This will be quick. There is a ton to update on but I don't have time right now.
Late last week we were notified that Kenna was taken home by her birth family. We were devastated but at the same time we are so happy for her. In the end, she has a family and that's all that matters! Over the weekend we were told by our stateside facilitator that there was a baby girl that was getting ready to be listed on Reece's Rainbow. We were able to look at her file today and had a great feeling about it. There is just something different about this one. We are thrilled to introduce you to Vanessa. Her name will be Jolie Mae McFall. She was born in U in November! We are hoping to travel to meet her and bring her home in July! We just have a few more pieces of paperwork to get together to complete our dossier. Hopefully that will be done this month! Thank you for continuing on this journey with us despite all of the twists and turns. You are so awesome! To help bring this little squishy girl home, please visit our family sponsorship page below!
And now follow this link on to Jolie!
http://reecesrainbow.org/41536/sponsormcfall
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
I can't think of a cool title, so this will have to do.
Hi!
First of all, thank you to every single one of you who have called, emailed, texted, or stopped us in person to let us know that you were thinking about us with everything and praying for our adoption. Having to make decision to relist Annie was so so so horrible. I literally cried for 3 days. It wasn't pretty. Be glad you weren't around. When we relisted Annie, we already had inquired about Kenna. Although I wasn't completely sure that the Lord wasn't just closing the adoption door all together. I prayed fervently for the Lord to confirm to me that we were supposed to continue with an adoption from U. And he did, almost immediately in some ways and then throughout the rest of that week in others. At this point, we know with out a doubt that a U adoption is what God has had planned for us this whole time. He just needed to use Annie to get us there.
So now that we are fully in the U process, things have started moving along very quickly. I finished 10 hours of redundant adoption training shortly after the New Year and our home study was then completed and finalized right after that. While I was waiting to recieve our copies of our finalized home study we worked on getting everything together to file our application with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (or USCIS). I FED-EXed our application along with the necessary paperwork to them on Friday. It was super nerve wracking. We should receive our appointment to have fingerprints done in a couple of weeks. After fingerprinting, we will wait for them to mail us our approval to adopt! Please pray that this process would move along quickly.
We would love to be traveling in the summer to complete the adoption and bring Kenna home and I think that it might be doable. Just as long as everything moves fairly quickly and without hold up. But we all know that something will probably happen to snag the process. Please just pray for smooth sailing from here on out.
We haven't chosen a name for our sweet girl yet but we have a few ideas floating around. Many of you asked about her name and so I thought I would address it. Hopefully we will find something that we love and that fits her. It's so hard to think about names and come up with something you both like and then look at her picture and think "no, that name doesn't fit her." I know that we will figure it out at the right time.
Thank you for keeping up with us and praying for us. Hopefully not much longer!
xoxo,
Kallie
Thursday, January 17, 2013
A few Changes!
Friends and Family:
This is not the post I ever wanted to have to write. But it has to happen.
This past weekend Lance and I make the agonizing decision to re-list Annie on Reece's Rainbow and stop our Russian adoption. After praying about it, we decided that there was not much hope of our adoption in Russia since we had not filed official paperwork with their government prior to the ban taking place. We are devestated to have to make this decision. But now that certain documents have been updated, we can officially announce that we have commited to bringing home a little girl (also with Down Syndrome) from Ukra*ne! I will make our blog public again soon so that you can keep up with her adoption. Please continue to pray for Annie and add Kenna(this is her code name, we will decide on a different name later) to your prayers. Thank you for continually lifting our family to the Father and walking this journey with us. We will never be able to thank you enough.
http://reecesrainbow.org/41536/sponsormcfall
This is not the post I ever wanted to have to write. But it has to happen.
This past weekend Lance and I make the agonizing decision to re-list Annie on Reece's Rainbow and stop our Russian adoption. After praying about it, we decided that there was not much hope of our adoption in Russia since we had not filed official paperwork with their government prior to the ban taking place. We are devestated to have to make this decision. But now that certain documents have been updated, we can officially announce that we have commited to bringing home a little girl (also with Down Syndrome) from Ukra*ne! I will make our blog public again soon so that you can keep up with her adoption. Please continue to pray for Annie and add Kenna(this is her code name, we will decide on a different name later) to your prayers. Thank you for continually lifting our family to the Father and walking this journey with us. We will never be able to thank you enough.
http://reecesrainbow.org/41536/sponsormcfall
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Please Pray.
