Count Down

We are so close.  Just a few days and we will be a family of 5!  We are as ready now as we will ever be. We did hear from our Latvian lawyer today as well. Our court hearing for Monday is moved to the afternoon. That is no big deal.  We are leaving to get the kids around 10:30 on Tuesday!!  She said to bring some toys and she is picking up a cake.  We thought that was awesome. What kid does not like cake.

I keep looking at their pictures, in a few days I will be holding them. 

Adoption Shower

Our pastor this week talked about counting your blessing, because you may not realize how many you have.  Well that was true for me.  Some really amazing people from my church put together an adoption shower for Jeff and I.  I did not know what to expect but what they did was so awesome. One lady made Latvian food!  It tasted great. Especially since it had bacon in it and anything that has bacon is amazing.  I just can’t get over the amount of people that showed support for Jeff and I. As scary as having any child come into your life, taking on three children from hard places does feel overwhelming sometimes. It was refreshing to see that when I feel like breaking down or feeling scared, I have people to turn to. Thank you everyone for coming and supporting us!!

 The rooms where Elliana, Hunter, and Spencer will call home are starting to look like 3 kids would be there!

Travel Dates!!!

We got our dates!  We can't wait meet the kids.  We are flying out 2-14-2015. What a great Valentine's day gift!  We should be back around 3-16-2015. We get to meet the kids on 2-17-2015.  That will be our Gotcha Day.  The day that will always be remember in the Holub's house.

We are currently booking flights, finding apartments, getting clothes, and putting the house together. We also get the pleasure to start to look at health insurance, schools, home care, and car seats.

Accepted Referral

We have said yes to these three cuties. We actually said yes back on 18th of December but Latvia has been on holiday and we did not receive a reply to our yes until yesterday. Normally it only takes a day or two then you have a couple of weeks to prepare to be in country.  Latvia celebrated three kings day which is the 6th of January.  So the courts will not give us a travel date until sometime next week.  That gives us a little bit more time to as Jeff puts it "Nesting". 
We were a little short on beds, so we found some nice wood bunk beds on Craig List.  We have been collecting clothes.  Only boy clothes so far, but I will be going shopping this weekend for the girl. We have no idea on their sizes.  So we are guessing currently.
The country did release the kids names to us. They have a first and last name, but no middle name.  Jeff and I are going to give them a third American name. They will take on Holub as their last name of course.
We wanted to Thank everyone for the support.  We also want to thank everyone for the clothes, shelves, and toys we have received.  These kids are going from no family to a community of family and friends who really care for them. THANK YOU!!!!

REFERRAL!!!

We got a referral!!  We can't believe it.  They told us it maybe quick and it was. We received the information on Tuesday the 16th. Today we told them we want them! We can't show you pictures yet but we can tell you about them.  They are currently in foster care not an orphanage. 

The oldest is 6 years old.  She has brown curly hair, just like me! She has blueish green eyes that are just beautiful.  She loves to sing.  She is very talkative, according to her foster Mom. She does have a issue and I was a little nervous at first. However, the nerves when away after the foster Mom sent us a video of her.  She is health and a extremely happy little girl. In the video she is playing some version of duck-duck-goose but with someone dressed as a bear. She is running and laughing. She has a huge smile on her face. This made us fall in love with her.  We are going to have to build a castle to keep her away from all the boys chasing her. 

The middle child is 5 years old. He has brown hair and brown eyes. He is very smart and sweet.  He hopes to be a tractor/truck driver when he grows up. We believe their foster home is on a farm.  He is going to be my Mommy's boy, I can already tell.

The youngest child is 4 years old.  He has very light brown hair and blue eyes.  The foster Mom said he does his choirs around the house but can be stubborn. When I told my father that he replied with "Pay Back!"  I might be in trouble with this one. He has this smile on his face that says "When this picture is over my horns are coming out."

We can't wait. We will have more information in the next few days!

Waiting for the Match

All of our paperwork is in and approved.  In Latvia there are two ladies that match orphans up with families wanting to adopt.  They have had our paperwork for four days now. Every time the phone rings, I pick it up. Most of the calls are just telemarketers.

I have found some other couples that have adopted from Latvia. The information I am receiving is great!! Thank you all for the information.  Sounds like most but not all kids have had a hard time getting food when needed.  Jeff and I already decided we are going to do a food table where there is food out 100% of the time. We will have raisons or Cheerios out. Over time the kids will build up trust that they will always have food and that we will not let them starve.

While I was looking up information on orphans in Latvia I came across John Waller's newest song called "Orphan".  John is a Christian song writer that adopted a sibling set of two, one boy and one girl. The link below will take you to his song. The girl in the song is John's adopted daughter, she also sings at the end of the song.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQXGRwR4N2Q

So Close

Latvia currently has all of our translated documents! The only thing they need is our I-800 approval letter.  We have been talking with our new case working and through a comedy of errors we are finally approved!!  She will be mailing out this one page I-800 either today or Friday.  I really hope it went out today.  Our agency has been asking us when we will have this.  Our agency believes that Latvia has a sibling set in mind and they just need that letter.  I am starting to get hopeful again. I am also starting to feel like wrapping up a bunch of open projects, right away....Jeff's "to do" list got a bit longer  :-)     

“Adopting any child is a walk into the unknown. It takes Faith.”- Unknown