USCIS Approval!!!

We sent our homestudy to USCIS on May 14th and we received our I-171-H form on May 22nd! It only took 8 DAYS to get approved!!! It usually takes so much longer, but it seems that things are speeding up. We are so so so very excited!!! This means that our homestudy will be sent to the orphanage in Uganda and we will be on their waiting list to receive a referral! Our social worker at Generations said it will be at least six weeks for us to receive one. That is not very long, compared to some who wait months for a referral. In six weeks, we could know who our next child will be. Crazy!! It is hard to believe this is all really happening! So neat to see God's plans unfolding right before our eyes!

We specified in our homestudy we wanted boy, but if the orphanage only has girls, obviously, a girl would be wonderful! Because this is our first adoption and we have small children, we felt that the Lord was calling us to ask for a healthy 0-2 age child with minor disabilities, or non at all. But if you are in the process of adopting or already have several adopted children, you know any child that has been institutionalized for any length of time will have some problems and we are prepared God will give us his strength to handle it. Yes, I would be foolish to say I am prepared to handle a child with disabilities, but if that's his will the Lord will guide us one day at a time. Obviously, this is in the Lord's hands, and he knows exactly the child for our family and this little boy or girl was predestined to be with us from the beginning of time. Soooo neat to think about!! Besides, this is our child, and just like anyone's biological child, you will do anything for them.

I feel so blessed to be apart of what God is doing all over the world. I am so excited to see how he pieces this whole story together! I know it will not be easy and there will be times that I don't understand what God is doing, but I know that through suffering there is joy.

"No one will calmly and quietly submit to bear the cross except those who have learned to seek their happiness beyond this world." John Calvin

Wonderful day with an Exciting Ending!

Today I decided to venture to the quilting store, Red Hen for some fabric so I can attempt to make Mary Taylor a "bubble". There is no where near me to find cute material to make children's clothes, so I made the thirty minute trek up north. I have made pillows, curtains, applied appliques to t-shirts, smocked several outfits for my kids, but I have never used a pattern to make clothes for them. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I will start cutting out the pattern for this cute white and lime green polka dot fabric...I thought I would use pink rick rack for the piping. Who knows how long it will take me...the first time is always the hardest.

Shelley and her kids also met us at the Red Hen. Shelley and I have know each other for six years and our kids have grown up together. Henry and Lilli are 3 months apart and Mary Taylor and Lauren Kate are 14 hours apart. Shelley and I share our love for healthy food, simi-homeschooling, scrapbooking, and sewing.  She is a very encouraging, loyal friend and God has truly blessed me with her friendship. The Lord always knows what we need. And our kids get along great...so what more can you ask for.

 After the Red Hen, we headed toward the square for a picnic. To our surprise it took us ten minutes to find a parking space because it was so crowded from the "Brown Bag Lunch Concert Series", which only takes place in May and September. The "Brown Bag Lunch Concert Series" is when you have a picnic in the square while you listen to music...and we just happened to be there to enjoy it! I told Shelley,"I could not think of anything better than a picnic in the square...while listening to music on a beautiful spring day with a train for your kids to play on." I think we have arrived!

This man was an excellent piano player. The music was amazing!

See Henry on the very top of the train and Lilli is trying to climb up toward him.

Lilli and Lauren Kate are enjoying the flowers.

It is hard to believe Mary Taylor is 17 months.

Henry and Mary Taylor were very concerned about a little boy that was crying. 

I kept telling them to go play, but they just sat there starring.

After naps, we decided to get on our bathing suits for a sprinkler playdate in our neighborhood at our friend Frida's house.  Mary Taylor was so excited about her swimsuit, swimsuit cover up, and crocs...I just had to take some pictures.

I love this picture of their cute little legs and matching crocs.

  Yes, I think this cover up is a little too small (6-9 mon.), 

but she loved having the hood on!

 They had the best time dancing around the driveway!

So fun to see your kids have fun together, such a change from the first year of her life.

You have to be in the valley before you can appreciate the mountain top.

And I haven't even gotten to the best part of the day!

We were a little late to the sprinkler playgroup because of our picture session, but you got to take advantage of opportunities like that...so it was worth it. Anyway, Henry ran around with all the kids and I got to chat with some mamas.

Henry and Hannah in a great climbing tree.

Frida's dog Lilly with her daughter Charlottee in the background.

Amanda and Brook with their two sweet babies standing on Frida's newly sodded flat lawn. I am just a little envious, because our lawn has so many divots from when our tree was cut down and we don't want to spend the money to get it level right now while we are trying to save money for our adoption. But, I am so truly thankful I have such wonderful neighbors who will let us play on their green grass :) I had to have a perspective change when I started to covet her grass.

And now for the best part of the day!

