Welcoming all that 2012 has to offer!

A late "Merry Christmas!" and Happy New Year!

I received the necklace above as a gift for Christmas this year from my parents, such a sweet gift and something I can wear daily to remind me of our sweet baby on the other side of the world.

Well, even though it's only December 28th here, all of our decorations are down and Christmas is officially put away until next year. I LOVE the holidays and decorating for them, but as soon as they're over, I'm over and ready for the decorations to come down. As we get closer and closer to 2012, there are many things I'm excited to check off our list.

-Winter Hume with the high schoolers
-Finishing up our home study and dossier (more on that below:) )
-Traveling to Mexico again this year to do some work with Spectrum Ministries
-Another school year coming to an end (bittersweet, but can't believe the year is half over!)
-Grad Classic with the high schoolers
-SUMMER, shorts, tan skin, warm days, ect
-Getting the BABYS ROOM READY!
-Getting our referral
-Traveling to Ethiopia
-Becoming parents :)

We have quite the full year, and 2012 hasn't even gotten here yet!

What's up with our adoption you ask? Well, we have officially begun what is affectionately known in the adoption world as "the paper chase." We have begun the process of finding every single important piece of paper that tells EVERYTHING about our lives, pasts, families, ect. Not really, but kind of. We are entering into our home-study and dossier stage. In the very near future, we will be having a social worker visit our house to make sure it's in tip top shape for a little one to live in, get some physicals done (actually we've done that part) get some fingerprinting done, gather lots of paperwork and complete our home-study. While that's being done, we'll also be gathering lots and lots of paperwork for our dossier; which includes things like financial statements, employment verifications, background checks, police records, references, ect. So that's where we're at. I'm actually excited to start this (ask me again in a month or so if I feel the same way) we’re just one more mile down in this marathon!

We also just wanted to say thank you again to everyone who has committed to be on this journey with us, thanks to your prayer and support we were able to send off not just the first payment to our agency, but also our first big payment to our home-study. Such an amazing blessing.

We're also still selling shirts, so let is know if you're interested :) Also, in the near future we're having a fundraiser at Chick Filet! YUM! More on that another day. This was quite the update, but with so many people being so interested, I thought it'd be helpful. Happy New Year sweet readers! I hope you have some fun planned to ring in the New Year!