Well, I don't have anything very exciting update you all about, but I figured its been awhile since I posted anything so I thought I'd better get with the program ;)

We've submitted for a few kiddos over the past month and unfortunately haven't heard much. I will tell you though; we submitted for a little girl a few days ago that I have a good feeling about. So if everyone could say a little extra prayer that this is the one, I would really appreciate it!

We set up our tree last weekend and while I was dragging out the Christmas decorations I found a set of decorations I had bought last year right after Christmas - two sets of childrens Christmas decorations; one for a girl and one for a boy (for T of course). I remember wondering as I bought them last year if we would be decorating a little tree with them our next Christmas, and of course hoping that we indeed would be. Now here we are, a year later...still waiting. So let's pray that next year those decorations will be hanging from a miniature tree :)

At my moms :)

Our Thanksgiving was fantastic! We spent Thursday at my moms house with my sister and her family. Friday I was up early with the other crazy people standing in line at the mall at 4:00 a.m. - Arrived home around 7:30 and rested for a couple hours before T and I went out again :) Saturday we headed down to Clearwater to spend the night at Steve's daughters house and to celebrate Thanksgiving and M's 2nd birthday. It was a wonderful four days off, surrounded by wonderful people :) We can't wait until we have another one to share these moments with!

Peace :)

New ABC Series

Last night ABC aired the first epidsode of a new series called "Find My Family" and its definitely one of my new favorites! It's a tear jerker of a show that involves loved ones searching for their birth parents, birth children or loved ones they've lost touch with. Definitely check it out if you get the chance....and make sure you have a box of Kleenex close by because you'll need them!!

T and I recently started to crochet a blanket together for kiddo #2. I crocheted one for T before he was born and thought it would be a good way to pass the time and let her know we were thinking of her long before she was here. I let T pick the colors - he went with hot pink, turqouise and purple. I crocheted a few rows and then T worked on it for a little bit. We've came quite a ways since this picture. I'll have to take an updated one soon!

While we wait

Yes, it's the middle of the night and here I am, blogging. It's not very often that I am able to just sit and surf the net, catch up on all the celebrity gossip and check every one of the 1,416 waiting children photolistings I have bookmarked, without a single interruption :) So, you guessed it; the hubby is out of town. Steve drove down to the cities this evening to help his daughter and son in law build a deck on their house. My mom came up this weekend and we spent the day shopping in Fargo. After visiting five, yes 5, count them with me 1,2,3,4,5, Halloween costume stores, T finally found a Halloween costume. He is going as a Special Operations Officer, which is a fancy title for a black long sleeved shirt with a black vest and camoflauge plants (which cost me $29.99 YIKES!) But at that moment I probably would have spent any amount just to find a costume that fit him! Do these costume manufactureres not know that children in Minnesota must wear 12 layers of clothing under their costumes?! We almost had to resort to an adult mans costumes and the ones suitable for an eight year old in that genre were few and far between. But, it turned out well - he's happy with what we found and after that we relieved our mornings shopping frustrations with a large stack of pancakes from IHOP :) We then wrapped up the night eating popcorn and watching Plains, Trains and Automobiles. LOVE that movie!

We had the honor of meeting with Claudia Fletcher on Thursday night. She's an Adoption Matching Specialist with Adopt America Network and also author of the book "Out of Many, One Family: How Two Adults Claimed Twelve Children through Adoption" (which by the way is an awesome book, I couldn't put it down!) If you're thinking about or waiting to adopt from the U.S. foster care system it is a must read! Claudia gave us some tips on different things to do while we wait that would benefit us. One was to make a personalized family profile page; which I planned to do tonight until I realized for some odd reason Microsoft Publisher is missing from my computer..hmm. I am very excited to start one and have already been doing some research on things to do to our profile that would make it unique from others.

