Our First Home Study Visit

Well, we survived!  I think it went really well. Our social worker, Amanda, was very, very nice and made us feel very comfortable. None of the questions were too hard of course. The hardest part was getting the house at least picked up and somewhat cleaned before she got here, while finishing the end of the paperwork. I think the freshly mopped floor was still wet when she got there!  I made sure to tell her that she could keep her shoes on...And with 5 kids here, we needed a little drama too.  Sweet Baby R was sitting on my lap and threw her NUK. It knocked my water glass over onto the table and into poor Amanda's lap! Thankfully, there was only about an inch of water left in it and it missed our paperwork. Hopefully she'll still approve us! :-)

But on a more serious note, we have ALL of our home study paperwork done. YAY! Well, we're just missing one document, which hopefully we can get this week. I have to admit I was initially overwhelmed with the paperwork list for the home study.  But as I worked through it little by little, it wasn't bad at all. I'm hoping I can say that for the dossier paperwork when I'm done. (I'm doubtful though.) That list can be overwhelming. Now that we've completed the home study paperwork and on-line classes, I'm getting back to the dossier paperwork. I'm scanning in documents right now to send to my RR state-side helper. She checks the documents to be sure they are ok before sending them to get apostilled and then over to our EE country. RR has a wonderful group of volunteers to help us through this process.  To say EE is picky about paperwork is an understatement.

Our second home study visit is this Friday already. Amanda will come back and meet with Pat and I individually to ask questions about the autobiographies we wrote and other things I suppose. She seemed confident that the home study would be completed very quickly! That is GREAT news.  I'll have to explain why in a different post, but the sooner we can get Elijah home, the better.