Another Baby Todd

Summer is always an interesting time for parents of school children. The need to socialize, missing friends, loving to play.. It is definitely a love/challenge season for all of us. Especially with kids at an age where they aren’t yet in charge of their schedule.

This year we learned that Amara’s memories of summer only included family vacations. Imagine this poor girl’s shock that Dad still has to work and yes he did this last year and yes Mom still has work too and no other people’s parents do not play with them non-stop all summer long… (true story). Life is tough guys. Life is tough.

We have continued to enjoy our family moments from the pool to the beach to togetherness inside. There is a lot of water and inside-ness down here. Though nothing really stops the forces of humidity. In fact, as I write this the humidity has been in flux (inside yo) as a storm rolls in. 🥵
(I do realize some people love humidity – it is my truest nemesis)

Meanwhile our adoption continues it’s holding pattern as we wait for the next document in the process to arrive. We can’t wait to celebrate it’s arrival with you and keep moving forward towards meeting our little girl!

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We had so much fun spending time with extended family over the weekend! And as always, sparklers are mesmerizing, aren’t they?

Hi! Hello!

I realized yesterday that the flow of summer is not super condusive to me staying on top of communication. My summer promise to you is that I absolutely will stay in touch. It will likely not be my regular Monday morning posts, but I hope to at least pop in once a week to let you know we are still here. Maybe once every couple of weeks. 😁

Last week Amara had the opportunity to participate in Cheer Camp at the YMCA and had an amazing time. We were so happy to know she was enjoying social time – even connecting with friends from school. Our little girl loves to be around people and has the energy of a waterfall. At the end of camp, she said her favorite part was learning new skills. She also very much hopes to start gymnastics this coming fall. 💕

With the many little steps behind us, the next season will feel like long gaps of waiting. Our dossier did make it safely to India and one more document is needed to officially finalize it. It could be a while before we have news to share other than “still waiting.” My current coping strategy for the wait is decluttering and organizing – it is very satisfying.

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How brilliant is Amara’s smile guys? She is such an amazing kid!

Hello, hello!

It has been quite the start to our summer break. With some bugs and the changing of our schedules two weeks passed me by before I could blink!

Still, we have been enjoying the change of pace and the chance to be together more. So far our favorite activity is hanging out with the babydolls. Well, that is if swimming is not on the table. 😉

In adoption news we DID receive the approval required from the US Embassy and our Dossier is now in transit to India! The next stage is a fresh wave of waiting. With a break from paperwork as well, we can fully enjoy bonus time with Amara along with working on little projects around the house to prep for our new little one’s arrival. 💕

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Hello!

As we wait for our US Embassy approval, another momentous occasion is heading our way.

On Wednesday, Amara will officially be attending her last day of 1st grade! Last week was full of so many fun and celebratory days for the students from parties to themed outfits. We are so proud of the determination Amara has shown this year and for the many, many, many things she has learned. This little girl never gives up!

By this time next week, we will be fully emersed into Summer Break fun. And hopefully we will also have some good news from the Embassy too!

Wishing you all a wonderful week!

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When Amara came out this adorable, I did think for a moment that this could have been an “eras” day at school. But she super rocked pink day from head to toe.

So much has happened in the last two weeks. I had to actually scroll down through my own posts and see where we were in the process the last time I shared an update. YES that much has happened!

The dominos are falling and we are so happy!

First, our dossier is complete and arriving at our agency’s office some time today!! The original paperwork arrived and we were able to have it notarized in such a short amount of time. Then, with all our documents gathered I was able to plan a trip with my Dad up to the Capitol and certify all our documents.

Fun fact. If you do not have a check, cash, or bank card on you, AND you do not have a physical bank location nearby, it is incredibly difficult to get money.
Also, hot tip. Take a checkbook, cash, or a bank card with you when you try to pay the government to certify your documents (or just do anything government payment thing in general lol).
I bet you can guess how we learned this fantastic information! 😅

💕Thank you so, so much, Dad, for helping me get these documents certified! And for helping me on our adventure to find a proper way to pay. 😂💕

Second, in absolutely shocking news, our I800 is approved!!! It finalized an entire month earlier than expected! We got to take a few steps on our end and are now applied for the US Embassy’s approval. That should come through in the next 2 weeks and then our Dossier will be off to India!

There will be two big steps of waiting in India, but when those finalize we will start to make plans to travel.

As you know, each step shrinks our travel window.

Right now, we are projecting with confidence that we should travel by the end of this year! This is such an exciting moment for us!

With so much joy,
Stephanie, for the family

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Paperwork gathering gets complicated.
Once you have it all, there needs to be 4 copies of everything – in their proper order, some in color, one set paperclipped, three sets stapled, and don’t break the staple on the original certified page or the whole thing is invalid! Doing it myself, instead of paying the agency, saved our family about $1,000! Complicated, but worth it.

There is no single emotion that people should feel mandated to embrace over things such as “mother’s day.” Life is too complex to fit inside boxes, isn’t it?

My wish for you on such days is to be free from expectation, free from guilt, and free from the fear of judgement (it goes all ways). May we know enough, may we care enough, may we be generous enough and allow these holidays too stand or pass in kindness.

✨Sometimes gifts are only for us to receive. So when a gift is found that can be shared with everyone, it brings extra joy to actually share it.✨

Shopping secondhand stores has had it’s excitements, but it has also been disheartening. As prices rise around us, I expected secondhand stores (especially donation based ones) to be the safe-haven where prices stay low. That hasn’t been the case and thinking about all the people who depend on these places, it dims the light in my heart.

One day, I was scrolling through Marketplace and found something I needed for an incredible price. I sent a message to ask about it’s availability and received almost an immediate reply. As a habit, I hopped over to the seller’s page and item after item after item all shared the same traits. They were good items and even better prices. An exciting bonus, there was so much variety!

