Baby stuff

These are their first bibs Their cloth diapers and baby legs

Sleepers I got on clearance at Target=$2.08/piece

I bought these on etsy.com(just in case you can't tell the ribbons are pacifier holders)

Just thought I would show you all what I have been doing while we waited on our paperwork to be done. Internet shopping is the DEVIL I tell ya. I don't know what I am going to do while waiting on our referral, I have no money left now. Oh well I can always use Christmas money. HeHe! I do need to stop buying stuff though, it's going to get to the point where there won't be anything left to by for our baby shower. Actually there is always something cute to buy. Plus I'll leave all the really expensive things for friends and family. LOL;0) Just kidding. I haven't bought anything that is on my wish list so there are plenty of things left and they are not all expensive just a few things. In fact I think the most expensive thing on my wish list is $80.00. I have been extremely blessed in that our big ticket items have been given to us by great friends. Our cribs, a double stroller, some great toys and books have been taken care of and I found a good condition changing table at a baby consignment store for only $30.00 earlier this year. So all in all we don't need too many big ticket items. The $80.00 item is the bedding. I can't wait to start really decorating the nursery. It's going to be so fun. It will definately be the best looking room in the house. Well that's all for now. Have a great weekend.

Cloth diaper contest

On the sidebar there is a link to "Free Diaper Friday". Click on that and you could win $300 in free diapers from Diaper Junction. Of course if you win you have to buy me two diapers. LOL;0) I know I am going for it, we can use all the help we can get. And cloth diapers are definately what our mom's used they are much easier and cuter. Go and check it out and Good Luck.

Our Dossier has left the building

We finally, after over 9 months since our first home study meeting, fed ex'd our dossier to our agency. I'm so freakin' excited. We just rec'd our 171h today. When I went to the mailbox and saw the envelope on top I started jumping up and down and ran into the house. As I was texting Matt to let him know we rec'd it I was dancing, laughing and crying all at the same time. I'm sure I looked ridiculous. I went and picked up Matt from work and we drove 1 1/2 hours away to get it certified with the sec of state, spent 8 minutes in their office and then drove 1 1/2 hours back home. We laughed at how silly that sounded, but it was totally worth it. When we got back into town we went and fed ex'd the entire dossier to our agency, it will be at their office tomorrow afternoon. What's kinda cool, or nerdy take your pick, is that the Friday before my birthday, which was on a Sunday, we rec'd our DCFS approval letter and today on Matt's birthday we rec'd our 171h. Again take your pick, cool or nerdy;0) So where we go from here is: After our dossier gets to our agency they will send it to Washington D.C. to be federally certified, then it goes to the Ethiopian government to be translated then registered, once it is registered with the Ethiopian government we are officially a "waiting family". Hopefully this will all happen with in a month to a month and a half, more than likely will be the latter with all the holidays coming up. Either way the awesome thing is it is finally gone and we are much closer to getting our referral(s) than ever before. I can't believe that this time next year I may know who our children are. How cool is that?!

Here are two pics of the paperwork.

Our Dossier & 171H "Golden Ticket

Diapers & stuff

So I bought our first cloth diapers today. I bought 2 soft bums, 2 gro baby, 3 smartipants and 2 bum genius 3.0. I never thought I would be excited about diapers. I have been researching cloth diapers ever since we decided to adopt (that is a long time to look into diapers). The hardest part is that everyone has something to say about each one of them good and bad, and not until we use them on our children will we be able to decide which are best for us. So far the concensus is "yay" for bum genius. I will more than likely go with them and the the soft bums, they seem like they would fit our lifestyle the best, plus I have heard great things about them from many other cloth diapering mom's. But until we have our little ones we will not know what will fit them the best. I decided to go the cloth diapering route when I found out that disposables stay in landfills for 500 years. That is crazy. I am not a "green" person by any means, but 500 years is an awful long time to sit in a landfill. Plus the cost is also a huge factor in wanting to go with cloth diapers. Since I will only be working part time, I am trying to find ways that we can save money once our little ones come home, for example I also want to make our own baby food. Not only will we save money but it will also be better for our children. If I make their food we will know what is in it instead of all the preservatives in store bought food. Same goes for the diapers. Cloth diapers don't have the ickys that are in disposables. Now I know that more than likely if our children come home with Giardia (sp?), which is a parasite that causes terrible smelling and water like poo, we will probably use disposables, but I will try and use a earth friendly version. I'm hoping that in a year and we, hopefully, have our children home, and I look back at this post I still feel the same way. Only time will tell.

On the adoption front. We are still waiting on our 171h. I am hoping it will be here very soon. I have learned not to hold my breath in this process. The worst part is that we still have a lot of waiting in front of us. Right now with our agency the wait times for infants is 5-6 months, hopefully they are still at this range by the time we get our paperwork in. My Christmas wish is to have our dossier sent off before Christmas. That is the one and only thing on my Christmas list this year. Please Santa, I have been a very good girl this year.

