New blog...

We are switching our blog to www. ourlittlemisscupcake. blogspot. com (without the spaces). The address of the blog makes more sense, because Lil' Cupcake is not a baby, and she's our Little Miss Cupcake! I will be adding posts to the new site in the next few days - just as the craziness of packing, getting everything ready, etc. picks up! :)

Less than a month...

...until I get to meet this beautiful face! I'm so super excited! I can hardly wait, and it will be here before I know it - YAY!! If you can't read between the lines, I'm beyond elated to meet our daughter! Enjoy some more pictures of Miss Smiley!

Today is the day....

that we found out that we are legally Lil' Cupcake's parents! YAY!! I'm so super-d-duper excited! T & I are parents! We are so excited! We cannot wait to bring her home, and for her to meet all our family and friends that have put up with us throughout this journey! I will be traveling September 13-20! Ahhh- that sounds so close, and I have so much stuff to do! One thing I did get checked off the list today was enrolling her in preschool. She will be attending it at the church I work at. Super excited! Off to complete more things on my list - in the meantime enjoy one of our latest pics of her!

Tomorrow is the BIG day...

Monday, August 4th is our court date! This is the last week for court dates, so I'm almost expecting our court date to get bumped (because there are so many families that have been pushed back from last week to Monday)- therefore if we do pass, it will be an extreme blessing. So, please be praying - I'm in need of all the prayers we can get! I'm getting pretty anxious to bring her home, and Travis can't wait to get her out on the ice for hockey.


Here's to a sleepless night, and hopefully good news tomorrow morning, bright and early!!

Yeah-Yeah....

I have survived our jr high mission trip! I got back today (Saturday), and will be heading out in exactly a week for our sr high trip! Oh, how I love mission trips! It is unbelievable watching youth serve the Lord - to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and watching their faith ignite! But...the true reason for the post is that while on the trip, we received a court date! Our court date is August 4th, the last day of court dates before courts close for the rainy season. So, please be praying that we pass the first time! We will then be counting on me traveling the last week of August/first week of September! YAY!! I am getting anxious to pick up that precious little face! Can't wait to pass court so I can post pics of her!

The Weekend has come and gone...

This past Saturday, I woke up with a crazy red eye. It burned, watered, and was just a plain, pain in the butt. However, I wasn't about to let it damper my big day ahead. First thing first, had to head to the church for an architect meeting. We are adding a north addition, youth room, to our church. So the architect was there to show us drawing plans. Before the hour and a half was up, I think I was cross-eyed with one in particular, red and burning. I drove home, and got ready for our big day. My mom, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law were waiting for me. We were on our way to Mankato to get some shopping done for little Miss Cupcake. Well, had our lunch at Subway and then were on the road. First stop, Sally's. I got Children's Silken supplies for her hair. Mmmmm, they smell so good too - almost good enough to eat. I also picked up a few containers of the 500 rubber bands (yeah...high ambitions for myself - prepared to go through 1,000 rubber bands). Then over to Michael's - in search of wooden letters. Ended up getting a big bag of beads for her hair, and a cute little Cupcake scrapbook pack. After that we were off to Sheels to get a hockey practice jersey for hubby, too bad, so sad, they didn't have one. So we ended up going through the mall. Stopped at Gymboree (bought and returned a $40.00 jean jacket) and Children's Place (which had a too cute cupcake shirt). Then spent a little time in Target, and stocked up on children' medicine, vitamins, thermometer, etc. Stocked up in the first aid section :) After our Target run, we went to Walmart, where we hit the jackpot. We found a bed railing to keep her from falling out of bed, a booster seat for the dining table, a little Dora toilet seat (one you put on top of pre-existing one, so she won't fall in), a few rubbermaid accessories for markers, pharmacy collection, etc. And the best thing of all, probably because I think they are so stinkin' cute - Lil' Pip Squeaks. They are tiny little markers for toddlers/preschoolers! They are cute, and the name is cute - had to get them! (Today I was at Target and they had a 36 collection of Pip Squeaks markers, and they also had a traveling set with a notepad - take note, I need to get those maybe next time I'm there). **Check out picture of Pip Squeaks at the end of the post!**

