Moving on up

We received notice that our i800a is being processed. I got a text at 10:45 last Wednesday night and then an email alerting me that in 7-10 days we will get our fingerprint appointment in the mail. All the while our dossier documents are at the county/state level being authenticated and will continue to work the way up the ladder until they are ready to send to China!! Yay for progress! I was sad because last Friday I checked our mailbox, found that our i800a had been returned to me, due to a wrong date on the check I wrote out to pay for the process. Thankfully that problem was easy to fix and we had it in the mail that same afternoon. 

I had the privilege of setting up our fundraiser items at a homeschooling moms retreat called "Refresh" last Saturday. It was fun and exciting to meet other adoptive mamas and also raise a little support to help bring our baby home. 

In March, my friend Jennifer at Talesofapeanut.com will have a special family adoption spotlight featuring our family and some prayer cards, verse prints, and more options available. We are so thankful for her generosity and care for our cause! 

This is the artwork that is showing up a lot around our house these days!

When travel to China is on your mind day and night and you find these sort of items on clearance...you have to buy them!! I've found myself dreaming of being in China a whole lot lately. We cannot wait to keep taking steps closer and closer and closer!!!

Almost Famous

We worked Monday night alongside our precious friends, The Olsons, to create an amazing video documenting our own personal story. Chris is an AMAZINGLY talented video editor/producer and we can't wait to see what he creates!!! These are some pictures from the other nights recording.

They really were a lot more chipper than this picture portrays! But it was a long process....can't wait to share it with you all when its done!

PS- Sign up to receive our blog updates via email so you don't miss out on any exciting info! I think you can just enter your email and you should get on our mailing list! Thanks!

Adopt Together Funding

We have been waiting for our final approved home study to create a 501(c) (3) tax deductible way for friends and family to give towards our adoption. We finally have it set up and I'm happy to share our link with you!

 You can go to the website and search for our names or type this url...

https://www.adopttogether.org/thehobbs 

I will also be trying to add a link on the blog that stays up permanently. 

Fundraiser Updates!

Here are some of our future plans for our adoption fundraising and for raising orphan awareness.

March 12- We will be in Brad's hometown of Milledgeville for a fun evening with family and friends that are hosting an Auction and Benefit Concert. We couldn't be more thankful and excited to share our story with this crowd.

April 2- Tentative Huntsville Yard Sale!! Hopefully it will be warm enough in the spring to enjoy a fun morning and afternoon raising orphan awareness and raising funds for our adoption. We have been collecting items from friends around town for the past few weeks and we will continue to take donations (even come and pick up donations!) to go towards the yard sale.

    

We have been so thankful for how our Tshirt sale has been going! We are gearing up to place our 2nd round of orders at the end of February. Please let me know if you would like to get in on this order- I have heard nothing but praises from people who have already gotten their shirts. They truly are so comfortable and soft...you may want to wear them each and every day of the week. The baseball T's come in green, navy, or red Adult sizes. The Grey T is also available in all adult sizes. I still have a few more youth grey tshirts but will not be placing an additional order for these.

And finally, our precious family friend, Mrs. Linda, has been hard at work baking and delivering delicious cakes to our friends and family in the Milledgeville area. We are overwhelmed by all of her hard work and dedication in doing her part helping us- and on the number of orders she has received!! The winter holidays were a great time to enjoy her cakes- and guess what?? Here are some other occasions that might be awesome to have a delicious cake for...Easter, birthday celebrations, graduations, retirement.

Pound Cake

Pig Pickin’ Cake

CHOCOLATE POUND CAKE

Cheesecake

Red velvet Cake

Coconut Pecan Pound Cake

Call and place an order today!

Linda- 478-452-0655 or Deb 475-457-6849

We have lift off!!

 This probably doesn't mean a whole lot to anyone, but...

 Our I800A has been overnighted to USCIS today!

Woohoo!!! A tiny step towards the big steps that will eventually get us to our child. This means that we will receive a Notice of Receipt in about 2 weeks.  This letter  notifies us that USCIS received our paperwork and payment.  10-14 days following, we will receive our biometric fingerprint appointment notice.  This notice will direct us where and when to go for our fingerprint appointment- Birmingham most likely.  Once we have completed our fingerprints, we will be waiting for our final I800A approval to arrive by mail...and when it does, we will scan it to our agency. That will be the final document we are waiting on before sending our dossier to China. 

So now, in the waiting, it is now time to get started on our dossier!! We received a new manual to direct our every move in this process. The good news is that after reading through it today- we have almost all of our 13 documents practically ready! A lot of these documents were required for our home study- which I am thankful that it is already done. We will send these documents to our agency, they will authenticate and certify all of our documents and then get ready to send it to China as soon as USCIS approves us. 

Clear as mud? Its taken me a long time to actually understand it...and once again...until you truly have to walk through this...there is no way to understand this process. 

But take a moment and celebrate this baby step with us tonight!!