This is posted on Facebook but I figured I would post here too.
Friends, we are begging y'all to pray. We have tried not to freak out about this until now. An amendment by the Russian government to ban adoption of Russian children by U.S. families has now passed both levels of parliament and is being sent to President Putin for his veto or signature that would sign it into law. If this is signed into law, our understanding is that our adoption would immediately come to a halt. We would be devastated. We are begging that you would pray for this situation. Pray that Putin's heart would be softened. Pray that someone would speak truth to him and he would realize that adoptions by Americans are a good thing and in 99% of cases, the child is loved and taken care of. Pray that these precious children would no longer be used as political pawns. Thank you.
I know I haven't updated in a while and for that I am sorry. I should be back shortly to update.
Friends, we are begging y'all to pray. We have tried not to freak out about this until now. An amendment by the Russian government to ban adoption of Russian children by U.S. families has now passed both levels of parliament and is being sent to President Putin for his veto or signature that would sign it into law. If this is signed into law, our understanding is that our adoption would immediately come to a halt. We would be devastated. We are begging that you would pray for this situation. Pray that Putin's heart would be softened. Pray that someone would speak truth to him and he would realize that adoptions by Americans are a good thing and in 99% of cases, the child is loved and taken care of. Pray that these precious children would no longer be used as political pawns. Thank you.
I know I haven't updated in a while and for that I am sorry. I should be back shortly to update.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Nothing New
Hey Everyone!
There is nothing new to talk about. I really wish that there was but that just isn't the case. I am still waiting to hear from our placing agency to see if all 53 hours of training has to be included in our homestudy report or if we can just get by with the 10 for now. I hate to just do the 10 and then have to pay to have the homestudy report edited to include all 53.
The bottleneck in Annie's region of "R" has cleared up. So that's good to know. Hopefully that means that when we submit our dossier, there won't be a ton of waiting.
It's crazy to think that we have been on this journey for 5 months now! It really seems like just yesterday we were looking through pictures on Reece's Rainbow trying to find our child. And now she is 5 months older. She is almost 3. That's hard for me to wrap my mind around. That when my baby comes home she will be 3. A toddler. We will have missed many of her big milestones. But hopefully we will witness many more. I really just can't wait for her to be here. Sitting in my lap rocking with me. But we still have a LONG way to go before she is home. I just pray that she is taken care of in the mean time.
I'm still working on the Art for Annie stuff. I'm really hoping to start the sale toward the end of November. I know that that sounds like a long time to wait. But I want to have enough stuff done that there will be a lot to choose from. And hopefully, enough that people will be able to get some Christmas shopping done. So just bear with me. I promise I am working on some really cool stuff. There is stuff that is a lot like stuff I have done in the past that is just paintings but then I am also working on tons of mixed media stuff. I am sooooo excited for you to see it. If there is anything that you have thought that you would like to see, leave a comment or email me HERE! I would love to do something custom for you!
A sweet friend of mine emailed me after I announced the Art for Annie event and asked if I could recreate a wreath that she saw on Pinterest. I was so excited to do it for her! Here it is!
Another friend asked if I would do a custom piece for her dining room. She wanted poppies on black. This is what it looks like hanging in her dining room above her hutch.
I absolutely love how it turned out. And I think she was pretty happy too!
It's crazy to see paintings hanging in someones house that just started out as a type of therapy for me. I am beyond blessed to be able to do something that I love every single day. And getting paid to do it isn't bad either! And I love that I am able to use this to help bring my baby home!
Hopefully I'll be able to show you some sneak peek's of the stuff that will be in Art for Annie. But that will be for another post.
xoxo, Kallie
p.s. shoutout to my awesome in-laws who are loaning me their laptop while we are figuring out what's going on with mine! Y'all are the best!
There is nothing new to talk about. I really wish that there was but that just isn't the case. I am still waiting to hear from our placing agency to see if all 53 hours of training has to be included in our homestudy report or if we can just get by with the 10 for now. I hate to just do the 10 and then have to pay to have the homestudy report edited to include all 53.
The bottleneck in Annie's region of "R" has cleared up. So that's good to know. Hopefully that means that when we submit our dossier, there won't be a ton of waiting.
