We were selected!!!!

We got THE call yesterday from our social worker that we have been selected as a match for a 6 year old boy in Texas. The picture is from Jan. 2009, so it is old, but it's the best we have at the moment. He is in Kindergarten and loves to play with cars, color, and listen to stories. He likes to play outside and tends to copy other children. (They felt having lots of kids to copy would be good for him. Yeah! Finally someone who sees our larger than average family size as an asset!)

They are getting all of the information from his case file ready to send to us. They have to go through and mark out and identifying info like SSN's and addresses and last names. They said that can take up to two weeks, but they sent it out "with a kind request for expedited service." We'll see what expedited service means when working with government agencies. :) Our social worker said to expect it to take a month. This file is likely 1000-2000 pages!

Once the caseworker gets it back, it will be overnighted to us, and we will be asked to look through it quickly for any deal breakers or things that would make us say he won't fit with our family. If we don't find anything immediately, they will set up travel arrangements for us to go down to Texas and meet him. We will then be able to look through the paperwork in more detail. We have received a 22 page summary already that was very up-to-date with information from this past month! That in itself is pretty amazing.

So, hopefully we will get the box of paperwork relatively soon, and be able to make a trip down to Texas. Emilio's worker is wanting to move things along and hopefully get him in our home the first part of June as school ends.

We are very excited!