Happy Half-Birthday/ Open House

 On the twins half-birthday, we hosted an Open House.  It was kinda like a Baby Shower, in that some people brought gifts, but more like an Open House in that people came and went over a span of hours, they checked out the twins bedrooms, and tried some Lithuanian food.  Our friends were amazing- they provided so many yummy things to eat!  It was fun way to celebrate our twins and help prepare for their arrival!  We were blessed with sheets, booster seats, underwear, undershirts, toys and gift cards to help us finish the final preparations for the twins!

Yummy Christmas Bread made by Karen- eaten at Christmas or times when you want to wish prosperity upon someone!

Poppy Seed Cookies- they tasted approximately like cardboard, but according to someone who has been to Lithuania, they were totally authentic....

Cucumbers and Honey- actually a tasty combination!

Some sweet twins enjoying Poppy Seed cookies!

Friends signing the photo mats for the twins- I can't wait to put their sweet pictures in these frames!

Adeline and Alden excited to help the twins open their gifts!  We are SO blessed by our friends!

We Have a Court Date!!

We have a court date!!  This means we have a potential "light at the end of the tunnel"!  January 7th at 2pm we go to court and ask the very nice lady judge to waive the standard 30-day-waiting period and allow us to bring the twins home on this trip!

Our travel schedule is set- we booked airline tickets already!  This is exciting as this journey is getting closer and closer to be "done"!

What does this mean and look like?

January 1st- We leave Richmond- what a fantastic way to start off the New Year!
January 2nd- We arrive in Vilnius, meet with the lawyers and complete some paperwork
January 3rd- We head to the Twins!! 10am we get to meet the twins for the first time!  (just typing this makes me tear up- we are all SO excited, yet it still seems surreal!)
We get to visit with the twins several times each day until January 7th- Al and I will head to Vilnius early that morning.
January 7th- Al and I attend drive the 2 hours from the twins city to court in Vilnius- pray that the Judge makes a quick decision so that we can bring the paperwork back with us! We will head back to the twins city after court.  Rebecca, Adeline and Alden will remain in the twins town and not travel with us to Vilnius.

IF the waiting period is waived we will throw a Going Away Party at the Baby House as soon as the judge makes the decision and the twins are turned over to our care!  The judge can take up to 2 weeks to make a decision although we hear that typically the decision is made within hours of our court  time.

Jaunary 8th-ish- January 18th-ish- we will spend a week or so in Vilnius visiting the US Embassy almost every day for various appointments- physicals, passport meetings, exit meetings- we will leave Lithuania with American birth certificates stating Al and I are their parents, American passports, and 2 of the newest and cutest America citizens!

Starting to Prepare

We don't know when our Court Date is (and yes, I am aware that it is NOT a proper noun, but it is SO important, it IS a proper noun to ME!)- but I still need to DO something- so I am starting to prepare what I can.

Eastern Europe has drastically different views on clothing than I do- and I am attempting to be prepared according to their standards.  Thank goodness for the network of fellow Lithuanian adoptive moms I am privileged to know!  I was going to just pack warm coats and hats for the kids- all 4 of them.  That is not enough.  They all need warm hats, gloves, snow pants and snow boots.  I know, it's going to be cold- a little below freezing- but we aren't going to be spending vast amounts of time just standing in the cold!  There isn't much daylight, so we will be inside as much as possible!!  Still, the expectation is for these kids to be bundled Christmas-Story-Style.  Which is good to know before we leave!

I have mostly everything- Asher needs a coat (Adeline's wonderful teacher and friend is giving us one!) and both Asher and Annalise need snow boots.  

What fun!  Now if that Court Date would just come.... 

{side note- there are now 2 new forms that we must fill out, pay handsomely for, notarize, apostille, and rush to Michigan and then to Lithuania, before the Court Date can be issued- we found this out TODAY- good thing Al is a Paperwork Master!  These new forms will be in the mail once we get the form we need from the US govt which should arrive tomorrow- whew!}

i800- Check!

After two weeks, our papers finally arrived in our Immigration Case Manager's hands!  The short story is that she was able to process the paperwork and approve us in ONE DAY! There is a longer story- but that is at the next paragraph....  Our forms are now being uploaded to an Embassy Database- where the US Embassy in Lithuania will then give our approval to Elona, our Lithuanian contact.  She can then submit that form to the Lithuanian government and we will get our court date!

Long Story:  When our Case Manager first opened our documents, she wasn't able to process it!  There were no birth certificates!  We had been given official documents giving all the same info, so we just assumed that it was done differently there.  Nope.  Nothing could happen without the birth certificates.  When Al texted me that, my heart dropped- our hopes for Christmas were totally gone.

Al emailed our Bethany Case Manager to see if she accidentally left out the birth certificates when she emailed us all the official documents....  She called him- the official documents had just arrived from Lithuania- and the birth certificates were in there!!!  She quickly scanned and emailed them to Al!  He then emailed them to our Immigration CM- and she was then able to process our forms!!

Things like this are just a little affirmation about what we are doing.  That we ARE called to bring these two home.  That God's plan is for them to be home with us.

Now we wait again for our court date.  It's so exciting and scary all rolled into one!  We are talking to a travel agent now, doing hotel research, pricing van rentals, eyeing the clothes that are in the closet for each kid.... We are SO close- it's exciting!