Updates ......

Well, there's nothing too exciting to update.  But I'll tell you what's going on these days.

1.  Referral - We are still waiting to be matched with a child.  It could be at any time.  Our agency does expect us to be matched this summer, most likely.
2.  Yard Sale - This coming Saturday, we are having a yard sale to help raise money.  We are not pricing anything, we'll just be asking for donations.  Hopefully, we'll raise a lot of money!  But also, we're clearing out a lot of stuff from our house!!!!!!  It's been great because a lot of our friends have stepped up to donate stuff to sell, or to help out with the actual sale.
3.  Money - I think I mentioned previously that we are being audited by the IRS because of Jacinda's adoption tax credit.  We still do not have our tax refund yet, and we don't expect it until August or later.  It's a very frustrating situation, but at least we'll get some interest on our refund!  It won't be much, but every little bit helps!
4. Donation - You'll notice on the right side of our blog, that we've added a Donate button.  That is a way that people can donate directly to us through Paypal.  I believe that if you use a credit card, you don't have to have a Paypal account.  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that!
5. Jacinda's Speech - Jacinda finished up the school year going to speech therapy 3 times a week.  She qualifies for "summer school" for speech, but it's only for a few weeks, twice a week I believe.  We do have some things to work on with her this summer at home.  When the next school year starts, she will go to speech therapy 4 times a week.  Luke will be in Kindergarten at the same school, so I'm hoping I can coordinate her times with dropping Luke off and picking him up.  The school is close to our house, but I still don't want to be back and forth 4 times a day!!!!!  Jacinda's teacher in her class at church tells us that each week, she can understand more and more of what Jacinda says.  That is awesome!!!!
6. Summer - We have lots of fun things planned for this summer.  Luke wants to learn how to read, so we're working on that.  We are tagging along on a vacation to Florida with Aaron's family.  They have a timeshare in Orlando, and they have graciously invited us to stay with them!  If it wasn't for them, we probably would not be able to go on a vacation this summer, so we're looking forward to that.

That's about it from here.  We're just trucking along, scrimping and saving every penny we can.  We have become the coupon king and queen!  We rarely go out to eat any more, but when we do, we use coupons!!!

Our Dossier is in China!

Our Dossier (all of our paperwork) on May 13, 2011.  Our agency told us that China has been taking 4-6 weeks to let them know what our Log-In Date (LID) is.  That LID is important because once our agency knows that, they will start looking for a child for us.  Well, our agency found out our LID 5 days later.  Yes, that's 5 days later .... not 4-6 weeks!!!!!!!  Our LID is 5/18/2011.

So we could be matched at any time!  It's very exciting and nervewracking at the same time!  The way it works is that our agency calls us, then we have about 48 hours to make a decision whether to accept the referral or not.  During that 48 hours, we have to consult a doctor to have her evaluate the medical information.  We also do a lot of praying and research about the special need in order to make a decision.  So that's a lot to do within 48 hours.  If we decide to accept the referral, we submit a Letter of Intent to adopt the child and then China gives us (hopefully) a PreApproval a few days later.

We will definitely keep you all posted!

We are a Hip Mom Jewelry Featured Family!

For the month of May, we are one of the Featured Families for Hip Mom Jewelry.  For this month only, if you purchase adoption jewelry from THIS page, please put our last name (Wolfe) in the appropriate field and we will receive 30% of the purchase.  It can only be products from that specific page, although all of their products are very nice!

Thank you for your consideration!!!

Fundraising Status

Here's an update on the financial side of things right now.  We still need around $10,000 for travel expenses and if #2 below doesn't come soon, we'll need some to make up for that.

1.  Grants - We have applied for 2 different grants.  We have no idea if we have a chance to get them or not and we have no idea when we will hear about them.  So we're not counting on them, but it will be a nice surprise if we get one or both.
2.  Tax Refund - We're expecting a pretty good tax refund because of the adoption tax credit from Jacinda's adoption.  However, the IRS is auditing quite a few people that claimed the adoption tax credit.  So we have no idea when we will get the refund.  It could be May, it could be a few months after that.  If there's a government shutdown, our refund will be delayed even more.

