Beginning the Paper chase - the beginning of finding Lauren

We have the first visit with the home study social worker this upcoming weekend. We are meeting at our new house... boxes and all. She was ok with this... and this is who we are at the moment. We've unpacked many boxes (but not all)... but we've also taken a small break in "moving" activities to celebrate Joshua's birthday and spend time with Brad's parents - they came down for the weekend and we don't see them much - so this was a very special time together. One exciting event, we got Lauren's crib upstairs!! The movers said it was too wide... which is was, so Brad's dad and Brad took it apart and moved it up and put it all back together. It looks wonderful up there just waiting for someone special. We don't know for sure if she will be too old for a crib, but we're thinking she might be 12-24 months... and in a new environment, a crib is safest if she's on the higher end of the range...or even older.

I'm nervous about our first meeting with the social worker. I feel we are ready to officially begin this journey and we have nothing to hide... but it's still a little scary thinking about all the questions we may be asked and the idea that we always wonder if we are worthy. The level of detail is so great... for example, one item on the home study is whether or not our medicines are behind a locked door... or in a locked box... yikes. We've always had medicines well above reaching range for Joshua, but also... he's never been a child to "get into" things and he wasn't a climber... so this didn't even occur to me that medicine should be "locked".... of course all our cleaning products were behind a child safety lock when Joshua was a baby... so we'll probably need to revert back to some of those days. I guess it comes down to this... we've been blessed with a child that wants to be close to us... even when playing, so we've always been right there with Joshua and he's never even shown interest in getting into cabinets, etc. So I will need to work on child safety for sure before our visit. These are the types of things I pray we will have acceptable for our home study evaluation.... we have some time, but I know it will be here before we know it. This weekend is our initial meeting, educational visit... and the begin of completing paperwork.

Lord Jesus, give me great discernment to consider all that I need to be ready for this journey. We know there is a tiny baby right now growing... or even just born that you have picked out for our family. Even Joshua is calling her by name. We can't wait to add her to our family.

It's a time of change

Well today we celebrated Joshua's 4th birthday. We had a great time at the Mad Potter painting - the funny thing is all Joshua's friends from his old class came and just one from his new class. He dearly misses his old friends from school, so this was a very special time together all these 4 year olds enjoying each other's company. We've moved to our new house... and we are so blessed... it's very spacious, so much we don't know what to do with. Adapting is challenging going from a ranch to a two story style + a basement. And now we're getting ready to meet with our social worker for the adoption and officially get the paperwork going. Our life right now is a time of change...of adapting..and adjusting. We are such a creature of habit, I feel my compass is a bit off right now with all this change.... I'm looking forward to a new normal, established routines, and being settled. This brings to mind the change that will come with Lauren... and the change she will experience too! It seems this time in our lives is quite exciting -- almost so full I don't know how to react!