We found an amazing amount of things that we genuinely needed for our girls and our home. And with such good deals, we felt comfortable buying a couple gifts for ourselves. (I mean, a wall decoration that my plant’s vines can cling to and grow up the wall for $2 was OK splurge in the moment).

It wasn’t just excitement that I felt for finding good deals. The entire store felt like a gift to anyone who stumbles onto it. With every price beating secondhand stores by a mile AND with communication being immediate and clear, we have made it a routine to check the new products that Vickie posts. And routinely her sales are a gift to us, being just what we need at prices that bring absolute peace.

So, I wanted to take the chance to share Vickie with our Orlando community. Not as an advert 😁 but truly because her store has brought back the light that dimmed in my heart. I hope she can be a gift to you or people you know who need a store to visit again and again, filling the gaps of need in life.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/profile/719578541/?ref=permalink&mibextid=dXMIcH

I wish you the very best luck as you meet your needs through secondhand shopping!

With hope, Stephanie 💕

Hello! I’m on time this week! Whew. 😉

As the mental load of paperwork eased up on me, a burst of new energy bloomed inside me. Energy to hunt for deals. What serendipitous timing.

This is one of my favorite inheritances from my Mom actually. She showed me how to love taking what we have and making it work and showed me the discovery of excitement over stretching (or saving) money because used can be just as good as new. We have both had so much fun hunting through Goodwills together and calculating how much was saved through Marketplace and Ebay deals. She makes this adventure SO much fun. (I love you Mom!)

Still, when I put together my registry, there were a few things that I researched a LOT and wanted those very specific products. Two of those things I struggled in my heart seeing their price tags.

First, my baby carrier. Our daughter is not an infant (I can say that 😁), but a baby carrier is appropriate. The problem is, we don’t know how long it will be useful so it felt hard to invest in one. As I debated on this, I discovered baby carriers that extend through toddlerhood, which makes an investment worthwhile. We could double the baby carrier as a hiking carrier! Great idea = not great price tag. To make things worse, I had to research and research brands and picked a very good quality $90 product. Yikes.

Imagine my shock when I hopped on marketplace to find the exact brand I wanted selling for just $20. Then imagine my shock when we actually got a reply “yes, it is available” (those are such precious words on Marketplace). To sweeten the deal, it was only 15 minutes from our home. Guys, the unattainable became attainable and now I have the EXACT product I wished for sitting in our home.

It gets better.

Second, the stroller. Again, hitting that in-between stage where we need one, but for how long? Turns out umbrella strollers have super cool upgrade versions that are the perfect balance. They are small and compact AND can recline back for the littles to nap! How cool, right? The best price I could find was $80, which is a tough price to swallow when you say the phrase “umbrella stroller”.

Our new friend and favorite Marketplace shop – who I will give a shoutout to mid-week – let us know that her community had a garage sale happening over the weekend. So off we went to find the deals. When we reached her house, there sat the stroller. It had every single feature. I thought my heart could not be filled anymore until our friend gifted us this stroller for our new little girl.

Can you believe it? With a gifted stroller and the deal of all deals we received $170 off our registry for just $20. My mind is blown and my heart is overflowing.

All we need now is our baby girl!!

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Amara has had so much fun finding deals with us. When we tell her how much she or we would have spent at “the new things stores” her mouth always drops. “That’s a lot of money, Mom!”

So I legit had to look at the blog page right now to see that it is in fact true that the most recent post I wrote was LAST week, not this week. Ha. I guess the week went by in quite a blur.

At this point we have gathered 99% of our dossier (dossier = paperwork package for India). All of the documents that we are responsible to collect have been notarized and approved by our agency. Now we wait. Once a package of documents arrive from India, we will notarize those and take a package of documents up to the state capital to receive an apostille (basically a state official notarization of notarized documents).

We are not officially back to “waiting” however. It is garage sale season and spring cleaning season – a great time to hunt for second hand treasures. We are now having fun searching for age appropriate toys for our little one and any other house things that will help us be ready to welcome our little girl. It is a very fun step of the process!

Until next week, please enjoy a picture of Amara fulfilling her lifelong dream of feeding and petting goats (so many cute babies were out there too!)

As our paperwork begins it’s journey with US Immigration, we have been keeping busy. Another (large) collection of paperwork needs to be prepared for it’s journey to court in India and we appreciate having tasks to accomplish.

Reaching this point in our adoption with Amara was such a gift and relief. Looking back at that time, it is almost hard to remember how agonizing the wait was – I’m so thankful that we are able to forget some of our felt pain. When you look at the timeline below, you might get to chuckle a little when I say these last 3 months have felt as agonizing as the entire wait to be matched with Amara. Now that we have been matched, I can chuckle a little bit too.

Adoption 2020
Started Process: 1/8/2020
Overall – Start to Match: 2 Full Years
Match to travel: 10 months

Adoption 2025
Started Process: 8/4/2025
Overall – Start to Match: 8 months!!
Match to travel: We shall see!

Beyond paperwork, we now get to truly prepare for the arrival of our daughter. Amara was older than her sister will be when we meet her, so there are a lot of new things that we need to buy and consider. The bedroom can finally be set-up! For my love-to-organize friends, I get to rearrange the pantry to fit food for a new age. I love organizing. And nesting kicks in too – I will absolutely be motivated to clean every little corner of our house.

But as we accomplish some of these things, the pain of waiting will return and we will wish each day that we could be with our daughter instead of preparing our home. So we are resting right now in joy and excitement and we are ready for the wait to become long once again.

Thanks for waiting with us!

Stephanie, for the family

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Amara is loving a new set-up for her art!