False Alarm

It seems like it may have just been a false alarm since her contractions are now subsiding a bit. Please keep praying though ... I am super excited about the idea of holding him in my arms soon, but I want him to have as much time to develop and be born as healthy as possible.

I was literally tearing through my house trying to grab things together in case we would need to leave. I'm sure it was a pretty sight lol. Now that the craziness has calmed down a bit I am thinking that I MUST make up a list of things that I need to make sure that I have before we leave to meet our baby boy so that I don't forget anything. I am a list maker slash packed three weeks a head of time type of girl so this last minute running around was making my heart beat a little too fast I think. I was definitely feeling overwhelmed to say the least. I'm glad that everything seems to have calmed down for a bit and will hopefully stay like that for another couple of weeks. You better believe that his car seat is going in the car TOMORROW! And I need to look for some newborn outfits ASAP so my baby doesn't come home naked!

Things with Alya's mom have gotten worse since just the few hours ago that I posted. She is in the hospital and has fainted several times because she can't breathe. It's midnight here and Alya just left to go over there and see her. Please pray for safety of my husband while he drives over to the hospital. I know that he is already exhausted and very stressed. Today has been a very crazy day and I'm ready for it to be over with.

Keep praying sweet friends and I'll keep you updated. :0)

It Could Be Happening Tonight!

I need some urgent prayers sent our way right now! Our bmom just sent me a message saying that she was having contractions 10 min apart and now they are at 8. She is only 35 weeks .... please pray for our little man and his bmomma right now. As much as I would love love love to see him ... it's too soon and I want him to be able to bake for a little longer. :0) Please pray for both .... that they would both be healthy throughout this.

Also right at this moment Alya's mom is being sent to the hospital because her kidneys are failing. We really need all the prayers that we can get right now.

Thanks!!!

And I'll get you updated!

Huge Sigh of Relief!

Thank you so much for those of you that left sweet encouraging comments and for all of the prayers that were sent our way.

Here's a little recap on the urgent need of prayers from my last post ... Last night I came home late from my first quilting class and sat down to check my email. I found one that was from our agency and so I quickly opened it up. The email told us that our bmom didn't come to her scheduled meeting that day and that they couldn't get a hold of her. FEAR over took every part of me right then and there. I started immediately bawling my eyes out ... I was just so so so afraid that what had happened to us with our last adoption match was getting ready to happen all over again with this match. With the last match everything started going down hill when one day our last bmom just didn't show up to her meeting. We tried to ignore the anxiousness that came with hearing that news but chose to ignore and just keep pressing forward. Little did we know that two weeks later the little girl that we were supposed to be adopting would be born and our bmom would change her mind about parenting her. So when I got that email from our agency it was like all that had just happened to us two months ago was happening all over again.

I am very happy and soooo relieved to say that what happened with our last adoption is NOT happening to us again. Our bmom messaged me tonight and told me to not worry about her not being able to go to the meeting. That something had just come up and that everything was still fine and that I didn't need to worry about her not going through with the adoption. She also told me that the baby was fine and healthy and that her doctor told her that at her next appointment on the 8th that he would schedule the date for her to be induced. YAY!

I am beyond exhausted right now. It has been such a crazy week at work and then dealing with the idea that our adoption was falling through again was just too much for me emotionally. I feel like through this adoption process you are up and down, up and down, up and down and it is just really wearing on me right now. I don't want to walk through this last month with fear hanging over my head ... but it's hard not to be cautious and scared at times. January seems to be the longest month EVER and I am so ready for it to be OVER right now.

I'm hoping to get lots of sleep this weekend and just rest. We are still decorating and having fun being crafty ... I'm glad that I can still feel confident in continuing to get our baby boy's room ready. :0) Here's a few more pictures of the things that I was working on tonight.


Here is the final outcome of our wreath ... now I just have to put it up on the door.


LB was trying to help me paint the "J" :0) I painted it a sage green type of color.


Then I chose some fun buttons ...


and ... I think it turned out awesome! :0) Now to hang it on the wall in the nursery.

Dejavu....

Please just pray for us and this adoption today.