It's crazy to think that we have been on this journey for 5 months now! It really seems like just yesterday we were looking through pictures on Reece's Rainbow trying to find our child. And now she is 5 months older. She is almost 3. That's hard for me to wrap my mind around. That when my baby comes home she will be 3. A toddler. We will have missed many of her big milestones. But hopefully we will witness many more. I really just can't wait for her to be here. Sitting in my lap rocking with me. But we still have a LONG way to go before she is home. I just pray that she is taken care of in the mean time.
I'm still working on the Art for Annie stuff. I'm really hoping to start the sale toward the end of November. I know that that sounds like a long time to wait. But I want to have enough stuff done that there will be a lot to choose from. And hopefully, enough that people will be able to get some Christmas shopping done. So just bear with me. I promise I am working on some really cool stuff. There is stuff that is a lot like stuff I have done in the past that is just paintings but then I am also working on tons of mixed media stuff. I am sooooo excited for you to see it. If there is anything that you have thought that you would like to see, leave a comment or email me HERE! I would love to do something custom for you!
A sweet friend of mine emailed me after I announced the Art for Annie event and asked if I could recreate a wreath that she saw on Pinterest. I was so excited to do it for her! Here it is!
Another friend asked if I would do a custom piece for her dining room. She wanted poppies on black. This is what it looks like hanging in her dining room above her hutch.
I absolutely love how it turned out. And I think she was pretty happy too!
It's crazy to see paintings hanging in someones house that just started out as a type of therapy for me. I am beyond blessed to be able to do something that I love every single day. And getting paid to do it isn't bad either! And I love that I am able to use this to help bring my baby home!
Hopefully I'll be able to show you some sneak peek's of the stuff that will be in Art for Annie. But that will be for another post.
xoxo, Kallie
p.s. shoutout to my awesome in-laws who are loaning me their laptop while we are figuring out what's going on with mine! Y'all are the best!
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Back in Action
Hey Y'all!
I am so sorry for no updating in so long. My notebook crashed and it was gone for 3 weeks. So I havent been able to update until now!
I don't have long to write but I'll let you in on all that has been going on the last few weeks.
-We are still trying to get everything figured out as far as adoption training requirements go. For now, we are just going to do the 10 hours we originally needed for our homestudy completion. Hopefully we won't need to have the 70 remaining our completed until our 2nd trip, the court trip.
-I have been painting like crazy. Still getting ready for the Art for Annie event.
-We were invited to participate in Abilene's 1st Annual Down Syndrome Buddy walk! We are so excited to take part in this and have people that are so supportive of our adoption! If you are in the Abilene area, we would love for you to come out and support our girl and others who are living with Down Syndrome! Not only would it mean a ton to us, but there is also going to be tons of fun stuff to do! And it's FREE!!! Of course, if you would like to donate, they will gladly accept donations of any size! Of the money raised, 10% will go to the National Down Syndrome Society and the rest will be used to help families in our community who have children with DS with things such as therapy, therapy equipment, etc. It will be from 9am-Noon at Wylie Baptist Church!
Here is the flyer! You can check out all of the fun stuff that will be there!
Okay, hopefully a more in depth post will be coming soon! Thank you for being patient with me!
xoxo, K
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Where to Begin??
EEEEEEEKKKK! I am so sorry that I have not updated in almost 2 weeks! Thank you for being so patient! The other night on facebook, I promised to have a post up. Well I'm sorry for not following through on that. I sat down to write and just could not get it done. Hopefully I'll start being more consistent. No promises though!!!
Okay! Let's catch up! These things have happened in the last 2 weeks!
-I had my gallbladder taken out. It seriously was not as easy as everyone makes it out to be! Turns out I'm allergic to the pain meds they gave me (hydrocodone with codeine) and I was itching like crazy! So bad that I have scabs on my legs from the scratching. Once I figured out that it was the meds causing the reaction and not anything topical used during surgery, I quit taking the pills. After that, the pain ensued. It was horrible. But I have a great hubby that took awesome care of me! I went to my 2 week post-op appointment today. My nurse Heather (who also happens to be a friend!) said everything looked good. There is still some redness around the incisions but she figures it's just from my body not liking the stitches. (I've got very sensitive skin so this makes sense.) Hopefully all of that will be cleared up in the next 2 weeks. I'm still pretty sore on my right side, but it's nothing a little tylenol can't take care of.