Fun weekend

On Friday Matt and I went to get our second HEP B shot. We then went to Springfield to get all of our paperwork state certified. While we were in Springfield we went to White Oaks Mall, not much to write about on that though. That mall used to impress me, maybe I'm too old to be excited about malls. I would have loved to go to Babys R Us while we were there but it took all the sweet talking I had to get Matt to go t0 the mall. Saturday we had Christmas with Matt's mom's side of the family then Matt and I went to St. Louis with good friends of ours. We just went to St. Louis for the night but it was a lot of fun. We went to eat on the Landing then we went to the 2 casinos there in St. Loius. Matt and I didn't do so well at the the casinos though, but it was still a good time. I unfortunately have a very bad cold and it hit with a vengenance on Sat. night so I didn't get to have as good of a time as I would have liked, plus I lost my voice so it was hard to have a conversation. We went to a couple of bars on the Landing after the casinos then back to our room to pass out. The great thing was that because of my cold I didn't drink too much and was the only one who didn't feel like death the next day, well atleast I didn't feel like hangover death. I thing we all realized that we are getting too old to be partying like we used to. I'm glad we don't do it that often. Sunday I really didn't feel that well. Matt and I just layed around at home and slept off and on. Watched the Bears lose, yet again and went to bed. I felt so bad, Matt ended up sleeping in our guest room cause I was coughing so much he couldn't sleep. He's such a trooper. Now I am just ready to these next three days over and have a four day weekend. Not to mention all the delicious food on Thursday.

HAPPY THANKGIVING EVERYONE!

Oh Happy Day!

This could possibly be the first happy day in this journey called adoption. We received our approval letter from DCFS today and it has now been Fed Ex'd to USCIS and should be arriving in Chicago on Monday morning. What this means for those of you who don't know is that now we wait, yet again, but this time we are waiting for our I171-H, which is our approval to bring orphans into the U.S. This is the last piece of paperwork we need to complete our dossier so we can become a waiting family. Who says that Friday the 13th is a bad day, to Matt and I this was a Good Good Day. And my birthday is Sunday so Happy Birthday to me, the best birthday gift I could get, at this stage of the game anyway. Hopefully next years birthday will be meeting our children for the first time. Of course if this were to happen before my birthday that would be okay too. Okay so now we need prayers that we will get our 171h soon, definately faster than we got our approval letter that is for sure.

Still no approval letter

So in my last post I was all excited that our home study had finally been read and approved by DCFS and that we should have it by the next week, but alas no approval letter. Our social worker said that if he hadn't seen it by Friday (Nov. 6th) that he would call DCFS and find out where it was, but I called our S.W. on Friday and had to leave a message with no call back and then today I find out he is out of the office today. I'm seriously past my patience stage. I am no longer wanting to be nice. I just want our approval letter and I want it now. We have been in this process for 8 months now and we haven't even gotten past the home study stage, which BTW is the first stage. It is ridiculous to say the least. Hopefully I will hear from our S.W. tomorrow, in fact I had better hear something or someone is going to hear from me and I can not promise that it will be nice. So here is to tomorrow.

Our home study has been approved!!

That's right people our home study has finally been read and approved. WooHoo!!! We should have our completed home study in our hands next week. Then we will be sending it to USCIS for their approval and when they send us our I171-H our dossier will be complete to get state certified and then to get certified in Washington D.C. then off to Ethiopia to be registered and then we are a waiting family. Wow there are a lot of steps to International Adoption! Hopefully it doesn't take that long to receive our i171-h but with the holidays coming up I'm not holding my breath on a quick receival of documents, but maybe we will finally get lucky and have paperwork come back to us at a reasonable time, we shall see.

Matt and I have also began discussing what our situation will be once the babies come home and we have decided that I am going to work just part-time at my job now. My boss is ready to have me work part-time as well so it works for everyone. We haven't gone through the logistics of it all yet, we will do that once we receive our referral and things are a bit closer, but it is still exciting to think about. I think I will also be selling Pampered Chef for extra money, this way I can bring in a little extra money but do it on my own time not somebody elses. This way too I won't have to work on the weekends unless I decide to. Hopefully it works well for us. We are going to have to make a budget to make sure we don't go broke but it is all worth it, it wouldn't hurt for us to stop spending money on stupid stuff anyways.

Well that is all for now. I will post again once we actually have our home study in our hands.

more pictures of the zoo

Unfortunatly this is all I was able to get before my batteries died in my camera. The rest of our pics are on my phone which I cannot download to the computer yet.

