We took Hannah and my two nieces to the Hannah Montana concert this past Friday night. They had a blast!!! I wanted to share pictures of their fun night. It looks like they have make up on but it's just glitter. I think I may have gotten a little carried away with it. I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving. We feel very blessed to have these kiddos in our lives. They definitely c
an b
righten your day. 
Last night I went shopping for Hannah’s Christmas dress. On my way home I got the biggest smile on my face. I was thinking in a couple of years-I will also be shopping for my little man’s Christmas outfit. It just made my heart feel so full with love. Today is also our 3rd Anniversary. That is another great reason to smile!!!
We painted these piggy banks for Hannah & John
John's First Hat!!!
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1
Sometimes I may get a little down because of the adoption taking so long. I mean- I want to be a Mommy now! I have his room all ready and now it has to sit empty for possibly 2 years. I guess that’s our fault because we rushed to get it done. But it’s so exciting to get everything ready. The past few days I have been down and out because of the wait time being extended. My husband keeps reminding me to keep my faith. It’s so hard to do at times. Then I have my friend Renee who also reminded me keeping her faith is what brought her family together. She is now blessed with Daniel and feels that he was chosen for their family. I do have so many things to look forward to. Soon we will have another family member added to our home. Hannah will have a little brother and Eddie and I will have a son. That is something to look forward to. So I choose to keep my faith and know that God has already chosen our little man for our family.
My Family
This weekend my brother got married. The wedding was beautiful and the weather was great. Here our a few pictures from the wedding. The girls did an amazing job in the wedding. Not much is happening with the adoption. Our wait time may be extended to 18-24 months. All we can do is pray and keep faith that all things will happen in God’s timing. It’s hard at times but Eddie keeps reminding me to keep my faith strong. Without faith we have nothing. Hope everyone had a great weekend.
This past weekend we took the girls on a little trip to Chattanooga, TN. We went to Ruby Falls, Rock City and to the IMax Theater. I remember going to Ruby Falls and Rock City as a child but it was more enjoyable i think as an adult.
Last Thursday night we went to visit our friends Renee and Kyle. They came back this summer with their son Daniel from Vietnam. Daniel just turned 2 on August 20th. He is such a sweet child and very bright. It was good to finally get to meet this little fellow. Renee and Kyle showed us pictures from their time in Vietnam and gave us some great tips. Check out their blog to see pictures of their family.
Eddie and I are going today to pick up John’s furniture. I’m so excited!!! We got this cute little shelf at Wal-Mart to put some of his stuffed animals on. We are going to stain it to match his crib. I really haven’ t bought a lot of stuff yet for John. I really want to but we try and refrain from doing so. Don’t know how much longer I can hold on this one. I did see those cute little pants one day and could not resist buying them. My brother graduated this spring from The Citadel. I figured I should go ahead and buy the shirt while I was there. Eddie was a little upset that his first t-shirt was from my brother’s college and not his. Nah, he wasn’t upset but I do plan on buying John a little outfit from The West Virginia University. I catch myself saying, “Cute” and “how cute this would be for John”. How long can I say cute before I have to change to everything being handsome??? Oh, he will always be cute to me!!!
and it’s been crazy. My brother is getting married September 15th. Hannah and my two nieces are in the wedding. Hannah and Gracie will be Flower Girls and Josie will be a Junior Bridesmaid. They are going to be so cute. Eddie and I took my mom Tuesday to find her a dress. She found a gorgeous dress at David’s Bridal. She looked beautiful. My brother’s fiancee is from Korea and her name is also Jessica. She was adopted at 6 months from an orphanage in Korea. The picture above is Chad and Jessica.
Last Saturday Eddie and I went to Baby’s r us and ordered John’s furniture. Everyone keeps asking me “Isn't a little soon” or “why would you do that now”. I tell them the same thing. It’s because we want too and we are excited to get his room ready!!!!!!!!!! We are has excited about this adoption as a pregnant woman about her pregnancy. To me, this is my pregnancy and I could not be more excited. We have had some comments made to us as to “why do you want to adopt or why don’t you have your own child”. I don’t go into all or our fertility appointments and why we did not choose IVF. After praying we decided that adoption is what we wanted and what God was leading us to. I don’t feel that adoption was our second choice, I feel that is was our first and we just did not see it yet. I believe and have faith that all things happen for a reason. I believe that my faith was tested during our fertility issues. I prayed and asked God to lead me in a direction and he led us to adoption. I believe that our family will be the lucky ones to have found John. He will be a true gift from God.
Sara said that she hoped to get more referrals in this month. Hope everyone has a great rest of the week.
We have been on the waiting list now for a little over 3 months. The time sometimes seems slow but when I think of the end result it makes me smile. It will be my little man and he will be worth the wait!!! With us being on the list 3 months, we still have estimated 9-12 months. We are number 125 on the list.
We have had a very busy summer so far. A couple of weeks ago we went to Holiday World in Indiana. Hannah and my nieces had a blast. They scare me because they are so brave for their age. Gracie and Hannah went down all the water slides except for two; they were just under the height requirement. Eddie and I were exhausted and they could have gone forever. The best part of the trip was hearing their giggle and seeing their smiles. They are sweet children.
Josie is 10, Hannah is 4 and Gracie is 5. 
After 17 long grueling weeks they are finally here. Our passports arrived today and now we are officially allowed to leave the Country. All the painting in the house is also done. We think the colors match well with John's bedding. I posted a picture below. We are so excited. Now the next step is to go find the furniture. We'll keep updating as we get his room ready.
