No Miranda News & Florida

Hi everyone. No news from Guatemala. Anne told us that she was going to talk with the Guatemalan facilitator yesterday, so hopefully we will have some news soon.

I spent the last 4 days in Florida with my parents. Both are recovering from some physical ailments, so we spent a lot of time just relaxing at their house. I did take my mom to the beach one day. I parked right on the beach and put a chair right by the car door for her. It was in the 70's and sunny, but it got cloudy, so we only stayed for 90 minutes or so. My dad cooked some great fish for dinner two nights (salmon and amberjack) and we went out to eat at JollyMon's restaurant, which has my favorite Sangria!

Here are some pictures from my trip.

update

I just talked via e-mail with Anne, our adoption coordinator. She says that our file was actually submitted to PGN at the end of December! Because we have not received pre-approval from the U.S. embassy, this means that will will get an automatic previo and KO (kickout) from PGN for no pre-approval. The good thing about doing it this way is (1) our file was submitted to PGN before the Dec. 31 law change and has a much better chance of being "grandfathered in" and (2) there may be other previos in our file that PGN will notify our attorney about and these can be fixed before the file is re-submitted after our KO. These previos can be either on the Guatemalan side or on our side. So, now we wait for the actual KO (Anne says she expects it in the next few weeks), wait for the pre-approval from the embassy, fix any previos, and re-submit our file to PGN. After the re-submittal our file might receive another KO for other previos (lets pray that doesn't happen!!!!) or will be approved by PGN after 8 weeks.

Unfortunately, now PGN is saying that even files that were initially submitted before Dec. 31 will have to register with the new Central Authority (that is not quite up and running) before being re-submitted. Hopefully, this will simply be that our attorney needs to submit some paperwork at the office of the Central Authority, but the specifics haven't been released yet. The people on the Central Authority are just now being appointed by the new government. There was an announcement last week about the actual physical address in Guatemala of the Central Authority, so that's a step in the right direction!
If this whole process is TOTALLY confusing to you, check out one of my earliest posts where I try to explain the Guatemalan adoption process.

Hodge Podge

Today was our church's annual Hodge Podge. It is an event put on by our women's commitee. In essence, it is a big garage sale where everything is FREE! People bring their garage sale type-stuff to the church and it is all displayed by category-clothes, kitchen, electronics, decor, toys, etc. Everyone gets post-it notes and if you would like an item, then you write your name on a post-it and place it on the item. If more than one person wants a particular item, then there is a drawing for the winner. It is a lot of fun and I always find great stuff! Here's what I brought home this year:There's a crib bedding for Miranda's room. I had thought about using the boys' denim crib set and just sewing on some rick-rack or something girly, but I found this set at the Hodge Podge and really like it! Matt says he'll probably paint her room yellow if I use this bedding. Let me know what you think about this set. I've heard that I'll have lots of pink stuff for Miranda, so it might be nice if her room WASN'T pink!I also got a bunch of neat books for Mitchell--a series called "The Adventures of Wishbone," some small toys for Miranda, and a Living Bible. Grandma--this is for you! Remember, I told you this might be an easier version of the Bible to read?

Finally, I got Miranda this cool toy. It's an activity table for when she's a bit older.

I think I did pretty well at the Hodge Podge! The one item that is not pictured is the Atari Flashback that I won (it was a hot item!). It looks a lot like the old Atari system from when Matt and I were young...has the same controllers. BUT--this system is newer (kind of a nostalgia-like thing) and has all of the old Atari games loaded onto it. Probably onto a microchip smaller than my pinky fingernail. (Remember how big and clunky those old games were?). The boys and Matt and I have had fun this afternoon playing Asteroids, Pitfall, Adventure, and other games.

Movement at the Embassy and blankets

Well, there seems to be some signs of life at the U.S. embassy in Guatemala! On the internet forums there were multiple families that posted that they received their pre-approvals today. Most of the families were between days 45-53 of their wait for pre-approval. We are on day 31 of our wait...so we should hopefully get pre-approval in a few weeks.

I mentioned that I've been keeping busy sewing...here are a few pictures of the blankets I made for a co-worker and a neighbor. They are my home-made version of the popular taggies blankets.

Nothing

Nope, nothing...zilch, nada, cero, zero...can't think of anymore words right now. No word regarding Miranda this week. I keep telling myself...it has been less than a month since our last update...be patient. I am wanting to buy some cute girl clothes and borrow some from friends to take down for our visit trip, so I am really needing to know how big she is! I was looking at a website today: www.thebowlady.com. It is a site owned by the mother of a friend at work. I may have to convice Matt, but I feel like I just HAVE to buy her a headband with some bows! It has been a long wait for me to buy girly things!
Anyway...I have been keeping busy. I have two baby showers coming up, so I got the sewing machine out of the closet and have kept busy being creative.
Please pray for patience for us as we wait for an update. Please pray for Miranda and her safety and health. Please pray for our case...that God would continue to guide us through this process to bring home our daughter!

Maybe an update this week?

Anne, our adoption coordinator, told me that we should get an update "early this week." Of course, I was hoping maybe "early this week" meant today and I have been stalking my e-mail! Unfortunately, today was not the day. Please continue to pray for the adoption situation in Guatemala. We should hear in the next few days how the new laws are going to affect in-process cases like us. And keep praying for pre-approval from the U.S.embassy--we are on day 26 of our wait for pre-approval. There haven't been a lot of pre-approvals posted on the various internet support forums that I belong to, so we need to pray that the embassy opens the floodgates and gets those pre-approvals out!

Since I don't have any news or cute Miranda pics, here are a few pictures from our New Year's Eve festivities. We went to a bowling party sponsored by our church. I made the boys take a nap (of course, I took one too!) and they both stayed up until 12:30am! And they bowled the entire evening!

Update and Lots of Holiday Pics

Hi everyone! No new news from Guatemala. We are still waiting for pre-approval from the U.S. embassy. Our DNA results arrived at the embassy on Dec. 12, so we are on day 18 of our pre-approval wait. In the past few days I have seen some families on internet Guatemalan adoption forums receive pre-approval around day 40-45, so maybe the typical 60 day wait might be shortened a bit. Let's pray that it is waaaayyy shorter than 60 days so that we can get our case into PGN as soon as possible! Once we are in PGN, we have at least an 8 week wait and possibly more if we are kicked out of PGN for any reason.

We did book our flights and our hotel rooms for our trip to Guatmala in February. The boys are very excited! We are staying at a very nice hotel with a heated pool, so we'll probably just hang out poolside for most of the time. We hope to have Miranda with us at the hotel for most of our stay.

We have had a lot of holiday fun over the past week. Below are some pictures from a party Matt and I went to, from my birthday, and various Christmas pics!

My friends Gwen and Liza. I was just thinking... I have known them both for 13 years! And I still see them at least once a week!

My friend Rachel, the hostess for the party. Haven't known her that long, but wish I had. (The cake says Happy Birthday Jesus (and Michele).

Celebrating my birthday. Matt bought me tickets to go see Blast! at the Fox Theater next month. I'm super-excited! The boys waiting at the bottom of the basement stairs on Christmas morning! I worked and didn't get home until 6:45am. I was actually surprised because everyone was still sleeping! The boy cousins all got matching T-shirts from Uncle Brad and Aunt Allison.Max holding 4-month old cousin Lucy.