How you can help us:

1.  Direct Donation - You can send a check directly to us, or use Paypal (Personal Payment) - wolfeadoption@gmail.com
2.  Buy a T-shirt - http://adoptionbug.com/wolfeadoption/index.htm
3.  Buy Coffee - http://www.JustLoveCoffee.com/TheWolfes  You can buy any of the coffee in their store.  Just click on the link to get to our store.  Then, you can use the links on the left side of the page to see what else they have.
4.  Quilt - See post HERE

Thanks to everyone for your help getting our little girl home!!!!

US Immigration Approval!!!!

We heard today that our I-800A Application has been approved!  This approves us to adopt a child from China.  Once we get matched with a child, we'll use the I-800 form to apply to adopt that specific child.  Now, we wait for the official Approval notice to arrive in the mail.

Once we get that, it will have to be Notarized.  Then, I will take all of our Virginia documents to Richmond to have them Authenticated at the state level.  Then, all of those documents go to the Chinese Embassy and State Department in DC to be Authenticated at the Chinese Embassy level.  Then, we add a few pictures to our pile of documents and send everything to our Agency for review.  They will review our Dossier, and if everything looks OK, they will send it on to China.

At that point, we can be matched with a child!  It may take 2 weeks, or it may take a few months.  We are definitely getting closer!!!!!

Buy a T-shirt, Help Us Raise Money!

We have partnered with a great company, AdoptionBug.com in order to help us raise money for our adoption.  Go to our store HERE.  For every t-shirt you buy, we will get a portion of the price.  All money will go directly to our adoption expenses.  For most shirts, we get between $6.49 and $8.99.

You can choose addition items from their main store, but only the items on our page will give us a commission.  All ordering and shipping is done directly from the website.

Thank you and please let us know if you have any questions! 

We Need Your Help

The time has come where we need to ask for your help to raise money for our adoption.  We are close to emptying our savings account and we still need quite a bit of money.  We feel very strongly that God has led us down this adoption path once again and we know the money issue will work out somehow.

We have done quite a few things around our family to save money.  We have drastically lowered our cable TV and cell phone bills.  We rarely eat out at restaurants.  We have drastically cut our "fun" spending.  We are willing to use every penny of our savings to get our daughter home.  (Although, we do live in a "money pit" house, so hopefully this won't backfire on us!)

If you can help in this way, any donations will be greatly appreciated.  We need to raise around $20,000.  This would include everything .... adoption agency fees, US Immigration fees, document processing fees, Homestudy fees, mailing fees (we should own stock in UPS by now!) and our travel expenses.  There are a few ways you can help:

1.  A direct donation.  Checks can be made out to Aaron or Sherry Wolfe and be mailed to us (email us at wolfeadoption@gmail.com if you need our address).  If you'd prefer to use Paypal, send a donation to wolfeadoption@gmail.com and make sure to indicate it is a Personal Gift payment so that fees aren't taken out.
2.  Shop at Just Love Coffee http://www.justlovecoffee.com/TheWolfes  We get half of the cost of whatever you buy and the coffee is really good!!!

For any donation made, we'd love to include quilt squares in our daughter's quilt.  See THIS post for the details.  It's $10 per square.  So if you donate $100, that's 10 squares.

We so appreciate any help you all can provide.  It's hard for us to ask for money.  For Jacinda's adoption, I (Sherry) went back to work full-time and we refinanced our house so that we wouldn't have to ask anyone for money.  This time, refinancing the house again is not an option.  Regarding going back to work full-time, by the time we paid for day care for 2 kids, it wouldn't be worth it.  So here we are.

We love you all!  Please know that if you can't donate, we certainly understand and please don't worry.  We are confident this will work out somehow.  We know that a little girl is waiting for us in China and God knows how this all will work out.  We are excited to see how He provides and we are beyond excited to find out who that little girl will be!  We're really hoping to be home with her by the end of 2011.

Please let us know if you have any questions!  You can email us at wolfeadoption@gmail.com or post on Facebook or here in the Comments.  Thank you for taking the time to consider helping us!