Pray that God would take the fears of our last failed adoption away.

Something came up today ... praying to find out some answers to some concerns tomorrow.

I am so ready to get off of this emotional roller coaster. I really don't know how much more I can take. I feel very overwhelmed tonight. I'm tired.

Trying to guard my heart but not knowing how.

Praying for peace and comfort.

While We Wait, We Decorate!

We moved in some of the furniture into the nursery today. It is not even close to really being done. We have a super exciting thing that we are going to be adding to the wall ... hoping that can get done by this weekend. (and that it turns out as cute as I'm envisioning!) We also still have curtains to add ... because the ones I bought already were too short. bummer. I also need to get a rug, and add up some other decorations that we have made. But .... all that being said here is a little preview of how the room is coming together. I am LOVING all the colors coming together. It just makes me super happy. :0)



We had this in the girly room but we just switched out the pink cube to an orange one :0)


Also the same rocking chair ... just changed out the pink pillow for the new polka dot one that I made.


We are starting to stack up on diapers and then we still have that giant "J" to paint and add to the wall.


I did get a little update today ... our bmom was able to talk to her doctor and he gave a thumbs up to inducing her! YAY! I still don't know the actual date yet ... that is TBD, but I'm glad that he is supporting the idea. :0) So we are looking at the end of February or beginning of March. :0)

While we are waiting, I am having sooo much fun being crafty and decorating. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to do this sort of thing. It's so fun to come home and work on a new project. Stay tuned for more pics ...

Still Waiting....

I really wish that I had something exciting to post today.

But there is no new news to share. *sniff sniff*

Our agency did confirm that our bmom does have a meeting with them tomorrow so fingers double crossed that I will hear something by then. ;0)

The room is still not finished ... I think that it's probably going to be something that is going to come together slowly over the next month. Which honestly is okay because it will give us something to do while we are patiently okay more like impatiently waiting.

I have to admit though that I am having a super fun time doing all of these crafts. I finished the pillows for the room last night ... and we still have tons more things to finish to add as decorations in the room.



Tonight I was working on some small wall canvas' that I plan on painting and adding some cute little animals that I made using my cricut. I completed the little animals (they turned out super cute!) But I didn't have the right shade of paint color that I wanted to paint the canvas' so I will have to wait until I can pick some up. Hopefully those can be finished by the end of the weekend. I'll post some pictures once I finish them.

Praying for an update ;0)

We Won!!!

I forgot to tell all of you that we won the contest for a FREE newborn session with Kari Vennard Photography! if you voted for us ... THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

Not only that .... BUT we were also offered ANOTHER FREE newborn shoot by another amazing photographer, Julie Paisley Photography!!!!!

So that means TWO FREE newborn shoots of our little man!

Can you tell I'm just a little excited about this???

I L.O.V.E. pictures ... espcecially of little treasures. :0)

Take Comfort

"Take comfort under the wings of our GOD and don't be afraid to dream....Trust God this time will be different."

One of my friends wrote that in a message to me *thanks Margo!* I sooooo needed to hear/read that! And so I am taking her advice ... I'm taking comfort and I'm not being afraid to dream. I have my moments where I get scared, the walls come up and my first instinct is to prepare for bad news ... but I don't want to live in that moment. I want to be free and trust God this time will be different.

So ... while we trust and wait .... WE PAINT!

We said goodbye to all of our girly stuff *for now*

And we bust out some BLUE paint for our little man. :0)


And we pray for him and tell him how much we love him and can't wait for him to finally be in our arms.


Starting to come together ... almost done!


Alya is the edger in our family ...


Stay tuned on the room it's still under construction and I'm super excited to finally see the finished product. No worries ... I WILL post pictures as we go. :0)

While we wait, we also go to the craft store and score some awesome crafti-litious items. *I am in love with the green zoo fabric!* These will soon become accent/floor pillows.


This will be a wreath for the door to his nursery....


Halfway done wrapping ...



Done wrapping ... now I just have to add some accents to it. I haven't gotten to that part ... so stay tuned for a picture of the final product!


