Progress!

A quick update to say that there has been some progress around here in a few different areas...YAY!

First of all, Chad, Cooper, and I took a (not at all) fun-filled trip downtown on Friday while Griffin was at school. We got Chad's birth certificate, and both of us got fingerprinted and applied for criminal background checks. We traveled to 3 different government buildings, went through metal detectors 5 times, and Cooper got 2 lollipops from nice receptionists. Success all around! We also came home that day to find my birth certificate AND our marriage certificate in the mail-Woo Hoo! Several things I can check off of the humungous dossier checklist! Still so many left to do, but I'll take what I can get.

We also officially started our homestudy paperwork as well. First up is figuring out what states we've lived in since we were 18. This is trickier than it sounds! Chad had a college summer internship for 3 months in California-does that count? My parents moved to Texas while I was in college, and I never lived there, but my driver's license was from there for 2 years since that was my home residence-does that count? Confusing!! We are also working on the huge list of questions we each have to answer for our autobiography...sigh...

A different, but also important, type of progress has been made in getting ready for fundraisers. First of all, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who brought me hangers.

I was overwhelmed by the response, and I am happy to report that I got enough to hang everything! I even have some left over to get a headstart hanging some of the summer stuff I will try to sell in the spring. I've hung over 500 items of clothing (and this was just fall/winter stuff). This is what progress looks like around here:
Every item must be hung, and then a tag is written out and safety pinned on. This takes as long as it sounds. My back is permanently hunched over from doing tags for 3-4 hours a night, but it will all be worth it, I'm sure.

I know it sounds silly to be so excited over hangers, but I am so grateful to everyone who contributed. I am hoping to make a decent amount of money for the adoption from selling the boys' old clothes, and your hangers make this possible. Now keep your fingers crossed that people actually want to buy the clothes!

We are also starting to work on gathering things for the garage sale, and I hope to be able to announce very soon exactly where and when that will be, but we are still hammering out a few details.

Coming even sooner (maybe tomorrow!) are pictures of the dolls my mom is making to help raise some funds. I know I'm biased, but I think they came out super cute!

Have a wonderful night!!