-WE HAD OUR HOME STUDY!!!! Yep! We finally had our home study visit. It was exactly one week after my surgery. I am so glad I deep cleaned the house the monday before surgery so that I could relax and not have to worry much about what needed to be done for the HS. We absolutely loved our Social Worker Kristen! She was so great about answering all of our questions and helping us feel at ease about this whole process. The actual visit was so much easier and relaxed than I thought it would be. Everyone thinks that when you have a home study, the Case Worker is coming to inspect your house with a white glove and see if you have everything baby proofed. THIS IS SO NOT THE CASE!!!! Kristen just toured the house like you would tour a friends new house and was so cool about all of our projects that we have going on. She didn't even bat an eye when she walked into the hall bath and saw freshly mudded walls that had just been repaired after termite damage. We just showed her what we planned to do and that was that. The only time baby proofing was brought up was when she was making sure that we had plans to do it once Annie it home. All in all, we actually really enjoyed our home study and talking with Kristen. (If you are in the Central to Northern part of Texas and need a Social Worker, she's your girl!) We have to get a few specific things to get to her this week and then she will be able to send us our draft. After we finalize the draft and give it the "okay" we will submit it to our agency! After that, we will be able to start compiling our dossier and send it to Eastern Europe! I'll keep you updated on this!
-Lance turned 29! EEEKKK!! That is so close to 30! I make fun of him all the time because I'm only 23 and I tell him that once he turns 30, he is officially OLD to me! Hopefully our sweet daughter will be here to celebrate the big 3-0 next year!
-Dove season started! Unless you hunt, you could probably care less about this. But my hubbs is super happy! You can usually find him disappearing on his nights off around 4 or 5pm and coming home a little after dark. Though there's not always birds with him :)
-We decided to sell Lance's truck! When it comes to our Annie girl, we are willing to do whatever it takes. And if that means being a one car family for a little while, then that's what we are going to do! We though about selling my car, but we will make a bigger profit on Lance's truck. Hopefully we will have it sold in the next few weeks and we will be able to add around $6K to our adoption fund! We also had another $7500 come through on some specific personal stuff we have been working on. We are blessed that we will be able to pay for 3/4 of this adoption out of our own pockets! Since the beginning of this adoption, our intent has been to pay for the majority of it ourselves and only rely on grants and donations for a small part of it! After all of this that we have personally, we only need about $6500 to make it to our $30,000 mark. And we are praying for the Lord to bless us with donors and grants to cover that.
And finally! We have decided to hold an "Art for Annie" fundraiser! As many of you know, I love painting and creating in general! So what better way to bring in funds to bring our girl home than to do what I love! In the next couple of months I will be painting and getting things together to hold this "sale". Items that will be included are original paintings, signs, and burlap door hangers! Once we are ready to launch, I will create a facebook "event" and will show all of the paintings and other things on that page. From there, people will be able to "purchase" anything of their choice! I put purchase in quotes because when you buy something, you will actually pay for it by donating to our RR Family Sponsorship Page! After you donate the retail amount and anything extra you want to throw in for shipping (giving extra to cover shipping cost is NOT a must!), you will email me with a copy of your receipt and I will package up your item and mail it off to you! If you live in Abilene or the surrounding area, I will make personal deliveries! Because you will pay through our RR FSP, your donation for your item will be tax-deductible! We are so excited to be able to offer this as a way for people to donate to our sweet girl and get something in return! Have a specific something in mind that you would like to see in the sale and then be able to purchase? Send me an e-mail or comment on this post and I'll see what I can do to help you out!
OKAY!!! I think that is all for tonight! Be on the look out for the "Art for Annie" event! I will make sure and give you plenty of notice!
Thanks for you continued prayers for our family and our daughter! We will never be able to thank you enough!
xoxo-K
Okay! Let's catch up! These things have happened in the last 2 weeks!
