Adoption News and More!

Things are moving along nicely on the adoption front. T&I got parts 1 & 2 of the application to our placing agency completed this weekend and sent part 2 off to our social worker as we need to review and discuss the questions from part 2 with her. We also heard last week that DCFS approved our homestudy, so that can also be sent in at the same time as our application for review. Once our placing agency approves our application and HS, they will generate a letter that will allow us to submit our I-800A. We are hoping everything will be approved and ready to go such that we can submit our I-800A towards the end of the month!

On K's hair front, I have really liked the double stranded twists I have been doing with clips, but was scouring the web for videos of some other styles I would like to try. It is hard because her hair is still so short, it really limits the styles, and she is too old to do puffs like you would for a baby. I am thinkng about trying some rope twists and then hoping I can do a twistout so she can wear it loose for a couple of days after. The hair is so short though that I will probably have a lot of rope twists and am trying to find the time to set aside to get it going.

This weekend was the first attempt at cooking Colombian food. I tried to make empanadas with aji. I found the website mycolombianrecipes.com (want to give Erica a shout out for the awesome site and great recipes! - photo credit also, note to readers: that is what empanadas are suppose to look like!) the other day and decided that everything looked so good that I should start trying one recipe at a time. I give myself an A for effort. I ended up using lamb instead of ground beef, which was an excellent choice if I do say so myself and used my tortilla press instead of a rolling pin. Overall, the ones that turned out were very tasty. I did have problems with the oil heat getting to hot, then not hot enough and several of the empanadas opened up in the oil which was disgusting as they ended up being filled with grease, so I will have to work on my sealing technique, but overall, not bad for my first attempt.

We will be praying for some families this week who will be traveling soon to Colombia to bring home their children and hoping our whole family doesn't get hit with the yuck that E1 has right now. Looking forward to 24" of snow over the next couple of days and maybe some sledding time with the kiddos!!