Life from the perspective of a 6-year old

We had a birthday party Friday night for our niece Annika (turning 4) and Abby. I let niece Alyssa (6-1/2) use my camera and take pictures during part of the evening. It was fun to look thru what she took and to see life from her perspective. I'll include some of them here so you can get a flavor of life from the eyes of a 6-year old. :)






Abby's "mean face"


Uncle Matt and Aunt-to-be Emily

Sister Annika (the birthday girl) and Grandpa


Mom and Aunties in the kitchen

And here's the precocious 6-year old herself!

Adoption #2 Update

Several people have asked us where we are in this process, so here is the update.

As many of you know, we are on the Foster-to-Adopt track with our previous agency, Bethany Christian Services, as the middle man between us and the state. Our plan/desire is to be matched with kids age 0-5 who are legally free or likely to become legally free. We are open to either boys or girls, and will take a sibling pair (2 kids at a time).

There are many steps to the process, including background checks, fingerprinting, Pride training (30 hour class), references (thanks to those of you who are doing references for us!), self-study, questionnaires on what characteristics of kids we would best be able to parent, health checkups from our doctors, bringing our home up to standard to meet the requirements of the home study, making sure our cat is free from sickness or disease, CPR/1st Aid/BBP classes, and lots of other paperwork. We just take it one step at a time and tackle each item at it comes due.

At this point, we have finished all of our classes (Pride training and CPR/1st Aid/BBP), have done one round of background checks and fingerprinting, and have finished over half of our paperwork. Once our paperwork is complete, Bethany will review it and do their part in the filtering/investigation process, and then they will do our home study. That should happen in approximately 3 months (assuming we finish our paperwork within the next month).

Once our homestudy is complete, and our photo album/family profile is complete, we will be able to be matched with kid(s). One of the differences between the domestic infant adoption program (how we got Abby) and the foster-to-adopt program is that we as the adoptive parents have a lot more say over who we will get as kids. We can and have looked at profiles even now, and we could be matched with kids even at this point in the process. We just won't be able to bring them into our home until we have our foster license.

It's a lot scary and a lot exciting to be in this process. But we also have a lot of peace about it. We know that God has just the right kiddos picked out for us (just like He did by bringing us Abby), and so we rest in the confidence that He will bring to pass exactly what should happen at exactly the right time. We have to do our part by meeting the requirements and jumping thru the appropriate hoops, but God is ultimately in control of who we will get to adopt as our next kid(s).

As we said last time we adopted, we very much appreciate the prayers and support from our family and friends. We could not do this without you. There is a lot of faith involved in this process! It certainly is stretching us and will stretch us a whole bunch more before we're done. But God is faithful, and we are trusting in Him.

No post would be complete without a picture, so here's one for you:

This one was taken a few nights ago when Abby and I were up late (she took a late nap and wasn't tired until after 11pm). We had a SPLENDID time together, part of which was spent taking self-photos. :)

Go Huskies

The UW Huskies (basketball) are in the round of 32. Abby and I are all ready for the big game tomorrow against Purdue.

She's 2!

Our little girl turned two last Saturday, March 7th. For those of you who voted for the 7th on Randy's poll, Congratulations! You're a winner!

Due to Judy's Grandma's passing and the subsequent funeral, Abby's official birthday party got bumped by a couple days, but in return we got to have Grandpa and Grandma A. here from Kansas for the event! That was special! We only celebrated with Judy's side of the family this weekend; we'll do Randy's side in a couple weeks.

We didn't do anything too fancy for Abby's birthday party, mostly because there was just way too much else going on the same weekend. Actually, we had 3 small Abby-honoring events over the weekend, instead of 1 big one. We went to Red Robin on Friday night for a free meal for Randy (his birthday was last Wednesday, March 4th) and Abby. The waiters & waitresses sang "Happy Birthday" to Abby, and she got a balloon and an ice cream sundae. On Saturday, we served birthday cake as part of the cousin's dinner after the funeral. Monday night we had a taco feed with Judy's parents, siblings, nephews and niece, and a second birthday cake. Abby got a couple birthday presents that night as well.

UNdressing

We heard Abby chattering away in her room around 4am this morning, then she went back to sleep. When Randy went to say goodbye to her before he left for work this morning at 6am, he called to me and said "Hey, did you put pajamas on Abby last night?" I said "of course!". He said "well, she doesn't have any on now!"

Sure enough, she had figured out how to take her PJ's off!

He didn't have time to redress her, and I didn't want to get out of bed to get her dressed, so he just put her back in bed with a couple blankets over top and told her to go back to sleep (which she did).

I brought my camera with me when I went to get her up this morning, but she did NOT want her picture taken! Here's the best I got:

"Uh-Oh!" Here Mommy!

Goodbye Grandma

My Grandma passed away on February 28, after a 3+ year battle with bone cancer. She was my last living grandparent, and was a very special lady. Even tho my family lived just down the road from her while we were growing up, we didn't spend very much time with her. Thankfully, Abby and I visited with her quite a bit these last two years, and made up for some of that lost time. She was a great resource for marriage and parenting advice, and was a huge supporter of us as we went through the adoption journey. When we finally came to the conclusion that we weren't conceiving biological kids and decided to adopt, Grandma was the first person who told us "anyone can have bio kids, but God picks special people to be adoptive parents". That comment was the one that got me "over the hump" of accepting this new plan for our family.

I wrote this memo to Grandma and gave it to her about 5 weeks before she died.

Grandmas Are Special
(My Grandma is Special)

No one can HUG like Grandma – Grandmas are soft and squishy and lovable and loving
No one can CARE like Grandma – she always has a listening ear
No one can ADVISE like Grandma – whether it’s parenting advice, relationship advice, or spiritual advice, Grandma does it kinder and gentler than anyone
No one can SEW like Grandma – sock monkeys, clothes for little black babies in Haiti, tote bags … you name it, she can make it!
No one can LOVE like Grandma
No one can take your place.
Thank you, Grandma, for the things you’ve taught me, and the love you’ve shown me. I love you!
Your granddaughter,
Judy


Be not dismayed what e’er betide, God will take care of you;
Beneath His wings of love abide, God will take care of you.
God will take care of you, Thru every day, o’er all the way;
He will take care of you, God will take care of you.
No matter what may be the test, God will take care of you;
Lean, weary one, upon His breast, God will take care of you.

New Tooth!

Abby has had the most horrible cold for the last 5+ days with constantly running nose and cough. Today we maybe found out the real reason her nose has been running so much! SHE CUT ANOTHER TOOTH! It's her first eye tooth--top right side. We are SO EXCITED!

I know it may not be a big deal to many of you, but for us it was very encouraging. Our visit with the dentist last month indicated she may not have/get any more teeth, so to see one come thru was a real blessing. Randy said "that's one more to brush". I said "that's one less we might have to pay for in the future". Thank you Lord!