Shots!! and pictures

So we went and started our series of shots today. I am not going to lie it hurt, but I was told that the worst is yet to come. Apparently tomorrow we will really be sore...so fun fun. It is so worth it though. I've included pictures of today and some other random ones also. Also I was asked to write an article for our church's newsletter regarding November being National Adoption Month it was a lot easier than I expected it to be. I hope something really good will come of it, if nothing else it will allow our congregation to become aware of the plight of the orphans both domestically and internationally. Okay so on to the photos.

Bear at the Indianapolis Zoo that kept going under when I was trying to take its picture, but still cute all the same.

"Look at our owies!"

"Are we done yet?"

Update

Just thought I would post an update today.

I spoke with our social worker yesterday regarding our home study status with DCFS and this is what he said. At this time they have not read our home study yet. They are just now getting to a home study the he sent in a couple of weeks before ours. The woman at DCFS said they are running about three weeks behind at the moment. She apologized but apparently they now have her reading private adoption home studies and she is doing this all by herself. She has an assistant but the asst. is not qualified to read home studies. It is all budget cutting stuff. He did ask her if she knew when she might get to our home study and she answered that she is getting through them as fast as she can. He said that he would check in with her again later this week. So we will see what she says then. But until then we WAIT. I am working on how to be patient though. This process really helps you with that. LOL

So as soon as I hear anything else I will let you know.

Ham-Noodle Bake

-1/4 cup butter, cubed
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/8 tsp. pepper
- 2 1/2 cups milk
- 3 to 4 tsp. prepared horseradish
- 1 Tbsp. prepared mustard
- 6 cups cooked wide egg noodles
- 2 cups cubed fully cooked ham
- 1 cup cubed cheddar cheese
- 1/2 cup soft bread crumbs, toasted

Heat oven to 350
In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in flour, salt and pepper until smooth. Gradually add milk. Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened and bubbly. Add horseradish and mustard; mix well. Stir in noodles, ham and cheese.
Pour into greased 2 1/2 qt. baking dish. Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Uncover; sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake 10-15 minutes longer or until bubbly and heated through.

Yield: 4-6 servings

Famous Pork Chops

- 1/2 cup crushed butter crackers
- garlic powder to taste
- black pepper to taste
- 2 eggs
- 2 pork chops
- 1/4 cup butter

1. Heat oven to 375 F
2. In a shallow bowl combine crushed crackers, garlic powder and pepper; mix well. In a separate bowl beat eggs.
3. Dip the chops in the egg batter and then in the cracker mixture. Place the chops in a casserole dish. Place chunks of butter around the pork chops. Cover and bake for 45 minutes.

Saucy Pork Medallions

- 1 lg. pork tenderloin (1-1/2 lb.)
- 2 tsp. oil
- 3 cups frozen peas
- 1 can (10 oz.) turkey gravy
- 1/4 cup zesty italian dressing
- 1 pkg. (6 oz.) Stove Top Stuffing Mix for Chicken, prepared as directed on package

Cut pork crosswise into 3/4-inch-thick slices.

Heat oil in large nonstick skillet on medium-high heat; add pork. Brown 5 minutes, turning once. Stir in peas, gravy and dressing; bring to boil. Spoon prepared stuffin around edge of skillet, cover.

Simmer on medium-low heat 10 minutes or until stuffing is heated through and pork is done.

Easy Garlic Pork Roast

- boneless rolled pork loin roast (2-1/2 lbs.)
- Tbsp. fennel seed
- 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh thyme or 1 tsp. dried thyme leaves
- 1/2 tsp. salt
-1/2 tsp. coarse ground black pepper
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1. Heat oven to 375 F. Place pork roast in shallow baking pan. In small bowl, mix all remaining ingredients; spread over roast.
2. Bake 40 to 50 minutes or until meat thermometer inserted into center of pork reads 155 F.
3. Remove roast from pan; cover with foil and let stand 10 minutes until thermometer reads 160 F. Remove string from roast; cut into slices.

Makes: 8 servings

Caesar Pork Chops

- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. dried italian seasoning
- 1/2 cup purchased creamy caesar salad dressing
- 4 (1/2-inch thick) center-cut bone-in pork chops
- 1 oz. (1/4 cup) shredded fresh parmesan cheese

1. Heat oven to 375 F. Spray 12x8-inch (2 quart) glass baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. In pie pan or shallow dish, combine flour and italian seasoning; mix well. Pour salad dressing into another pan or shallow dish.
2. Dip both sides of chops in flour mixture, coating well. Dip in dressing, coating well. Place in sprayed baking dish. Sprinkle with cheese. Discard any remaining flour mixture and salad dressing.
3. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until pork is no longer pink in center.

