Where we are in this crazy adoption process, the next steps and huge blessings.

Where are we in this process?

Well, I was going to wait to post something really exciting but I thought "this is kind of exciting". At least to us it is. After about 8 months of working on our home study we finally have a state approved home study! This means that our next step is immigration. We have already sent in our I600a so now we wait for USCIS to open up a file for us and send us back a date to go get our federal fingerprints done. Once our fingerprints are done there will be more forms to fill out and send back to USCIS. After that is all done then we wait for another approval. Once we are approved we will finally be on a waiting list to receive a referral of a child. We anticipate that the immigration process will take up to 3 months but then again we will be communicating to the government through the postal service so when I say 3 months I really mean like 5.

Tutu blessings!

Every time I tell someone about my tutu business I usually can't do it with out chuckling a bit. A year ago I would've never guessed that I would have a little business that involved a sewing machine and lots of tulle. I certainly would not have guessed that this would be a fund-raiser for me but with the help of friends, family and facebook these cute poofy balls of tulle became a hit! I still can't believe it when I look at my huge tulle stash and all my ribbon. I never thought I was crafty but sometimes God likes work outside the box and I think that is what He did with me.

I would say the tutu season hit strong right after Halloween. It all started with a friend's persuasion to do a craft fair. The only catch was that the fair was 2 weeks from the time I signed up. I'm not going to lie...I felt a little panicked b/c I knew I would have to make more tutus in the next 2 weeks than I ever thought I would make all year but I had the help of a couple of friends. My friend, Dana, first donated her time to help me make tons of flower clips. Then my other friend, Katie, joined us several evenings to cut tulle, tie tulle and sew around tulle. Did I mention tulle? Not only did these girls give up several nights to come to my house to help me out but they would show up ready to work and had a drink and something yummy for me. With all their help I was ready for the fair! I had my table set up so pretty and was ready for tons of traffic except there was no traffic. I had a total of 4 sales that day which was by far more than any of the other booths so I was trying to put in perspective. The good thing was that I had quite a few tutus made and with the help facebook and word of mouth I was able to sell all most all of them with in the next month.

I can't talk about this tutu craze with out mentioning my most exciting order yet. My niece, Kaiya, is a pretty competitive dancer and is in quite a few dance competitions during the year. This year she is in a trio and for a while she and the other 2 girls in the dance had been telling me that they wanted MY tutus as their costumes. With the approval of their dance coach and of course their moms they all decided on 3 similar but slightly different colors. I have to be honest and say that I was most nervous about this order. After all there are trophies involved here and so I knew I was playing a part in how they would look on stage. After a couple fixes the tutus were finally ready for their first dance competition. The convention was held in Denver and I had the honor of watching them perform for the first time. I must say these girls looked AMAZING! The tutus were so cute but I'm pretty sure these 3 made them look even better. Here is a picture of my very first costumes.

Here are pictures of a few little buyers.

This is sweet Audrey helping me the day of my craft fair.

My littlest buyer so far.

Of course I had to involve my tutus in some of our own family photos. These are my precious girls, Isabel and Adeline. Photos done by Becky http://markandbeckyk.blogspot.com/