Documents, Documents, Notarizations, Certifications, Authentications and on and on and on

The question we keep getting asked is, "Since you have done this before, you shouldn't have to gather all of the documents like you did before,right?"  Well, I wish!  But that is not the case.  We need to gather everything again and then some new things.  The process has changed a little bit, so there are even more checks and documents that are needed.  The good thing is that we have done a dossier (the documents that get sent to China) before and so it is not completely new to us. 

Where we are.  We are currently completing all of the documents that are required to be part of the dossier.  We have all of our documents completed, all have been notarized, and the notaries have been certified by the local clerk of courts. Our Indiana documents (marriage certificate and Michael's birth certificate) have also been certified by the Indiana Secretary of State and are currently at the Chinese Consulate's office in Chicago for final Authentication.  The rest of our documents (or what we refer to our "Ohio documents") are ready to go to the Secretary of State's office this week.  We have also completed all of our home study visits and are awaiting the report to be written so we can send it in with our I800A application.  This application will lead to fingerprinting and then hopefully approval by the USCIS.  Once we get that approval, we are almost ready to send in our dossier to China.  Confused yet?  Yeah, we are too at times.  We keep telling ourselves "one step at a time".  We are so anxious though and the wait is already hard.  But each step gets us closer and that is what we are focusing on.

We have also been having a great spring and enjoying the warmer weather.  Aidan is back in the full swing of things with soccer.  We had a good spring break and were able to visit my sister and niece in Indianapolis for a couple of days.  The kids also spent time with grandparents and enjoyed coloring Easter eggs and playing with their cousin.

Here are some pics from our spring so far ...



We won tickets to LegoFest - here is Bella in front of Lightening McQueen

Bella, Aidan and Keenan on Easter morning 

Keenan, Bella and Aidan all ready for church

Family pic

 

All of the kiddos after their egg hunt (Hunter, Keenan, Ashlynn, Bella and Aidan)

The boys having some 4-wheeler fun (Matthew, Hunter, Aidan, Michael and Keenan)

Bella being Super-woman!

Keenan being Superman - scary!