Baked Tilapia

- 4 tilapia fillets (6oz. each)
- 3 Tbsp. butter, melted
- 3 Tbsp. lemon juice
- 1 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
- 1/8 tsp. salt
- 2 Tbsp. capers, drained
- 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
- 1/8 tsp. paprika

Place tilapia in an ungreased 13x9-inch baking dish. In a small bowl, combine the butter, lemon juice, garlic powder and salt; pour over the fillets. Sprinkle with capers, oregano and paprika.
Bake, uncovered, at 425 F for 10-15 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Fun Taco Cups

- 1 lb. ground beef
- 1 pkg. (1 1/4 oz.) taco seasoning mix
- 1 can (10 oz.) refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
- 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Heat oven to 400 F. Cook meat with seasoning mix as directed on package. Press biscuits onto bottoms and up sides of 10 muffin cups; fill with meat mixture. Bake 15 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese; bake 2 to 3 minutes more or until cheese is melted.

Serving Suggestion:
Round out the meal with a fun salad bar. Fill a large bowl with crisp salad greens and smaller bowls with an assortment of chopped fresh vegetables. Then, let everyone help themselves to create their own salad.

Substitute:
Substitute shredded monterey jack cheese for the cheddar cheese or use mexican style shredded cheese.

Special Extra:
Serve with thick 'n chunky salsa.

Cheesy Sausage and Egg Bake

- 1 lb. bulk pork sausage, cooked and drained
- 1 1/2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms (4oz.)
- 8 medium green onions, sliced (1/2 cup)
- 2 medium tomatoes, chopped (1 1/2 cups)
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (8oz.)
- 1 1/4 cups original Bisquick mix
- 1 cup milk
- 1 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 1/2 tsp. chopped fresh oregano leaves or 1/2 tsp. dried oregano leaves
- 1/2 tsp. pepper
- 12 eggs

1. Heat oven to 350 F. Grease rectangular baking dish, 13x9x2-inches. Layer cooked sausage, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and cheese in dish.
2. Stir remaining ingredients until blended. Pour over cheese.
3. Bake uncovered 30 to 35 minutes or until golden brown and set.

Substitution: Spice it up! Use chorizo or hot italian sausage instead of the bulk sausage for more heat.

Simplify: No cutting board is needed if you buy sliced mushrooms and already-cut tomatoes. And the green onions? Just snip them with kitchen scissors directly over the mushrooms.

Rosemary-Dijon Pork Chops & Oven Potatoes Dinner

- 1 lb. potatoes (about 3 small), cut into 1-inch chunks
- 1/4 cup Kraft Light House Italian Dressing
- 4 bone-in pork chops (1 1/2 lb.), 1/2 inch thick
- 4 tsp. Grey Poupon Dijon Mustard
- 1/2 cup Shake 'N Bake Original Pork Seasoned Coating mix
- 1/4 tsp. dried rosemary leaves, crushed
- 2 cups hot cooked baby carrots

Heat oven to 375 F. Toss potatoes with dressing in microwaveable bowl. Microwave on HIGH 7 minutes, stirring after 4 minutes. Spread chops with mustard. Mix coating mix and rosemary in shallow dish. Add chops; turn over to evenly coat both sides of each chop. Place in center of foil-lined 15x10x1-inch pan; surround with potatoes. Bake for 30 minutes or until chops are done (160 F) and potatoes are tender. Serve with carrots.

Sloppy Joes

- 1 lb. lean ground beef
- 1/4 cup chopped onion
- 1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
- 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
- 1 tsp. prepared yellow mustard
- 3/4 cup ketchup
- 3 tsp. brown sugar
- salt to taste
- ground pepper to taste

1.) In a medium skillet over medium heat, brown the ground beef, onion and green pepper; drain off liquids.
2.) Stir in garlic powder, mustar, ketchup and brown sugar; mix thoroughly. Reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Tues., Wed., & Thur. recipes

BROCCOLI-CHEDDAR CHICKEN BUNDLES
- 8 boneless skinless chicken thighs
- 1 cup frozen broccoli florets, thawed and chopped
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
- 1 pouch Shake-n-Bake extra crispy mix

Heat oven to 400 F.
Place chicken thighs, smooth side down, on cutting board. Flatten slightly by pounding with meat mallet to 1/2-inch thickness. Top evenly with broccoli; sprinkle with cheese and bacon. Roll up each chicken thigh; tightly, starting at one of the short ends; secure with wooden toothpicks. Place coating mix in shallow bowl. Roll each chicken bundle in coating. Mix until evenly coated on all sides. Place, seam sides down in single layer in foil-lined shallow baking pan. Bake 25-30 minutes or until chicken is cooked through (170 F). Remove and discard toothpicks before serving.