The whole reason for posting is that a wonderful family from our agency just brought home their little girl Sara. Amazing among picking up his own daughter, this father took amazing pictures of Lil' Miss Cupcake! He took over our first package complete with healthy fruit snacks, a couple play necklaces, a shirt, photo album of us, and a little doll. He took pictures of her opening up her package. I absolutely love all the pictures, but my heart especially melted when I saw her looking at the picture of Travis and I. It also melted when I saw a picture of her holding a ball, and smiling into the camera. Our first ever picture with a smile -and she has a mighty cute smile too! I just can't help but continue to look at these news pics! Mommy will be there soon to pick you up! Please continue to pray for our court date! Because we have so many families going through, we are hoping to be filed this week (no problem with me, a lot of those other families have waited a long time for a court date). Here's to some good news soon, especially that of hearing a court date! That way I can start making plans of when I will be gone for work, and getting stuff situated with that. It has to be approved by the Council before I can do it!

Without further ado, the Lil' Pip Squeaks!!
Aren't they super cute??

While I'm Waiting...

I still haven't heard anything yet, but in the meantime, I might as well make myself busy! This is Lil' Cupcake's bedding. I bought it tonight online and should be here in 7-10 days! Isn't it super cute? YAY!! I finally found bedding that I like and that will match her room. A piece of advice, if you are painting a kid's room bright colors, be prepared to take a while to find bedding in bright colors :) Enjoy!

Waiting...Waiting...Waiting...

We are waiting for a court date. Our agency said that they were applying for a court date yesterday, Monday. I haven't heard anything yet, but I'm hoping for the best. Grace, from our agency, is probably still in the air enroute to pick up her son, so I'm guessing that she will let us know whenever if we got a court date. I'm praying that we do, so I can start getting some plans in order, especially relating to work (both at the school and church).

As of right now, we are still waiting, but I will let everyone know once we hear something!


We're inching our way to bringing you home Lil' Cupcake!

Ahhhhh....

My cousin just saved me from insanity! I'm starting to freak out a little - you know, I am a first time mom (so this is what I'm supposed to be doing, right?)! When I was almost on the verge of a worry meltdown about what books I need to read (hint, I'm a bookworm, and have to read as much as possible, especially in preparation for Raeghan). Okay, so I'm on the verge of this meltdown, and what is sitting on my desk in my home office - 2 packages from my cousin. These weren't just any ordinary packages - one package had at least 6 books relating to adoption, raising an adopted child, transracial adoption, etc. and I was suddenly put at ease. Then I opened up the second package, and my cousin and her kids had put together a package full of goodies for Raeghan. AHHHHH!! Isn't that awesome! So with the arrival of two packages, my nerves have been set at ease! YAY!! My cousin ROCKS!!

Thanks KT!! You Rock!!

Raeghan...

Just in case you haven't heard, which I highly doubt, we received a referral for a 4 year old girl at the end of May! We are extremely excited, and just can't wait to go get her. Right now we are just waiting on a court date (oh, please be soon!), and will probably travel 3-4 weeks following the court date. After our court date, we will officially be her parents, and then we will be able to post pictures of her. In the meantime, you'll just have to imagine a gorgeous little face! (I know, I'm a little bias already!)

HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD,
SING WITH ME...

HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD,
AND ALL WILL SEE...

HOW GREAT, HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD!

I have crossed over...

As of today, I have crossed over!

1) I opted to not use the postal service today, and used DHL instead. I have crossed over - I know mother, you are extremely disappointed in me! I had no other choice, they preferred DHL.

2) Now, why in the world did I have to use DHL for, and especially instead of the UPS (from which my inheritance will come from some day - right Mom - JK)? For my dossier, silly! My dossier is off, and on it's way to Assistant Stork. My stomach had a huge pit in it when I handed over my DHL package to the OfficeMax man! Did that man know how much effort, time, and money I put into that thing - and that, that is what is standing between bringing our daughter home! However, at the same time I felt a sense of relief - MY DOSSIER IS DONE AND IS ON IT'S WAY TO EVENTUALLY BE IN ETHIOPIA!

