Home Sweet Home

Aaaaahhhh... we are home. There is no greater feeling then being home. The kids and I got back on Friday after a long day of driving. We had a great time at my moms even though each one of us got sick while we were there, but it didn't stick around for too long so that is good. We had a great Easter with my mom and my sister Carrie, the boys loved there baskets and hunting for eggs. Kaden is also old enough now to understand Easter better. When I asked him why we were celebrating Easter he said, "because Jesus is alive!" I think that is a great definition from a three year old.

We spent a lot of time at my moms store with her, she has the cutest little scrapbooking store. We spent some time making an adoption lifebook template. It is really cute, I love it.... if anyone is interested in me making a book for them just let me know. I think I may list this one on Etsy and then make them to order if anyone is interested. It was a fun project and my mom is so talented.

We also spent time just relaxing. My mom had a bunch of toys for the boys to play with so they had a blast discovering new toys. While they so happily played I actually got to read, it was so nice to catch up on some of the adoption books I have been wanting to read. It was overall a fun and relaxing trip. The drive was so beautiful. The weather was great driving there and back, it was sunny and gorgeous. (I don't have any pictures since Kevin took out camera on his trip and I forgot to make copies of my moms pictures before we left.)

Kevin got back from New Orleans on Saturday. They had an amazing trip that I think I will have him write about....

Our trip to New Orleans was pretty incredible. A lot of people assume that New Orleans is back on their feet, and it couldn't be farther from the truth. The city is still devastated, and there is so much work to be done.

I took a group of 15 people down there. We ranged in age from 16 to 50, as well as "churched" and "un-churched" people. It was amazing! We finished gutting a house for a home owner, helped another owner move a wall, painted, worked in some yards, and built lockers for some local Fire Houses.

If God has placed a desire in your heart for missions at all, I strongly recommend a trip to New Orleans. There is so much destruction, and honestly the Government isn't doing much. I believe that one of the reasons this is happnening is because God wants the church to rebuild New Orleans. For the most part, it's the church that is breathing life back into the city.

We worked through the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana. There are doing some amazing things in helping people get their lives and homes back together. If you're interested in finding out how you can help, don't hesitate to contact us! Here are a few pictures from our trip...

We really don't have much to report as far as the adoption goes. Kevin did have his individual interview yesterday, and he said it went well. Our next, and last, joint interview is on the second and then we will be done with our part. We are still waiting on our CBI and FBI background checks and I am not sure how much longer that will take. The estimate we were given was 4 to 5 months and they have been out for about 2 months. I have heard of some families in CO that have gotten them back in a month or two, so I am hoping they will get back soon. So, once those are back our homestudy will be done, so please pray that our background checks will get back quickly.

Kevin and I will both be leaving on Saturday for spring break. He is leading a group from our church on a trip to New Orleans. They are going to help with the rebuilding. Last year they helped gut peoples houses and that was very depressing because they had to just throw away so many things that had just been ruined. Almost everything people owned just ended up in dumpsters, like wedding dresses, photo albums, you name it. So, this year will have a totally different feel to it.

I am going to go visit my mom for a couple days. I have a six hour drive over the mountains, that will probably take closer to eight for potty breaks now that Kaden is potty trained. So I will be off line for about a week. I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter.

Homestudy 2 & 3

Yesterday we had our second joint interview, my individual interview, and our home inspection. We passed our home inspection with flying colors, thanks to our little Oliver. I think I will start hiring him out, he can go to your house and find anything that needs to be childproofed. He has a gift. Any takers?

Our interviews were fine, Kevin and I tend to be a bit long winded on some of our answers (well one of us is a little more long winded then the other but I won't name any names) so we are in for a very long final interview. Whatever it takes is fine by me. Kevin has his individual interview next week and then we have our final interview on April 1st. Our homestudy will be completed when our background checks come back so hopefully they will get back quickly. Once our homestudy is finished then we begin our paperwork that we send to Ethiopia, it is called the dossier. We are getting closer!!!!

Our Little Man...

This week was Kaden's 3rd Birthday. On his actual birthday the weather here was beautiful, so Kaden and Oliver and I spent the day at the zoo. This is Kaden's favorite thing to do. He is such a sweet social little guy, everyone at the zoo was his friend. He wanted everyone there to come with us to the next exhibit and when they didn't he couldn't understand where his friends were going. That night we went to dinner at one of Kaden's favorite restaurants, Fargo's. This place is a historic monument, not really it just hasn't changed a bit since I was a kid. I seriously don't think they have done one single thing to update this place in the last 30 years, but that is part of the charm. It was fun, we ate pizza and sundaes and then we had to go to the game room to play.

The next night we had his party, a fire truck party. It was so fun to have all of our family and some friends over to celebrate with us. Kaden has such a great time playing with all of his friends, and they were all so cute running around in their little firefighter hats. Here are a couple pictures from his party.


On Saturday we went to an all day adoption training to meet the Core Training requirements that Colorado has. It was good information and we got to meet a couple families that have adopted. We have another full day of training on Monday and then the only thing that we will have left is the on-line training (as far as training goes). It was nice to meet some other families that are in the process of adopting, and out of four couples at the training three of us are adopting from Ethiopia so that is fun. One of the things that I have been thinking a lot about is a family that shared their adoption experience, they said that for the first six months after their adoption they didn't let anyone else hold the baby. This was done to increase the bonding between the parents and their baby. I am not sure how I feel about this, I have thought a lot about the whole attachment and bonding issue but I am not sure about this. I think it is important that Kevin and I are the ones that meet our babies needs and that we do most of the holding, but I am not sure about not letting anyone else hold them. I like the idea of having our families and friends love on them as well... any thoughts?

Today is drastically colder then the past few days so after church today we came home ate lunch, put on our pajamas, and took naps! There is nothing better then snuggling into bed on a cold day and then actually being able to sleep.

I am sorry if this post is a little crazy, my house is a little crazy right now!