Oh, and there is so much more crafti-litious-ness happening around the Cotton household these days ... pics to follow :0)

P.S. Nothing is final yet, but we are strongly leaning towards his middle name being Samuel which means "asked for". *thank you kmcaffee!!* Now, how perfect is that name for our little miracle boy? Josiah Samuel Cotton, your mommy is so ready to meet you sweet boy!

The Middle

We have decided on calling this baby boy Josiah .. but I can't seem to think of a middle name to go with it.

Do you guys have any suggestions??

Free...

This whole weekend was such a high that I knew an emotional break had to be coming around the corner at some point in time. And it happened this evening in the nursery talking with Alya...

I didn't realize what an emotional attachment I had to our nursery. To the girly nursery ... See this room was our Hope's room. There are so many memories there ... so many emotions attached to each memory. After Hope left we changed things around a little bit and added some more details to the room for when we thought that Amiah was coming to join our family last December. There has been so much love that has gone into making that room special for our little girls ... and tonight I had a little break down about the idea of changing it all. Don't get me wrong ... I am SUPER excited about decorating for our new little boy ... it just seems like re-decorating is an end to what we used to have. It's an end to what my heart was still waiting for ... and covering that up seems like I'm giving up and moving on. And I know that I will be okay ... it just hurts my heart a little bit. I know that I will shed a few more tears as I start to pack away all my girls stuff ... but I know that the excitement will come once we crack open the new paint and start decorating for our future. A few of my friends have mentioned that this will probably bring closure to me ... I guess I just didn't realize how much I was still clinging on to. When ever we refer to the nursery we still always call it "Hope's room" ... although that little girl will always have a place in my heart I know that I need to move on and make it "Josiah's room".

Another part of my breakdown tonight was that I'm just scared. I have been on a high ever since we found out that all of this was happening again ... and I am super excited. Our meeting this weekend was really good ... and I honestly couldn't have asked for a better situation ... but nothing is final until the paperwork is signed. And that is the part that scares me. It's not that I don't trust God ... it's not that I don't have enough faith ... because I do. I believed with my whole heart that the last adoption was going to go through ... but what I discovered was just because I am trusting God doesn't mean that my heart isn't going to get broken. This particular situation seems to be moving along perfectly and I have no reason to think that it's not going to work out .... but the heartache of what we went through just a month ago keeps playing in my head.

I so wish that I could just be free. Free to be fully excited. Free to fully dream and prepare for a new arrival. Free to re-decorate while we have the extra time and energy. But ... I can't. We felt free with the last adoption ... and it was so so so hard to return and un-get-ready for a child to come. I hate not being free.

The First Time

Do you know how hard it is to have something so super exciting happening and your hotel doesn't offer free wifi for you to update your blog?????

haha

I even brought my computer with me because I just knew that I would be able to get on the Internet at our hotel. NOT! I even had blog drafts rattling through my head right before we left ... one titled "I'm so nervous, I think I'm going to throw up". lol So, obviously we didn't have internet this weekend and now that we have made it safely home I'll give you a little recap of our crazy last minute trip!

We left on Saturday around 1:00 for our 5 1/2 hour trip to Pensacola. The plan was to get settled into our hotel and then meet up with a friend of mine that I've known since I was 16. He and I have been really good friends ever since, but once I got married I wasn't really free to travel to hang out with him anymore. So it was great to catch up with him since it's been awhile! We used to have a lot of good times hanging out ... it was fun to bring up old memories. :0)

After dinner Alya and I went back to our cheap-o hotel and spent the night. I had AWFUL dreams the whole night. Dreams where my family and students were dieing in and then one about rats eating off my dinner plate at a hotel ... umm random (Andy I think that one is your fault bringing up a conversation about my pet rats I used to have lol) We woke up on Sunday at a pretty normal time ... except that in Pensacola we are an hour behind! UGH! So we had to wait even longer. We were going to meet my college friend and our bmom at 11:30 at Ruby Tuesdays for lunch. Check out was at 11:00 so we drove around randomly looking at ... well pretty much nothing, just trying to waste time. I was so so so nervous and just kept praying that we would hit it off and that things wouldn't feel awkward.