-I had my gallbladder taken out. It seriously was not as easy as everyone makes it out to be! Turns out I'm allergic to the pain meds they gave me (hydrocodone with codeine) and I was itching like crazy! So bad that I have scabs on my legs from the scratching. Once I figured out that it was the meds causing the reaction and not anything topical used during surgery, I quit taking the pills. After that, the pain ensued. It was horrible. But I have a great hubby that took awesome care of me! I went to my 2 week post-op appointment today. My nurse Heather (who also happens to be a friend!) said everything looked good. There is still some redness around the incisions but she figures it's just from my body not liking the stitches. (I've got very sensitive skin so this makes sense.) Hopefully all of that will be cleared up in the next 2 weeks. I'm still pretty sore on my right side, but it's nothing a little tylenol can't take care of.
-WE HAD OUR HOME STUDY!!!! Yep! We finally had our home study visit. It was exactly one week after my surgery. I am so glad I deep cleaned the house the monday before surgery so that I could relax and not have to worry much about what needed to be done for the HS. We absolutely loved our Social Worker Kristen! She was so great about answering all of our questions and helping us feel at ease about this whole process. The actual visit was so much easier and relaxed than I thought it would be. Everyone thinks that when you have a home study, the Case Worker is coming to inspect your house with a white glove and see if you have everything baby proofed. THIS IS SO NOT THE CASE!!!! Kristen just toured the house like you would tour a friends new house and was so cool about all of our projects that we have going on. She didn't even bat an eye when she walked into the hall bath and saw freshly mudded walls that had just been repaired after termite damage. We just showed her what we planned to do and that was that. The only time baby proofing was brought up was when she was making sure that we had plans to do it once Annie it home. All in all, we actually really enjoyed our home study and talking with Kristen. (If you are in the Central to Northern part of Texas and need a Social Worker, she's your girl!) We have to get a few specific things to get to her this week and then she will be able to send us our draft. After we finalize the draft and give it the "okay" we will submit it to our agency! After that, we will be able to start compiling our dossier and send it to Eastern Europe! I'll keep you updated on this!
-Lance turned 29! EEEKKK!! That is so close to 30! I make fun of him all the time because I'm only 23 and I tell him that once he turns 30, he is officially OLD to me! Hopefully our sweet daughter will be here to celebrate the big 3-0 next year!
-Dove season started! Unless you hunt, you could probably care less about this. But my hubbs is super happy! You can usually find him disappearing on his nights off around 4 or 5pm and coming home a little after dark. Though there's not always birds with him :)
-We decided to sell Lance's truck! When it comes to our Annie girl, we are willing to do whatever it takes. And if that means being a one car family for a little while, then that's what we are going to do! We though about selling my car, but we will make a bigger profit on Lance's truck. Hopefully we will have it sold in the next few weeks and we will be able to add around $6K to our adoption fund! We also had another $7500 come through on some specific personal stuff we have been working on. We are blessed that we will be able to pay for 3/4 of this adoption out of our own pockets! Since the beginning of this adoption, our intent has been to pay for the majority of it ourselves and only rely on grants and donations for a small part of it! After all of this that we have personally, we only need about $6500 to make it to our $30,000 mark. And we are praying for the Lord to bless us with donors and grants to cover that.
And finally! We have decided to hold an "Art for Annie" fundraiser! As many of you know, I love painting and creating in general! So what better way to bring in funds to bring our girl home than to do what I love! In the next couple of months I will be painting and getting things together to hold this "sale". Items that will be included are original paintings, signs, and burlap door hangers! Once we are ready to launch, I will create a facebook "event" and will show all of the paintings and other things on that page. From there, people will be able to "purchase" anything of their choice! I put purchase in quotes because when you buy something, you will actually pay for it by donating to our RR Family Sponsorship Page! After you donate the retail amount and anything extra you want to throw in for shipping (giving extra to cover shipping cost is NOT a must!), you will email me with a copy of your receipt and I will package up your item and mail it off to you! If you live in Abilene or the surrounding area, I will make personal deliveries! Because you will pay through our RR FSP, your donation for your item will be tax-deductible! We are so excited to be able to offer this as a way for people to donate to our sweet girl and get something in return! Have a specific something in mind that you would like to see in the sale and then be able to purchase? Send me an e-mail or comment on this post and I'll see what I can do to help you out!
OKAY!!! I think that is all for tonight! Be on the look out for the "Art for Annie" event! I will make sure and give you plenty of notice!
Thanks for you continued prayers for our family and our daughter! We will never be able to thank you enough!
xoxo-K
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