If you'd like to purchase a puzzle piece to help bring our daughter home please click the chip in above. The pieces are 3.00 each and you're welcome to purchase as many as you'd like. Each piece purchased will have the name of the purchaser written on back. We'll frame it in glass on both sides so we can always remember who contributed. Please comment either here on the FB group how many pieces you'd like. Thank You all so much for your support. This is really happening!!!!!!!

Our paperwork is in her country as of today. :) next up: translate, submit, travel. Boom, baby!

So close! We're in the end zone now, I can feel it. Our dossier is being sent to Eastern Europe this week. We had a couple setbacks with a few of the papers and the way they were notarized. All is in order now and the next step once it arrives in her country is translation. I'm not sure how long that will take (1-4 weeks at most I imagine) but as soon as they are done it will be submitted to the Ministry of Education which is their version of DFS. Then they make an appointment for us and our agency will notify us to say when the appointment is. Typical notice is about 2 weeks to a month. Exciting stuff, no?! Our court dossier (there's a registration dossier which is the preliminary one and it is submitted first) is also done and being sent for translation at the same time (this week). That means as soon as we have our appointment at the ministry of education and receive her full history we can go meet her, accept the referral and our court dossier will be immediately submitted. They have to give you a court date within 8 weeks of submission so depending on how busy they are we'll either be back in a month or two. In a perfect world we'd travel first in May, again in June for court and bring her home 30 days later in July. Wouldn't that be awesome??? We'd have to get her a suit ;) If nothing else we hope to have her home by her birthday which is just 4 days after mine on August 28th. It is gonna be quite the party ;)! Just an update to let you all know where we are. Hopefully the next news is big!

There's our pretty girl. Sitting and waiting and ready for us. Now that we have all the paperwork completed we are just awaiting an invite to travel from her home country in Eastern Europe. We've got all our agency fees and in country fees accounted for. The only thing we need help with are the three flights we'll be making to Eastern Europe. The cost for two tickets round trip is roughly 2500 and that doesn't include the costs of visas. If you would be willing to contribute, click the link on the right of the page. If you have airline miles you're willing to donate please contact me directly: gretgillette@gmail.com Our little lady is currently being treated for issues related to her spina bifida, namely urology. The sooner we get her home, the sooner she can receive the care and support she needs. Can you imagine being in a hospital without your family's support? It breaks my heart. Lets get this girl home!

The last piece of the puzzle is here! Jay's passport came today. There's nothing more entertaining than a tiny baby passport. She looks like a miniature convict. I hope customs doesn't get suspicious! Here's recent picture of our little lady. Can't wait to see her in person!

We're 6 visits away from 10,000 blog hits. Thank you for all your support. It is great to know we're not alone in this.

It is done. The dossier that is. Actually both dossiers (doh-see-aye) are done. There's one for Registration and one for court. They've left the building and are on their way now to her home country for translation and submission. There is nothing left for us to do. It feels great to have that part over with. It was harder than I thought it would be. I hate paper chasing, turns out and I really don't like nagging people and asking multiple times for them to do one thing. So glad it is over with! Now though, the worry sets in. Luckily we have prayer for that and I'm sure all in good time we'll have our first travel invite. We get to make three trips in all. One to accept the referral (of course!) and one for court and then after court there is a 30 day wait before the decision is final and we can come collect our prize. Until then we will try to live our normal lives and not act like our minds are elsewhere in a foreign land. We just can't wait. We're getting close little lady. I know you don't know it but your people do and we can't wait to thank them for keeping you safe and happy until we get there. These boys are excited to have you. They've got your room all ready and your toothbrush too. I'm sure they'd even let you lick the bowl. First.

We love you!!!

Two steps forward... One step back. Today's step back came in the form of my age old nemesis, the homestudy agency. These people...grr. After having an assignment for more than a month I contact them and offer to gather the information myself just to speed things along. The information was concerning rights of the adopted child in our home state. So I get the info, hubby writes up the summary and emails it to them. Simple, right? Well rather than getting back to us with the completed document I end up contacting them after 6 days of hearing nothing and then they mention that the other two docs I needed from the copy of their license and letter of good standing are also going to be a problem. Their license expires on the 23rd of this month so we have to wait until they get the new license (two weeks) before we can complete the dossier. Oh and they have no idea what a letter of good standing is. The super amazing international agency filled them in on that one but I imagine they won't have one ready for me until I nag it out of them. I hate nagging. Just do your job. On a more positive note everything else for the dossier is completed, ready to be apostilled and sent for translation in the little lady's home country. In the mean time I will introduce our littlest lady who was born on February 1st. She was 8 days early which was great for me.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9lmnu3k3pLUWU7t5RSGCwiIildlh7s666fgfZO7iE0mLatIyembY0NCBifUVXNXPZIkWNnzHG9QddOyDNSLi4J_NOesn2QF716S_AgmBm6oxSQmNlXhkIdhe3mVKipkfNGA3RNeZj2_g/s320/IMG_0052.jpg She was 7lbs 4oz and I believe 19 inches long. Her birth was fantastic, probably one of best natural hospital births, at least in my experience. She's a fabulous addition. The boys love her to death but they like me are now anticipating the arrival of their other sister. All three of them know they have two sisters and are begging to have both of them home. We can't wait to our face next to hers in a photo and for her to meet her little sister and get to see pictures and videos of her brothers for the first time. That will be a fabulous day. Thanks for all your encouragement. We're close but STILL no cigar.