Wow, it's been forever since I've blogged. Unfortunately, I don't have much to say or any news to share. We still haven't completed the background checks through our new agency...although we did briefly talk about it this morning...as we have two dozen times over the past 18 months since we took our training. I don't know why we've drug our feet the way we have. We're just enjoying the hustle and bustle of life I guess. Although the past few months I've been thinking about it a lot again and think its time we got back on track again.

Tyson was busy with baseball all summer and attended 'away from home' summer camp for a week as well. This fall he played football and at the last minute decided he wants to give basketball a try. He's on his third week of basketball and is enjoying it very much. He also started confirmation classes this fall as well and is excited to be in the same class as his best bud, Jack.

We finished our basement this summer, adding nearly an additional 1800 sq feet of living space to our house. It's SO nice to have another place to go to watch tv and relax. The basement consists of a very large family/pool table room, a bar area, an office, bedroom, bathroom and laundry room. We did all of the work ourselves but hired my brother in law to tape and texture the walls and ceilings. We're loving it!

:)

Kindle Bzz Campaign - Me, Me!!

I have been a Bzz Agent for several years now and have enjoyed it immensely. As a Bzz Agent, I try out products, then spread 'bzz' on what I think about them, my experiences using them, positive/negative things about them, etc. And then I report back with the responses I receive. I usually get a bunch of rad coupons to hand out as well. I love it. I love to talk, and blog, and FB, and Tweet...So it's great.

Anywho...the latest Bzz Campaign is for a Kindle...Yes! A KINDLE! How awesome is that!! All you have to do to be picked is tweet why you want to be part of the campaign. I, of course could not pass up this opportunity! I tweeted that I want to be chosen because not only do I read a lot, I read a lot of books that are hard to find. I went to the library here in town to find a book on adopting children that have been sexually molested and of course I couldn't find anything like that in a town like this. Amazon was right there with a nice selection though. Not exactly the sought after books that everyone else is out there to find, but nonetheless, great material and information for someone like myself. Over the past two years I've probably ready two dozen books about adopting older kids, kids with fetal alcohol syndrome, PTSD, reactive attachment disorder and many, many others. Having a Kindle would be a great way for me to look back in any of these books for info that I might need in the future. I have toyed with the idea of buying one for a while now...but with everything else going on, it just wasn't in our budget. So, there you go. That's why I want to be picked for this campaign. #imabzzagent


Dawn2851 Dawn


#imabzzagent http://www.bzzagent.com/daily/view/kindle Adopting from foster care and read anything I can about adopting older kids! http://andonemoremakes4.blogspot.com/

Fall is here!

And it's time for an update :) Well, nothing much to update really. We are getting ready to do another back ground check with the new agency we've chosen...that's about it really. I checked out the MN Adopt website the other day and seen a sunny smiling little face looking back at me...that was incentive enough to kick my butt back on track and get the ball rolling again.

July 2011 marked TWO YEARS that we've been approved and waiting. Yesterday morning I read in the paper that a little boy down by the cities was killed by his mothers boyfriend when he slammed his head against the bathroom floor. Then this morning I read they found a newborn baby girl in a plastic bag floating in the Mississippi River...I just can't even fathom a mother doing that to her child. It just breaks my heart. I would have gladly opened my home to both of them. RIP little angels.

Everything happens for a reason...right?

After much discussion, Steve and I have decided to stop our nationwide search for a kiddo and to try our luck with the MN only program. Which is fairly self explanatory...we can only adopt a child from within the state of MN. This, of course means that we will not continue to stay in the pool for our FL kids...which breaks my heart. But it is the best option for us at the moment. The kids case was transferred to a new worker and she decided she wanted to start all over accepting home studies again...which means we were back at square one. We waited for a year to find out if they were ours or not. I can't wait any longer.  It obviously was God's way of saying this wasn't meant to be.

I have a feeling the MN only program will bring good things. I definitely like the idea of keeping the child in their home state. Plus, once we are matched we won't have far to travel, which means we can visit our kiddo several times before we bring her home.

We had our training with our new agency at the end of June and let me just say that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE our new worker, Nicole. She is simply awesome.

So, now all we have to do is wait for the state to get back up and running so we can complete our background checks!!!

Here we go again...

After putting it off for months, we finally picked an agency and signed up for the training. So, bright and early Friday morning we leave for a two day stay in St. Cloud to redo our training and get aquainted with our new agency, Downey Side Adoption Agency. I don't know what made me pick this agency....I really didn't do much research. But, something just seemed right. So hopefully my gut feeling leads to something great :)

Summer has officially began in our household...with baseball, summer day camp and summer trumpet lessons filling our every waking hour we aren't at work : / Steve has already built both the upper and lower level back decks on our house and we managed to get a little R&R in on them this past weekend. We bought him a brush cutter attachment for his weed wacker for Fathers Day, so Sunday afternoon was filled with the destroying of brush and every other type of weed you can think of that had taken over our stairway down the river. We walked down there last week and I kid you not, I thought Tarzan was going to come swinging out of the overgrown plethoria of shoulder high foilage. LOL

I can't believe we've been in our house for nearly five months already. The time has flown by, that's for sure.

I'll be back to update everyone on our training experience very soon!

Pictures..

Received a new picture of our FL kids this morning...they are SOOOO RIDICULOUSLY CUTE!!!!

Received a call back...

From the agency we really like here in town...she was super nice and let me know what I need to do next in order to apply for a reduced fee. It isn't looking promising though, as they reduce fee's based on income. But, its worth a try I guess. Cross your fingers!