I 600 A

I have been checking the mail everyday in hope to find it in the mailbox and today we received it...our Notice of Favorable Determination letter has arrived! We are now officially approved by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services to bring home our baby! Now we just have to find out who our baby is!

We have been getting things done in his nursery here and there. We bought bedding, painted his dresser, and bought fabric to do this wall hanging thingy. Really all we will need to do it paint...Hazel is still in the nursery although we do have a twin bed for her in her new shared room with big sister. I told Adam we may have to take down the twin bed and push the crib in there and get another crib. He wasn't really up for that, so soon we will have to get her sleeping in her "big girl" bed. Pray that it is a smooth transition!!! Once she is in her big girl room we will get the nursery done. Seems like that will have to be sooner than later!!!! I am still amazed of how quickly this is moving.

Something really sweet that Hazel does now is take my Africa necklace in her hand and say "Acica" (africa) and then "I say who lives there?" and she says the babys name and then I say "who is that?" and she says "baby bruh" (in her almost 2 year old language this mean baby brother)
She is so sweet and it is so cute!!!!!

So I just wanted to share the exciting new of our I 600 A approval!!! Another step done!!!

getting more excited

So this past few weeks I have gotten so excited to read about a few of the blogs I have been following get their referrals! Each time I would sign on to my email or blog and read that they had received their "call" I could have jumped out of my seat and jumped up and down. It is so exciting to have been following along with these families since we started our adoption and see them getting their referral. Each time I have read "we got the call" my belly does this little flip and my eyes fill up with tears. I am so excited for these families!

and also so excited because we have moved down a bit and are unofficially #5 on the list!!! yipee!!!!!!

As I am getting more and more excited the thoughts of our son's birth mother come to mind. How she must be feeling. I cannot even imagine handing over my baby and not being able to take care of it. The sadness she must feel. The strength she must have. I pray for her every day. She will play a big part in our sons story.

My new necklace

(below are pics of our trip to the fair and the Demi Lovato concert)

Maggie watching the show

Screaming

Demi
unsure about the screaming at first

yummy ice cream

milking the cow
Maggie riding the pony

eating yummy ice cream
Hazels first pony ride

So this week has been full of excitement! We went out to the state fair and saw Demi Lovato. Maggie is a big fan. It was her first concert and Hazels too. They both had a good time. It was really hot so Hazel was a bit fussy for a little bit, but Adam took her to get a drink to give her a little break. Maggie was dancing and screaming. At first she was a little freaked out by all of the little girls screaming, but then she started screaming with them. The show was great! Most parents were just sitting there, but I got up and danced around with Maggie. Adam and I like her music too. :) Before the concert we spent a little time doing stuff at the fair. The girls rode ponies. This was Hazels first time and LOVED it! Maggie has been riding the ponies at the state fair every year so we were excited for Hazel to be able to ride this year. We did Little Hands on the Farm and the girls picked fake fruits and veggie and milked a fake cow (i think that was their fav part). The girls had a good time with that. We had the best ice cream ever at the dairy barn. I get so excited to go to the fair to eat the ice cream. Chocolate with peanut butter. yum! We are probably going to go back one more time so we can eat some more ice cream and also look at all of the animals (we didn't have time to).

Also, last night we were cleaning up after dinner and Adam asked where Hazel was and Maggie said that she was in the bathroom. So Adam looked for her and she had gone into the bathroom, shut the door, and sat down on her little potty and went in it! We have been talking about going potty, but haven't actually started potty training yet! I thought that it was pretty amazing that she went in and did it all by herself and she isn't even two yet! She has since gone 2 other times in the potty! YAY for Hazie!!!!! Maggie wasn't the easiest child to potty train, so I have hoped that Hazel would be easier and so far so good!

Also, some news...we are unofficially #7 on the list. (a family got a referral yesterday for a baby boy which makes us go down a number) Yay!

official august numbers

We are #8 for the boys and #9 for siblings! We only moved down one spot so we didn't have much movement this past month, but praying that there is more movement this next month on the list. More movement means more kiddos getting to be with their families :)

I am so longing for this child. This child that I already love, though I have never met and I have never even seen. I bought him a blanket today. Ready to be sent to him when we get the referral!

In the mail today I got a necklace that Adam bought for me. I took it out of the mailbox and while still outside opened it and put it on. It is sterling silver Africa with a heart on it. So cute and so special. I am not taking it off! I am not pregnant with this child, so it's been hard. My emotions have been crazy. I have this necklace so that he can be close to me while we are waiting for him. I will try to post a picture of it later.

yet another blog post tonight...this will be the last this evening!

Hazel and her "cheese" face
Maggie had me put rollers in her hair and she loved it.

our first tomatoes in Maggie's hands

These are our first two tomatoes from our 80 green ones...and also a few new pics of the girls...

Our garage Sale

This weekend we held our adoption fundraising garage sale. It turned out to be amazing! We had about 12 families graciously donate items and our garage and part of our neighbors garage were full of garage sale items! Adam designed all of our sale signs and they looked amazing!!! We had the sale for two days and our grand total was $1050.00!!!!!!!!!! We are so blessed and so amazed that we were able to raise so much. Thank you to all of you who donated items or your time for this. We are surrounded with so many wonderful family and friends!!!

We have also to date raised $2100.00 in monetary donations!!!! Thank you to all who have donated!!!

So we have raised over $3000 so far!!!

Starting this week we are applying for grants. Please pray for us as we do this.

Thanks, again, to all of you who have helped us out so much!!!

I have been day dreaming about our son so much lately. I cant wait to get my arms around him and love on him. Before this adoption I always wondered how I would feel about an adopted child and I already love this child that I don't even know the same as the girls. I am such and impatient person and this is so rough on me. But God wants to teach me patience so I am learning. Oh I cannot wait to meet you our sweet baby boy!

a walk along the canal

After church today Adam decided to take us girls downtown for a stroll along the canal. It was a lot of fun and the girls had a really good time. I will have to admit I was a little afraid of taking Hazel, but she did an awesome job. I thought she would want to run around and jump into the water, but she really enjoyed herself and took in all of the scenery. The weather was beautiful and it was altogether a wonderful afternoon thanks to my amazingly awesome husband!

visit to the Museum

Maggie Having fun


Hazel loves to play in the water. Most pictures of her are very serious, but this one you can see she is excited.

Hazel had "mommy, daddy, baby" alligators


Playing in the dinosaur exhibit

The girls playing dinosaur

Sitting on Africa in the new "Take me to Egypt" exhibit.

Maggie and her Egyptian bracelet she made.

The girls and my little sister on a Nile Crocodile

Us in Egyptian clothes

We are blessed to have a wonderful children's museum in Indianapolis. The girls have such a great time when we go. I actually remembered a camera this time, so I got some pics of the girls enjoying themselves.