VELVEETA CHEESY CHICKEN & BROCCOLI RICE
- 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
- 1 can (14 1/2 oz.) chicken broth
- 2 cups instant white rice, uncooked
- 1/2 lb. (8oz.) Velveeta pasteurized prepared cheese product, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
- 1 pkg. (10 oz.) frozen chopped broccoli, thawed

1.) Cook and stir chicken in large nonstick skillet on medium-high heat 5 minutes or until done.
2.) Stir in broth. Bring to boil.
3.) Add rice, velveeta and broccoli; cover. Remove from heat. Let stand 10 minutes. Stir until Velveeta is completely melted and mixture is well blended.

Shortcut: To quick thaw frozen broccoli, microwave for about half the cooking time specified on the package.



CHICKEN CORDON BLEU
- 4 boned, skinless chicken breasts (about 6oz. each)
- 4 slices ham
- 3.5 oz. grated cheddar cheese
- 3 Tbsp. flour
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- salt & pepper
- 5 cups breadcrumbs
- 2 Tbsp. butter
- 2 tsp. oil

Heat oven to 325 F.
1.) Slit and spread chicken butterfly style. Place a slice of ham in each breast. Sprinkle with grated cheddar and press firmly to close.
2.) Dredge each stuffed breast with flour and dip into eggs. Season with salt & pepper then coat with breadcrumbs.
3.) In ovenproof skillet , heat oil, melt butter and gently sear chicken breasts on both sides until golden. Finish baking in oven 25 minutes.

Fingerprinting, Zoo and Ethiopian restaurant

So yesterday Matt and I went to Indy to get our fingerprints done with USCIS and while we were there we decided to go to the Indianapolis zoo and to an Ethiopian restaurant. First the appt., which BTW was at 10am Indiana time (an hour ahead of us), we had to leave home at 630am, boy were we tired. But the fingerprinting was quick and painless. Both of us figured we would be sitting in the USCIS office for 2 hours waiting, we waited for about 10 minutes and that was because we were 10 minutes early. So it was definately not bad at all. I had wanted to get a picture of us outside the building but didn't. I did find out that I have a very unique type of fingerprint on my index fingers. More unique than usual, the girl who took my fingerprints was excited about them, so of course I had to rub it in to Matt just how unique I am. He just said I was a big nerd. LOL. After our fingerprinting we went to the zoo. We had a good time, but I think it would have been better if it had been warmer and in the zoo's prime time. A lot of the animals were not avail. for showing and nothing was open. But we still had a great time just being together. I will download pics of the animals when I get a chance. After the zoo we went to an authentic Ethiopian restaurant and verdict is that we do not like the food. The atmosphere and the our waitress were great, we were even able to buy a couple of CD's of Ethiopian music, but the food was definately not for us. Atleast we can say that we tried it. Hopefully we will not have to eat too much of it when we are in country. After we ate we went home. It was a great day in all and I really enjoyed getting to spend time with Matt. He has been working really long hours for the past couple of months so we haven't been able to spend much time together so it was great to reconnect with him.

On to other adoption news; we should be getting our referral letter from DCFS in a couple of weeks. This is the letter that states that they approve our home study report. It's is the only thing preventing us from sending in our home study report to USCIS so that we can get our golden ticket (I171-H). Let's cross our fingers and toes and pray that it comes sooner rather than later. I am so ready to send in our dossier it is not even funny.

I will post a recipe tomorrow.

Burrito Pie

- 2 lbs. ground beef
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 tsp. minced garlic
- 1 (2 oz.) can black olives, sliced
- 1 (4 oz.) can diced green chile peppers
- 1 (10 oz.) can diced tomatoes with green chile peppers
- 1 (16 oz.) jar taco sauce
- 2 (16 oz. each) cans refried beans
- 12 (8-inch each) flour tortillas
- 9 oz. shredded colby cheese

1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2.) In a large skillet over medium heat, saute the ground beef for 5 minutes. Add the onion and garlic, and saute for 5 more minutes; drain. Mix in the olives, green chile peppers, tomatoes with green chile peppers, taco sauce and refried beans. Stir mixture thoroughly, reduce heat to low, and let simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.

3.) Spread thin layer of the meat mixture in the bottom of a 4 quart casserole dish. Cover with a layer of torillas followed by more meat mixture, then a layer of cheese. Repeat tortilla, meat, cheese pattern until all the tortillas are used, topping with a layer of meat mixture and cheese.

4.) Bake for 20 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until cheese is slightly browned and bubbly.

Tater Tot Casserole

TATER TOT CASSEROLE
- 1 can (10-3/4 oz.) cream of mushroom soup
- 1 lb. ground beef
- onion flakes
- 1 pkg. tater tots
- 1 pkg. frozen mixed vegetables

Heat oven to 350 F
Cook ground beef; drain. Put in small baking dish. Add veggies. Srinkle with onion flakes. Pour over meat and veggies. Cover with tater tots. Bake for 30 minutes.