After several of the kids left, we decided to stay a little later because we arrived late. About fifteen minutes later, my phone rings, Daniel, our social worker from Lifeline calls me to tell me he is in our neighborhood. After I directed him to Frida's house, two minutes later, he hand delivered our HOMESTUDY to me! Yes, I said HOMESTUDY! I have our homestudy and it is ready to be notarized tomorrow and then sent to USCIS! Yeah!! For those of you who are not familiar with the adoption process. After our homestudy is approved by the USCIS (United States Citizen and Immigration Services), then we are put on a waiting list in Uganda to receive a referral (information and picture of our child) from our agencies orphanage. Then we can deny or accept the referral. If we accept it, then we send in a dossier to the Ugandan government. Then we receive a court date and make plans to travel to Uganda for 4-6 weeks to adopt our child. So...things are starting to move now! God has a reason why it took so long for it to be finished... he has our Ugandan child hand picked and we will be united in God's timing which is perfect according to his will! 

 Henry and Mary Taylor can't contain themselves...they are so excited about our homestudy!

Third Homestudy Visit

We had our third and final homestudy visit two weeks ago on Thursday.
...Two days before our visit, I realized my husband has schedule Thursday to be the day, the wood choppers come to chop down our one hundred fifty foot tree that towers above our house. We found out six months ago that it is dying and if we do not have it cut down with in a year, our insurance will not cover it if it falls on our house. So... we thought it was best to get it cut down! Most people told us it would be really expensive to get it cut down, but we found a company that did it for dirt cheap. We were encouraged that God was providing for us!..Anyway, the day before, the wood choppers told us they were going to have to turn off the power, but that we could still be in the house. We debated back and forth what we should do, but we decided to stay at our house for the homestudy visit, because our social worker might not come if we can't have the meeting at our house.

    On Thursday morning, I head out to run some errands, knowing I need to be back around 11:30 to feed the kids and get ready for naps. Realizing what time it is, we leave the Teacher/ Parent store and head to the car. As I am buckling Mary Taylor in her seat, I realize what a mess she is from her snack and her hand it bleeding from a paper cut. ( I guess she got it in the store). I try to wipe her off, but I decided to deal with it when we get home in five minutes. As I park in front of my house, I see the wood chopping team has already started taking the tree down. I get the kids out of the car and start heading into the house. I approach the man that owns the wood chopping company and make sure I can walk under the equipment. He then proceeds to tell me that I cannot stay at my house and I need to leave as soon as possible. I yell because of all the noise, "What? I thought it was ok!" Well, he yells, "I did not realize how big the tree was!" I am thinking, 'How could you make that kind of mistake?' I walk in the house with two bags on one arm and bleeding Mary Taylor on the other arm. She really needed a bath, because her shirt and body was now cover in food and some blood. I guess now I need to get packed up and figure out a place to go. It is time for the kids to eat lunch and take naps. The power is off and a tree might fall on the house at any moment. I call my husband and tell him the situation, but he does not see the urgency in it all. I tell him to call his parents to see if we can have our homestudy over there and then call our social worker to see if that is ok. Yes, I am pretty stressed and I am not handling it well! In the mean time, the wood choppers take a break and go eat lunch. I guess they realized I needed some time to get out of there!...About twenty minutes later we were ready to head to Dee's parents house.
   In the thirty minute car ride over to Dee's parent's house, I managed to get my thoughts together, take a deep breath, and manage to open my fist up to the Lord. Not easy to do in stressful situations like that! The little things really get to me, especially when dealing with young kids!  Mary Taylor took a nap at their house and Henry watched a movie. Our third homestudy lasted about two hours and it was our best one yet! We even talked about our my conflict early in the day. I just had to get it out and apologize to Dee for treating him so badly in my frustration of the tree situation. I think we felt pretty comfortable at this point! I guess we should, considering he knows everything about us and he is still letting us adopt a baby! He said it should take about a month to get all the paper work in and then our homestudy will be finalized and sent to the USCIS (I think?)
... It was a crazy day and I was exhausted in every way! Glad the Lord worked it out! Then the next day, it snowed! Not normal for us southerners...

The wood choppers could not finish cutting down the tree until four days later. These trucks and tractors sat in our yard during the beautiful snow, which only comes once or twice a year. Oh, well, no good snow pictures of our house this year! The tallest tree is the one we had to cut down. Sad... it is not there anymore. :(

 We had fun in the snow despite the tractors! Dee and Henry about to go sledding!

 Yes, this is our boxer, Bell! (we also have a springer spaniel, named Milo) We just let the dogs run free outside in the snow. They loved it!

 

 Mary Taylor did not like sitting on the stump with Henry.. at all! That day they chopped this stump into mulch. Now our yard is full of mulch and mud from the tractors!

