Our visa is just waiting to be shipped to the US and this step seems to be taking way longer than expected. That is the story of our adoption...Longer than expected. But...Luba (Sveta's Mother) is there in Astana and isn't leaving until our visa is shipped. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has told her that they have no problems with our visa and WILL send it to the US for the final step. This is good news b/c you just never know what they are going to have problems with. Big thanks to Luba for waiting this one out for us. Our agency told us to plan on leaving a week from Thursday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I sure hope so.
Some GREAT news...Once we arrive in Kaz, we don't have to go through any interviews or obtain any signatures!!!!!!!!!!!! We get to go straight to the Orphanage which is wonderful news and saves us at least a week of sitting around and waiting for signatures.
September 17th was Ava's 4th Birthday...Happy Birthday to our little Kaz Princess! Can't wait to see you soon!
Hopefully tomorrow we will report that our visa is on it's way to the US.
Fundraising has been going really well so thank you to everyone who has supported us. I wanted to let everyone know that this is my last week and half to make and ship things so get your orders in if you are interested. We should be getting back with Ava right before Christmas so, if you want to order any Christmas presents, order those now :-)

Another friend or ours was at the concert with Ava and took some darling little pictures. Gaby and her husband are waiting to return home with the 3 boys that they adopted from the baby home! 3 boys! Twin boys and their little brother. Blessings to this family and especially to their 3 year old daughter who has 3 new brothers!

Our Beautiful Little Lady!

So we woke up this morning to a very nice surprise from our friends Katy and Mikuel, pictures of our oh so adorable little Ava. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do! Katy and Mikuel successfully adopted a little baby girl, Olivia Fatima from Pavlodar. A few days ago, they returned home to France as a family of three! Congratulations Katy and Mik!












And here are a few pictures from our walk by the beach in San Clemente last night. It was a very pretty sunset. It would have been even better if Ava was with us. We miss you sweetie!












On another note, we are still waiting for our LOI to be registered in Astana before our entry visas can be issued. Please join us in praying that this happens early next week.

Just wanted to let everyone know that Ava has been moved out to Kashiri orphanage and we have been updated that she is adjusting well and is her same happy self.
We are still waiting for our visa to be officially issued which should be any day now.

A little bit of everything...

Some never before seen videos from Kaz, fundraising, and update on our friends in Pavlodar:

Video: To be honest, it's been a little difficult to watch video or go through pictures since our return to the states. Now that we KNOW we'll be seeing Ava soon, we've gone through some old video and thought we'd share them with you.

Here a video of Ava walking outside. We are so proud of her progress :-)

In this video Ava is eating her messy snack. She really loves snack time.

Ava and her group outside playing



Peggy...don't kill me. Here is a video of us playing games with Jan and Peggy.

Friends In Pavlodar:We are thrilled to let you all know that Peggy, Jan, and Casper are back in Belgium!!!! It will be so hard to be there without them but we are so glad that they've finally made it home with their baby. Our other friends, Linda and Dave, from Canada are also home with their 4 year old boy, Logan!!!! YIPPEE! The other adoptive families that we met, are either home or close to being home which is so wonderful and encouraging for us...I guess adopting from Pavlodar is possible after all :-)

Fundraising: We are so thankful for everyone who has ordered items. Still feel free to email me if you are interested in anything. Through the wonderful world wide web, I have been able to develop a relationship with Amanda. Amanda and her husband are about the same age as James and I and are in the process of adopting from Korea. She lives in Kentucky and is friends with my best friend, Jennifer. Anyways... Amanda has a website where she sells her beautiful jewelry! She has graciously offered to donate 50% of her sales to James and I over the next week or two so if you order from her you will be supporting both of our adoptions! Her website is: http://www.wix.com/amandamay24/jewelry

Also, here is one more project I've been working on this week:

Here are some button hair clips for little girls! Super cute. I wish I had Ava to model them on.

Yay

Got our Letter of Invitation signed today. Should be leaving again in about 10 days!

No LOI Yet

Apparently, school started in Pavlodar today and so the Director of Ed. was not in her office to sign our letter of invitation. At this point, we expect to NOT hear anything so we are pleasantly surprised if we do. It goes without saying that we are ready to be back with Ava and ready for the beginning of the end of this journey. We will update when we get an LOI and estimated departure date. We REALLY REALLY miss our girl.
Here's what we've been up to:

We attended a good friend's wedding which was at an awesome venue! There were Zebra's and White Tigers there (not too close to the ceremony though).

Here are a few new things I've done with some of the orders I've received.

- I did a few Elephants in very "baby" fabrics. There are little jingle bells inside so they are like little rattles.

- I made some PJ Bags out of Red and Black Fabrics so they resemble actual Lady Bugs a little bit more.

- I am making Bed Bugs for my Mom's Second/Third grade students. She is going to use them to encourge her kids to read before they go to bed at night...Read to your Bed Bug! Hawaii is the theme of her classroom so these are the girls Hawaiin themed Bugs.