YAY - this has been a fantastic week! Now, we all know what could make this week even better (wink, wink Grace)!

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!

My Day in Pictures

Captions for pictures!

#1 - This is the beautiful face I wake up to each and every morning, including this one! The other beautiful face I wake up next to wouldn't allow me to take a picture :)

#2 - Me in my car sitting in the driveway just waiting for this adventure to begin!

#3 - My delightful breakfast to jump start my morning -yes, I know, should a person who has a gluten allergy really be eating a doughnut - I thought the same thing myself!

#4 - Please do not try this at home - Driving to my destination, St Paul! Yes, I know many of you are extremely impressed that I could do two things at once - especially drive and take a picture! And aren't my sunglasses kickin?

#5 - Arrived at the Secretary of State office - 9:50am. Left the office 10:05. Pretty impressed, and happy to go on my merry way! YAY our notarizations have been authenticated by the Secretary of State. 18 documents = $90, having them done - PRICELESS!

#6 - Last, but most definitely not least, my finished product! Now, our dossier is ready to be over-nighted to Assistant Stork and furthermore unto Ethiopia. So many more steps closer to our little girl - this has been a superb week and it's only Tuesday! YAY!

Hip..Hip...Hop - Opps, I mean Hurray!

As of Friday, we have our homestudy. On Saturday, we went to the Credit Union and had our final documents notarized, had two passport pictures taken for our dossier, and compiled our dossier. Oh, I'm so excited that we finally received our homestudy after waiting two months for one of our background checks! I thought the day would never come that we would actually have our homestudy in hand. The pictures on the left show my excitement of having it in hand. Lily was a little confused about my excitement, simply because it was just a stapled stack of papers, and not the ads that she loves to chew up. And she couldn't figure out why I wanted to chew her up, rather than those beautiful pieces of paper in my hand. I reaffirmed her that the adoption paperwork has made me a little crazy!

Speaking of being a little crazy, our referral must be coming soon because I am nesting like crazy. On Friday, I completely cleaned out, and organized all of our cabinets, drawers in our upstairs bathroom. Then on Sunday, I organized our game trunk, buffet, and working on the black hole of my office. Seriously, what has gotten into me?! Please, Grace, please say it is because our referral is coming soon! I can't imagine any other reason for my obsessive organizing, aka nesting.

Please continue to pray for our Lil' Cupcake! May she be surrounded by the love of her Ethiopian family, her orphanage family, and our family. We love her so much, and we can barely wait any longer to know who she is!

Cheers to going to the Secretary of State office tomorrow and getting our documents authenticated, and then off to Washington D.C. this week! YAY!!

YAY!!!!

OUR HOMESTUDY IS FINALLY FINISHED!!!! Our social worker called yesterday to inform us that after almost three months, Minnesota finally got our Indiana background check back! YAY!! We should have our homestudy in the mail by the beginning of next week . That way next Thursday, I will be able to take our dossier, homestudy included, up to the Secretary of State in the Cities to have the SOS seal. After that, I will send it to Assistant Stork - who will authenticate it in Washington D.C. and then off to ETHIOPIA! Ahhh - it's so close! Having our paperwork done - will mean we are getting closer to a referral! I can't wait until I get a name and picture for our daughter - but until then I will just enjoy how cute Hope's families' kids are :)

Keep praying for our referral - I hope we get a referral for our Lil' Cupcake - but more than anything pray that she is safe, healthy, and loved.

Just wanted to share our exciting news!


Getting Closer and Closer to Bringing Lil' Cupcake Home!

Dossier...

... IS ALMOST DONE!! YAY!

We are only waiting on the document from Travis' physical, our notarized homestudy, and local police clearance. The rest of our documents have been notarized or are waiting to be notarized! We are good to go! Our dossier will be sent at least by the first of May, and hopefully soon after will have a referral (if not before :) We are so close - but not yet! In the meantime, we pray that Lil' Cupcake knows that she is loved, and we anxiously await to receive her referral.