The girls finally arrived and we met them out in the parking lot. Introduced our selves to our bmom and gave her a quick hug. The lunch went great. We just casually talked ... didn't get into super deep questions or anything. We talked about football ... college .... family ... and then of course baby stuff. :0) Her due date is March 7th and I was able to confirm from her that she does want us both to be there when he is born. I told her that she would have to text me and let me know so that I could speed drive very carefully to meet them. She told me that she is going to talk to her doctor about the possibility of inducing her so that we can make sure that we are there in time. I'm hoping that he agrees to that because that would make things a lot easier with planning for us. She said that he moves around LIKE CRAZY. He constantly kicks her (daddy's little soccer star already!) and is measuring at over 4 pounds. Everything looks great. She didn't really have any questions for us. I think she just wanted to get a sense of who we are from just hanging out face to face. I really am so thankful that we had the chance to meet her this weekend. I can't wait for baby Josiah to get here!

So as of right now, we just continue to wait! ugh the awful "W" word! Her next appointment with our agency is in another two weeks. (I think that is when her next doctor appointment is too.) I really am happy with how things went today ... I feel very excited for the days to come! Having the chance to meet her really has made things feel real. It feels like we are moving in the right direction this time and that both parties are fully engaged and participating in this adoption plan. I'm happy to be able to know how she is feeling about all of this ... it just gives me more peace that we aren't going to be heartbroken like the last time.

So, friends ... stay tuned and wait along with us! :0)

P.S. Thanks soooo much for the prayers! They were definitely felt! :0)

It's Happening!

A road trip that is.

Yeah, for real.

Found out tonight, that tomorrow my hubby and I will be on our way to Pensacola.

to. meet. our. birthmom.

The plan is for us to leave in the afternoon on Saturday sometime. We are going to drive on over and have dinner with an old friend of mine that lives there now, stay at a hotel for the night and then meet my friend and bmom on Sunday. None of the details have really been set yet, other than we are leaving TOMORROW!

I am seriously beyond excited. I have prayed and prayed and prayed throughout this journey that we would be able to meet our birthmom and have some sort of relationship with her. I am also super nervous!

So...

1. Please pray for my nerves to go away.
2. Please pray that there is an instant connection between us.
3. Please pray against any awkwardness.
4. Please pray for a sense of peace about this adoption for both our bmom and us.
5. ahhhhh I can't believe this is actually happening!!!!!

:0)

:0)

:0)

Doing the happy dance as I go to bed tonight. Will update soon!

The Meeting

So the meeting with our agency went well. I guess it was pretty short ... just filling out paper work and such. Honestly nothing too big to report on that. The doctor appointment also went well ... he's still doing good. :0)

I am waiting to hear from our bmom to find out about this weekend still. I am not sure if we will for sure be going this weekend or not. Stay tuned ...

I wish I had more to post about today .... everything still seems to be going good, just not really any "new" news to post about today.

I will however say that I am super excited that tomorrow is Friday. ;0) I hope that you all have a great weekend!

Tonight I am choosing to let my mind rest so that I can get a good nights sleep. :0)

Maybe?

I am so excited for tomorrow to happen that I'm making myself sick lol ... not really sick, just the nauseous, oh. my. god. this could really be happening kind of feeling you get when your WHOLE life could be changing forever. Tomorrow is the day that our bmom finally meets with our agency. She is already verbally committed to this adoption ... just hasn't had the chance yet to commit with organization that will make that happen yet. My friend from college will be going to the meeting and I am so ready to hear how it went. I'll be refreshing my email all day long waiting for the update I'm sure.

