Home visit scheduled!!

Hi, all! We FINALLY, after months of obtaining various documents, have our home visit scheduled!! Will be next Friday, May 4th(can you believe it's almost May already!?) and we are hoping to have only one visit. Oh, sweet joy, I can TASTE the progress!!! We are still waiting for 1 document, a CPS background check from Tunesia. But, since this is our ONLY hold-up, they agreed to let us go ahead with the home visits. OK, time to start cleaning this house!!!!

This also means that we have to really decide on our referral parameters, since this has to be included in the homestudy write-up. We definately know that we want a young infant with minimal to no special needs, as we feel that this would fit in best with our family and lifestyle. We also could chose whether we wanted a boy or girl. This has been a bit difficult to decide. We both would like a girl to balance out our family(me more than Kevin!), but in the end we have decided that we will not specify one or the other gender. We feel that this takes away from a big part of why we are adopting, as God has called us to take this journey for HIM. We feel that if we were open to only one gender or the other, we would be closing an opportunity that God may have for us. God already has our little one chosen, in His design. We want to keep this adoption all in His name, His design, His guidance....So we will continue to be obedient, and let Him guide us. I would love a girl, but couldn't imagine my life without our little boy, so either will be more blessings than we could count. Instead, we will pray for healthy and happy.

Thank you all for your continued prayers. We are so blessed!!

a couple of birthday pics

a quick update....

Just wanted to keep our supporters in the loop, we haven't completely dropped off the face of the earth!!
We have been busy with LIFE and all it brings us.
Jaden's birthday was FABULOUS, all his little friends had a great time, including little mister himself. Yes, pics are still coming. :-)
Jaden's 1st baseball game was saturday, and we are staying BUSY with that!!

As far as the adoption "stuff", we are waiting......sigh. We have medical appts this week for Jaden and I, and we thought we would be DONE with homestudy paperwork after that. not so much. One of the requirements is that we have a CPS background check for every state and country we have lived in for greater than 3 weeks. Yeah, Kevin was in the military and deployed ALOT. all those countries count. Turns out that Tunesia is the only country that keeps record of such, so really we skated by pretty well with this. But, for the last month and a half we have been playing phone/email tag with the embassy to see if we needed this form. turns out we do, and we just sent it off a week ago, and it takes 2-3 weeks. so, more waiting. Was hoping we would have ALL paperwork in by June 1st, but that's looking very unlikely. So, we are trying to be patient and obedient. YES, LORD, we are still following your call!!! We are NOT giving up!!!

It is hard to be patient though, most of the time. Babies are being born all around us, and it's difficult to wait for OUR precious baby. I know it will be SO worth the wait, but it's still hard. :) Thank you for all your continued prayers. More updates to come.....

3 months "paper preggo" :)

Haven't updated in a while, but really there isn't much your missing! Almost everything is turned in for our homestudy, waiting on medical appts for Jaden and I in two weeks. Now working on Dossier paperwork, which is a cinch compared to the homestudy paperwork!!
Since I am using alot of lingo common to the adoption world, I thought i'd take a minute to explain to you all what the heck I am saying!!
Homestudy-This is a "report" of our lives.....usually about a 25-30 page document prepared by a social worker, who reviews our submitted paperwork and comes to our house for a minimum of 6 hours to visit with us and get to know us.
Dossier-A collection of documents, including the homestudy report, as required by the country you are adopting from.
Waitlist-pretty self explainatory.....we will be on the waitlist for 18-24 months before we get a referral(see next). We will get updates monthy stating what number we are on the waitlist.
Referral-OUR CHILD!! :) A referral means that our agency has found us a child that meets our criteria that we decide on with our social worker. We will recieve a referral after the child passes medical exams AND after both Ethiopian affairs and our agency both do a background check to verify that the child is in fact a legitimate orphan. Oh, what a sweet day this will be!!!!!! We then have a week to review the child's file, PRAY, and decide if that child is really ours :)

We have been busy getting ready for Jaden's 6ith birthday.....you all know how I love parties!! This year, I did scale down a bit and am letting a kids play place host rather than running the show myself. I have to admit, it has been SO much easier! I'll post pics so you can see what I have been working on!

We have yet to set a date for our yard sale, and are still GLADLY taking donations! We are waiting to hear from our church board to see if we can have it at our church...So that will make a difference on when we have it. aiming for mid may, if I can pull it off by then!! Let me know if you have donations, we'll come get them!! So far my basement is overflowing, and it is spilling into the garage! We are BLESSED!

Keep the prayers coming.....We so appreciate them, and we can feel the energy around us from you all praying for us!! LOVE YOU ALL!!! :)