We ducked under a rope this time...this time

Our au pair (nanny) was going to switch families for her 2nd year in the au pair program, because she wanted some new experiences (& possibly 4 children at some point scared her a bit), BUT at the last minute we jokingly offered her a raise and a ticket to visit Germany to see her best friend....AND she took the deal! Now we don't have to worry about delaying the adoption EVEN FURTHER by getting a whole new person into our homestudy fingerprints, & medical papers, etc.

We use Cultural Care as our au pair agency. We really like having an au pair in the house...soooo nice to not have to wrap the kids up and drag them to someone's house for daycare, etc. We also like the cultural experience it brings to our family. Our current au pair is from Panama and now she will be with is until July 19th of 2011.

After they added, like 2 sentences, our homestudy is STILL with DCFS...ughhh. Then the next step is getting everything apostilled.

Sent to DCFS again

The homestudy agency sent to homestudy to DCFS (a requirement in IL) on March 5th. On April 5th, they heard back, but then they wanted some wording added. So, the homestudy made these changes, but them the adoption agency had to approve it again. Of course, there was the Easter holiday in between all this so that added days as well.

I tried to be proactive and fill out the I800 form, but the I had a question about one section of it and when I asked, the adoption agency said "everything in its time" or something like that.

So, now as I wait for the final, final DCFS approval, I want to get my pictures together. I need 2 sets. Do I glue photos to a piece of paper or do a lay them out and scan them and make a color copy? Do I write captions under each photo? Do they need to be all on one page?