I talked with my friend earlier this evening about the subject of the bmom and us meeting each other. I know that our bmom wants to meet us ... so I was just trying to think of how that will happen. I know that we can meet through our agency but I feel comfortable meeting outside of our agency as well. There is a chance that we might meet up this weekend since it is a long weekend for me. I literally am shaking with excitement over the idea of finally meeting the woman who is giving me one of the greatest gifts I could ever ask for. She is giving me the piece of my heart that has been missing for so long. I am really excited about the chance of having some sort of relationship with her. We live 5-6 hours away from her, so a little road trip might be in the very near future. :0)

I got an email from a friend of ours tonight ... I had suggested that she look into using our agency and so she contacted them only to find out that they no longer are accepting applicants from outside of the area. They told her that she could use the agency that is located closer to where we live. ummm hi we haven't been with them for very long, so we just made the cut! Annnnd it just so happens that our bmom lives in Pensacola too. So crazy. So God. ah... chills.

On another note .... I also found out that there could be a possibility that the foster care agency that we are licenced with could potentially complete this adoption for us which would mean it would cost us nothing. Here's what processed through my brain when I first heard of this idea. FREE? = amazing. However, I absolutely, positively do not trust this organization with this adoption. It also would require us to work/trust a different county/workers we do not know with this precious gift. Something I am not willing to do. It would also mean that our bmom would not be able to get the counseling/support of an agency that I think she could benefit from. So, although I think that a free adoption would be incredibly amazing... it's just not something that I'm worried about. I don't want to lose another adoption because of money. I don't want to lose another adoption because I allowed fear or lack of faith in God providing to get in the way. This is what I learned about where I am at in this stage of our adoption. Money/affording this adoption is no longer a fear of mine. In fact ... I don't even think about it. I know without a doubt in my heart that God has had everything taken care of from day one ... and He's not going to all of a sudden dump us in the middle of it. So ... we are staying with our agency.

I got an email back from one of our grants again today. They were already reviewing it ... but with the updated information that I gave to them they wrote back and said that they would further review our application in February. So we continue to wait to hear back from them. I'm glad it wasn't an immediate "NO" like I have gotten back from the other grants. We are still hoping to get this golf tournament off the ground as well ... so along with everything else involved in this adoption journey we continue to wait.

So ... that's where we are with things at the moment. Hopefully I will have some more news to post tomorrow. :0)

Today I am choosing to be excited about new possibilities.

A Little Speck

I'll be going to bed with one of these on my face tonight - :0)

I got to talk to my friend tonight and just get some more information about this adoption. I find myself living for just the next little speck of information that I can get.

I am excited about the idea of meeting our bmom ... praying that that day comes soon.

I did find out tonight that she wants us to be there when he is born. sigh ... Alya and I have prayed from day one that we would get to be there ... I can't even describe how happy that makes this adoptive mommas heart feel.

I also found out that my friend is going to be going to the meeting at our agency with her and to her doctors appointment afterward. I am sooooo thankful for my old college roommie ... man, oh man do I owe her big! :0)

Before, when our last adoption fell through I started ending my posts with this:

I have a choice. And I am choosing to trust. I am choosing to love. And I am choosing to hope.

Tonight ... I'm choosing to allow myself to dream about my little man :0)

It's Too Late...

You know, I really didn't know how I would react when we got our next match. *technically that hasn't "happened" through our agency yet" I didn't know if I would have the attitude of "yeah right, I'll believe it when I see it", if I would feel afraid, or if I would be overly excited. I still don't really know how to take this situation yet. The whole thing is crazy of how things are working out so far. I want to let loose and be overly excited ... I want to shout it out that I'm going to be a mom ....

But in the world of adoption that isn't necessarily how things are going to play out. We've already striked out once. And I don't want my heart to suffer strike number two. I kind of feel like it's already too late though. My heart was involved at the first mention of this little boy. My heart butted itself right into the situation, complicating things as usual. :0) It's attached ... and nothing is for real yet.

He's all I think about already. For so long I've been dreaming about Amiah ... I didn't know how quickly my heart could wrap around loving Josiah instead. Room redecorating ideas are already swimming through my mind. I can't wait to see Alya love on his son ... the one that will carry on his last name. I can already picture Alya coaching his soccer team. ;0) I am so getting ahead of myself here ... but my heart can't stop itself as much as my mind is telling it that I'm an idiot for getting attached already.

