Dossier Submitted!!! Officially "Waiting"

When I came home late Monday night, I was elated to find our immigrations approval in the mail! This is what we have been waiting for since we first applied for it in April! The missing key for us to turn in our dossier.
Many of you have asked us what exactly is a "dossier?" Basically, it is a big stack of paperwork that tells everything about your life!

Here is a sample for you! Each one of those papers has a stack of papers under it! And almost every one of them had to be notarized or certified! Bank records, birth & marriage certificates, physicals, recommendations, etc. On top of that we needed 3 copies of EVERYTHING!

On Tuesday, Emory and I headed to the Copy, Pack, and Mail with our stack of paperwork and a huge smile!

Ok-I may have been slightly more excited than Em!
Unfortunately, Jonathon was out of town on business. As soon as I told him Monday night, after a few squeals of joy, he said "Text me when you actually put it in the mail, I want to take of picture exactly where I am at that moment." Here is the result of that-

On the road with his buddy Landon and the biggest thing of Mountain Dew I have ever seen!

We overnighted our blood, sweat, and tears to our adoption agency, Holt. They received it and reviewed it Wed. and Thurs., and gave us the thumbs up today! We are now officially on the "wait list."

Although we still have a long wait before us, this was a huge step in our process! We are super pumped! Things are out of our hands now (although we know they have been this whole time!) The next step will be the referral of our sweet baby!

Fingerprinting Complete!

Wohoo! We have officially been fingerprinted! The FBI now has our prints on file-so no major crimes in our near future! I was really hoping for at least a little ink residue for our pics, but that's too old-school I guess-everything is digital now!

On Monday morning we headed to the office of Homeland Security here in Nashville. On a side note, it is so helpful that we live in our state capital. If not, we would have already had to do a lot of travelling to get various papers signed, fingerprints, etc. Let me just say, Jonathon and I were the only ones that were excited to be at this office. Apparently no one else was there for the same purpose! Not many people there were enjoying their day. This is also not a great place for Jonathon to be as he takes great pleasure in trying to get people to smile and laugh. Note to self-Homeland Security employees aren't hired for their sense of humor :)

It took Jonathon about 8 attempts to actually get his prints! His little pinkie just wouldn't cooperate.  Even with all paperwork and that pinkie struggle, this whole process took 12 minutes!!! Over 3 months to get things worked out with immigrations, but only 12 min to complete!

Next step-we are anxiously awaiting the approval notice from immigrations. Then we will finally be able to turn in our completed dossier, so our official time on the "wait list" will begin!

Thank you all for your continuous support and encouragement- can't tell you how much we appreciate it!

Should've painted my nails for the occasion!