Announcement!

It is with much joy and excitement, we want to announce........

We're expecting a baby boy!!  AND, he will be here in less than 3 weeks (unless he decides to come early of course)!  We've been waiting to share the news, because with adoption, things can always change, and obviously still can, but we want everyone to be praying for everyone involved.  God has been working mightily and He has answered our prayer, as well as the prayer of this dear, young woman, who is blessing us with this little life.  God's timing is truly perfect.  We are extremely excited, and honestly, a little nervous too!  I can't wait to share the whole story with you all!

Please pray for this young woman (she is amazing by the way!), as the next few weeks will be very difficult for her.  That the Lord would give her comfort and strength. That she would have a safe delivery, (I know she is quite nervous about that part).  For the baby, that he would be strong and healthy. Please pray for us too.  We will have to be out-of-state for 1 week (or more) after the baby is born, living in a hotel room until paperwork can be processed between her state and ours.  Dan won't leave me in another state, alone in a hotel room with a new baby; so he has to take unpaid time off of work.  Pray for the Lord's continued provision.  Also, pray that the paperwork can be processed QUICKLY between the two states, so we can return home quickly.  Also, that the Lord would give us wisdom in raising a son.

Again, I want to thank everyone who has been praying for us, supporting us, encouraging us, and those who have donated to help ease the financial burden that comes with adoption.  (There are a lot of you!) We are truly blessed!!  We cannot wait to share the rest of this story and introduce you to this tiny, yet HUGE, answer to prayer. :)

Yellowstone Pictures

 I am finally getting around to posting our Yellowstone pictures... 

We stayed in Cody, Wyoming and traveled 1 hr to the park each day.  The park is HUGE, 2.2 million acres to be exact.  So we spent a lot of time driving through it each day, stopping here and there to check out cool things, and we covered a lot of ground on our short time there.  We saw a lot of animals the morning we went at dawn, but no bears, Dan was bummed about that.  It is an amazing place, and we would highly suggest a visit at some point in your life!  We were really glad that we were able to go for our 5 year anniversary.

THANK YOU!!

This is overdue because we've been on vacation... (I'll be posting about that soon!)  We wanted to thank everyone for your part in our Give1Save1 week!  We've raised $126.85 so far (and since the blog has no other families this week, we are being left up for another week!), which will be used to pay off a chunk on our adoption loan.  We were really amazed at the generosity of friends and strangers, and we are blessed, and thankful for those who have passed our link on to others, and would continue to the rest of this week!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  God is good.

Today, my husband and I celebrate 5 years of marriage!  It is crazy how fast time goes...  It seems like we just got married!  Marriage is so wonderful, and I am so thankful to have spent the last 5 years of my life with my best friend, and look forward to spending every day we are blessed with, with each other.  We went on a road trip to Yellowstone to celebrate, and aside for the ridiculously long drive, we had an awesome time!  (I will post some pictures soon!) Looking forward to this next year of marriage...

Our Week as a Featured Family

Hello everyone!  Dan and I are so excited, and feel truly blessed, to be a featured family on the Give1Save1 blog! Starting today, we will have a video about us, and our adoption journey, on their website as the weekly "Featured Family!"   

I love the idea behind this ministry!  The idea began with a girl named Beth. She was in the adoption process herself and knew how expensive it was and created a blog that could help families who were in the adoption process. She wanted to feature a family per week and allow others to donate to that family's adoption fund. Encouraging others to give $1, the adoptive family could quickly raise money to help bring their child home.  (So give $1 and Save1 orphan, or in our case, a baby that needs a home so that they never experience being an orphan!)

So every week they feature a family in the adoption process, both adopting internationally, and recently, domestically!  The featured family makes a video introducing themselves, and sets up a family fund that is used to help pay for adoption expenses.  Family, friends, and strangers are encouraged to donate $1 to the family fund, and spread the word to everyone they know!  Pretty cool, right?

We would appreciate any donation, and would greatly value continued prayer on our behalf, as well as for our child's birth mother!  That the Lord's hand would continue to be in this adoption process, and that He would get the glory!

Check  us out here, and share the link with anyone who may be interested in helping us out!

Updates

I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd give a little update on what is going on in our lives.  We have been crazy busy working on house projects!  We finished grouting the bathroom floor, and installed and grouted the kitchen floor, and it looks awesome!  Wow, is tiling a LOT of work.  So many steps, and all of them back pain inducing!  But I think it was worth the effort and pain.  We have several things that we have to tackle yet, and I can't wait to show pictures of all of the changes we're making!

In adoption news, we had 3 "situations" arise this week!  After MONTHS of silence, we actually heard something (although none of them were actually from our agency)!  We received an email from a girl expecting a boy, she said she liked our online profile and wanted our agency's contact info.  (Haven't heard anything back on that yet though).  We also received an email from an adoption agency in Missouri looking for a Christian family for a 3 day old baby girl.  We would have said 'yes' in a heartbeat, but unfortunately this agency has much higher fees than we are expecting to pay through our agency.  That was frustrating.  Also, we heard, through a friend, about the possibility of a baby girl, currently in foster care that may become adoptable soon.  We would greatly value your prayers!  All of this has definitely renewed my hope that our baby is coming.  :)  Please pray that the Lord would make His will known and give us guidance and direction as situations arise!

Sermon Audio Clip

I received this audio clip this morning from a friend, and I was really blessed by this sermon and want to share it with you.  It is from a man who is a missionary in Ukraine.  He and his wife recently lost a baby mid-term due to a genetic disorder.  The title of the sermon is called "Patient Faith."  Praise the Lord for His word and for encouragement through life's trials.

http://www.ofreport.com/2012/07/patient-faith/

Home Study Update

So yesterday Dan and I had our home study update.  It was super casual; our social worker basically just asked us questions about what we've been up to the last year.  So we are glad to have that behind us now, and we're still hopeful the right baby will come soon!  In the mean time, we've been doing a lot of house projects!  I am so proud of my husband, he tiled our bathroom floor all by himself, never having done it before and with nobody to help!  (Well, I 'helped' by bringing him things he needed...)  It is really looking nice down there!  I'll post a few 'before' and 'almost after' pictures.  We've also ripped out carpet in the upstairs bedroom, and we're installing laminate flooring in there.  We are also tiling the kitchen floor!  So, needless to say, it has been a great distraction from the wait!

Here are a few pictures of the bathroom before we got at it!  It was a really small room with a door leading to a small, unfinished cement room.  Weird.  We tore down the wall to make it one big room.

I was able to refinish the vanity to save $$ and we replaced the vanity top.  I LOVE how it turned out!
Here are the recent progress pictures.

We still have to grout the tile, trim the window and door, and finish the tub surround, but it looks a lot better so far, no?!  I definitely don't miss the horrible teal walls. Some people's color choices I will never understand.  Well, that's it for now!  Hopefully soon I'll have more before and after pictures.