Elli & Tori Turn Seven!

Oh where did the time go? Our girls are now seven! They make us smile everyday, and they are getting so grown up. They struggled to find present ideas in the toy aisle this year - the favorite gifts - clothes, things to decorate their room and tickets to the movies! Sad to see the days of princesses and stuffed animals starting to disappear, but always amazed to watch the beautiful young ladies that are emerging.

Another slideshow by Smilebox

April - Easter and more

So now that we are almost half-way through May, I guess it is time for an April update :-). It was a good month for us, Easter and then our court hearing to finalize all three adoptions under our own State (okay, Commonwealth) law. So glad that some lovely Spring weather has arrived! Hope you are all enjoying your change of season, whatever form it takes!

Slideshow design customized with Smilebox

Mr. Man turns 4!!

Despite a high fever and a certain amount of crankiness, my little Mr. Man turned four on Sunday. We had to postpone his kid party for a week due to his being sick, but we managed a nice little family gathering on Saturday where he raked in the goodies - not the least being a super cool bike from Grandmom & Pop-pop Hanson! He loved all the fuss and attention.

It's hard to believe he's four, only a year away from being eligible to start kindergarten... My little guy is growing up!

Oh, in the pictures below, notice how much "help" he gets from his big sisters :-). They were always right there when it came to opening the presents - a familiar situation to this youngest child as well.

This free photo collage generated with Smilebox

A New Adoption Program...

A friend of mine has an established adoption agency in Pennsylvania. She is starting a new program in Serbia and Montenegro that may be fairly fast and allows single parents in some cases. The link to her agency's website is: http://www.adoptionsforever.org/index.html

Below is the information that she passed along to me. The program is new, so I don't think this info is posted on her website yet. Please contact her through her website if you would like more info.

From Megan:

I am starting a program in Serbia and Montenegro . Below I have outlined how the program works…according to the facilitator with some English cleaned up. I am wondering if you know of anyone who may be interested ….if they already have a home study completed for another country, that would be even better in that they would be that much further ahead. It appears these first adoptions may be able to be done rather quickly. The stay would be two weeks…

SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO

ADOPTION PROGRAM

These two countries are SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO

ADOPTION PROGRAM

These two countries are not part of Hague convention, and adoption is not with court process.

In both countries adoption is an administrative decision, and all the adoption papers must to be submitted for approval to the Ministry of Labor and Social Department, this institution has an office in each territory It is not necessarily for families to travel too much in the country as all adoption procedures can be completed in the territory where the child is resident.

The application for adoption is approved by the local authorities (social department) waiting period of time cannot be longer than two months; the family can get referral about the child after that.

After the adoptive parents accept the child, Ministry of Labor will approve the adoption in a special meeting, where the family need to be present too, the name of this meeting is “Ceremony of Adoption”, and the schedule of this meeting is made no more than one week from the date when the Ministry of Labor approved the adoption.

After this official meeting, the local authorities will make all adoption papers; they change the biological parent’s names with adoptive parent’s names, the only condition that Serbian adoption law has is about child first name that cannot be changed, but if adoptive family wish that can do it in USA, in Montenegro is allow to be change too.

The local authorities will issue an adoption decree that includes child’s history and adoption details, new birth certificate and passport.

After that with all adoption papers translate in English language the family go to US Embassy for child visas.

For both countries the visas is issue at US Embassy in Belgrade.

This is the entire adoption process. The families has must application for adoption with color copy of their US passport and POA for facilitator to get registration approval first, they will come after the approval is made , and after they accept the referral of child sent by facilitator.

The age of children’s that can be adopted by the foreign families is from 1 year up to 18 years old, with some special approval from authorities can be less than 1 year, but not younger than 3 months old, and adoptive parents must not be more than 45 years older than child adopted, but can be more than that with a special approval from Ministry of Labor.

Anyway the age of adopted child will be decided by US adoptive families only; I just follow their instruction about that.

The single person (woman or man) can adopt with a special approval of the some authorities in Serbia, but is not allowed in Montenegro.

I can work with homosexual couples, in some conditions too.

This is the list of adoption required:

1. Adoption application
2. Home Study
3. A short adoptive family biography (one page)
4. Birth Certificate
5. Marriage Certificate
6. Medical Certificate
7. Police Certificate
8. Work certificate with details about: income and home
9. Passport color copy
10. BCIS Approval
11. Passport photos of adoptive parents.

The program fees is 14 thousand dollars, and we will work with children’s from 1 year up to 5 years old 1-3 only, sometime less than one year but not younger that three months older.

The adoption agencies doesn’t work here for now, so we can have a lot of children’s available, I don’t know for how long time will be like this but I am sure one or two more years we can do adoption without too much competition.

I can start work there with any family that you may have ready for adoption and are in waiting list for another country, I can do registration and referral with HS and BCIS approved for another country, with condition that when family will travel here to bring with them name of country changed documents.

Snow, snow, snow

It's been a bad winter by our Southern PA standards. We've had three snow days already, and about as many two hours delays, and it's still January! Luckily, this most recent batch of snow has been great for snow balls and snow men. Look at this guy we put together - he's taller than me! It's really nice now that the girls are bigger and can provide some real help. Tori did the bottom snow ball pretty much on her own - that thing was bigger than her. Elli did the middle with just a little help. The girls hunted down the sticks for the arms on their own. Hope you are staying warm and having some winter fun!

Our Year in Pictures...

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!! The slideshow below will show you more pictures than you ever wanted to see of my lovely kiddos :0). Enjoy your holiday festivities.

Make your own free photo slideshow

Halloween

I've been a bad, bad, blogger! I know it has been forever since I posted anything here, but these days I am mostly posting on facebook. I do live in hope that Ryan's foster family might check this blog from time to time, so I want to make an effort at least to get some pictures up here on a regular basis. If you are not a friend on facebook, and would like to be, please leave me a message so I can add you.

At any rate, here are some pictures from Halloween. Elli was a princess, Ryan a monkey, and Tori a Panda. We also did a "Trunk or Treat" event - for this, you park in a parking lot and open your trunk. The kids come & trick or treat from one trunk to the next. For this one you were encouraged to dress up and decorate your car in a theme. I blatantly exploited my family's heritage (and abundance of "costumes") - we were China, complete with a bamboo forest (well an attempt at it anyway), lanterns, plenty of pandas and lots of pretty Chinese silks. It was fun, easy & I think we were a sentimental favorite because we won "best theme-based Trunker"

Some fun with some crazy candies that Uncle Carl & Aunt Lisa sent for the kids.

Ryan didn't quite get the eyeball thing, but he did keep trying.

Here's "China" at the Trunk or Treat. The green streamers in the background were supposed to be the bamboo forest.