home study

Sorry it's been forever since I've updated.  We had a couple very hectic weeks.  We both had our one-on-ones with Heather.  It felt like just going out for coffee with a friend except we only talked about me.  :)

My parents came on a Friday and stayed until Wednesday morning.  It was not only amazing to spend so much time with them, but also amazing to finish so many little house projects.  I knew my Dad would go crazy and he really did do an enormous amount of work.  The 2 days that Jonathan was at work, Dad was down in the basement just working away.  Thanks Daddy!  You're still doing such a good job at taking care of me :)

Tiling under the kitchen sink.

Our cozy home right before heather came.

Heather's visit went really well.  We spent most of the time just talking more.  All of our paperwork is officially done and now Heather has to type up the study.  She'll have it done by the end of March and that is when we will be officially waiting.

Our job in the mean time is to create our book profile that will be given to birth mothers.  Jonathan will probably go nuts making this absolutely perfect and this is one time that I will let him be his perfectionist self.  We also need to create our web profile, which includes a video.  Almost all the videos currently on the website are just picture slideshows.  We want to make ours extra special.  We're going to videotape ourselves talking about our lives and probably have some pictures in there too.  But I want it to be even more special but don't know how.  Any ideas?

Chugging along...

Our lives have been super crazy lately!  Everything is moving so fast and we are more than happy to go along for the ride.  We had our first home study meeting at the Bethany office last week.  It consisted of  filling out more paperwork, getting more paperwork to take home and a short "getting to know you" portion.  This week we have our 1 on 1 interviews with Heather, our case worker.  They're 1.5 hours and we basically talk about ourselves the whole time.  Fun!  Then next week we already have our big home study meeting where Heather comes out to our house and approves everything.  I was more worried about how intense this would be before Heather explained it to us.  We have a giant checklist of everything we need to do for it, and surprisingly, it won't be too much work.  That isn't stopping my Dad from wanting to come this weekend and do a bunch of housework though.  Typical Dad. :)

Celebrate the approval!

Last week we finally heard that our loan was pre-approved.  I cannot tell you how much a source of stress this has been for me.  What a relief!  The process was pretty painful and we had a fairly bad experience with the company we're getting our loan through.  But it's behind us now and we had to celebrate!

We already had an overnight trip to the dells planned with our friends, the Morgans. Thank you, Groupon!  It felt like a celebration and it was so nice to completely relax.  Although most of us ended up being sick it was still a ton of fun!

Us with Kyle, Andrea & Ellery.  She is absolutely adorable!

Next step is the first home study meeting with our caseworker, Heather on Wednesday.  We filled out a bunch of paperwork for it, including a self study that is basically an essay packet.  It's a 2 hour meeting at their office where I believe we'll be filling out a lot more paperwork.  I think the adoption will feel so much more real after that.  We're looking forward to it!