Ella's Law

Her social studies assignment was to write a new law.  She worked hard to present this final version today:

Valentine's Day Take Two

Our first Valentine's Day as a family of five was in 2015.  We captured the photo on the left that year.  Yesterday morning before school, I snapped the one on the right. #growingupbeautifully

International Adoptions from Bulgaria in 2017

The Bulgarian Ministry of Justice has released the 2017 statistics for inter-country adoptions.  

As in the past, more than 1/3 of all adoptions were for identified waiting children with special needs.  The remaining procedures were direct matches made by MOJ between a registered family and a child cleared for international adoption but not yet entered into the Waiting Child Register.  Many of these main procedure referrals likely also had identified special needs.  The overall number of completed adoptions from Bulgaria decreased in 2017.

USA – 104 total procedures, including 78 for identified waiting children

Italy - 36 total procedures, including 1 for identified waiting children

Spain - 22 total procedures, including 1 for identified waiting children

France - 21 total procedures

Netherlands - 13 total procedures

Canada - 7 total procedures, including 2 for identified waiting children

Ireland – 6 total procedures

Germany – 4 total procedures

Denmark – 4 total procedures

Norway – 4 total procedures

Belgium - 3 total procedures, including 2 for identified waiting children

Luxembourg – 1 procedure

Cyprus - 1 procedure

TOTAL -  226 total procedures for 306 children, including 84 procedures for 133 identified waiting children

Fat Tuesday

Ella's receiving a special home school lesson on Mardi Gras and Lent today.  To start off right, I made these for breakfast:

And everyone enjoyed.

Valentines 2018

Craig and I are not really holiday people (unless you mean on holiday - then we're big time fans), but with the kids in school we get roped into all kinds of celebrations throughout the year. Today I finished some simple Valentines for Rex and Emilia to share with their classmates.  No candy, of course, that's against policy.

I saw this idea online and it took me just a little over an hour to make 48 of these Valentine felt fortune cookies.

1) Cut out your circle
2) Glue in a pipe cleaner and let dry
3) Add your fortune
4) Fold

Cheap and easy and fun.  It's the best I can do.

January 2018

IAC 415 & 416 Results

The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 415 which was held on December 7, 2017:

1) Spanish dossier from November 2011 referred a male child aged 1 year and 8 months

2) German dossier from May 2012 referred a male child aged 1 year and 4 months with features in health status

3) Italian dossier from September 2012 referred a male child aged 8 years and 1 month with features in health status

4) US dossier from December 2017 referred a waiting child (#3218) with a profile on the MOJ site
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The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 416 which was held on December 14, 2017:

1) Spanish dossier from December 2011 referred a female child aged 2 years and 1 month

2) Spanish dossier from December 2011 referred a female child aged 2 years and 6 months

3) Italian dossier from February 2014 referred a male child aged 9 years and 2 months

4) Spanish dossier from July 2014 referred a female child aged 9 years and 8 months with features in health status and a family history

5) Italian dossier from September 2014 referred a female child aged 1 year and 7 months with features in health status and a family history

6) US dossier from July 2015 referred a brother and sister aged 3 years and 11 months & 6 years and 5 months with features in health status and a family history

7) Italian dossier from July 2015 referred a brother and sister aged 9 years & 7 years and 9 months

8) US dossier from April 2017 referred a waiting child (#3347) with a profile on the MOJ site

9) Canadian dossier from November 2017 referred a male child aged 2 years and 5 months with features in health status

10) US dossier from December 2017 referred a waiting child (#3180) with a profile on the MOJ site