This has been a long week and I’m thankful it’s Friday. We have a lot to do this weekend. Tonight we are going to move furniture around so that we can start on the baby’s room. Tomorrow morning we are going to a Dossier Class at the agency. After our class we are going by our Church to help out with Vacation Bible School. On Sunday we have Church and then it all starts over again for another workweek. The weekend’s go by too fast.
We are hoping to have John’s room finished in a couple of weeks. We picked up some cute picture frames today to put in his room.
This week we did get 2 referrals and another waiting child was placed. There are a couple of families that will be traveling this next week. We are still waiting on our passports. We are going on 17 weeks now. I know what we don’t need them for a while but it would be nice to have in our hands. Hopefully they will come soon. Hope everyone has a great weekend.
We are excited and happy for the families who received their referrals yesterday. Our agency received 3 referrals. One infant girl 7 1/2 months, a 2 month old girl and a 2 month old boy. So we have moved up 3 more spots--Our new number is 133!!!! Sara said there are more referrals that will be taken in for their medicals soon. So we may get more referrals pretty soon.
Hope everyone has a great weekend and 4th of July and be safe!!!!!!!!!!
I wanted to share one of my favorite verses from the Bible. I prayed for our child and with God all things are possible. I prayed and asked God to lead us in the right direction. He led us to adopting our child from Vietnam. I feel that we are blessed to have this opportunity and I think God everyday.
Matthew 7
Verse 7 & 8
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who ask receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
We have the bedding for John's room. I wanted to post a picture of what it looks like. Now we need to paint and get his furniture. We can't wait to get to get his room completed. www.babysupermall.com They have so many to choose from and it was hard to decide.
Almost every other week we get email updates from our social worker Sara. She sends everyone emails letting them know where they are on the waiting list and of any new referrals or waiting children. Today we find out they we are # 140 on the list. We can't believe that we moved up 13 spots in less than a month.
Our friends Renee and Kyle are leaving for Vietnam today. They are so excited and anxious to finally see their son in person. Hopefully they will keep updating their blog. We look at it everyday in excitement for them because we know we will be there soon. They have been really helpful with information regarding the process. We hope to be able to learn from them the do's and don't of the process and the Country. The blogs and journey's have been very helpful. I find myself looking at them daily, just waiting for the day that we will get to meet our son.
We are so excited, we found our we are # 153 on the waiting list. The last couple that received their referral took about 9 1/2 months . We are hoping by January we will have a referral. It's hard because we find ourselves wanting to buy things for John. We are planning to start painting his room soon. I already have his bedding and cannot wait to get his room finished.
Today we received our I-171. It only took about 4 1/2 weeks. We were not expecting for a few more weeks. It can take up to 10 weeks. It's Friday afternoon so first thing on Monday I will fax to Sara. Monday morning we will officially be on "The List". This is one step closer to bringing our son home.
We have just received our first gift for our son (Thanks Aunt Debbie and Uncle Jeff!). As you can see from the picture, we have decided to name him John Edward Maynard. We are in the process of picking out colors and furniture to put in his bedroom. Man, there are a million ideas that we have and it is so hard to settle on one. Maybe we will just do them all! In all seriousness, we will post pictures of his room and everything as soon as we are able to get it completed. We'll keep you posted.
Today we picked up our completed Homestudy from CHI. Looks like they have decided that we may be alright after all - haha. We had to take our Homestudy, along with our Invitation to be fingerprinted, to the Citizen and Immigration Services Office in Nashville. They are checking to see if we are convicted felons! As, we sat in the Office to get fingerprinted, we talked to two other couples who were there to do the same thing. It is really amazing the number of people that we have talked to that either are adopting or know someone adopting. Seems like there are a bunch of us out there. After we finished with our Fingerprinting, we had to go get our Passports done. Walgreens messed up one of the pictures, so we had to have them retaken. That wasn't fun, but we had to do it. We sent off our Fingerprints and Passports at the same time. Supposedly, we will have them back in about 10 weeks (Assuming we are not felons - haha.) We will keep you posted and let you know. Keep our family in your prayers.
It's February 28, 2007. Today is the day! The day that we have really been anticipating and I actually think that we are a little nervous. Sara, our Social Worker, has schedule to come out to our home to interview us and Hannah. Hopefully Hannah isn't too shy. We really didn't know what to expect. The whole process took about an hour and it really wasn't as bad as we thought. Luckily we had talked to a couple of friends that had just recently went through the process and they kind of prepared us. The end result - We passed with flying colors!!! Praise the Lord!!! Now we are waiting on the actual documentation from CHI to go get fingerprinted by Citizen and Immigration Services.
On January 23, 2007 we received a letter stating that our application has been approved. Now comes the hard part.....telling everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - about ourselves so we can work toward our Homestudy. Man, we can't believe that there is so much stuff that they need! Pictures of every room of our house, Police Records, Birth Records, Health Records and even at least a 5 page Autobiography. How in the world are we going to we limit it to ONLY 5 pages??????? And 7 reference letters???? Luckily we know 5 people that will write something nice. Maybe we can get the other 2 to lie - haha! In all seriousness, we have alot of work to do to pull this stuff together. CHI has been great through the whole process and have really held our hands the whole way. We have been keeping in our minds that if we feel like we are getting overwhelmed, that God has granted us the opportunity to adopt a precious little baby boy! We are so blessed.