Other than our meeting with Claudia, things have been quiet on the adoption front. We've submitted our home studies for a couple different kiddos in the past couple weeks but no news. Last weekend we picked out a bedroom door for the downstairs room that will be mine and Steve's new bedroom once kiddo #2 is here. We haven't started moving anything down there yet though. We'll save that project for the winter months.

Goodnight everyone!

Dawn

Waiting...waiting...and waiting some more

I've decided I've choosen the wrong career path...I should have been an adoption social worker...they are always on vacation, out of the office or gone for the day. Ugh. Good for them; not for me! Ok so it's really not that bad, but it's pretty darn close.

Unfortunately, I don't have any news. Although I have been emailing back and forth with a worker from Missouri about a four year old girl we submitted for. They are still accepting studies for her so it will be awhile before we hear anything. We're keeping our fingers crossed though!

Our weekend was fairly uneventful. Spent one evening with our good friends, Sue and Chris to celebrate Sue's birthday....which then continued into Saturday night as well :) I flew solo that night because Steve was under the weather. We also managed to squeeze in a visit to my mom and dad, and did a little geo caching on Sunday afternoon. All in all, not a bad weekend :)

Back to the real world...

Well, the wedding is over and went off without a hitch. The weather was good for the most part. A little drizzle...but they say that's good luck, right? I'm sad it's over, but at the same time happy to get back to normal life.

Me and my handsome hubby


Me and my gorgeous son

The Thursday after the wedding me, my mom and T headed out to Bozeman, Montana for my nephew's wedding. That is a loooong drive. T  traveled in the car 16 hours like a champ. We tried to stop along the was as much as we could but didn't want to get into Bozeman too late, so each stop was brief. We had an absolute marvelous time...It had been 4 years since we had seen my sister and niece. It was great :)


My niece Katie and I


My handsome nephew and I

We've sent out our home study quite a few times over the past month and haven't heard much in response. I was hoping to go school clothes shopping for one more this year but that doesn't look like it's going to happen...considering school starts Monday..LOL. Hopefully we'll be Halloween costume shopping for one more...or at least Christmas shopping...anyways, you get my point....I'm hoping something happens soon!

...and the wait begins

Yay! We are finally done and officialy waiting to be matched!

I can't believe its been over a year since we started the process. Time flies, thats for sure.

So for now we are focusing all of our creative energy on our wedding...which is in three weeks! Scary. I just can't wait for it to be over so life can get back to normal! Well, as normal as it can get I guess :) I'm assuming in the months to come we will be discovering a whole new meaning to the word 'normal'. Once the wedding is over we will begin the task of rearranging our house to accomodate for kiddo #2. Should be interesting to say the least...

That's all for now....

Dawn

Almost there!

After months and months of waiting and filling out paperwork that asked the same questions over and over again...we're almost done! Next Tuesday our new worker Katie is coming over to do a final walk through of our house. Our poor pooch Cooper also needs to be taken in next week for shots and that, I believe, will do it. :)

It's almost surreal to think that we're done and could be matched at any time. I can't believe soon I will have two to get ready in the morning...scary!

I'll keep you posted!

First Home Study Visit

Well, we survived our first home study visit last night. Everything went really well. Only a few things we need to do around the house. My fingerprints were rejected because they weren't clear enough and need to be redone as well. Scott (our social worker) was kind enough to give us some more paperwork to fill out :) We'll be having one more home visit and one more office visit and then I think that should just about do it-hopefully in another month we'll officially be "waiting".

Scott questioned T last night to see how he feels about everything. That went good as well, T seems excited...of course, the prospect of a permanent play mate would seem appealing to any child...once she's here and breaking his Lego creations he might not feel the same way!

Well that's all for now!

Welcome!

So, I've decided to start a blog, not only for my own personal reflection, but also to keep everyone updated on the journey through this next phase of our lives...comments and feedback are welcome!

Most of you already know, but for those that don't, we have decided to expand our little family by one more through adoption :) We are almost through with the approval process... still filling out odds and ends of paperwork, waiting for background checks, etc...and to think the official "waiting" period hasn't even begun!