What Did You Say?

I am SO TIRED. I think today was my most physically taxing day of my life, minus my first two children's births and my marathon. Oh. My. Goodness. Two of our goats should be kidding (having goat babies) any day now. Super Trooper's due date is April 2 and Show Girl's due date is April 9. They have been acting a bit different lately so I know it will be soon. So, I cleaned out two stalls today and then used the manure spreader to fertilize our pasture with it. And since I had all that stuff together, I thought I might as well clean out the chicken coop too. So our pasture is now well fertilized with goat and chicken you-know-what. This took me about 3 hours.
Before that, the kids and I finished a planting job for Jonathan that we started yesterday afternoon. We planted 150 bare root native plants in tall pots. The kids fill them with dirt and I plant them. We worked HARD. And the sun was in my face the entire time so I am crispy. I can feel the heat coming off my face. I should have worn my cowboy hat, but forgot...won't do that again. We were out there for about 4 hours and now I have one of those headaches that if you make any sudden movements or bend over your head starts THROBBING.

And on top of physical exertion, I am also emotionally spent.......because the first thing I did today was mail our Dossier!!!!!!!!!!!!

What?? How did that happen???

This is our Dossier and two extra copies...and my adoption file folder that I take everywhere

Everything just came together. I don't have the mental capacity to document all that has happened since last week, but I will try to do that soon. But the big things are that we received our I-171H (future kids' immigration document) on Monday. Once again, Good Job Feds. It only took them a week from our fingerprinting appointment to our mailbox. Wow. We also got our TX documents back from the Secretary of State the same day. So yesterday we had the last of our stuff notarized and apostilled and finished up the last of what needed to be done. 

I wish there could be even just a day of relief though. I was pretty excited when it was all coming together on Monday and Tuesday, but last night I was realizing that Honduras might ask for us to "fix" things that they don't like. So that is the big prayer request now. Our dossier should get to our agency in Virginia on Friday. They will look it over and hopefully not find too many things wrong! Then they will get Honduran Consulate Approval in DC which should take about a week. Then, they will send it to Honduras. I think it will take a month or so to have it translated. I'm not sure the timeline. After it is in Spanish, the IHNFA (government agency in Honduras that handles all things adoption) will get it. They might find something they don't like and ask us to re-do parts of it. I am praying they will accept all of it.

Wish I could write more but I am fading. Keep praying peeps. It is working.

Nice Job Feds

For the last several weeks I haven't done anything adoption related. At least not physically. But today was mostly devoted, once again, to paperwork and the like. Jonathan and I received our appointment notice last month to be fingerprinted for our future children's visas. Our appointment was for today. My time slot was 9am and his was 10am. The paper informed us that there was limited seating and so no extra people in the waiting room. Hmmm, we have four tag-a-longs. So, our plan was to tag-team it. I would go in and he would stay in the car with the kids and then we would switch. Anyway, I had to wake up really early because I live on a farm and there are goats to be milked and chickens to be fed and dogs to be tended to. It was DARK when I got out of bed. I don't get out of bed when it's dark, people. But, I did today. And we were in the car, driving off by 7:15am. On time. We had 110 miles before we were there. We told the kids they could watch movies today since it was going to be an unusually long car day. So, it was quite quiet. Except for the occasional burst of laughter, which always bring smiles to our faces. Nothing like listening to kids belly-laugh. We stopped on the north side of ABQ and used our Starbucks gift cards for some breakfast sandwiches and two lattes. We pulled up to the strip mall government office with 2 minutes to spare. I got out and Jonathan drove away to find a park, or store and a bathroom. I walked in to the biggest, emptiest "store" with a couple of fingerprinting computers. Plenty of room for the kids. But on every wall, as well as on the appointment notice, in BIG LETTERS, it said that cell phone use was prohibited. A couple signs said that failure to follow the rules would get you kicked out, so I wasn't about to use my phone to get Jonathan back there. We had been waiting for this appointment for a month. I was seen and done in 15 minutes and Jonathan got back before long and he was in and out too. Nice job USCIS. Nice job Feds. We complimented the lady on the way out and she chuckled and said she used to be even quicker but they just changed machines on her!
So on the way back to Santa Fe I started looking through all papers we had and all the lists of papers that we need. I noticed I needed three more forms notarized so we headed to our church and got that done. We got home after 3pm and there were more adoption things waiting in my mailbox: our psychological evaluation and some documents that I sent to the Virginia Secretary of State to be apostilled. So, I started making copies and got all the Texas documents ready to be shipped (we had our psych. eval. done in the Lone Star State). So, the evaluation, husband's and two older kid's birth certificates, and our marriage license are headed to Austin. One less thing to worry about.
Next big thing for me is to go to NM SOS and wait for 25ish documents to be apostilled. Johnna told me today that after fingerprinting, it takes anywhere between 1 and 3 weeks to get the final approval for the future kids' visas. It feels close. When I got the packet that described all that had to be done before we could send off our Dossier, I WAS OVER-WHELMED.  But, we are close. I know there could still be a few bumps. We might have to do a couple things over....but okay.
I want to hope this is going to keep flying by. This has been an amazing experience so far. God has already grown me in ways that I never thought I could grow and I know there is so much more in store. I can't wait to get an email with two or three little brown faces. I wonder if they will be smiling. Or if they will be pictured together. Or if they have their only toy in their little dirty hands. Their dirty little hands will be something that they will have in common with the current Grassmick brood.
I hope they like us. I know they will eventually. And I know it will take time.
I hope they latch on to our kids like they depend on each other now.
I hope one day we are one big happy family.

