I (eric) found this video while studying a bit more about Liberia. I met the songwriter this past fall and the footgage is from somewhere just outside of Monrovia... which is where our future girls live.

It's been another busy adoption week here.

--Riley and Trey had their adoption physicals. We love Dr. Turek and it's been great to talk with him about this adoption.

--Denise will be here tomorrow night at 6:30 for our final home study interview. I don't know how long it will take her after this interview to complete our home study. Hopefully not long because we need to a copy to Lighthouse quickly so that they can get moving on our immigration paper work.

--Saturday we have CPR training. Not my favorite way to spend a Saturday morning, but it has to be done.

--We had to read two books on adoption and international adoption for our home study. I finished them today. It was really good to spend time learning. When I was pregnant with Riley I read so much. That's the same way I feel now, like I have so much to learn about parenting these children. They will be my children in the same way that Riley, Trey and Evan are my children. But, they will come with their own set of issues as children who have been separated from their birth parents. If you are reading this and you have adopted internationally, please offer your suggestions on books to read. I'm ready to learn more.

In some ways I'm really ready to be done with this paperwork phase. But, in other ways I think it will be so much harder when all there is to do is wait. I don't wait well. I'm sure God has so much to teach me in this process.

The fire inspection is over. Mr. Inspector was intense, I'm not sure how many times I said "yes sir" in the twenty minutes he was here. I was a little surprised to learn that we are required to have monthly family fire drills until the children we adopt are 18 years old. We have two minutes to get all our kids to the library down the street. We're supposed to time it and record comments each month. I didn't argue with him, I just said "yes sir." He suggested that I do some of them in the middle of the night to practice evacuating the house while everyone is sleeping. I wonder if he has any children.

Our social worker just left. She was here for about two hours. She was extremely nice and gave us a lot of good advice. She talked with the kids first. They were SO well behaved and extremely cute. Riley answered all of her questions like a little man. He gave her direct eye contact the entire time and was very polite. Trey was adorable and did a great job answering her questions. Evan took some kind of super cute pill before she came and just sat by me on the couch saying "yeah" every time she asked one of the boys a question. He would throw his head back and laugh after each "yeah." Then Jen put the boys to bed and we talked with her about our thoughts on adoption, our values, and our parenting philosophy. It went really well. She did a walk through of the house before she left as well. She'll be calling us tomorrow to schedule our next interview and then she will complete our home study!

The first home study interview was supposed to be today, but it was moved to tomorrow night. Denise will be here around 6:30pm. If you know our family well, you know that this is not our best time of the day. But, it was the only option if we wanted to reschedule quickly, so we took it. We also have our fire inspection tomorrow morning as well. It will be a busy day. Some of the things we had to do to get ready for the fire inspection seem a little silly. Should fire ever happen to strike our home, we will be ready with fire evacuation plans posted on the wall. I guess this is just in case we forget where the nearest door or window is located in a moment of panic. But, we do now have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. As often as I let the kids bake and cook, it's probably a really good thing to have! We've been cleaning and baby proofing all weekend and all day today. Yes, I know this house should already be baby proof. It's not. I'm a completely irresponsible parent. Now all outlets have been covered and all cleaning supplies are behind locked cabinets. Should Denise want a snack, the refridgerator has been scrubbed. The kitchen cabinets have been polished, the bathrooms are shining, and the kids lockers and coat closets are nicely organized. I haven't cleaned the base boards, and probably won't have time! I know, I'm paranoid. I'll be so glad when this is over.

Other adoption updates...we are moving along quickly with our dossier and home study paper work. This would be a good time to thank Jen Leonard for her amazing help in this process. We would be a mess without her. She has our paper work so organized and keeps us right on track. We are on target to have it all done by the time Denise is finished preparing our home study. Eric and I have physicals this week and Riley and Trey have well childs next week. Evan is already done with his. Then Dr. Turek will have signed off on all of us and we'll be done with the medical paper work. I also had a good talk with Diana, our contact at Lighthouse. It was good to talk with her about my questions and concerns. Later this month we'll have infant CPR as well.

Finally, we are planning on rolling more coins. We'll probably work on it Friday night. Thank you all for donating your change. You would be amazed at how quickly it adds up. If you have been saving any for us, drop it off if you get a chance. We could also pick it up if that is easier for you. Then we can roll it and deposit it into our adoption savings account!

It's half time and the Bucks aren't looking very good...good night.

I have talked with our social worker on the phone and we have scheduled our first home study interview for Monday, January 7th at 12:30.

We sold Eric's computer to my cousin and were able to use the money for the adoption. Thank you Ryan for buying it from us. Thanks to my husband for being willing to sell his favorite toy. Between the computer money, the change we've collected, and contributions from family and friends we have been able to pay all of our fees to both Lighthouse and Gentle Care on time. So far this has come to a grand total of $2300.

Jen spent a ton of time this weekend organizing our paperwork and getting us ready to assemble our home study documents and our dossier. We're moving in the right direction.

Our home study packet came in the mail today. wow. It's really overwhelming, but it's time to push forward with this as quickly as possible. We have been assigned a social worker, her name is Denise. According to the letter that accompanied the packet, she should be contacting us shortly to set up our home visits. Hopefully "shortly" means Monday. So, we are also going to pay our dossier fee to Lighthouse and then we can begin aggressively working on our dossier while we are working on our home study. Many of the documents we will need to gather for our home study are needed for our dossier as well.

I had a dream about our children in Liberia last night. We went to pick them up, but we were told they weren't ready and we had to come home. It was devastating.

As I have been preparing for Christmas this year, I have thought often about what Christmas might look like next year. Maybe there will be two extra stockings. Maybe Santa will bring something pink. Maybe there will be two extra little people in my bed, all cozy under blankets, reading The Night Before Christmas with me. I sure hope so.

Have you read anything about Liberia yet? Have you seen the pictures? Have you read their stories? You should.

Just a quick update on where we are in this process. Our application and check for our homestudy were sent in on Monday. Lighthouse and Adoption by Gentle Care were able to work out an agreement and so Gentle Care will begin our home study process shortly. This is really happening. Now this dream of ours, that we believe was given to us by God, is on its way to becoming a reality. The home study makes me nervous and I'm ready to be on the other side of it. I always get nervous trying to explain who we are as a family and why we do what we do. This is probably because I honestly feel like we are criticized often by people who don't understand our choices. Now I have to explain our family to a complete stranger. But, this step is necessary and so we'll begin praying now for the grace we need to complete it. Another reason we need it done is that we can not begin applying for grants until it is completed.

How you can pray for our family...
Pray that the social worker assigned to do our home study is a good match for our family.

Pray for the financing of this adoption. Riley and I have been talking a lot about Jesus feeding the 5,000. He believes with his whole little heart that God will multiply our money in the same way. I want that kind of child like faith.

Pray that we will have wisdom as we continue to work on paper work and begin to gather the documents we need for our dossier.

Most importantly, pray for the children of Liberia. Pray for the care givers at the orphanage. Pray for those who are in leadership at Acres of Hope and Lighthouse Adoptions. We have heard that a large number of children are almost ready to be referred to families. We are not far enough along in this process to be one of those families, but pray for these children and the families they will be matched with.

Thank you for your prayers and support.