what's happening...

To start things off, we have been working on our 'baggie of love' to send to our little guy in Ethiopia. We mailed it off last week to our agency and then they will send it on. This first album is the one we put togehter for his birth mom. It has plenty of extra pages for pictures throughout the years...
This is the cute little 'album' we got for our little guy. It is only three pages, but they are held together bythe cute little wooden ring. The pages are different material and the little leaves on the ends are different material too. it's really cute.

This is the blanket we bought for him the night we got the referral. it is super soft and cuddly.

This past weekend was Bible Bowl. We went to Denver area again. Here is one of our teams. My oldest nephew Brendan was on the team. They got 6th place in Division 1 (that's good).

We got home late Saturday night (acutally Sunday morning) and crashed. Dan didn't get to go to the tournament because it was inventory at the store and he worked crazy bunches of hours. I got to get up and make my sweet little niece macy her birthday cake for her 7th birthday. She is the only girl with 3 brothers. And let me tell you, she is all girl. here is here Barbie cake up close. Ignore the head wrapped in plastic wrap - I had to keep the hair out of the way somehow...

the bottom of the dress is all cake. it was fun to make. I had never tried one of these before, but it came out great. I also did a basic cake for her as well. We weren't sure how many people would be there, but wanted to have enough cake.

The birthday girl...

Dan with sweet nephew Grant getting some 'lovin'

Here is my sister's 4 kids. They are 11, 9, 7, and 2. Lots of fun...

Grant was just ready for the cake...

Macy was ready for the presents - here she is with some of her new makeup on that she got as a present.

And here are her and I playing with her new Barbie. She was super excited to be able to wash and dye this barbie's hair.

And this is what Dan is doing as I update this blog. We started working on cleaning out and re-arranging the living room. If you know me, you'll know I do this often. It's my way of 'moving without moving'.

I hope you all have a great evening. Pray for us as we anxiously await news of our court date!

Such excitement!

Well, so much has been going on the past couple of weeks. We have officially registered. That was fun! We had to wait on everything, not knowing what age or gender of child we would be referred. It was fun to wait because everything we registered was with baby M specifically in mind. We went to Target (local) and Babies R Us (4 1/2 hours away in Colorado Springs, but having a shower there with family and friends - thanks Trista!). We have come up with a name for baby M, but I am not sure if Dan is wanting it onthe internet quite yet. We'll have to wait and see! What else... we received our travel packet in the mail. Hard to believe we are at this point. It seems like it was always out there, but seemed so far away. Now that we are here it is very surreal. We are working on printing the pictures to send to baby M in his album as well as the album for his birth mother. We are also working on a letter to his birthmom. Not an easy task for those of you who have never written one. We have the nursery almost ready, so we will post pictures of it completed soon! What else, oh, can we say nesting! We have made a huge list of everything we have to get done (mainly around the hosue) before we travel and it is hanging on the fridge! So exciting! I hope you all have a blessed week and we will post more later. Hopefully we get out court date this week... All I can say is God is so Good! - T

Good Times!

My cousin did a post here about my Grandpa Fuller (the best grandpa in the whole world, I might add) who used to have this patriotic tape that he had us listen to, alot! He had us memorize different songs off of it, one of which is the 50 states song here...



Apparently there is a new animaniacs 50 states and capitols song that is set to the same tune, so enjoy.



It is a walk down memory lane for me to hear this song again! I just have to say, I miss Grandpa Bob and am sad that he never got to meet my husband or my little baby boy...

New nephew

No pictures of him yet, but I talked to my sister, and his name is Boaz Robert. Robert is after my wonderful grandpa who passed away 8 years ago.

About me - I've been tagged!

So I've been tagged by Audrey. It's been a number of days since she did, but I just haven't gotten around to doing it. So, here goes - one word answers...

Where is your cell phone? uncertain
Your hair? down
Your mother? friend
Your father? which one?
Your dream last night? forgotten
Your goal? Wisdom
What room are you in? bedroom
Your hobby? cooking
Your fear? uncertainty
Where do you want to be in 6 years? Anywhere
Where were you last night? home
Something that you aren't? confident
Wish list item? baby
Where did you grow up? everywhere
Last thing you did? brush teeth
What are you wearing? P.J.'s
Your t.v.? on
Your pets? trained
Friends? close
Your life? blessed
Your mood? thankful
Missing someone? baby
Vehicle? Santa-Fe
Your favorite song? worship
Something your not wearing? shoes
Favorite store? thrift
Favorite color? yellow
Last time you laughed? Sunday school
Last time you cried? Church
Best Friend? Dan
One place you go over and over? office
Person who e-mails regularly? AGCI
Favorite place to eat? Chipotle (unfortunately, the nearest one is about 4 hours from here...sadness)

Hope you enjoyed! I did my best to be as honest andopen about myself, yet keep it to one word! Not an easy task!

Catching up...