VARIATION: SUBSTITUTE CREAM OF MUSHROOM SOUP WITH CHEDDAR CHEESE SOUP.

FRENCH TOAST
- 4 1-inch thick center slices of King's Hawaiian Bread
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla
- 1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Cut bread slices in half. Combine eggs, milk, vanilla and cinnamon; mix well. Quickly dip, do not soak, bread slices in egg mixture. Cook on hot buttered or oiled griddle until golden brown on both sides.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with warm syrup.


CHILI
- 1 1/2 lb. ground beef
- onion, chopped
- 2 cans diced tomatoes with green chilis
- 1 can mild chili with meat and beans
- 1 can hot chili with meat and beans
- 1 can mild chili beans, drained
- 1 can hot chili beans, drained

Brown beef and onion; drain. Combine cooked beef and onion, tomatoes, chilis and beans together in crockpot. If too thick add 1/2 can of water. Add chili powder to taste if desired. Cook on LOW for 4 hours.

Recipe #2

Today will be a full meal including dessert, plus breakfast.

CHEESY BREAKFAST BAKE
- 12 large eggs
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 1 lb. pork sausage
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1/4 lb. (4oz.) sliced fresh mushrooms
- 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
- 2 cups shredded monterey jack cheese

Heat oven to 400 F.
Beat eggs with sour cream with wire whisk until well blended. Pour into greased 13x9-inch baking dish. Bake 10 minutes or until egg mixture is softly set. Meanwhile, cook sausage, mushrooms and onions in large skillet until sausage is cooked through, stirring occasionally; drain. Reduce oven temperature to 325 F. Spoon sausage mixture over baked egg layer; sprinkle with cheese. Bake an additional 30 minutes or until egg mixture is set in center.


HOME-STYLE CHICKEN & GRAVY
- 6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
- 1/2 tsp. seasoned salt
- 3/4 tsp. paprika
- 3/4 tsp. garlic-pepper blend
- 1 (12oz.) jar home-style chicken gravy
- 1 tsp. worcestershire sauce
- 2 Tbsp. milk

Spray large non-stick skillet with non-stick cooking spray. Heat over medium-high heat until hot. Sprinkle chicken with seasoned salt, paprika and pepper blend; add to skillet. Cook 4-6 minutes or until browned on both sides. In medium bowl, combine gravy, milk and worcestershire sauce; mix well. Pour gravy mixture over chicken. Cover; simmer over medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes or until chicken is fork-tender and juices run clear.


ROASTED VEGETABLE COMBO
- 1 1/2 cups fresh baby carrots
- 1 lb. small red potatoes, unpeeled, quartered (3 cups)
- 1 medium onion, cut into thin wedges
- 1 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 tsp. dried basil
- 1 tsp. dried thyme
- 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp. pepper
- 1 (14oz.) pkg. frozen whole green beans

Heat oven to 425 F.
Spray 13x9-inch baking pan with non-stick cooking spray. In large bowl, combine carrots, potatoes & onion. Add oil, basil, thyme, garlic powder & pepper; mix well. Spread evenly in sprayed pan. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Add green beans; toss to mix. Return to oven; bake 20-25 minutes longer or until vegetables are tender, stirring once.


PEANUT BUTTER & FUDGE SWIRL PIE
- 1 pkg. (8oz.) cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
- 2 cups cool whip whipped topping, thawed
- 1 oreo pie crust (6oz.)
- 1/4 cup hot fudge ice cream topping

Beat cream cheese, sugar and peanut butter in large bowl with mixer until well blended. Gently stir in cool whip until blended. Spoon into crust; drizzle with fudge topping. Swirl with knife. Refrigerate 4 hours or until firm. Refrigerate leftovers.

Special Extra: Sprinkle with chopped cocktail peanuts.


Enjoy!

new way of blogging

As some of you may know and some may not know...I love to cook. I collect recipes and try and cook as often as I can. I will admit there are nights where cooking doesn't sound good at all but for the most part I enjoy it. So since there is not much going on right now in the way of the adoption, we are waiting for more paperwork, I thought that each day I will try and post a new recipe from my collection for all of you who read this. If anything exciting happens in the adoption I will type about that also.
I hope you and your family enjoy the recipes.

The first recipe is for the slow cooker:

MOM'S TURKEY BREAST DINNER

- 4 potatoes, peeled and sliced
- 4 carrots, peeled and sliced
- 2 to 3 lbs. turkey tenderloins
- 10 1/2 oz. can french onion soup

Place vegetables in a slow cooker; add turkey breast. Pour soup over top. Cover and cook on LOW setting for 6 to 8 hours. Serves 6.

