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!