Villagers

Several people have asked me where we are financially and so I'm taking their advice and posting about it.
First and foremost, God has provided each step of the way. Every time we have needed money, we have had it. And we have spent close to $7,000 so far.
When we send in our dossier, which I am hoping will be the beginning of May, we will need to send in about $9,000. After that, we will start the "real" waiting. But, then once we get the call referring our children, we will need close to $15,000.
If God is leading you to be a part of this, we would love to hear from you. We would love for you to pray for our little "unknowns." And we would love your help in being one step closer to meeting our children.
It is a little weird reflecting on the cost of this thing. It took us almost no money to birth our first four children into the world. Between good insurance and home births, the cost was minimal. But now we are faced with a substantial amount. The saying goes that it takes a village to raise children. Jonathan and I have always subscribed to this way of thinking. We have always wanted love and training to come from as many different directions as possible for our children. This time we just have to call on our village a little earlier. With our biologicals, we didn't spread out the load until the kids were born. This time, we need our village to get them here. If you consider this mission worthy of your prayers and/or financial support, I'd love to promise that you won't be let down. I'd love to promise that our new kids will be invaluable additions to society, have grace with everyone they meet and love all well. But, I can't. What I know though, is that God is asking us to do this and I absolutely believe He has them picked for us already and we will give to them each day the love that has been given to us. And we will let you love on them too. And hopefully...prayerfully they will someday love you back with hearts that are full.
Please don't feel pressured to give. I know that God is faithful. And whether we are given all the funds or have to sell 14, 942 cupcakes, I know we will get there. And He is growing us each step of the way and we (the six current Grassmicks) are trying to soak in the journey.

Resting

I don't have much to say...again. But, each day I feel like I should write a post. I was likening my experience so far to my pregnancies while talking to my mom the other day. When you find out you're pregnant, it is all you can think about. You are super excited and spend all spare time reading up on it, figuring out your due date, and thinking of names. But after a couple of months, you can go an hour or two before you remember anew that you are going to have a baby. That is where I'm at. I'm not doing much paperwork each day now. I have almost finished my part of that and am now just waiting for our government to do their part. I'm still excited and I feel like God is preparing me more and more each day but it isn't keeping me up an night right anymore.
We received our appointment dates for our fingerprints for the new kids visas.  March 19 we will head to Albuquerque for that. I might make a zoo day out of it. After we get those done, I am hoping we can finish up this part by the end of April so that we can send off our Dossier.
God's timing is good. I am resting in that.