I have never been good at tests!

As you can guess, I'm usually talking to myself when I post encouraging thoughts. Today I've started to (I hate to use this word) worry about our I-797.
For those who are not hip to the adoption process, here's how this much-cherished document works:
The I-797 is the approval document that is issued to families by the US when an application is filed to adopt internationally. This 'golden ticket' is good for 18 months. If you do not complete your adoption before the 18 months expires, you must complete more paperwork and apply for a new 'golden ticket'. To further complicate things, families must be fingerprinted and the fingerprints must be valid when you travel (fingerprints are good for 15 months- we have had our fingerprints taken THREE times during our wait)
Here's my dilemma: our I-797 is good until Sept 2009 but it states that our fingerprints expire this month.
We were reprinted over a month ago and still have not received an updated I-797 reflecting the new fingerprint expiration dates. We've called the customer service line and they said we must email our branch office. Well, apparently they do not return emails ..........What to do? PRAY, eat chocolate and PRAY some more!

If anyone has any info on how to get through to the Atlanta CIS office, let me know.

My prayer book

I have this prayer book that I study each week and I LOVE the book so much I thought I'd share it with YOU (don't you feel special?!) It is titled "Becoming A Woman Of Worth Prayer Book" By Karen Moore.

So, each Sunday night I read a new prayer and make that part of my prayers for the week.
Here's the first one:

Walking in prayer:

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Galatians 5:25

Heavenly Father,
When we were young, You helped us learn to walk. You protected our steps and applauded our efforts to grow so that we could not only walk, but run and leap as well.
As we've learned to walk closer to You, Lord, we've grown to trust that You are always beside us, always near to guide and support us on the way.
You are indeed a loving friend and our relationship with You can be as intimate and as real as we choose it to be.
Lord, help us to choose to walk with You in all that we do. Help us to seek Your advice and Your wisdom for our lives. Help us to admit when we've fallen down and need You to pick us up again. Help us keep steadily on the path, moving always in the direction You would have us go.
We're not as young now, Lord, but we still come to You in childlike faith, holding out our arms for Your kindness and Your embrace. Help us stay close to You always, learning to trust and obey with every step we take.
Let us walk the walk with You every moment we live.
In Your Spirit we pray. Amen.


Isn't that a beautiful prayer? How much stress and worry would we save ourselves if we could always keep that childlike faith and hold out our arms for His embrace!

still waiting

Please click on the picture and lift up this precious family in prayer.

Balloons galore!

I've been wanting to have a mural of hot air balloons painted in Reed's room. I left a couple messages with a few people that friends suggested and never heard back from them. I'm glad my calls were not returned because we decided to try and do it ourselves and we're having so much FUN. (ok, I'm having fun and Tim is doing most of the work). I came up with the bright idea of printing out a few balloon pictures and enlarging them on a copier...........we taped them to the wall, traced around them, drew in the lines and walah- balloons galore!! I LOVE it. It is SO cute!! I haven't figured out how to do the clouds yet, but the balloons are really cute. Here's all we've (Tim's) got done so far.........
It got dark outside and I forgot to turn on the flash so the wall color looks funny but the blue with all the bright colors looks really good.

Who's got the best hubby EVER?!

more shopping

Shop till you drop, right? I found some of the cutest outfits over the weekend. This is so much fun!!! Now all I need is for Reed to COME HOME

FCC Halloweeeeen

Tonight we went to the waiting families dinner, which happened to be the Halloween party also.
All the kiddos looked SO cute!!
(Gotta go check on Tim, he's making friendship bread- too funny!) Have a great weekend!

Dry, dry eyes!

I haven't been able to wear contacts for about 2 months now because I've got dry eyes.
The ophthalmologist said it could be a side effect of an auto immune disease or low estrogen and he wants to plug my tear ducts.
The blood work is back today and no auto immune disease was detected (yippee!) so I've got to go have my estrogen checked. Any of you ladies had this problem?
I recently found an old friend on Faceb()()k and she made a comment about us getting old.
I'm really feeling OLD now :)

Ordered a care package

I received permission from our agency to send a care package to Reed.

We quickly ordered a package from Ladybugs N Love. We also sent some pictures of us and a letter to the nannies to share with him. Here's a shot I received of some of the items being sent:

I wanted to send more goodies but I'm just not sure they will let him have too much stuff.

PS: Day 29 waiting for LOA!!

Retail Therapy

Today was our fingerprint renewal appointment in Birmingham.
We checked in at 9:02 (glad I don't have to drive in that traffic every day) and out at 9:24 so it was the perfect opportunity to do a little retail therapy at the Summit!!
We got a few cute outfits, a sweet pajama set and a book. I'm trying not to go overboard until I get more measurements but I couldn't resist a few things. They are all 18m but they look big!