YOU ROCK! Kid's Valentine

The other night I sat down and whipped up a little Valentine card for my 2nd grader to share with his friends at school on Valentine's Day.  We don't get to make boxes this year, which is unfortunate as I could totally see us fashioning a guitar shaped box to go with his Valentine, but I guess it will save us a little time anyway.  =)

If I'm being completely truthful - I make them for several reasons:
A. I love designing
B. He loves the personalized card with his picture on it (and especially loved the idea of handing out a package of Pop Rocks candy to each of his friends, although he WAS disappointed that I poo-poo'ed his idea of including a bottle of soda with each one. I didn't really think his teacher would appreciate the fountains of soda that were likely to spray everywhere when the kids dumped their candy into the soda bottles.)
C. It's so fun to hear my mom friends gripe at my efforts --- totally makes it well worth the extra time spent creating!

After showing a few friends, I did have a couple ask me if they could use it too.  Of course they can!  Love that they love it that much!!  Here is the original for my son and a sassy, girly take on the Valentine as well!

(Im)patiently Awaiting Our Baby Girl!

When we made the decision 6 months ago that we wanted to complete our family thru adopting a baby girl, we jumped headfirst into the research, details, paperwork, forms, copies and questions to prepare ourselves.

This stage was easy....there was always something to work on, some document to track down or another phone call to make.  We researched what kind of adoption we wanted, different kinds of agencies, facilitators and attorney's available, and we talked to many, MANY of them.  We interviewed agencies, made the difficult attempt to compare apples to oranges (as no agency or service does anything alike) and weighed our options as to whether we should go with the larger agency with more birthmoms, or the smaller agency with more personalized service.  Who knows which is the better choice?  We're still uncertain, but praying and hopeful that we made the right decision.

Once we settled on an agency and completed our packet of documents for the homestudy, we scheduled our homestudy visit.  And while this sounds a little intimidating (having a complete stranger come into your home and basically evaluate, both on paper and in person, EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of your life) it was surprisingly pain-free.  Our social worker is a wonderful, caring person who has the best intentions of making sure we and our two sons are 100% prepared for all that adoption involves.

After completing both of our homestudy interviews, and waiting thru the filing of paperwork from our social worker, we finally were "officially legal".  We could potentially be chosen at any moment by an extremely brave birthmother, who is choosing to selflessly give her baby a home/family/life that she may not be able to give right now.  WOW!

Hurry up and wait....waiting, and not having anything "to work on," has been a little harder.  I've emmersed myself into decorating our baby's room --- my combination of charming elegance and tranquility.  I've spent hours sitting in the room; staring, planning, visualizing.....sounds silly, I know, but it was something I could be doing to prepare.  So now that I'm mostly done with the room decor I have to find another way to occupy my time.  Thought I'd start by sharing our story and a few pictures.  Maybe I'll give some other potential adoptive parents some ideas on ways to take up a little of their "waiting" time decorating.  =)  Let the waiting/wishing/hoping game commence!  Our fingers and toes are firmly crossed that there's a little baby girl out there just for us!