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!

Oh Happy Day...Oh Happy Day....

So..the other night Travis and I finally sat down and completed our homestudy application. Since we are going through a Christian homestudy agency, there was a part of the application that asked a few questions about your Christian faith. One of Travis's responses brought a tear to my eye - "Our little girl will be taught how to pray and live her life honoring God." I know it sounds so cheesy that I would cry, but I did indeed get a little misty. It reaffirms that yes, Travis and I will have a little girl! We finished our application, and I sent it in today! Yippeee!

That's all for now - we are just waiting to hear back "officially" from our homestudy agency to set up our first visit!