We survived...

Yesterday was our first homestudy visit and it went REALLY well. Our caseworker, Laura is so nice. She asked a few questions but said she got most of the information that she needed from our mound of paperwork that we've already turned in. I found out that she's done homestudys for alot of people we know including our pastor. That made me feel so much better. We have to do two more home visits before our completed homestudy is ready to be sent to Gladney. Those are both scheduled for next week. We're also waiting on an FBI clearance. I guess this is something different than the one we got last week for our dossier. Hopefully that comes soon.

We've also decided to change the requested age for our baby. We originally said up to 18 months but have decided to change that to up to 12 months. We've got some concerns about language barrier issues. Heck, we're having a hard enough getting CT to talk I don't know if I can handle two non verbal children. :) The most important reason is I'd really like to try to breastfeed the baby and the younger she is the easier it will be to get her to latch on.

Thanks for all your prayers and words of encouragement. You guys are the best!

homestudy tomorrow

Our social worker called this morning and asked if she could come for our first home visit in the MORNING. EEK!! I'm a nervous wreck. My house is a wreck from all the Christmas chaos. I just got all the wrapping paper and boxes picked up today. Now I will be cleaning like a mad woman all day. I'm so nervous one of us are going to say something stupid. UGH! Pray it goes well and that I don't puke. :)

new pics of my kids

Today I took the kids over to my friend Darla's house so she could take some pictures of the kids. CT was less than thrilled and most of the pictures ended up looking like this.

We did get a couple of cute shots. CT never smiled but at least he wasn't SCREAMING.

Adoption update....I got a call from the social worker doing our homestudy. She said she would be doing the first visit next week. YAY!! We're getting close.

an update

hi guys! It's been a few weeks since I'm updated. With all the Christmas parties and shopping and stuff I haven't had much time. I'm sorry & I won't let that much time pass between updates again. :)

We should be hearing from our homestudy agency this week to schedule a home visit. I'm sure with Christmas & New Years coming up, it will be the 1st of the year before they can schedule anything.

We also got our FBI clearance back for our dossier....I think. :) Question for the BTDT families...do they just send some letter that you have no idea what they are talking about along with your fingerprint card with a "all clear" stamp on the back? That's what we got back so I'm guessing that's what it's suppose to look like.

We're about half way done gathering all the paperwork for our dossier. I'd like to have that puppy turned in by the beggining of Feb. but we'll see. :)

That's about it going on with our adoption. I have a pretty cool story to tell you guys about something that happened at work last week. I'll try to post that tomorrow.

I'm speechless!

God is so good. I'm continually blown away by His faithfulness. Just last weeks I posted about being short $700 for our post placement fees. In the past 2 weeks we've received a $180 worth of tshirt orders and $20 donation from a blog buddy (Thank you so much) That left us $500 short. Today Sean went into work and sitting on his desk was an envelope with "Ethiopia Adoption Project ~ God Bless You!!" written on it. Guess what was inside? $500!!! How Awesome is that!! I'm still in shock right now. I have no idea who gave us this money but Thank you so much! Thank you for not only investing in us but investing into "M's" future.

Isn't God so amazing!!!

Thanks & help again

First, I want to say thank you to everyone who left me a comment or emailed me after my "money woes" post. As scary and unpredictable as this whole process is the one constant is that God IS Faithful. I know that....that may be all I know right now but that I know!! Thank you guys for being such an amazing support during the down times. I love how the body of Christ comes together to lift each others arms in time of stress and grief. We ARE family!

Next, I need help again from all you BTDT (been there done that) adoptive parents. I'm working on sending in for my FBI clearance letter. I've wrote the letter to FBI and DH and I both have our fingerprints. On the fingerprint cards, do I fill it out completely like I did for our first set of prints or do I just add name, dob, place of birth like the Ethiopia manual suggests? Also, I set up a Fed Ex account but how the heck do I prepare a prepaid overnight envelope? Do I need to just go to the Fed Ex place and have them help me? So, in the packet to the FBI I'm putting in: the letter (signed by DH and myself) the fingerprint cards, the $36 money order to the Treasury of the United States, and a prepaid envelope for them to mail it back to me. I know this stuff sounds simple but I just don't want to mess this up. Just reasure me that I'm doing this right and I'll stick it in the mail today.

just sharin'......

I was listening to podcasts this morning and came across this one and wanted to share with my adoption blog buddies. This is pretty awesome. It's the Dennis Rainey speaking about God's heart for adoption. He also adresses alot of the myths within adoption.

Listen here