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 :)