First of all - I am an aunt again! My brother and his wife had #8 this morning! Another little boy! I honestly don't remember his name (sorry) I will post it tomorrow (it's a unique name and it's late, so I am drawing a blank).

But on to what all has been going on this week: Here is a picture of my sister looking at our pictures of baby M the day we got our referral -

Here is Dan with the referral packet on Tuesday morning when it showed up! We were so excited - got everything done and notarized and it was back at AGCI on Friday!

There was no school on Thursday and Friday so my niece and nephews were at the office the entire day. (Usually they are only there parts of the day) Macy started the day out on Friday by drawing pictures for baby M. She asked me to send them to him, so they will go with our 'baggie of love' when we send it... The first one is the 'family'. My sister's family, Dan, me and baby M. (and the pets). Also, baby M's name is whited out in the picutre b/c we can't post any identifying information, but you get the idea. The second one is bringing baby M home from the airport and us driving by the office.

This weekend there was an annual craft/antique show down at the 3-I building. I spent Saturday morning at Goodwill with Bobbie Jo and Macy for the $1.10 sale and then we went and met her mother in law and her friend at the show. As we looked around, we saw this cool old tin top and Ginger (Bobbie Jo's mother in law) decided she would get baby M his first gift (since we got the referral) Isn't it cool! I love old toys!

Back in April, I drew plans out for shelves for the nursery, we bought the wood, and then got busy, so the wood sat. We started working on the project a couple of weeks ago. Last Sunday they were completed and we put them in the nursery. Over the past week and this weekend, we cleaned out the mess that was in the nursery and organized all the books we had (that were age appropriate - I have tons of young teen/pre-teen books too! I love to read!). We made three sets of two wide and three high. Here are two of them...

And the third one is on the other wall.

This is the opposite wall from the wall with the single shelf. We painted it almost two years ago (domestic adoption fell through). I still really like it, so we have left it the same and just added to and cleaned up. I need to finish the little curtain and put a couple more ties on the bumper for the crib. I will post complete pictures when it is all done and together. We are just not really 'cutsey' people, so I wasn't much for a 'cutsey' room. I like the colors and think they will be awesome for our little M.

We have been working on going through all the baby stuff we have been given (love those hand me downs) and pulling out what is age appropriate for our sweet baby and what is too young for him has been stored for our next little one. I washed the cushions for this awesome car seat we were given and came up from the basement to find Casper (our cat) enjoying his new place to lay down.

So, I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend! Ours was productive, which was nice! We are definitely nesting and excited to bring baby M home. Pray with us as we wait for our court date and travel.

No More New Numbers!

Yep, you heard us right! No more new numbers for us! Monday afternoon - October 19th (incidentally exactly 10 months to the day since we sent in our initial pre-application) - we got THE CALL. Dan had the day off and was home and Tara was at work. Tara answered the call from our case worker and had Dan conferenced in. I (Tara) was literally shaking and had 4 kids staring at me during the entire call. I took all the notes I could from the call on the only paper I could find at that moment - a paper airplane one of my sister's kids had made. As soon as the call was complete, Dan grabbed the cameras and headed to the office. Sitting in front of the computer with the anxious niece and nephews all gathered around, we got our first, very slow (dial up), look at these beautiful, precious eyes. Baby M is a beautiful 5 month old baby boy. He had only been at Hannah's Hope for 1 week at this point. He is totally healthy and we are so excited that he is our little boy! God has truly blessed us in this process! We have been praying for God to bring us the child that will be a perfect fit into our family, and let me tell you, little M is. He is the one God has designed to be our 'first born'.

So, after looking at his pictures, Dan hangs out at the office until we close (about 45 more minutes) and then we head out. We come home and start calling all the family! After all the calls were done, we took off to go out to dinner. We had been planning to go to dinner at this steak house that we love on the night we got our referral since we started this adoption. We had even saved a gift certificate for there since last Christmas just for this occasion. Dinner was wonderful, and then...off to Target and Walmart to go shopping! No, we didn't buy tons of stuff, but wanted to buy him a blanket and an outfit from us our first night. It was fun to look through all the baby stuff and have a face in mind (and a size)!

What a wonderful day it was! Cool thing was, first thing Monday morning, Dan woke up and told me he had a feeling that 'today is the day we are going to get our referral'. It is the only day so far he had said that, and lo and behold, he was right! Kind of a fun memory to add to the process.

We waited to post all this because it posts to facebook also and we wanted to surprise Tara's Bible Study, the Bible Bowl team, and our choir. What fun to surprise them all in person and not have some know already (from facebook) and others not be in the loop!

At this point it will still be a couple of months before we travel to bring our little bundle home because we have to wait for a court date and embassy appointment. Please join with us in prayer that during the rest of this process we receive quick appointments and travel dates!

Showers are already in the works, we need to get registered, and there is so much to be done. Blessings to you all and here is a beautiful smile to part with...

P.S. - For those who don't know, we are not allowed to post full pictures of our little one until we bring him home - or his full name and identifying information.