God is Love! (my signature line from work email)

5 Months & Waiting...

Today marks the 5-month mark! We begun the process 5 months ago! I can't believe how fast the process has gone (well, at times). Emailed our agency today, and she thought we would travel late summer or once courts reopen (October?). Brianna take note (I couldn't get a hold of you tonight!). Can you believe it? I think it helped that our age range is 18-48 months too! I know some referral waits are longer than the whole process will take with Hope. Travis and I are truly blessed to be a part of Hope families. Shimeliss and Grace are amazing - have never ending patience and I don't think either of them sleep - ok, I know Grace doesn't. It doesn't matter the time of day I send Grace an email, within a hour or two I will receive an answer. I think I have to thank Addis (her baby) for that :) Another amazing thing with Hope is the online community we have. If you have a question about any part of the process or want advice, Hope families are there. We celebrate in each other's referrals, court dates, travel dates, and we mourn for each other's losses, stresses, hardships. I love being a Hope family, and I'm praying that one day we will have a Hope reunion for all the kiddos and their families. I can just imagine the group of us together - the message board alone gets pretty funny!

Today, Travis and I are choosing to rejoice in our 5 month mark, because God has truly blessed us beyond measure in the 5 months since we have started the process!

Spilling the Beans...

As our previous post stated, we are now adopting a 18-48 month old (according to our homestudy). In the next year Travis will be traveling a bit more, we were struggling with adopting a baby and a toddler at the same time, and just not knowing what we were going to do. One night after Travis and I were talking about adoption and more confused than ever, I went on my eliptical and sent up, in my own opinion, the most heartfelt prayer I had ever prayed. I was so confused on what God was calling us to do, and I didn't know what to do. I went to bed at peace knowing that my confusion was given to God. The next day, Sunday, Travis looked at me and said, "why don't we just adopt a toddler right now?" Right when he said that, we just knew that was it! So, that's our plans! We are planning to adopt a girl between 18-48 months, and once she has been home for 6-12 months, at one of her post-placement visits, we will begin the process all over again for a baby girl.

As you know, I celebrate a decision with a purchase - blame it on being a visual person. I also had another reason to celebrate - the Minnesota Wild won last night and are heading to the playoffs. So in celebration of both, I bought her a little two-piece Minnesota Wild seat suit. It is too cute (and I'm too lazy to take a pic to put on here). I also bought her the pink cupcake bag from Target - I had too! She needs a bag to use on the long flight home :) Maybe, pictures to come later :)

Update...

Just to let my devoted readers know (all 2 or 3 of you- LOL) that we are now requesting a 2-3 year old girl! YIPPEE! Our plan is to adopt this little girl, and then 6-12 months after she is home, we will begin the process all over again for a baby girl. I'm tired, but will share more tomorrow (hopefully!).

Going Postal...

My sister and I went out to Olive Garden yesterday - can't hang out with my sister without taking her to Olive Garden :) After we ate, we went shopping. At one of the stores, I found this Infantino BabyMail. I just HAD to get it! For those of you who don't know, both of my grandpas, my aunt, my mom, and my dad are in the postal service. Lil' Cupcake needs to become well-educated in the mail department. LOL! And to top it off, one of the packages comes with a lil' cupcake in it!

In other news, I think are homestudy is being completed. Our social worker was getting checking up with our references, and was asking for some final information. I am hoping it is done by the middle of April. My new goal is to get our dossier to Washington, D.C. by May 1 (if not sooner). We have all of our dossier documents ready to go, and are just waiting on our homestudy (and the reference letters - our social worker had them completed - notarized,etc.- so that we can use them in our dossier). Oh, please - homestudy come soon! We can't wait to send off our dossier - one more step closer to a referral!

The Referral Wait...

God, for the sake of my puppy who has to wear Lil' Cupcake's clothes because I don't have anyone else to put them on, for my computer which needs a new background picture, for my family who love buying her stuff so they will know her exact size, for my phone that desperately needs a call from Missouri (where our agency is located), for the sake of a nursery with no furniture and I promised I wouldn't buy a crib or changing table until referral, for my homestudy report to be finished and my dossier ready to go to Ethiopia, and for the sake of my blog so it will be more interesting, please send a referral my way. Oh, please send a referral our way - Lily is begging you!

