Our dossier (all adoption paperwork) left for Bulgaria yesterday afternoon!!!!

Our coordinator will keep up us in the loop on when the docs are received, translated an legalized and when we become part of the pool of waiting families. This part of the process usually take about a month to two months. We are very excited that the papers and whole situation is now in God's hands... now we wait.

We hope everyone enjoys the rest of the summer and we'll be posting again as soon as we get new information.

Kel, Josh, Bren & Noah

Hello Everyone -
Well this week was a big week. We finalized all of our documents with the agency and were able to get everything notarized - thanks to Matt Heinz for getting Tressy to help us out - Tressy you were a huge gift to us this past week - thanks for being so patient with us. We went to the Secretary of State's office today and had all of our documents apostilled. Thanks to our friend Jacques for walking us in and helping out. "We liked knowing people in high places... hahaha" THANKS JACQUES!!!

We made two complete copies of the entire packet and shipped it all off to the agency this evening. It will arrive in North Carolina on Monday morning and should be in Bulgaria by the middle of next week!!!!! Thanks to everyone for your comments, positive words, prayers and for just listening to me ramble sometimes! Josh and I are really overwhelmed at how many people are following this journey with us and again THANKS TO YOU ALL!!

It might be a little silent for a while, but will keep you all posted as we get news. This is the part where we wait. Josh and I keep saying we have plenty to keep us busy, the boys, Kim's wedding, Payton's arrival... and so on. And we know that the time table is in God's hands and that brings us peace. Laidyn Claire will be here when He is ready for her to come home.

We do also have some really encouraging news about the adoption situation in Bulgaria and will share that with you as soon as we get the ok from our agency... hopefully soon!

Love to everyone,
Josh, Kel, Brennan & Noah

We received a call this morning and have been informed that we are APPROVED!!! Our daughter has approval to come to the U.S.! We are so excited about this step finally coming to a close. God has undoubtedly blessed our family and is certainly watching over Laidyn.

Now we can put together all of the final paperwork, compete a few more forms, have everything notarized and apostilled and then off the Bulgaria the paperwork goes!

Thanks for all of your prayers and kind words this past week!
Love to everyone!
Josh and Kelly

June 2009 Update

Well finally an update... besides some additional paperwork and getting our biometric fingerprints done about 2 weeks ago... it's been pretty quiet waiting for the Immigration paperwork to be approved.

I spoke with our case worker at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services department yesterday and she told me that our file is 3rd on her desk and she should be able to finish our "review" by this Friday - tomorrow. She will contact us by Monday to let us know if an additional interview is needed with their department or if any other paperwork will be required. She was really nice and positive and said that she hoped to call me Monday with the good news that our child is approved to come to the US. Please keep in your prayers that no additional info is needed!

Right now, Josh and I are working to get all of the Dossier paperwork completed and emailed to the adoption agency for approval. Once we have all of the paperwork approved and in front of us... we will head to the notary. Everything needs to be notarized and packaged. Then we will head to the Secretary of States office to have it all apostilled at the state level. Then the dossier goes to Bulgaria and we wait...

Noah has once again informed us that God told him that Laidyn was born about a week ago... I am of course writing this all down. As you all know Noah has been our little messenger on this journey and he has such a heart for his baby sister. If Noah is right, the timeframe so far would make sense... if the dossier is approved by Bulgarian Government in July / August that would put us about a year away from the referral (based on what our agency is saying), which would put Laidyn right at a year in July / August 2010... which is exactly when she would become eligible for us to adopt by Bulgarian laws... I know that was confusing for some of you out there, but it makes perfect sense to us... God works in amazing ways!

We again want to thank so many of you for emailing and asking us questions - you all are so involved and love our family so much! I can't wait for Laidyn to meet all of you - she will be so loved! Hopefully we will have some news next week!!!!

On another note... my baby sister is about to have her first baby. Payton is on track to arrive sometime the first week of July. We can't wait for you to get here Baby Payton! We love you so much already! Please keep Jenni, Chase and little Payton in your prayers as well.

Talk to you all soon!