We are now licensed Foster parents

We have been officially approved by DCFS to adopt!! YAY!! One more step down, many more to go. By getting this license we can now send in our Home Study to USCIS (Homeland Security) so that we can get our 171-H, which is the last piece of paperwork we need for our dossier. Yesterday when I got our mail and saw the envelope from DCFS I just started crying tears of joy. Just knowing that we are one step closer to getting our dossier in the mail, getting it registered in Ethiopia and getting on the wait list for our two precious babies was just a little overwhelming. We have been in this process for a little over 7 months, which I know to some people out there in the adoption world is not that long of a time, but to me it is a crazy long time considering we haven't even sent in our dossier yet. I have seen on other adoption family blogs that they have been in the process for 5 months and 3 of those months they have been on a waiting list. CRAZY!! I know that everything will happen when it supposed to happen, at least that is what I keep telling myself to keep my sanity. LOL!! We get our fingerprints done by Homeland Security a week from tomorrow and we get started our shots in October so at least we have that to look forward to.

just an update

So to update you all about what is going on right now in the adoption. We will be getting our fingerprints done with USCIS on September 29th in Indianapolis. I will be starting the series of shots on September 28th, I have never before been excited about shots. Matt will start his series of shots on October 5th. We are still waiting for our Home Study to be approved by DCFS, it has only been 5 weeks and our case worker told us it could be anywhere from 5 to 8 weeks so I'm not surprised that we haven't heard anything yet. Matt has been working a lot lately so we haven't been doing anything exciting. My SIL, Rachel, and I went to the Arcola Broomcorn Festival on Saturday and then on Sunday we went to a picnic with other people who have or are adopting from Ethiopia. It was really nice to finally meet some of the people I have been emailing or have been stalking their blogs. It was really great to see the children who are home and to see how well they are doing. I can't wait until we get to bring our own children to these get togethers. Someday the paperchasing and waiting will be a distant memory and I will be the mother of two gorgeous babies. But until then I will enjoy my time with my DH, because as he so lovingly points out, we will never have this time again and after having children we will never be the same.

I am disobedient

Well yesterday I did what I was told not to do by our home study agency but told to do by everybody else in the adoption world; I mailed our I600-A to USCIS without our home study. This paperwork is for us to get permission from homeland security to bring an orphan, or in our case orphans, into the U.S.A. They have to have your home study report before they can give you the form you need for your dossier,which is called I171-H, but they don't need it to make the appointment for your fingerprints, and since that appt. can take up to 4 weeks to make I figured I would go ahead and send in what we can to get our fingerprinting appt. and get that out of the way. I'm hoping that we will have our approval from DCFS by the time we get our fingerprinting appt., that would be like the cherry on top:)

So one more step closer to sending in our dossier. I have all but my employer letter, our home study agency's license and the I171-H (which is what we get from sending in the I600-A to USCIS) to be finished with our dossier. I'm so ready to be done with the paperchasing. Once we get the above three documents we then need to get them notarized then state authenticated and then we can get them sent to our placement agency to do the next step which is get it to Ethiopia so we can get on the waiting list. There is still a lot of time before that will happen, but it is still exciting. I figured that if everything goes the way it is supposed to with no hang-ups we will hopefully be traveling or getting ready to travel this time next year. WOW!! Fingers and toes crossed;)

Hooray!!!

So we got our home study report today and it is corrected and ready to be sent to DCFS. It will be sent either today or Monday depending on when Mike is able to get it signed by the director of ICM. It feels so good to know that this part of the process is done. Now all we have to wait on is DCFS to write of referral for adoption, which means that the state of IL has to okay us to adopt an orphan. Once we receive that letter then we will send it to the USCIS (Homeland Security) to approve us to bring an orphan into the U.S. Once we receive the appropriate paperwork from them then we can send in our dossier and be a waiting family. YEAH!!! But first things first, we have to get past DCFS, it can take up to 4 weeks or more to get the letter from them. So we wait. Adoption is full of waiting. I am not a patient person but I think I will have to become one, which will only help me with the joys of parenthood. Okay so many prayers that DCFS will get us the referral letter in record time!

FRUSTRATION

That is what I am feeling and have been feeling for quite awhile now. Our home study report is still not done. Our S.W. sent us an email with the finished home study report for us to look over on July 14th but it was missing pages, he said he would get if fixed and that he would get it to us by Mon. (20th) or Tues. (21st). We did not receive it yesterday and have not yet received it today. I am trying to be patient with him since he is so new and we were his guinea pigs but I am starting to greatly lose my patience every minute that I don't see an email from him. Matt, who is pretty darn patient, is even getting frustrated. After we do the corrections on the h.s. it is then sent to our placement agency for them to okay it, then it is sent to DCFS and they have to write a letter saying that we are approved to receive a referral to adopt, which can take up to 4 weeks. Then we send the h.s. plus other paperwork to USCIS for approval to bring an orphan into the U.S. and that can take another 4 weeks or more. We cannot get on the waiting list for a referral until all of that is done. THIS IS WHY I AM SOOO FRUSTRATED!! Please pray that we get our home study soon.

