Introducing...

Anya Irene Fillmore......

My new friend Heather, witnessed miracles today as they were granted custody of this sweet little angel on the other side of the world!

My favorite line from her post about this experience was this:

"Anyone who says that miracles don't happen these days should try falling in love with an orphan. "

In the short amount of time we have been on this journey, we can testify of the same thing. Miracles are happening and continue to happen and I am thankful I am blessed to be a part of them! I am thankful that I have fallen in love with an orphan!

To see the full post from Heather go HERE. I cried the whole time I read it and everytime I think about it I cry because I am so happy for them, their family, and this sweet little girl. I also cry because I CAN NOT wait to here those words.....We hereby declare....that will make Kareen forever ours!!!

UPDATE on our progress:

We have all of our dossier paperwork complete and ready to apostille. We are now waiting on the USCIS approval, which is basically the U.S. approval to adopt internationally. We recieved our receipt form from USCIS in the mail today saying they are processing our request for adoption. The next step will be for them to send us a fingerprint appointment to have our FBI fingerprints taken. Then once that is done they will finalize the request and send us our approval form ....otherwise known as the "golden ticket" because it is the last piece of the dossier and when you receive that "golden ticket" you can finally submit the dossier to Kareen's country. Once the dossier is submitted it will be translated and then upon approval we will recieve an appointment/travel date. So right now we are just waiting and man is it hard to wait! But each little step is a step closer to our girl so it will all be worth it in the end!