New Updates!

Two weeks ago we had our "Travel Talk" with our Colombia Director, Raul Velez-Velez (who we affectionally call Tio Raul). He told us that our approximate travel date is Saturday, July 24th. We are so excited! Of course that would be if all of the paperwork goes through the necessary channels without delay. So far, that has been the case so, we are hoping by the 26th to meet our precious baby boy.

In the meantime, we've been trying to stay busy. Here is a before and after picture of Jonathan's room. For those of you who followed along with Joshua's blog, you can see that it's pretty much a slight derivative of what his room was (with less painting involved). We've tried to be what I call "sensible", this time and just work with furniture we already have, etc. The rug pictured here is my absolute favorite! When I was a little girl in Leominster, Mass. my mom used to take me to a park closeby... she says it was really just a little patch of grass not far from our house, but I always called it "el parque". So, when I laid eyes on this rug it reminded me so much of my mom, I HAD to have it. Now with each child, I have to incorporate it because it reminds me so much of her. I know our creative heavenly Father has created even more beautiful "parks" in heaven and that someday my mom will be able to play with my children there as she would've here. :)

The room theme is much like Joshua's... cars, planes, trucks, etc. The reason we did this, once again, to be practical is because we have a toddler fire truck bed that we hope to move Jonathan into (eventually) so this way the room theme will match for awhile.

For my next post, I'll tell you more about the travel talk and details of our hotel... I'm definately going to soak up every moment of this journey. Much of the time with Josh was first time mommy jitters, but this time, I hope to truly enjoy Colombia and my family. I want to get to know this little one, appreciate him and thank God for him each and every moment.

In parting words, I'll leave you with this.... Josh and I enjoy watching the Duggar family on TLC's 19 Kids and Counting. Yesterday, Josh ran up to me out of nowhere and said, "Mommy, now we're TWO KIDS AND COUNTING!" I looked at him, laughed and said, "I'm not too sure about the AND COUNTING part, but yes, we are now TWO KIDS for sure!"

Love you all.

Paperwork, Paperwork and MORE Paperwork!

Ok, so the past two weeks has been all about that... Paperwork! It seems that the new I-800 form is very detailed and tedious to fill out so, we had to fill out a ton of papers and send them to Gladney for review and process. Frank and I went down to the police station yesterday to have new fingerprints taken and today they'll be sent via FedEx to WV for processing. We also put together a small care package for Jonathan which included:
-a Cloth Cube Rattle with pictures of us on it
-a small Backyardigans Penguin (Pablo) that Josh picked out for Jonathan
-a blanket
-a homemade DVD with messages from us to the baby, including a tour of our house

We hope that will get there before we do so the caregivers at Casa de Maria can play it for him. We did the DVD in Spanish of course, so he would be able to understand! :)

Now all we have to do is wait. We were told the INS approval takes 6-8 weeks so, we are definately looking at sometime in July or August for travel.

Jonathan's room is taking shape... we still have the queen bed in there (does anyone need a queen bed?!) But Frank built the crib and we picked paint colors. We're going to paint Jonathan's room, our bathroom and the boys' bathroom so we can have a partial upstairs makeover. Jon's room will be green, the boys bathroom blue and I think our bathroom will be beige. I think the boys bathroom will be ocean themed (I found a super cute set at Target). I'm excited and eager to keep things moving along.

Well, stay tuned... we're getting very excited and anxious!
Love you all!