Proverbs 16:2

All a man's ways seem innocent to him, but a man's motives are weighed by the Lord.

What a powerful verse! How often do I find myself trying to do the right thing for the wrong reason? I can try and justify it in my own mind but God knows my true motives. Was it to look good? Was it to give myself praise? God knows! He wants me to examine my heart and live my life by making choices for his glory not for my own rewards! So even if I am doing something good, I need to always examine myself and if the good is being done with a pure heart!

Look what I got for $50!

These are most of the things I got at the outlet mall last week! All these things for only $50. I also got a couple pairs of adorable shoes for $2.99 each and two pairs of boys tennis shoes for my little guys for the same price!

Today was a great day! First, the boys and I hit the outlet mall and found bargains galore. Children's Place had crazy amounts of clothes and shoes for only $2.99. I think Claire has just about all she needs after the sales I got today. It was a blast getting such great prices.

Then when I got home we called and found out that we have NVC in and NVC out as of today. This means that our I-600 was logged in in the US and has now been sent to Seoul, South Korea. One more step in the process that we have gotten through. We are VERY excited!!

I am currently adding some new photos to my blog so check back in the coming days. I also going to add some that are sewing project pictures from my www.ItsSewChic.com buisness!

Waiting for Claire!

So, it has been brought to my attention, as it should have, that I am way behind in posting to this blog. Life is a little hectic with three boys and our little girl on the way. Today, however, I am making time to update everyone about out lives and what is happening with little Claire over in Korea. By the way- we finally picked a name for our daughter. She will be Claire Liliana Se-ra.

After receiving Claire's referral, it took a little over a month to get her legals (essentially all her background history that the USCIS needs to approve her to come to our country). I was bummed that it took so long but was relieved that we finally had it. These papers allowed us to file the I-600 form with USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) allowing us to bring Claire home. It was just another step in the process and I was anxious to get it done. I new that once we submitted it, it could take weeks to get the approval.

Chad dropped off the form to the USCIS office in Des Moines on 6/19. This last week on 6/25 the official approval letter was in our mailbox. The date on the paper said it was approved on the 19th, only one day after we submitted it! What a blessing - something going very quickly in the process. I just have to remember not to get too excited and expect this to happen with all of the other things we are waiting on.

As of right now, we have done all the paper filling out that we will need to do. It is just a matter of waiting for all the paperwork in Korea to go through. I am still hopeful that it could happen sometime in August maybe September.

We sent Claire a care package a few weeks ago and we are hoping that maybe we will get an updated picture of her with everything we sent. I am dying to know what she looks like now since we only have a picture of her at a few weeks old. I am so curious if she has hair! It is nice that each month we get well baby checks (much like the monthly checkups for babies here in the U.S.) letting us know how tall she is, how much she weighs, how she is doing developmentally and what vaccinations she has gotten.

I am going to try and up date things on a more regular basis as we hear more.