We are getting closer!!!

Since our last update, we have been working on completing our family profile. It is a much longer process than we expected but we are almost done! The profile is what perspective birth-moms will look at when considering the family she would like to choose. You can imagine that knowing this has put a little pressure on us to really consider carefully which pictures to choose and how to present the story of US! As soon as we are completely finished, we will post a link to our online profile for you to view and forward to others.

Since this is pretty much the last step before going "live" we are asking everyone we know to please spread the word that we are READY TO ADOPT! The more people who share our story, the more likely our profile will fall into the hands of a woman considering us as her child's adoptive family. Thank you so much for helping us with this, and we will be sure to forward our profile info as soon as its done.

There are still some classes that we will need to complete as we move forward so we can continue to educate ourselves on adoption. In February we had a fun time taking a Baby Care Class. We learned all the basics of caring for a newborn and Brandon learned how to change a diaper!!! The first of MANY, we know :-).

Of course, nothing beats the real thing. We were thrilled to meet and spend time with our nephew Kylan last month. We had fun feeding him, changing him, changing our own clothes....Miriam got spit up on quite a bit :-), and cuddling him.

Home Study in progress!

It's been a while since we last updated our blog...mainly because there was not too much to report! We are happy to say that things are moving forward again. We recently completed the first of three Home Study Visits. For that interview, we met with our social worker at her office and answered many, many questions about us, our marriage, our life together. It took 2 hours to get through everything! The next visit will also be at her office and will be a whopping 4 hours! Yikes! They certainly are thorough :-). The final visit will be at the beginning of February and will be conducted at our house. We are very excited to be moving forward and are starting to prep a little more for the arrival of our little one. We know God's timing is perfect!

As always, we are grateful for your prayers and support. If you would like to help with the financial aspect of bringing home our little one, there is a link on this blog for donations, or you can send it directly to us (please email or call us for our mailing address). For the next leg of the process we will need to raise $10,000.

Thanks so much! :-)

One Milesone Reached!!!

Thanks to the generous contributions and participation in our fundraising efforts, we are blessed to say that we have reached one of our fundraiser milestones :-). We are now finishing up some appointments, paperwork and education. Our goal to submit everything is the end of October...just another week and a half...YIKES! So exciting though :-). More updates to come soon!!!

Yard/Craft Sale Fundraiser

Our PartyLite Fundraising has come to an end and we are so grateful for the generous contributions that came in! We are getting closer to being able to submit our family assessment paperwork, which we hope to have done by the end of October.

In the meantime, we are going to have a YARD SALE on October 5th from 8 am to 4 pm. Our friends have graciously allowed us to use their front yard and driveway for this event.

Yard Sale
1158 West Latimer
Campbell, CA 95008

Do you have any items you would like to get rid of? Do you bake or make crafts you would like to donate to this cause? We appreciate anything you can do to make this yard/craft sale a success! We can come by to pick up any donations you have before the event. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!! All proceeds will go towards the adoption costs.


Please invite your friends, families and neighbors to join us! See you there!

Family Assessment Process

We have officially completed the first steps in our adoption journey and are moving on to the Family Assessment Process! On August 9th we attended an all day seminar in Modesto. It was incredibly informative and answered a lot of questions we had. We received a big binder full of great articles and helpful forms and pamphlets.

Yesterday, August 20th, we completed our first phone interview with our social worker. Now we are waiting to receive the family assessment paperwork, which needs to be completed and turned in within 2 months.

As you can imagine, there are costs involved throughout this whole process and we are excited to begin fundraising soon. We invite you to partner with us, if you feel led. The first fundraiser we are doing is through PartyLite! I (Miriam) LOVE candles, so this is going to be a fun one :-).

 
As a heads up...we also plan to have a yard sale at the end of September/beginning of October. So if you have any items you'd like to donate towards this yard sale, please let us know!!!

God has been opening our eyes more and more to the beauty of adoption. We are so amazed at how many people we are learning about that have been touched by adoption. In Miriam's last preschool class she had a child who was adopted. Now this year, she has already received encouragement through a new family in her class whose daughter was adopted. Not only that, but several co-workers of hers have family members who have either been adopted or been through the adoption process. It is a very exciting time and we are trusting in God's great plan for us!

We are EXPECTING.....through Adoption!!!

After much prayer and thought, we have decided to grow our family through adoption. We are excited about this new adventure and can't wait to meet our precious little one. This whole process is completely new to us and we are learning as we go, but here is where we are so far on our journey.

We submitted an informal application to Bethany Christian Services at the beginning of June and received information on the organization, as well as an invitation to attend an orientation meeting at the beginning of July. That meeting was very helpful in explaining the over-all process of adoption and touched a bit on the topic of 'open-adoption.' Open-adoption is when the birth mom has some type of contact with our family as our child grows. This concept has been a little scary for us, if we're completely honest, but we are learning a lot about the benefits of open-adoption and what it is and isn't. Since the orientation, we have taken two online courses and completed a couple of other required materials to educate us on the adoption process. It has been very eye-opening for sure! We have also submitted our official application and are gearing up for the next steps. We look forward to keeping you updated on the process and ask for your prayers as we move forward.

Please feel free to call us if you want to know more! We can't wait to share our experiences with you.