Happy Birthday Harper and Home Visit

Today is Harper's 3rd birthday! We had a cute little party at the park and it was a beautiful day. Happy birthday to our precious little girl!

Our home visit was on Friday, and it went great! Our caseworker came in and Bethany took her by the hand and gave her a tour of the house. We spent most of the time being interviewed by her about our family backgrounds and current familial relationships. She called them "genograms", kind of like a basic family tree, but she took a ton of notes and asked a lot of questions.

I thought it was really fun! I can see why come people like going to counselors. It's nice to sit there for an hour and have someone ask you questions about your life and you basically just get to talk about yourself to someone who really wants to know! Really though, your past is sort of this thing that you carry around with you and while it totally informs the present, you don't necessarily talk about it that much or get to share with people other than your spouse or very close friends. Not that I have anything dramatic or haunting in my past, but I feel like it's such a part of who a person is. So I enjoyed that.

After the genograms, she asked Bethany and Harper to draw a picture of our family so she could ask them questions about it and assess the pictures. Harper traced her hand and drew H's all over so I'm not sure how helpful her picture was, but Bethany did a really good job. She drew herself, then Harper, then Daddy, and then Benjamin, but she ran out of room for me! "Why don't you draw Mommy on the back?" we suggested. And so she did. I, however, was the only family member with an associated prop. What does my 4-year-old associate most with me? The stove. She drew me cooking at the stove. We all thought that was hilarious, and pretty accurate. So while the rest of my family is hanging out on the front of the paper, there I am on the back, cooking. But seeing as cooking for people is one of the primary ways I show love and affection, I'm alright with that association. :)

What Can You Get for Two Quarters These Days?

I like to spread the word about good deals, so FYI a vending machine in the Basha's on Pecos and McQueen is selling Hope and Inspiration for 50 cents! Grab that one up while it lasts.

Home visit was switched to this coming Friday, so that's why I haven't posted about it yet. More on that later!

Off To A Great Start

The final numbers are in! On Friday the 7th the cd sales totaled $1,773.00! We have sold a few here and a few there since the release party, and have something in the works with the bookstore at our church, but we are so excited to be off to such a great start just from Friday night. Thanks to everyone who was there!

A friend suggested adding a way to purchase cds to this blog, so just to the right is an "add to cart" button that links to our paypal account (too bad we can't just adopt through eBay). It took me forever to figure out how to get that little button there, and I must say I'm quite proud of myself.

Tomorrow is our home visit! Thanks to all of you who have filled out reference forms and written letters and prayed for us. I'll let you know how tomorrow goes.

Catching Up

Over the weekend we saw a beautiful display of candied apples. They were $5 a piece, so I told the girls we would make our own when we got home. Here is a picture of the finished product! I made them eat the apples standing in the bathtub which turned out to be a very good decision.

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I missed a couple of weeks and it seems like a lot has happened! We had the "I'm Telling" meeting with our caseworker and it seemed like it went really well. We basically answered questions about ourselves and our marriage and family for an hour each. There were several "on a scale of one to 10, rate your...." questions and it was encouraging to honestly rate everything pretty high. God is so good to us, and answering all those questions was a nice reminder of that. We compared answers on the ride home and I think we matched up pretty well too. This week we both have our physicals and lab work which I'm not looking forward to, but it will be good to have out of the way. Then Friday is a big day because it is our (hopefully) final homestudy meeting which will be the actual home visit. I don't want to go nuts on cleaning or anything. I'll be interested to see if I stick to that.

Last Friday night was the CD Release party! It was so much fun and a great night. I'm not sure how many people came out, but it looked to be around 300 or so. We had just about the right amount of food (which to me means some leftovers) and we sold 120 cds in one night! Luke was running the cd table and he said a lot of people said "keep the change", so that was a real blessing. None of the money that came in on credit cards has been counted yet, so I don't have a total amount to announce, but we're off to a good start. The cds are for sale in the Commons Bookstore at our church if anyone missed the event but still wants one. They turned out great.

I have to say, I am pretty exhausted. After the release I was up with a sick Benjamin two nights in a row and we had a pretty full weekend. Thankfully my wonderful mom took the girls to church with her on Sunday morning so I was able to get a nap and a shower. It's going to be another full week, so we're gearing up! In a couple of hours I am looking forward to meeting a family in our area that recently adopted two from Uganda. We are meeting at the park for a picnic lunch and playground time.

As for where we are at emotionally, we are still planning on Uganda but are very much open to a state adoption should the right opportunity come along. We will also have to look at how much we are able to raise. Once our homestudy is complete, I can begin applying for grants from different organizations so we will hope for the best from that.

Well, I must go pack lunches and put away laundry! I hope to check back in once we have a total from the release party.