Here's a recap of how all of this came about:
We spent Thanksgiving at my parents in Louisiana. I remember driving over there (from Jax. fl) how painful it was to drive right by Pensacola where we were supposed to be just a week earlier bringing home our little Amiah from. It was at my parents house where I received an email from an old college roommate. It was totally random, and most definitely unexpected. She told me that she had a friend that was pregnant and was interested in adoption and would I be interested. Now, I don't know about the rest of you adoptive moms out there, but I have friends all the time telling me that they know a friend, who knows a friend, who knows a friend that is pregnant and how I should totally adopt their baby. Have you heard that before?? Well I have heard it at least a half dozen times ... and it's fine, but I just never get my hopes up in those situations because they NEVER pan out to be anything. So when my old roommie sent me that email, I was like okay, sure we would be interested let me know the details (while not holding my breath that anything was going to happen). Well, I never heard back from her until this past Sunday where she emailed me again. She said that her friend was still very interested in us adopting her little boy and that she would be willing to do whatever adoption process we felt the most comfortable going with. I told her that I would go ahead and research how much it would cost to just use a lawyer since we had never looked into that and I would get back to her. I found out that just using a lawyer would cost $15,000 plus birth mother expenses .... a WHOLE LOT more than our agency. So I told my friend that we would feel most comfortable continuing to work with our agency (located in Pensacola ... where the b-mom lives! *crazy!*) and if she was serious about us adopting her baby that she could get in contact with them and we would be on board. How about the next day she did! She called our agency and set up an appointment with them for next Wednesday morning to sign paperwork. I don't really know how things work on the other side (b-mom side) of the adoption process ... so I don't really know what all she has to do, and I don't really know where we will go from there as of right now. The b-mom found me on facebook and we have sent each other a couple of messages so far. I feel excited that she is the one that is initiating all of this because if makes me feel like this is definitely something that she wants. I am also excited because from day one of Alya and I's adoption journey we had prayed that we would be able to have some type of relationship with the birthmother. We never met/had any contact with our last birthmother and I think that is the reason why things played out like they did. I think that to her, we were just pictures in a book, not real people who would be there to love her child. I'm praying that in this situation that this birthmother feels a connection with Alya and I that gives her peace to know that her sweet little baby boy will be loved unconditionally.

At this point I am feeling really excited and positive. I am also feeling guarded because I felt the same way during the last possible adoption and look at where that got us. However, I am not trying to hold on to all that happened last month ...I'm trying to remain positive about this new situation and just trying to give God all of my fears and trusting that He will guard my heart.

Could It Be???

There may be a potential something coming up.

I am trying super hard to guard myself this time.

Let's just say that there is a potential birth mother that my old college roommate is friends with who is possibly interested in us adopting her little boy.

She just so happens to live in the same place that our agency is located. She called them today and has an appointment with them next week to go sign some paper work.

She is having a little boy and she is due in March.

Annnnnd the roller coaster ride takes off again!

I Need Your Help!

Okay friends, we have a super awesome opportunity to win a *FREE* newborn photo shoot for when we bring home our sweet little miracle. All that you have to do is visit Kari Vennard Photography here on facebook like her page and then post a comment that says "I CAN'T WAIT TO MEET LINDSAY COTTON'S BABY!". The more posts I have the better chance I have to win a 2-3 hour newborn session where I will receive a CD of my favorites (25 images), edited and ready to print and 11x14 wall portrait. The contest runs through January 5th and will close January 19th at 11:59 a.m. The winner will be announced on January 21st.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE go visit her site and leave a comment. As many of you know adoptions are SUPER expensive and so winning a free newborn shoot to capture some sweet moments with our little miracle would be such a HUGE blessing!

Thanks so much friends!!!

Open Arms

I feel like I am welcoming 2011 with open arms. 2010 was a rough year for us ... and I just feel like I am ready to embrace something good this year. I'm ready for a change of constant highs and major lows to just finally being content and happy and full of peace.

This past Christmas was perfect. I love love love being at home with my family. I think that it gets a little harder each year being so far away from the ones that I love. I have lived down in Florida for going on 10 years now and each year I realize just how much I am missing out on what's going on with my family. You know just the day to day normal life stuff that I would normally be able to be apart of if I didn't live so far away. I love each one of my crazy family members dearly. I also loved having a white Christmas ... it was SO beautiful.