Update

I spoke with Mike, our social worker, yesterday and he said that he should have our home study finished next week. Finally. This step is very frustrating because this waiting doesn't bring us to a referral like the next big wait we still have in store for us. That waiting is the one I am ready for. I am ready for all the paperchasing to be over with and to be waiting on a referral for our children. I am ready for our next step in this journey. And now finally we are getting closer to be at that next step. Now we have to wait DCFS to approve our home study and then wait for USCIS to approve us to bring orphans into this country. There are a lot of people in this process that have their hands in us having a family. So hopefully next week we will be one step closer to our babies.

Still alive

Just wanted to post so that you all knew that we are still here. So far nothing new has happened. We are still waiting on our home study to be typed up so that we can review it and make sure everything looks kosher before it goes to DCFS for them to approve. We did just get back after a week in Las Vegas. We saw Wayne Brady; who was brilliant and sooo funny we were crying, we saw Cirque Du Soleil's Mystere; also brilliant and amazing what people are able to do with their bodies, and we saw the musical The Lion King; I loved it Matt was on the edge about it (he doesn't really care for musicals) but was not upset that we went and saw it. All in all we had a fabulous time but we were ready to come home and rest. This was our last hoorah as a couple with no kids and we are sooo glad we were able to do it. We have no pictures because my camera was not working very well though, which really sucks. Hopefully the next time I post we will have more news regarding our adoption.

New Agency

Well we have decided to go through a different agency for our adoption. This will in no way stall our progress so far. We only changed our placement agency and since we haven't gotten our home study completely finished we are still on the same timeline as before. We have also decided to request for two children, siblings, a boy and a girl, 0-6 months old, in other words twins. We feel this is way that God wants us to go. This is the only new news we have right now, as soon as something else happens I will let you know.

Some reasons why we chose Ethiopia

-1 in 10 children die before their 1st birthday

- 1 in 6 children die before their 5th birthday

- 44% of children in Ethiopia is under fifteen

-60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted due to malnutrition

-The median age in Ethiopia is 18 years

-1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world)

-720,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS alone

-Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa

-Half of the children in Ethiopia will never attend school, 88% will never attend secondary school

-Ethiopia has approximately 4.3 million orphans and the country is twice the size of Texas

-Ethiopia's doctor to child ratio is 1 to 24,000

I got these specific statistics from another blog, but Matt and I learned of them when we were researching countries. We are not adopting a child from Ethiopia to save them, but we did choose Ethiopia partly because of the above mentioned.

Home Study Update

Well we had what sounds like our last Home Study meeting last night. We also got to meet our new social worker Mike, who is great. We are not by any means done with our actual Home Study, we still have a lot of paperwork to do. We are going to be getting some questions from Mike that we need to answer in regards to our marriage and then he will start typing it up, atleast that's what it sounded like to me last night at our meeting. Connie, our original social worker, is retiring on April 24th so she wants to be able to show Mike how to type it up and all that good stuff that the social workers have to do. So we are one step closer to turning in our Dossier!!

we have another home study meeting

I just found out we have our 2nd home study meeting on Tuesday April 7th. YEAH!!! Prayers that everything goes well. We will be having at our house again, so my weekend will consist in cleaning and more cleaning. Atleast this time they will not be walking around our house. So I only have to clean what they will see, which won't be that bad. The only hard thing is keeping things cleaned with two black dirty dogs and white carpet and tile. It is worth all the scrubbing and vacuuming though.

1st Home Study Meeting

We had our first home study meeting a couple of weeks ago and it went great. Much better than we anticipated actually. We didn't think it was going to go badly, we were just nervous about the whole thing. It is a little unnerving to have someone come to your home and to know that the future of your family is in their hands. It ended up that Connie, our for now social worker-she is retiring in about 20 days, was great.

For those of you that don't know what a home study pertains here is a little explanation. A home study is to a series of meetings and paperwork to be approved to adopt a child. In Illinois we also must be a licensed foster home. The meeting we had the other night was to start this paperwork. The home study makes you think about things that you might not have even considered about life with an adopted child From the sounds of there are around 4 meetings all together. So 1 down 3 to go. Hopefully we will have finished everything for the Home Study by the end of July. Which we will then be able to send in our dossier to our placement agency. Once that is approved by everyone involved we will be officially a waiting family, which means we wait for our referral of our child. So exciting!!! But one step at a time. First the Home Study.