First GIANT leap: Taken!!

On Wednesday June 22nd, 2011 Chad and I took our huge packet of paperwork to the agency!!
Our dear friend there, Charlie (aka paperwork nazi!) took our months of hard work and gave us the best advice ... let her be in charge for a while.  Stop worrying, stressing, and focusing on this; she said we had accomplished a great task in getting this in, and we need to celebrate that!

So a lot of you follow me on facebook personally, so you know most of the "checkins" we had to do for this packet.  Just to give you an image ...

• Criminal background checks from the police station downtown
• Psychological evaluations and personality testing
• Physical exams including TB and drug tests
• Fingerprinting
• Life story paperwork, LOL for both of us, our childhoods, our families ...

and that is just a little bit of it.  We had to bury our heads and get it done, and we did!!  It is a wonderful feeling to know it is D-O-N-E!

So we are taking a break for this weekend, not thinking about any of it.  We have already heard back from Charlie with some things she needs, and how great we did.  Talk about feeling GOOD!

Thank you for all your prayers and encouragement .... please keep thinking about us as we move into a phase of waiting ... we now wait for them to look at it all, talk about us, ask for more stuff ... and then eventually we we will start the home study!  Then, we are live and available.  WOW.

Much love,
Relieved Mommy!

NEW Cards are here!!

I am in LOVE with these new cards my great friend Lisa printed for us!
She took one of my card covers, scanned it, and printed it on the card!  They are beautiful.

We have the first set available now ... many more to come for sure!  Take a look at the pictures below, and email me to order right away!  If you are not local to us, $1 shipping will apply ... and you can pay via paypal.

$5 for a set of 5!!  Beat that, Hallmark!!  And 100% of these proceeds come directly to the adoption fund, the cards were donated for the first round!!!  Help us sell this whole box, limited sets available!!!

Looking forward to sharing these with you all!!
Much love!

W O W.

That is the only word for this weekend.
W O W!!!

First, our heartfelt thank you goes out to all of our friends and family that donated items, volunteered their time to us, worked hard, shopped ... wow.  That is definitively the first wow!!  It was overwhelming, humbling, and amazing to be loved so deeply by others ... giving of your possessions and time was so amazing.  We love you all so so so much!!

The second wow is what we raised!!!  In one day, we earned over $2,400 for the adoption fund!!!  We are STILL in shock, 3 days later.  It is so unbelievable to us that we were so blessed ... we were hoping for $1,000!
It was such an amazing experience.

We are riding off all that love and support ... and have one last in person parenting class tonight, psychological evaluations Thursday night ... and we will hopefully be submitting our paperwork on Monday!!!  Then, we wait for the home study and as soon as it is complete we will be live and available to be chosen.

What a roller coaster ride ... it is teaching us to love the highs and stop fearing the lows!  Thank you God for your faithfulness to us and helping us along the way ... we feel your nudges at every turn!!

Now here are some pictures just to make your jaw drop!!

 

It is almost time!

We are just a few days away from the Yard Sale, and we are SO EXCITED!  Our storage unit is officially full and we still have quite a few pick ups, so to say this is going to be massive is an understatement!

Please help us out by sharing these links by email, twitter, facebook ... we just need the word OUT!
This is the Facebook invite with all the info:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=158361714231690

This is the Craigslist ad:
http://nashville.craigslist.org/gms/2424218362.html

And this is me smiling =) and hugging and kissing you XOXO for helping us get people there!!

Much love,
Yard-Sale-ing Mamma!

Where are we?!

This weekend, baby Pea's Aunt Lisa and Uncle Clayton got MARRIED!!!

It was a beautiful wedding and wonderful weekend with friends and their families ... reminded us a lot of our own wedding weekend almost 5 years ago!

It is so special to share in big moments with those you love, something happens in those relationships that makes you closer.  It makes you take different care of one another, be there in a different way, and to protect what you have with that person!

We find as we narrow down on this Yard Sale that we have so many people ready and willing to support us and love us in an new way.  It is humbling to be given peoples possessions, especially to sell them!  People are pouring out love and caring on baby Pea so far in advance ... he/she is going to have a lot of cuddling to do with a lot of people to say THANKS!!

So what are WE up to right now?

We are in full on YARD SALE MODE!  Pickups, drop offs at the storage unit, planning volunteers, friends, food, fun ... it is exciting!!  Daddy is busy driving all around Nashville picking up what is being donated, and Mommy is moving into food prep and volunteer scheduling.

We are working through the paperwork, keeping up with our parenting class.... Women's Ministry starts back up on the 1st and classes for Kristin on the 6th ... so the summer looks a little less than relaxing at the moment!  But we know it is all going to be great ... and we will get to the pool a little =)

What is your favorite thing to do during the summer???