We're done, kinda...

Yesterday we had our last homestudy visit. Today Ryan and I had our medicals done and I have all the paperwork that I thought I needed to complete.
As usual there have been some changes and I now need more paperwork. I got one of the things rolling today, but the other is proving to be as difficult as expected. The attachment therapist office was never easy to communicate with and this time I am yet to speak with a person. Ugh!
I will be calling again tomorrow, and hopefully reach someone. Our actual therapist moved, and I lost her contact info. Major bummer, she was quick to respond.
Once we turn in all these documents and our sw has our homestudy written up, they will send it to ODJFS and we'll await our license. After that --- placements!

Avery had her apointment with the cardiologist yesterday as well. They checked her murmur and ran tests. She is perfectly healthy and we don't need any sort of follow up. Huge answer to all those prayers!

Avery's final post placement visit is quickly approaching. I can't believe we are almost at the 3 year mark. It felt so far off when she came home. Now it feels like she has just always been here and our time in Russia was just a short little vacation.

I am leary of saying this, but she has slept through the night for the past 2 nights in a row! It's a miracle. (praying not a short lived one) Seriously she has never done 2 days in a row before. I don't think she has even done 2 days in the same month. A-mazing!!! I feel so rested. Maybe that is contributing to my forgetfulness of all the really hard days we had in getting to this point in her attachment and sleep.

Tomorrow is her first day of gymnastics. Hooray! I think I finally have her excited about it. Wish us luck.

Fostering Update

Tonight is our LAST class! I am excited to have this part behind us and I know Ryan is glad to not have to take many more 1/2 days off work.
Monday we will wrap up our homestudy and turn in the remainder of our paperwork. Tuesday we have our medicals, and I'll drop those off on Wednesday.
That's it. After that we just wait. The agency will have to finish the homestudy write up, which is in process now, then turn it over to DFS to process.

I am getting rooms ready and working on sorting clothes and things, to make sure we have enough to get us through until I can hit a store after placement.
Everthing is looking good.

Avery's First Beach Trip

This past week we visited our dear friends that we met in Russia on trip 2. We went to the beach on Long Island Sound and as you can see Avery was smitten with the ocean. She is a fish, but this was just 100% her element.
Don't ya just love my little seaweed monster!

My Wierd Family...

I am noticing a trend here... Do you see it?

Avery thinks she is a puppy and does this begging thing ALL the time. You'll notice in her pictures that even then she does it.

Then we have Ryan, who apparently is fond of channelling Prince. Every picture from vacation is the same little "pose". And seriously, if he knew I was posting this he'd DIE, so let's let this be our little secret ok, OK!

I don't know, I just thought is was funny that they both have ther signature pose for photos. lol


Now onto other things. We just got back from a big family vacation to the mountains. It was fun, interesting, but fun. I don't know what we were thinking, but all 16 of us went tubing down the river. For those of you who know her you will get that my mom is not the most coordinated person. She fell before she even got into her tube. It was quite a sight. The kids all had a blast. Except Avery who had a moment when we went through our 3rd or 4th stretch of rapids and she was on my lap instead of in her own tube. She begged me to make it be over and asked why we "did this stupid thing". Her hysteria was short lived and she would like to do it again sometime. Me, not so much... at least not until she is older.

In the 2 weeks we've been back we had another pre-service class for fostering and I had my individual interview for the homestudy. We will be gone next week, but Ryan will have his interview when we get back. Oh, and we only have one more class.

I started setting up the rooms and getting beds in order. I have far too many clothes left from Avery, and the shoes, well we just won't go there it is sinful!

Signing off for now. I promise to be more diligent about the blog!