Second Homestudy Visit

       Henry has been sick with croup all week and Mary Taylor came down with a fever today. That did not stop us from piling our whole family in the car to head down to Columbus, Georgia for our second homestudy visit. Our first visit was in our home and our last visit will also be in our home, but this individual interview usually takes place in Lifeline's office. We each switched off taking care of the kids during each of our interviews. The kids had a great three hours playing at the local Chucky Cheese down the street! That place sure brings back a lot of childhood memories! I loved skiball and trying to get as many tickets as possible and then getting a little dinky plastic toy with my one hundred tickets! That was the best!
        Anyway, the interviews went well. I was definitely emotionally drained after the visit. For an hour and half I talked about my whole life's story. It was hard going to those places I have not gone in a while. It reminded me of how far the Lord has brought me and what I used to be before he changed me. I do not miss the past! I do not wish to go back to my four years in college! They were not the best years of my life! God was working in my life, but I was still so miserable with myself and in bondage to sin. Oh, how thankful, I am, who I am today because of the person and work of Jesus himself! If God had not intervened and rescued me from myself, no telling where I would be and how miserable I would be today. I was an orphan and he rescued me from the destruction of the world and made me his daughter. Oh, what a Good God we serve! I long to bring this kind of love into the life of a child that God has called us to adopt. I will not do this perfectly, but hopefully Christ working through me will show this child unconditional love and acceptance.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son, that who so ever believes in him, he will have eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord." John 3:16

^"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5:21

Husband, Homestudy, Haiti

     My husband just returned this morning after taking the "red eye" from Las Vegas so he could be here for our first homestudy meeting. He has been working out in Vegas for almost two weeks. So we are really glad to have him home! He tried to sleep this morning, but Henry got up five minutes after he laid his head down at 6:30a.m. So after trying to sleep for 2 hours, he finally got up and played with the kids! After playing a while, we decided to get some adoption stuff done and run some errands. Then for lunch, we ate all together at Chickfila before rushing home to clean the house for our homestudy meeting.
      Our first official homestudy meeting went great! We really like our social worker from Lifeline Children's Services and I was not nervous at all. He made us feel very comfortable. We just talked about ourselves! It lasted 2 1/2 hours and we still had more to discuss. He said we could continue the discussion at the next meeting, which will hopefully be next week. After the meeting, we rushed to the post office to finish the paper work for Mary Taylor and Henry's passports. Yes, we are praying and planning on taking both our kids to Uganda with us. Four to six weeks is a long time to be away from your children. So, Lord willing, it will work out. Dee will stay for two weeks and then we are hoping my sister will be able to join us in Uganda. If she is unable to come, we are praying that God will provide someone else to go with us to Uganda to help with our children.
       Seeing the disaster in Haiti, greatly burdons me to help the orphans of the world. It is so hard to watch the images of the suffering Haitian people. The pain they are going through does not seem fair. Oh, how I long to do more for these people. How is it fair that we live in such luxery and other people around the world have nothing and are suffering. Oh.... how I long for Christ to deliever us from the sin of this world and the pain that people have to endure. I have been blessed to be the mother of two precious children, but Oh.... has God opened my eyes to the abandoned children of the world, who suffering silently, with no mother to comfort them! I am thrilled that he is calling our family to take one of these suffering children into our family. I can no longer be comfortable in my little world, worrying about the social pressures of today's society. I have lived too many years in bongage to the "fear of man".  The "fear of man" only leads to destruction and an unfulfilling life. God has recently changed my heart and given me victory to overcome some of these fears. He has opened my eyes and given me "joy in suffering". For this I am truly thankful.

First Homestudy Meeting

We had our first Home Study orientation meeting today with our Home Study agent Donna from AAA Partners in Adoption. She was great and very flexible. She let us bring our kids and just camp out for an hour or so at her house. She gave us our checklist and went over all the many forms that we need to fill out and return to her as soon as we get them done. Wow! I am not going to lie, it is a little overwhelming! Dee seems excited and he is very willing to take on a lot of the load with me! All this government stuff is right up his alley, being an attorney.

We discussed what it means to adopt internationally and what all that entails. Donna was informing us that it can be really hard to adopt internationally for many reasons. We think we are going over to this country to "rescue" this child, but often these children are happy where they are and they do not want to be "rescued" (especially older children). It is often a hard road to adopt internationally. Many of these children have attachment issues and never really attach to the parents because they were neglected or abandoned. Donna was informing us and letting us know upfront that it is not an easy road. We told her we were thinking about adopting a 10-18 month old little boy, because it might be easier to have the Ugandan child and Mary Taylor closer together than far apart in age. She advised us to adopt a child as young as we could, because children in orphanages always have some sort of developmental delay. It is also best to have all of our children a little bit apart in age, so they will have their place in the family. I think there are always exceptions to these rules, but these are great points to think about.

We told her, we know that adopting can never be easy, especially internationally, but we feel that God is calling us to adopt. The child that we adopt, is our child, always has been our child, and always will be our child, even if the child ends up having emotional and physical problems. Yes, that will be very challenging, but we are trusting that God knows what we need, knows what we can handle, and ultimately what is best for us.

Precious little children that God created and he has picked out one especially for our family.

We had a great meeting! Now, I need to start doing all this paper work!