Sunday, May 31, 2009

Almost done with the nursery!

I love his crib! I can't wait to see the gorgeous baby bedding that his Granny has been working hard to make for him (see earlier post for crib fabric picture). The sign above the crib says, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed."

We are going to repaint that dresser with a few brown and green stripes going down the front of it. The low console with green and white plastic bins is from Ikea. I love how it provides storage for his toys that he can easily get into and that the top is a perfect surface for play. I think we are going to either paint it or stain it darker. Oh, and yes, I realize that his little wooden Noah's Ark play set is a choking hazard. I will put it away before he arrives. James and I were just playing with it. ;)

I brought in this brown velvet chair from our dining room. It's pretty small and uncomfortable to sit in, but it does look really cute in the room! I really want a cushy armchair in here so that I can snuggle and read books with him, but this will work for now. Also, notice the green circle rugs. We have 5 of them scattered around the room instead of one large rug. I like them, but I'm not sure that we'll keep them...still deciding.


A close up of one of his monkeys and a soft "lovie."



My sister-in-law Debi had this plate painted for Henry. It matches his room really well!
We spent this weekend working hard to prepare Henry's nursery for him. A lot of work was involved in this project! We are just about to put our house on the market so we decided to just paint the walls a neutral color. Also, the nursery has 7 (!!!!!) windows and all of them had glued-on masking tape from when our house was rehabbed before we moved in. Long ago we tried to scrape that tape off but eventually just gave up and put up window coverings. We worked on scraping those windows today for about 2 hours. We still aren't done yet...we have some "conflicting" wood-tones in the several furniture pieces and the floor that we plan on correcting. Also, his crib bedding is pretty offbeat and I think it will add a lot of funkiness to the room when my mother-in-law is done with it. I'm so happy that we finally have a space for him! It definitely makes everything seem more real. I hope that we get our good news soon!












































Saturday, May 30, 2009

Baby Shower




This week my amazing 3rd grade teammates threw me a baby shower. They did a beautiful job!! It was so much fun to open all of our presents!


James and I ordered special fortune cookies that had custom fortunes inside about our adoption.
Yes, I made James go to the shower!



The very next day James' office surprised him with a big basket full of really cute baby stuff. I love all of the monkeys!

Last night James and I went to Babies R Us armed with the gift cards we received and bought a lot of the essentials we were missing (such as bottles and a crib mattress ) and a few fun things (bath toys and wall art). Somehow we were in that store for 3 hours and didn't realize it!
Today Henry's crib will be delivered also. We finally are beginning to create a nursery for him. Since we know we will be moving we aren't going to be able to do as much creative stuff yet as I'd like, but what have done so far has been a big improvement! Before, we just had a guest room with his stuff just piled all over the place, but now we have moved some furniture in from other rooms in the house that will work well in there, and we have been organizing his things. One thing that bugs me, though is that the room is painted blue (from when it was a "beachy" guest room), but all of his stuff is green and brown. It stinks to have to repaint it when we're likely going to be moving soon, but I think it must be done! James disagrees. He thinks that would be a big waste of time. We'll see....
Photos coming soon!



Sunday, May 24, 2009

Blessings

We have an earlier post about our worries about affording this adoption. I will say that when we first began this process, James was very concerned about the financial aspect (it truly is incredibly expensive), but I wasn't focused on that. I had a sense of peace that it would all come together somehow if this was God's plan for us. That sense of peace was shaken, however, when 5 banks refused to loan us anything towards this adoption despite our good credit scores and good income/debt ratio. We both began to panic, realizing that our agency would not let our precious boy come home until we have paid all of the fees. I am happy to report that major progress has been made lately in regards to this! First of all, our agency awarded us a $2,000 SNAF (special needs assistance fund) grant. Also, a local credit union gave us a $6,000 low-interest rate loan. And then, best of all, a foundation called A Child Waits awarded us a $4,000 grant due to Henry's needs. All of this, combined with what we have already paid, puts us very close to the fees due. We are only about $5,000 away, which is still quite a bit, but completely do-able compared to where we started!
I would also like to say that throughout our marriage, James and I have realized that God's plan unfolds in miraculous ways! He has placed some very special people in our lives--my entire fellow teaching staff has been incredibly supportive of our adoption journey. They bought hundreds of baked goods to help us pay for our homestudy, have rejoiced in our happiness (certain people check on me every day), and now they are going to host 2 more fundraisers for us. One of them was thought of by my dear friends on my 3rd grade team: It will be a big staff yard sale sponsored by PTA that will be held at our school on June 6. I'm very excited about this!
The other fundraiser was thought of by the sweet Speech teacher at my school. She sells Premier Jewelry and is going to have a show this Tuesday for the staff where a portion of profit will go to us. I am just in awe of our many blessings.

"And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He hears us: and if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." 1 John 5:14,15

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Look! New Henry Picture!



We just received a new picture of Henry with his foster mother and all of the stuff that we sent in his care package. We cropped out his foster mother's face for our blog to protect her privacy. We are so happy to have a picture of him with his foster mother so that later when we talk about his adoption, he can see how loved and cared for he was.



Also...no orange hoodie! Doesn't he look so cute?



We are so excited. Several other families who are in last stage of their adoptions like we are just received their travel calls. That means that he could be coming home any time now.



Oh my gosh...are we ready? (YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Sunday, May 10, 2009

My first Mother's Day



This is my first Mother's Day as a mother! Of course, I wish that I had my baby with me, but it still counts. This past week I had several surprises from my wonderful husband and mom. The first was a really pretty orchid teacup flower arrangement that I recieved at school from Henry (my mom). Also, this week packages kept arriving from Amazon.com. James ordered some wonderful children's books from my wish list there about Korean adoption/Korean children. Of course, since I'm a teacher, I love reading books to kids. It's important that Henry has lots of them!
Also, another fantastic gift from my sweet husband were two shirts--one for Henry and one for me. Check them out in the photo above. Mine is sweet and Henry's is hilarious! James designed both of them online. Last, but not least, ANOTHER flower arragement arrived yesterday (beautiful pink roses and lillies). These were from my mom also, who said on the card, "I can't believe my baby is a mother."

Happy Mother's Day everyone!




























Saturday, May 2, 2009

Check out our timeline on the right--we're nearly to the end!!

We had 2 fantastic pieces of news this week. #1-Henry's Emigration Permit was approved (this is a big step in the coming-home process #2-the NVC (National Visa Center) has electronically sent his documents to Korea so that he can have a visa. Now that both of those are done, we only have a couple of things left before he will be travelling. I asked the wonderful adoptive parents on the Holt discussion board, who by the way, have been EXTREMELY helpful with this process, approximately how much longer do they think it will be until he comes home? Almost all responses indicated that sometime in May is the most likely time. I can hardly believe it! I've been telling myself July (and hoping for June) this whole time. I might need a substitute to finish out the school year...oh, how I hope!! He might be here for my baby shower May 27!!! Everyone please help us pray that our sweet boy's remaining steps will continue to be speedy. I can't wait to kiss those sweet little cheeks.