Monday, August 12, 2013

Our lives in paper form

Last week was a good week for us in completing a couple of our big home study requirements--we finished our 10 hour online Hague adoption training and had our fingerprints done (unfortunately I'm not one of those fun picture taker adoptive parents, so no pictures of that!). Now the only things we have left to do is finish getting copies of different paperwork--pretty easy; and filling out questions with Kyle and writing our autobiographies--a little more difficult for me! I just need to sit down and start writing and I'm sure it won't be a big deal, it's the thought of doing it that is wearing me down.
The paperwork isn't as hard to do as I thought it might be, it's just the fact that the list seems to get longer instead of shorter each week with different people sending more stuff we have to sign, or dig up in our files, or order certified copies of, or take to Staples to make copies of, or get notarized, etc. I thought it would be easier to do while Kyle was home during the summer but with the busyness of the last couple months it wasn't nearly as organized and full of free time as I was hoping. The kids don't start school until the beginning of September and I don't really want to wait until then to get it all done, but taking two rambunctious kids to the clerk's office or staples everyday does not get me excited. But it will all get done--and soon! There are a couple things we have to wait until the beginning of September to do because of Kyle's new job, but we're hoping to have it all together by the first week of September, have our home study done that week or the next, and then our awesome social worker will hopefully have it all written up by the end of September. That's a far cry from originally wanting it to be done by mid-July, but I'm learning to slow down and not stress about little baby step days, weeks, months going by without any seeming progress happening, and then all of a sudden I look at it all adding up to a big step and it moves us closer to our little one. Me saying all this probably makes it seem overwhelming and not at all enjoyable, but it's actually a little fun to see our whole lives all laid out like this.
Most photos you see on this blog are from my creative husband who is great at documenting our life in a beautiful way. However, you may get lucky and see a horrible quality iPad picture taken by me...which is what you're getting today. :)

Our adoption corner. Hopefully once we are matched with our child it'll be a little more exciting with the board filled with less paperwork and a picture or two!


 Close up of our paperwork corkboard---it's me trying to pretend I'm organized. Notice I had to add even more paperwork between the pictures? Too bad you're not lucky enough to see a better picture of my awesome art work--closest to chalkboard art you'll ever see from me! But I am planning on making the board a little prettier with paint and fabric.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Sportin' some India love

***We have put our order in with the pre-orders we received, plus a few extra in case someone decided to buy one down the road. We ordered about 3 extra in each size in adults, and 1 extra in each kid size. Let me know if you're interested in ordering and I'll let you know if we have any left!***

Our shirts are available to pre-order right now and they are really cute. Our very talented friend Kelsey designed them and she did an amazing job (both designing them and putting up with me!). Thanks Kelsey!!
If you want to look cute and support our adoption all at the same time you should order one. Here's the info--copy and pasted from Kyle's fb--make him do all the work. ;)
To help support our adoption, you can order a t-shirt for a donation of $20. You can see the design below, created by Kelsey McCormick Turner (thanks, Kelsey). The colors may change slightly based on shirt availability. We will likely go with either a lighter grey or a darker grey than the shirt below, and the logo color might change slightly depending on the shirt color.

If you'd like to order a shirt, e-mail me natalie (dot) vaughn @ gmail (dot) com.

Please make sure to let us know (especially if you're mailing your donation):
1. how many shirts you are ordering
2. size / sizes
3. contact info
P.S.--if you are interested at all in kid sizes let me know. I thought it would be nice to have them available, but want to see how much interest there is before we commit to printing some. I think they would be around $15, but not positive.