Have any of you fellow adoptive parents written a letter to friends and family regarding fundraising for your adoption? If so, would you mind sharing a sample?

I had a call a couple of weeks ago from a fellow PAP asking if I had a sample letter of this sort, and I have not come up with one yet!

Please help! Thanks :O)

Ack! FRUA is still down!

After going for weeks barely looking at it, I've wanted to read it the last couple of days and it's not there! It's that old, "we want what we cannot have" syndrome!

There is absolutely no news in Adoption Land.

We've been busy with D though. She had her closing Award Ceremony at AWANA on Wednesday night. This past Sunday night she had her Children's Choir Musical in which she was one of the three main Lightening Bugs. She did awesome on her part! She had her lines as well as everyone else's memorized! I'll add some pix in a bit.

We got her signed up for swimming lessons for this summer. I can't believe it's already another summer coming up! Only 4 more Mondays left of school!!!

It was so beautiful today in East Texas - I sat out in the backyard for about 30 minutes and just soaked up some rays. I'm as white as a scary ghost! I tried Mystic Tan for the first (and last) time the week of Easter so my legs wouldn't be too scary white. Ugh, I couldn't breath in there! I was dark, but I thought it would last longer than it did.

Y'all go welcome Valerie to the bloggy-hood. She and her hubby are just getting started on this adoption go-round so she needs some friends to come alongside. I feel like these new families coming in are going to have such an easier time than we've had this past couple of years - I sure hope so anyhow!

That's about all that's going on here. Sorry no posting going on lately. I'm ready for something to talk about!!

I'm coming out of my adoption induced coma.

I woke up this morning with a sort of adoption related electricity coursing through me. I tell you, I've been plumb numb for a few weeks!

I really think we're on the brink of hearing something soon - we've GOT to be!

Here are a couple of new blogs to check out, let's give them some bloggy- hood welcoming.

1. Hannah's adoption, looks like they may or may not continue to be headed to Russia - we'll have to wait and see. http://www.hannahjemmott.blogspot.com/

2. Hamersma Adoption - http://hamersmaadoption.blogspot.com/

I, like many other waiting adoptive parent bloggers, seem not to have been posting much lately. There is just absolutely nothing to post. I've noticed the trend - we all seem to have been taking a little break and that's ok. I didn't purposefully say, "Ok, I'm going to take a break from adoption land" I just did. That's not usual for me, though. I would usually get to a point of overload and say, "that's it, I need a break".

I'm slowly coming back in, checking other blogs and such. But I'm not fully immersed yet. Maybe in another week or so.

I wandered over to FRUA yesterday (hadn't been there in over a week) and didn't stay long. I guess my hiatus isn't over yet. I'll be back soon, I'm sure.

p.s. A cute thing D said (including the big words) the other day . . . We were driving in the WalMart parking lot looking for a space when we saw her swimming teacher from last summer. I said, "look, there's Miss Jill - wave at her" so she waved. Then D said, "so, who exactly is Miss Jill again??" I said, "your swimming teacher!" "Oh," said D, "she looks unfamiliar dry."

I went to our church sanctuary at 4:10 yesterday for my prayer time.

When I walked in the door of the dim room, just the sun shining through the stained glass, I started to cry right away.

See, when you're sitting in that place with 600 other people, it's easy to not really "be" there - do you know what I mean? After 14 months of this waiting and thousands of prayers, lately I haven't really been praying with faith, believing. It's easy to plaster on a smile every Sunday and pretend to be alright when it's you + 600 other people. But when I walked into the sanctuary yesterday afternoon it was just me and God in there and I was overwhelmed.

I grabbed the tissue box off the front pew, took off my sandals and fell on my face before God at the altar. Knowing that people all over the world were praying at the same moment for the same thing was powerful. I confess that sometimes, even though I know I'm a child of God, I feel insignificant. But during that prayer time I KNEW He was listening to us.

I prayed for so many of you by name who have been waiting for your child and I prayed for all the children who are waiting. There were times when I had no words and I was at the point of just an inner groaning of pain for all of us, begging God with my soul to bring our children home.

And the only way they can come home is for accreditation to be granted.

Romans 8:26-28
Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

Don't forget, tomorrow is the day set aside to pray for re-accreditation!! In light of the last agencies accreditation lapsing and all the negative (scary) media we've seen this week, it is very timely!

Studying to teach my Sunday School class in the morning I was researching The Garden of Gethsemane which is at the base of the Mount of Olives. I was surprised to find out that there is a Russian Orthodox Church built there on the Mount of Olives. The Russian Orthodox Church of St. Mary Magdalene. To see the information and a picture of the beautiful church, scroll down a bit (past the information for lyrics from Jesus Christ Superstar :o)

I was on the computer this morning and had the TV on in the family room with Good Morning America playing. I heard the interviewer ask the guest something about the circumstances surrounding the fact that, "you had to leave your piano in Russia?"

Of course I hopped up to go see what the segment was about.

The guest was Regina Spektor. Where have I been that I've never heard of her before?? Oh yes, that would be . . . living in Podunk, TX USA being a stay at home mom who is rarely even in the car to hear the radio.

This You-tube is of the song she played on GMA and I like her. I've spent a few minutes listening online to her music. It's a bit different, but fun. Here is a You-Tube of her:



She was born in Moscow and her family was allowed to emigrate in 1989 during perestroika since they were Jewish.

Something random that interested me. Just something new.

I am working on doing a whole new dossier for V - again. This is number 3 for her adoption.

It is almost ridiculous the difference between D's (one little skinny) dossier and V's (big stack that need their own drawer) dossiers.

I am almost finished.

Then it's off to Austin for apostilles. Again I say "praise God" for the law that was enacted right before we submitted the first batch of apostilles for V's adoption. There is a $100 cap on apostilles per adoption/per child in the state of Texas. I'm sending 32 documents to be apostilled and before this cap that would have been another $320 right there. We would have been over $1,000 total (so far) for apostilles on this adoption if it weren't for that cap!

April 5, 2006 is the latest date in our most recent dossier. So, it's going to be all new and improved - again!

**Edited to add - We live a little over 5 hours from Austin so we will (and usually do) send the dossier package overnight via Fed-#x and include a prepaid overnight mailer for the Secretary of State to send it back. We have done the trip to Austin and made it an overnighter 3 times in our adoption adventures. That was in the case of a hurry up document. Thankfully we don't live in El Paso, though! That would be one doozie of a trip!!