In the meantime, poor Lily will just have to endure Lil' Cupcake's clothes, my computer will have the same background, my family will just have to continue to guess her size, my phone will still be waiting a call from Missouri, the nursery will be without furniture, and my blog still won't be very interesting!

(Honestly though, we haven't waited very long at all, our homestudy is still being written, and our dossier still being compiled. I'm just getting anxious to see our cute baby after seeing other Hope families with such cute and darling babies. Plus, patience has never been a virtue of mine!)

**Maybe I should be praying about this crud I have had since last Thursday (my birthday). Tomorrow will be my first day back to work. I'm ready to get out of the house! Lily is cute and all, but I think I may be developing carpal tunnel from having to throw her toys for her so much over the past few days. I think I might just be cramping her style - she voiced that this morning when I was using her blanket and after about a half hour she pulled it right off of me. She no longer wants to share her Hello Kitty blanket with me - thats a definite sign I should head back to work!

Signing off, the Princess needs her toy thrown :)

I gave in...

and got a BUMBO! Target finally had a pink one! I'd been eyeing one for quite a while, but for the longest time they only had lime green. So, you can just imagine how excited I was when I saw a pink one at Target.

In other news, our dossier is coming along - my goal is to get our dossier done by April 1st. We can do it, We can do it!

Just for Fun!

Here's a pic of me and my lovely puppy, Lily! Take note of my hat - Trav bought it for me for my birthday!

Will Spring Ever Come?

As I am writing this, it is snowing yet again. It seems if it is not snowing, then it is -20. I would greatly appreciate it if spring comes just a tad bit early, say, next week! Yesterday Travis and I had our final homestudy visit. It looked like she had half of it written up already, so hopefully it will be finished in less than 6 weeks. I know she is still waiting for our background checks to come back, which is normal because those take forever. It went by fast. I realized during and after the visit that Trav and I are truly ready and equipped to to parent a trans-racial, internationally adopted child. Anywho, I went to see Dr. B. today, and guess what, he was called to the hospital that morning. So I waited about a hour for him to come back, and they then asked if I could come back at a different time. Go figure! Dr. B. is always in high demand :) Sure, why not, if I didn't want to come back, I would have had some random doctor there give me a physical. NO THANK YOU!! There is a reason why I travel the 2 hours to see Dr. B. :) So, I now have my physical on my birthday - what a birthday present! LOL!! I was able to leave my physical forms for the homestudy and dossier there, and they said that having the physical notarized wouldn't be a problem because there is a notary there! What a lifesaver! And to top it all off, they gave me a gas card for coming all the way down! What doctor's office gives out gas cards? Dr. B's, that's who!



As we are taking these little steps towards our lil' cupcake, it continues to amaze me that we are going to be parents. Trav and I are finally going to be parents. We are so excited! Lily is even going to be a big sister - LOL!! Even though we are getting closer and closer, I am getting so impatient to see her face. I cannot wait to get our referral, to have a face for the little person I pray for, to have a face for our newest family member, to have a face to console me through the wait of bringing her home, to have a face that will be joining us forever, to have a face to daydream about taking shopping, to the zoo, sledding out in the beautiful snow I now complain about. But more than anything, I know that this wait is nothing compared to when she does join our family!

Update of Room

Here's the latest pic of the room. I still need to do some touch up, but this is pretty much how the finished product will look. Now I have to decide whether or not to write anything in the brown border. Hmm...too many decorating choices! Thanks Mom for passing the perfectionist, decorating sense gene down! : ) Once again, I apologize for the pic not rotated - I save it rotated, but whenever I post the saved pic they always are turned the wrong way. : (

February!!

