication to come back. However, yesterday our HOME STUDY was email to Great Wall China Adoption!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YIPPY!!!!! Nora finished it yesterday morning and emailed both GWCA and Mike & I. We read it and there were only 2 minor things that we could see in our bio's that need to be corrected. Now, we wait again...Jessa (our dossier consultant) did send confirmation that she received it at GWCA and said it would take 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 weeks to be reviewed...*sigh* We knew that part would be long, so we are praying it doesn't have to go back and forth to many times. After the home study is finalized, we will send off the I-800A and....wait yet again. We still are doing really well considering we have only been at the paperwork part for 2 months now, so I really cannot complain. God has opened doors, given us money and topped it with a dose of patience. God is good!!! Thank you for you continued prayers for our family and Makayla.

HAPPY EASTER!!!!

Wishing you all a fabulous and blessed Easter!!! He has risen!!!




















We are hosting Easter this year, so I am about to get to work on preparing our lunch-dinner.

I had a moment to post and thought I better get completely caught up on Makayla's scrapbook:) Here is page 10!


















We are now almost finished filling out our I-800, so as soon as Nora has our Home Study finished we can file our document and be fingerprinted one more time.

Getting Caught Up!

Here is the layout I finished this morning of our Home Study Celebration Dinner:) We are now on page 11 of our Makayla Scrapbook.
Have a wonderful day and a Happy Easter tomorrow!

Home Study!!!

YAHOO!!! We have officially completed our home study meeting :) Nora was so sweet and the whole experience was fantastic! Our meeting started at 1:00 pm and we were finished by 4:30 pm. She told us that she should have our home study written up in about a week. We were shocked and thrilled at the time frame. When we were finished, we said our "Thank You" and "Good bye's" and rushed out the door to our favorite restaurant to CELEBRATE!!! If you are looking for a FABULOUS authentic Thai restaurant, you will not be disappointed with the Thai Kitchen!!!

Back In Our Hands:)

Our 9 of the 13 authenticated papers are in our hands now!!! Aren't they pretty :) I met Cortney yesterday for lunch and picked up our adoption papers :) YA YA YA She was relieved to not have responsibility for them any longer and I can't say I blame her one bit. I think it would be stressful to be carrying around someone's valuable documents too. We are so grateful to her and Sean for taking our paper with them for the authenticating process though. She took a couple of pictures too:) Thanks Cortney!!!

This is the gentleman who looked up all of our notaries, so we could have our documents authenticated by Sam Reed:)
The next step is Mikes 2 documents that have to be authenticated at the California Secretary of State. I will be sending those in the mail today. That will make a total of 11 of the 13 documents that we need to have authenticated!!! YAHOO!!! The process will take up to two weeks, so we will be praying for safe delivery and speedy return. That means less worry on my part for those documents.

Tomorrow is our Home Study!!!! We are all very nervous!!!! It will take Nora about 4 hours to complete the study and then we wait for her report. WHEW! After the report is compiled it will be sent to Great Wall for review and then it too can be authenticated. We will also be able at that point to file our I-800.

We are really cruising along here. Much faster than we anticipated. We feel so very blessed that our process is going so smoothly. Thank you to everyone for your continued prayers and encouragement, we appreciate each and every one of you!!! *HUGS*

Here are the before and after pictures of Makayla's room that I scrap-booked too.

TODAY!!!!

Our papers are being hand delivered to the Secretary of State of Washington to be AUTHENTICATED!!!! We are jumping up and down with excitement! Our friends were driving over to get their paperwork authenticated and offered to take ours too!!!! THANK YOU!!!

Other than that, it has been pretty quiet lately as we wait for our Home Study. Nora did send the paperwork to California for Mike's Child Abuse clearance.

After the Home study, we will be ready to have GWCA double check our documents and then we can file our I-800.

Yesterday, Missi and I decided it was time to paint Makayla's room. The room went from my blue office to "Ballerina" PINK! Her room is BEAUTIFUL! Mike even came home after work and painted her ceiling!! Our plan is to paint cherry blossoms along the top of the wall. The theme is "New Beginnings". This will be a New Beginning for all of us :)

Here is the room before...


















Missi and I working hard to cover the BLUE!!!


















BALLERINA pink!!!