No Spam Filter can stop us!

After our home study last week, I emailed the dossier assistant that our agency recommends.  I figured I might not hear back from her right away because of New Year's and the long weekend and all, but by this Thursday I still hadn't heard from her.  I called to make sure she had gotten my earlier email and she called back within minutes saying she had emailed me a packet of info last week!  Apparently my spam filter on my email thinks that it is imperative that I know about 50+ singles in my area and cheap Canadian drugs, but something this important surely must be trash!  Ugh!  So, now she is added to my address book and I should now receive all of this important correspondence.  We got our entire packet of info filled in and sent off the first FedEx pack to her the next morning.  Progress!  We are getting closer!

**Update:  It is Monday morning, and I just got my tracking email from FedEx saying that my packet was delivered this morning!  It wasn't supposed to get there until Wednesday afternoon.  Hooray!  This makes up a little bit for the info being lost in my spam folder for a week. :)

Abbie's First Birthday

I can't believe my baby girl is already a year old!!!  We love our Abbie Lynn!!!

I am thinking that she looks sooo much older all of a sudden.  I was looking today at the boys' pictures from their first birthdays and they just looked younger still.

We had her party at home with just the 5 of us.  It has been such a hectic month that it was nice to celebrate with just us.

Getting ready to eat some hot dogs.  This is our birthday tradition because everybody likes hot dogs!  This means we don't have to worry about anyone not eating and then not being able to have dessert.  Who wants to miss out on cake?

Opening presents.  I think it looks like she is shaking it to see what it is.  

Smash Cake!  She wasn't really sure what to do with it at first, but she figured it out.  

Starting to dig in.  

She really did like the cake.  She may take after her mommy.  ;-)

Right about here is where I was really hoping that it would wash off easily. :)

It really does not feel like a year has already gone by.  It seems like she was just born a few weeks ago.  Maybe it is just because is has been such a busy year.  It does however make me feel like maybe this next year of waiting for our next kiddo to come home may not drag on forever.  

Home Study!

On Thursday after Christmas we had our home study!  I really had myself completely overly worried about it.  I had spent the previous weeks unpacking the last few boxes that were in the house since our move (I know I am super slow at unpacking!)  We had Christmas on Saturday, left town that evening, and then came home on Tuesday afternoon to the mess that we left on Christmas!  We stayed up until 1am cleaning and getting ready.  Apparently there was no reason to do that because she really didn't care too much about the house itself.  I was just really wanting to make sure that I had done everything I could do to get ready.
The caseworker came and spent almost 5 hours with us.  She basically just asked us a lot of open ended questions about our lives, families, parenting style, what we like to do in our free time, etc.  She also discussed some of the issues related to international adoption.
All 3 kids were there the whole time, and I was really hoping that they would play nicely and occupy themselves.  Ha!  I don't know why I thought that would happen.  I had also hoped that she would be able to come during the afternoon so that the kids would be napping for most of it.  Instead the appointment was at 9am.  About an hour into the interview, Caden came into the living room with Legos sticking out of his ears.  I am sure we looked like very attentive parents right about then.  :-P  I think she thought the kids were cute though and never thought that they were being obnoxious.  I guess she is used to this.  :)
Anyway, everything seemed to go really well, and she didn't seem to have any big concerns.  It should take a few more weeks to get our finalized home study back.  Then we just have to finish our dossier!

Christmas Morning

I know I am a little late posting this, but the last week and a half has been super busy.  Here are some pics from Christmas morning.

Ethan was super excited to go see what Santa left for him.  He woke us up early.

 

Caden is not a morning person, and Santa's coming did not change that.

Abbie had no clue what was going on, but she is pretty much always happy.

Ethan got the Toy Story garbage truck he has been wanting.  He loves everything Toy Story or Lightening McQueen related.

Abbie had fun opening presents, but she would not put her Monkey down the entire time.  She would open a present and then return to playing with Monkey.

Caden got a guitar!  This kid is our musician in making.  Everything he picks up turns into a drum or a guitar.  He basically has not put down his guitar since.

This pretty much sums up Caden's pose for the remainder of the day on Christmas.

Even once he was too tired to keep playing, he laid down with his guitar.

Now Faith...

Every week in Ethan's Pre-K curriculum that we are doing at home this year he has a memory verse.  He works pretty hard at them and has done really well.  One of the first few verses was Hebrews 11:1:

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

Kind of a tough verse for a 4 year old, but he did pretty well memorizing that one.  He still remembers it, but Caden is the one that has latched onto this verse for some reason.  He only recites the first two words.