Ahh! Can you believe February is already here? Where does the time go? I hope the time continues to go by extremely fast, because that means our lil' cupcake will be here before we know it :) So, tonight I began working on our dossier (the document compilied of many documents that is taken to Ethiopia for the court date lil' Cupcake "officially" becomes our's). I think I have figured out what needs to be notorized, then authenticated by the Secretary of State, and then what needs to be taken to Washington DC. May I say figuring that out was WAY more entertaining than the Super Bowl.

Over and out!

Here is Phase 2 of Lil' Cupcake's Room - Now all I need to do is add a brown border and I'll be done! Pretty impressive huh? LOL!! Ps. Sorry about that picture - I can't seem to get it turned upright!




















I also couldn't resist showing you s'more of my cupcake "loot." Travis got me the cupcake pillow and cookie jar. And his mom got me the cute notebooks. Ahh! I love cupcakes! Sorry that the picture is a bit blurry - my case is proven, I need to look for a new digital camera :)

Finally...

We finally sent out our support letter (and basically our announcement to family and friends that we are adopting). Just click on the picture to read it, incase you didn't recieve it! We are milling through paperwork - making sure we are finishing what's needed for our homestudy, and starting to gather what is needed for our dossier. Travis will be getting his physical done this Friday, and I still need to make my appointment with Dr. B.

On non-adoption news, it is freezing cold out! Today we had like a mini blizzard, and the schools even let out early. I, of course, stayed at work and got some stuff done. T is down at the Farm Show in Des Moines. He seems to be having a good time, but then again, he absolutely loves farm shows. That's all I got!!

An Update

I really need to be more consistent on this thing :) Since I last posted, a lot has happened. We have switched agencies; we switched to Hope Adoption Agency located in Missouri. I'm not going to go into any detail about that switch, besides the fact that we feel more at peace going with Hope. We had our first homestudy meeting. We drove all the way to Fergus Falls for it. It went really well, and we are excited to finally get the paperwork stuff started. Right now, we are also compiling our dossier. We are getting it all together, so once our homestudy is done we will have everything ready to go. While waiting for our home visit, I have been painting Baby Cupcakes room. Check out the pics!

Pics of room in Process

Before

Catching Up...

The holidays came and went....Travis and I had an amazing Christmas with the different sides of our family. It was extremely fun hosting the family Christmas in our first home! Not only was it fun having family around - they definitely gave us a lot of loot for our lil' cupcake (our baby girl). It still amazes me that by next Christmas we should have a baby in our arms! Aaaa...that is just so exciting! Earlier this fall, I didn't know if Travis and I would ever have a family of our own, and now we will. A little Ethiopian girl will be our first addition!! Part of the loot we recieved for Christmas included some amazing adoption books. One particular book, There Is No Me Without You, is beyond words! It is not only beautifully written, it clearly lays out the AIDS and orphan crisis Ethiopia is in. This book will open your eyes to a world beyond the cul de sacs we live in! Highly recommend it!

Speaking of that book, it went under quite the battle. The other day, I came upstairs to the bedroom, and feasted my eyes upon a massive pile of chewed up paper and half pages scattered everywhere. My eyes rested upon the center of the pile, my book - There Is No Me Without You. Once I saw my book, disfigured, I let out a loud scream "LLLLIIIILLLLYYY." My sweet innocent puppy, who has never chewed on a single thing besides her chew toys, had chewed up my prized loot. In all my psychological expertise, I beleive this just may be a sign of jealousy! She knows that she will no longer be the baby of the family, and has acted out by shredding the closest thing I have to lil' cupcake - my book :)

As far as our adoption - it is moving along, as adoptions do. I just scheduled our first homestudy visit today. We will be meeting January 14th. I'm already getting nervous for it! AHHH! I have also started gathering documents for the homestudy. We will probably go and get finger printed this weekend, because the homestudy lady mentioned that it does take a little longer for that to be processed for our background check. In the meantime, we have decided not to go with Kingdom Kids Fundraising - simply based on the fact that we can do a lot of it on our own, and their processing/administration fee is quite a bit more than we expected. So we are writing our own letter and preparing to send it out to friends and family sometime in January.

** I will post pics of our loot soon - including a picture of my disfigured book!