Alya and I on Christmas morning


My momma and me on Christmas


Me and my dad on Christmas


My beautiful niece and big sister and I on Christmas night


My big sister and big brother and I on Christmas night ... we are missing another sister though who lives in London now ... love you Tam.

Alya had to go back to work last week so we had to cut my vacation with my family short and return back to sunny Florida. Of course it would choose to snow super hard the morning that we left so the driving conditions weren't great almost the whole trip home. But we made it safe and sound!


I pretty much just sat around all week long. Actually, that was my plan. I wanted to sit in my comfy pj's all day and just read, knit, sew, and catch up on my DVR'd shows that I had missed lol. And that's pretty much all that I did. I got a new sewing machine for Christmas. I had asked for it because I really really wanted to learn how to make a quilt. My two great grandmothers were known for making amazing quilts and when they passed away the quilt making/knitting died with them. I have always been very crafty and I have wanted to bring that back into our family. It's just something that is special to my heart.



I am very proud to say that I made two aprons last week. I wanted to make a mommy and daughter apron for my bff and her little girl aka my niece. I am super bummed that I didn't take a picture of the Gracelynn's before I gave it to my friend but here's the idea of what the aprons looked like only the fabrics were switched for the smaller one. I really was quite proud of myself.



I had a little helper lol

Annnnnd JoAnne's had a 50% off their classes sale for the New Year so I just signed myself up for my first quilting class at the end of the month! There are four of them and they are like 3 1/2 hours long. I am pretty sure I could probably figure out how to make one on my own, but I want them to turn out really good so I figured learning it the right way the first time instead of experimenting like I did with the aprons would probably save me a lot of money, time and stress lol. I am super excited about it and can't wait to complete my very first quilt. And what I am really excited about is that once I learn I can make sweet little quilts for baby showers for all my fifty million friends that are preggo right now lol. Annnnd maybe a sweet, special little one for our own little miracle one day (hopefully soon).

So ... now things are back to normal again. We are currently waiting to hear back from another grant application that we turned in months ago. We just got a little questionnaire thing sent to us a few days ago wanting to know where things kind of stood for us right now. We have already been denied two other grants so this is kind of our last hope as far as a grant goes. We were supposed to be relicensed for foster care last Thursday ... I spent the WHOLE day cleaning my house and running errands for paper work stuff we had to get filled out and THEY DIDN'T SHOW UP! So, now they are coming tomorrow night instead and I have to re-clean my whole entire house because of course it couldn't stay clean for a whole week for them to come back again. sigh ... It's been a year next month since the boys left ... we haven't had any other foster kids since then. I really don't know what if anything is going to happen with us being re-licensed, but I would still like to keep our license just in case we do decide to take in more kids. I know that being foster parents will definitely still be apart of our lives in the future, I just don't know if it will right now. I just don't want to have to go through the hassle of having to start all over again to get licensed again ... so there is no harm in having our home visit (except the re-cleaning part ... sigh again) tomorrow night to get re-licensed for another year. I just contacted our agency today and was told that our profile has not been shown to any other birth mothers since our last adoption fell through. There could be a potential adoption situation that has been brought to our attention through a friend but I'm just really trying to guard my heart right now since we just went through the loss of our last adoption. It's too hard not to get your hopes up about a potential anything ... but I'm doing my best to just sit back and let God guide us. The ball is not in our court right now ... so if things progress then we will know that we are moving in the right direction. Right now I'm just praying for complete peace and guidance throughout this particular situation for all parties involved. Hopefully I can give a little more information as time goes by, but for now just pray for doors to be wide open if this is the way God wants us to go or for them to be completely shut if this is not what He wants for us right now.

Happy 2011! Love, Linds

January Giveaways!

Go check out this blog: juliepaisleyphotography to see some super amazing giveaways she is offering for the WHOLE month of January! Alya and I personally had pictures taken by her ... she is SUPER talented and amazing, you will love her! :0) (p.s. she DOES travel)