Books Are Delivered!

The profile books arrived safely at the agency this afternoon. Yippee!! So happy they are safely delivered and in good hands. Really happy with the way they turned out too :@)

So that just leaves one more hurdle to overcome and that is money :@( We’ve done very well with our fundraising so far and are so close to raising all of our pre-placement agency fees. All that remains is $1,500!!! We need to have all of our pre-placement fees in before we can start being shown and we had hoped to have that by the end of May which is fast approaching.

So if you are a praying person please pray that we will be able to raise the funds needed to move forward with the adoption process. Also, if you are a giving person (or know someone who is) there is a donation button on the side bar that you can use to make a donation to our adoption fund. (Feel free to share)
Thank you to everyone that has been following our story and to all of the amazing people that we have met through this process. We are so grateful for you all!

Post again soon!
~Jeny

Books Have Arrived!!

Our profile books were delivered this afternoon!! Yippee!!! It's actually kind of weird seeing them in person. It's like this culmination of weeks worth of work all bound in this tidy little book that felt much lighter that I thought it would. They are basically ready to go. All they need is a couple signatures and an envelope for the picture that Mackenzie did (or rather will do...) for the birthmom. Hopefully we can get that done in the morning. I'm hoping to get them to the agency the first part of next week. How exciting!!!

To celebrate we took a little family trip to the local Babies R Us for a little window shopping :@) I love wandering around that place. We found a couple things that we liked, but realized pretty quickly that it's hard to shop when you have no clue what you are "having". We did decide that we'll probably go neutral on the stroller/car seat since we'll need that first, but we'll either go pink or blue for the nursery stuff. I found a really cute crib set for if it's a girl! I guess time will tell.

Post again soon!
~Jeny

Adoption Update

Sorry I didn't post this sooner, I was just excited to get our profile done and books ordered! :@)

Final home study visit went well. Mackenzie was a hit as we knew she would be and everything else went smoothly. They loved the book and only had a couple little changes. (These were in addition to the awesome edits suggested by one of our fellow adoption mommies) They had us order all 5 copies and said they will start showing our profile once they get it. Our books are set to come in some time between next Tuesday and Saturday. Then we just have to sign them, add Mackenzie's drawings for the birthmom and DJ will hand deliver them. You should know that I'm actually having a hard time sitting still to finish this post; I am so excited!

It's taking on another level of realness now. Hard to believe, but we could be very close (or still very far away) from having a new baby. Wow...I mean seriously...wow...

Post again soon,
~Jeny

Profile Book!!

Our profile book has officially been ordered and is on the way to the house. Can't wait to see it!!!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Post again soon,
~Jeny

Home Study and Profile

Yesterday was scheduled to be our last home study but sadly it was not to be. They had a “stork drop” at the agency so our social worker had to reschedule for next week. It’s hard to be too upset though when I think about how happy another family is going to be :@) On the plus side it gives us a little more time to get the house cleaned up as cleaning was NOT on the agenda this past weekend.

We ended up going to a concert on Friday night to celebrate Mother’s Day early. We drove out to Melbourne to see The Shelter Tour – Jars of Clay, Matt Maher, Audrey Assad and Derek Webb. Essentially my iPod live in person. It was Mackenzie’s first concert and she did pretty well. It was a little overwhelming so a couple times DJ had to take her out of the auditorium. The great thing was that she recognized a lot of the songs. There is nothing more amazing than listening to Jars of Clay live while watching your 5-year-old sing along with arms raised in praise. Wow…definitely one of the best gifts ever!! Even more entertaining was watching her play "Pop Star" the rest of the weekend with her toy guitar and a drum set made up of a box of barbies, an upside down toy baby bathtub and an upside down wicker basket. It was awesome!

I’m happy to announce that our family profile book is officially in the editing stage. After days of obsessing over it I have passed it along for editing. Once it’s officially done I’ll get it posted up here for you guys to see. I am looking forward to having it officially done so that I can stop worrying about it :@) I really did not think that it would be this overwhelming, nor did I think it would take this long. It seemed like every time I looked at it I found something else I wanted to change. Working on the profile book also made it seem more real. Someone is actually going to look at through this book and (hopefully) choose us to raise their child….wow…very overwhelming…but very exciting!

Post again soon!
~Jeny