In Love

Since there are absolutely no guarantees in international adoption, and since we're still in the beginning stages of the adoption, I've tried to stay a little bit detached. I know there's the possibility that no matter how hard or quickly we work we might not be able to adopt the little girl who we're working on bringing home.

Still, I've mostly failed at staying detached. I was in love with our little girl the first time I saw her picture, and I've only fallen more in love. I was sure from the beginning that she was supposed to be part of our family, though for a long time I didn't think that was going to be possible. That didn't make me want it any less, though I was happy that she would be going to a good home, even if I was sad it wouldn't be mine.

Since I found out that we would be able to work on bringing her home my love for her has grown even more, I think because I don't feel like I have to hold it back any more. Her picture is up on my computer constantly (many pictures of her, really), and I look at it multiple times a day. It's similar to looking at my boys when they're sleeping -- I feel this great outpouring of love, and want to go over and hold them, even though I don't. That's what I feel when I see her picture. I am so in love with this little girl, and I absolutely cannot wait until I get the chance to go over to her and pick her up and give her that big hug I've been dreaming of.

And, since I can't share pictures of my little girl yet, but I love pictures on blogs, here's a picture of one of my little boys sleeping:

Working On It

Sorry for the lack of updates. I think the combination of not being able to commit to our daughter and the slowness of our progress so far makes all of this not seem quite real yet. However, we are working on things, and (slow) progress is being made. I had my physical yesterday, so now the whole family has seen the doctor and gotten our medical forms for the home study signed. We also got all the blood tests for the EE medical form done, so we can get that signed and taken care of soon. We pretty much have all of the paperwork gathered for the home study, other than the most time-consuming ones -- the personal data form and our autobiographies. Of course, those are the ones that need to be done before we can schedule the home visit. With Jacob's work schedule lately I'm not sure when those are going to be done, but hopefully soon.

Other than that I'm just working hard on unpacking (we only moved here about 6 weeks ago) so we don't have boxes everywhere when the social worker comes. (Actually, we already don't have boxes everywhere, but if she looked in our room she might wonder about the complete lack of space to walk.) And I'm also working on getting things taken care of for our boys (specialist visits, dentist appts, speech therapy, etc). Hopefully we can get everyone on a great and regular schedule so that when we do need to travel things can keep running smoothly here for whoever comes to stay with the kiddos.

Starting...

I'm happy to announce that we're starting the process to adopt a little one of our own! I can't talk about who it is yet, but I will be talking about the process some as we go along. First up, of course, is the home study, which I'm busy filling out paperwork for. I'm so excited about all of this, and I hope you'll follow along!

Advocating

Another thing I let fall by the wayside during the last few crazy months was my plan to start advocating for some of the (marvelous, adorable) orphans who I've fallen in love with since I started thinking about all of this. Just after I started this blog I asked to be a warrior for one little boy in particular.

Shawn touched my heart the first time I saw him. He's just a couple months older than one of my sons, and his smile and the way he hugs his little stuffed friends just made me fall in love. I don't think I'm supposed to be his mommy, but I'm hoping that whoever she is, she'll find him soon. I'm going to do my best to help him be found, and also to raise at least a little bit of money so that when his parents do find him, they'll be that much closer to going and getting him.

I also started to set up an etsy site just before I moved so that I could sell some crafts and donate the proceeds to Shawn's fund, but that's another thing that fell by the wayside. I'm hoping to get the crafting stuff unpacked and set up soon, so check back and you can find (or request) some cute cards, and donate to an orphan at the same time!

Trying This Again

I started this blog with such high hopes and good intentions four months ago, but, well... life happens. Specifically, a new job, a long-distance move, selling one house and buying another, spending a month living in a hotel, a sister's wedding, a new school for the kids, a new placement for one kid and the start of K for another, and lots and lots of cleaning and then lots and lots of unpacking, with way too much driving to even try to explain thrown in the middle. And quite a few other things that just weren't nearly as significant and time-consuming.

But now we're in our new house, largely unpacked (in just 3 weeks!), the kids are 2 weeks into school and settling into their new routine, my husband is settling into his new job, we have a contract on our old house, and things are finally starting to get back to (a new) normal. So I'm slowly picking things back up that fell by the wayside in all the chaos, including blogging. I hope to get a few more posts up here soon, so everyone whose blogs I so adore following can get the chance to get to know me a little better just as I've had the opportunity to get to know them.