Happy Birthday Chase!!

Chase is 9 today.  He was my Mother's Day gift 9 years ago today.  I didn't give birth on Mother's Day, but we brought him home from the hospital that day.  He was pretty happy on his birthday.  I made him a breakfast casserole last Saturday.  He's been aching for that.  Then, last night I baked the cake and put green icing on like he wanted.  And luckily the store had strawberries on sale, so he got strawberry shakes for dinner plus strawberries with the ice cream and cake.

Happy birthday baby!
Mom

Happy Mother's Day

to all the mothers out there and to-be.

I'm getting to sit and finish a movie I started....."No Reservations".  Good movie.  Brian is out with the kids so I can finish in peace.   He's going to get the garage cleaned up and lawn mowed today.  That's my present, which is fine with me.  He got a card for the kids to give me.  It's the sweetest card.  Not what the card came printed with, but what was written in no so easy to read handwriting.  Chelsi signed her name, as did Kaelin.  Cole and Chase each wrote their own message.   Brian said he did not tell them a thing.  They had to just sign it and they wrote something.  Chase simply wrote for me to have a good Mother's Day.  He and I have almost always shared this weekend since I brought him home from the hospital on this day.  I love that about this day.  Cole wrote the sweetest thing any mother could read from her son.  He wrote "Mom thank you for being there when I need you and making things fun."

This is why having 5 kids doesn't scare me so much.  I know with a lot of hard work they might get it from time-to-time.  They might get just how much we love them.

Lisa

New Rooms Done!

Both rooms are done.  We still need some little things for Jaemin's room, but what's necessary to live is there.  The boys room is complete.  They've moved in and hung all their stuff back up.  KOREA, WE'RE READY FOR OUR BABY NOW!!!





Here's what I painted on the bulletin board attached to the mirror on the dresser.



And the big boys' room.

Another step down/P3

In the adoption world P3 means Packet 3.  It's a packet that gets sent from the embassy to the agency.  This packet contains what the agency needs to get a child's immigration visa.  So, now, everything is done on the US side.  There is nothing left.  Now we wait for the agency to get the visa and passport in order and he's ready.  Some people get a call two days after P3 and some wait up to 3 weeks.  It depends.  The agency can basically do what they want now.  If you're escorting and they don't have an escort lined up they don't need to be in a hurry to return it and schedule the visa interview.  If the passport isn't done yet they can't apply for the visa anyways.  Since we're not waiting on an escort, that will not be a problem.  We're probably waiting on passport though.  It's too early in the wait not to be.  So my guess, is we'll be somewhere in the middle to later end of the P3 wait to travel call.  I'm still hoping for the week of the 18th, but who knows.

Then, when we get the call we can leave anytime we want.  We must be at the agency on a Monday and cannot leave until at least Thursday that same week.  We hope to leave on a Saturday, but we'll see what fares are like and what day of the week the call comes.  No one knows.

Lisa

Finally, the girls have passports!

After a full month, they have their passports.  I've made copies and packed them in our bags.  Now, I can say we're READY!  No, the boys haven't moved into their new room, but should this weekend.  We did manage to get both rooms painted and Brian's busting his %$$ to get the trim and closets complete before carpet Friday.  It will be so awesome to go get the baby bed, move the boys into their new room and get Jaemin's really set up.  I can't wait!  Funny thing from the weekend too.  Brian and I were in the boys' new room painting when I hear voices and turn to see Chase and neighbor boy Hayden's faces plastered to the screen of the open window.  I keep painting and then I hear Chase tell Hayden that for a whole week the girls are allowed downstairs.  You should have heard the happiness in his voice.  :)  Pure evil.  :)  Truth is, we moved the boys AND all their furniture into the living room down.  It's so crowded now that we just don't want to worry about things getting worse, so for a few days they're staying upstairs to play, etc.  Not as bad as it sounds, but it sure makes the boys happy.

And, Korea?  Well, they can go ahead and send the Visa packet to SWS so we can get that travel call this month.
Hey a girl can hope!
Lisa

Bad mommy

Chase was supposed to play baseball this weekend, but due to the rain it's been cancelled.  I was silently, and sometimes not so silently, happy.  Bad mommy.  :)

Next Friday we get carpet for the new room we've been adding to our basement for the big boys and at the same time they're going to recarpet the boys' old room (Jaemin's new room).  So, before then we have to repaint.  We could ONLY paint this weekend.  Brian just finished spraying the texture on the drywall this week.  He already started priming it tonight and tomorrow we will move the boys out of the their room and go hot and heavy on the painting all weekend until it's done.  Then after Friday they'll have carpet and we should be able to move them into their new room.  I know some things will have to be pieced together, but surely by the time Jaemin comes home we'll be done.  We should have at least 2 more weeks to get the trim up, the sills on, the built in shelves up, etc.  I think he already has it stained, so it will look so nice in a couple of weeks.

So I'm not completely bad, just needed to get Jaemin's room done so we can go get the crib out of mom's attic and borrow the mattress, etc.  It will be nice to actually set up his room finally.

Lisa

Passports and Visas and Emigration Permits

Okay, so the passports are ours and the Visa is just an approval so Jaemin can receive his Visa in Korea.

We all received our passports two Mondays ago, except the girls'.  So I called for a couple of days to check on the status and then finally asked to have someone call back.  The lady who processed our other 4 passports called back Friday.  But, by then I had already received the denial I was expecting asking for the girls' adoption decrees to prove they were US citizens.  The lady admitting our paperwork at USPS at the beginning of April refused to take the documents.  So I ran to get the documents mailed that night and sent a check to expedite their passports so we didn't run into any other snags.  But, I did write a note to cancel the checks if they could since it was not our fault.

When the lady called me Friday I told her I had already mailed them to her attention and told her what happened.  She said she would call when everything arrived so I could rest easy.  She just called yesterday to let us know that she had everything and was sending them out to be printed and we would have them in about a week.  AND she voided our checks!  Federal government being nice?  That was awesome!  Saved us $120.

Now for Visas.  As you know we were approved by USCIS for our I600 on 4/20, which is really quick!  NVC (National Visa Center) received the approval on 4/27 and by 4/29 we were logged out of NVC and it was sent to the embassy in Korea.  All this is is an approval saying we're okay from the US' side and telling the embassy that as soon as the Korean agency applies his Visa can be issued to come home.  This doesn't mean we're done.  First a packet is sent from the embassy to the Korean agency to make them aware we're done on this side.  Then, if our son has his passport or approval (emigration permit) the agency can schedule a Visa interview and submit the packet back, get his passport and send him home.  Sounds easy, but it still takes sometime.

I watch other family's posted timelines and for this SWS (our Korean agency) we shouldn't have longer than 2 1/2 weeks left, BUT our home study just left for Korea this week, so I don't know if this will hold us up or not.  The placing agency in NY didn't know either.  She didn't think more than a week, but really didn't know.  Those darn EPs (emigration permits) are a huge mystery to all adoptive families.  So, regardless of the fact that our agency told us travel calls are usually about 4-6 weeks from I600 approval, but have been running 4 weeks, we will just have to wait and see.  I'm still holding out for the 4!  :)

So pray for us.  Hope we can leave that last week of May so Kaelin doesn't have to miss school or summer school to go.  That would be perfect timing in my perfect little world.  :)

Lisa