"Now faith."

Every morning when we go over Ethan's verse for the week, Caden runs up saying he knows his verse.  He then tells me his verse.

"Now faith."

The same verse everyday for about 3 months now.  He has also asked me what faith means.  I have told him that faith means trusting God.  Some of you might have a better operational definition of faith that can be understood by a two year old, but that is what I came up with on the spot, and he seems to get that.

I have thought that it was strange that he has hung onto this particular verse, and even just these two words for so long given how many other verses we have gone over.  There have been much simpler verses that certainly seem easier for a small child to understand, but this is the one that he keeps spouting off.

"Now faith."

I don't think it is an accident though.

I think God has given me a constant reminder in the form of my sweet 2 year old chasing me around all day telling me he knows his verse.  I need to be reminded that God has all of this under control.  Even my son knows that we are supposed to be trusting God.

We know how clear God has been in leading us in the adoption process.  He has given us so many confirmations along the way.  Yet I am very quick to forget all of it and completely stress out about how we are going to get it all done.  The paperwork is overwhelming.  The financial side is scary.  And when I have 3 kids under the age of 5 running through my house screaming and ripping the place apart I wonder if God picked the wrong mommy for this job.

I need to be reminded that I don't need to know all of the answers.  I will never know all of the answers, but God does.  I am not able to handle all of this on my own, but God certainly can.  God can handle all of the details, big and small.  My only job is to trust God.  Have faith in Him and His ability to accomplish everything that He has planned.  Now.  I am thankful that God knows exactly what I need to hear, when I need to hear it, and how to make sure I hear it over and over and over again.

Making Progress

We are making progress!!!  We still have a lot of work to do, but the week of Thanksgiving we sent in ALL of our agency paperwork.  We got an email last week saying they had received everything and requested our home study and that we should get a call from the social worker within 30 days to schedule the home study appointment.  I figured it would probably be a couple of weeks before we heard from them and that the appointment wouldn't actually take place until January or February, but we got a phone call the very next morning!!!  Our home study is scheduled for December 30!!!!  I just didn't think they would fit us in so quickly with Christmas and New Year's and everything coming up.  We are really excited to say the least.
We also sent off our fingerprints for our FBI clearances last week.  We still have quite a bit of work to do on our dossier before we are completely done with paperwork, but it is definitely nice to make some major progress.
Here are some pics we took of the boys with the FedEx pack as we sent it off to our agency.

Ethan is super excited.  Every time I mention to him that we are doing something that has something to do with the adoption, he asks if we are going to get the babies now.  :)  He thinks it is about time we go pick them up.  And yes, that's right, he only says "babies."  He even corrects me if I say baby and says "No Mommy, baby means there is only one.  There is more than one."  We will see if he is right.  (One time he told me we were getting 10, because we needed 5 more boys and 5 more girls.  I had to assure him that this time there would be no more than 2!)  That kid cracks me up.

Caden is still not entirely certain why we are so excited about this envelope.  We talk a lot about the baby, but he doesn't completely get it.  I think he will catch on when we get our referral and have an actual face to go with all of this talk.  He was happy to smile for a picture for mommy though.  :)

I couldn't leave you without a picture of Abbie and her newest trick.  She is not walking quite yet, but she is standing really well.  Isn't she cute?  I think so. :)  I can't believe that she is already 11 months old! This is going by entirely too fast.  She needs to slow down on all this growing up.

Paperwork, Paperwork, and More Paperwork

I bet you can't guess what has been filling up my time lately....
Ok, so maybe you can.  I am drowning under a mountain of paperwork.  I am the type that really likes to check things off my to do list, but this to do list seems to go on forever.  It also seems like every item I am waiting to check off is lacking one piece of information to prevent me finishing it...so nothing is getting checked off!!!  I may loose my mind.
I emailed my sweet friend Jackie yesterday.  She brought her baby boy home from Ethiopia earlier this year, so she has seen the light at the end of the tunnel.  She made me feel much better.  Thank you Jackie. :)
I also just finished typing up a letter that I will have to get notarized that says I make no money for staying at home with my kids.  It makes me laugh that that needs to be notarized...by a notary whose commission doesn't expire until 2012.  Just in case.  In case of what I have no idea...but just in case.  :-P