Updates and Tag

UNOFFICIAL UPDATE: We received our bi-weekly update from our agency with referral numbers in it, so we can guesstimate some new numbers. I think I could maybe come up with better guesses with a little more research, but I refuse because I'd rather be off in the numbers and have a happy surprise with our monthly phone call than be disappointed. So here goes:

There were five girl referrals and two boy referrals in the last two weeks so that puts us around 20 on the girl list and 13 on the boy list. Of course, if any of those were on multiple lists, then the numbers would be even lower, but like I said, I prefer to err on the safe side. Still, Yay!

I'm really excited to have been tagged -- by two people!! I love being tagged and these fun questionnaires. I think they take up some decent wait time.

As far as random and/or weird facts:

1. I am a hobby hopper. For a while, I'm really into something, and then I switch. And I mean REALLY into it. Then I just put all that stuff away and try something else. Some of my recycling hobbies include: photography, camping, canoeing, scrapbooking, letter writing, singing & performing, shooting, sewing, and book streaks. (A book streak is when I enjoy a book and find out there is a whole series. This means nothing else happens in my life other than reading that series, until it is done. This has caused serious havoc in my social life before.)

2. I am an avid believer and strong supporter of Emily Post and her Etiquette. I purchased the big book of etiquette during finals one year and read every single word of the 847 page manual. Needless to say, while my gpa might have suffered slightly that year, I had the most polished manners of any college student ever.

3. I love mail. Who doesn't? I love to send hand written letters (and handmade packages!) and have been known to keep a steady habit of mailing three a week. When Justin and I met, I moved away three weeks later and mailed him a handwritten (and often handmade) letter every day for nearly six months. He sent far less, but called far more. : ) And he kept all my letters from our entire long distance courtship of 18 months.

4. I like to pretend I love coffee. I only love what goes along with coffee, and to me that means friends, sweets, and usually yummy flavors. I don't want my coffee to taste like coffee. That's why I love starbucks so much. Only like three of their drinks actually taste like coffee!

5. I love to bake. I have a major sweet tooth. Justin's uncle and cousins live down the road and benefit from this quite often. The two of us can only eat so much sugar.

6. I am thoroughly addicted to sweet tea. I can tell you all the good (and not-so-good) places to get it from Houston to Denton, Houston to San Antonio, and Houston to Austin. What can I say, it's a gift.

7. There was about a six or seven year period where I didn't own any white socks. All my socks were "crazy". I just think they were fun and colorful. I now own some mostly white ones. But you can't see them because they are the ultra low rise. (Additional fact, my socks are the only thing I like to be ultra low rise.)

8. By popular demand (and personal curiousity) I'm opening up a shop on Etsy. I'll keep you posted as to when the site is up and available for shopping, but for now, if you'd like, you can make suggestions (or wish lists) with any color or pattern preferences you have by sending me an email or leaving a comment. I'll post some pics of examples at the bottom (and you can find more on other blogs -- thanks for posting!).

Pictures!

Who doesn't like photos? I like photos! Here are some fun ones of what we've been up to lately:

This is Justin's best friend, Dan, and his new bride Jess. We love us some Dan and Jess. This is the night we celebrated being on "The List" with them...by heading out to the Blue Nile for some Ethiopian Cuisine. It was awesome. And by awesome I mean we can't wait to go again. Next time we'll take more pictures.

This is Dan again. Hi Dan. Nice little leg from the Doro Wot. Which the boys loved. Ours came with a tiny chicken leg and an egg. Dan took the leg and we made Justin eat the egg, you know, since he's the soon-to-be-Dad. It made no sense that night either, but somehow it worked.

Ah, you know these people. We are at Jess and Dan's house watching them open their wedding gift from us. Yes, we realize we took care of that quite a bit after the wedding. We had to recouperate. It was fun. They got some cool stuff. Now they should invite us over for dinner on the plates we got them. Served under some recipe that we gave them. (HINT HINT...)

Now, when the Fields (D&J) get together with the Galindos (J&N), we like to have plans. We do a whole day of fun. Usually it starts with a meal, then an activity, then a snack, and maybe a movie or some other activity. We've done some really fun things together like paint pottery and stuff backpacks for school kids... The Fields came to our place for "Backyard Shenanigans" this last weekend which included some crazy horseshoes and a botched game of boccee ball. Hey, sometimes it's pretty fun to make up your own rules.

This is Dan, just being Dan. And look, Jess likes to be in pictures just like I do. With strange expressions on her face. It's awesome.

And this is to show off how studly and strong my hubband is. He can juggle. Not only can he juggle, but he can juggle heavy boccee balls. Just look out when it's time to stop juggling.

I guess that's all I've really got for right now. This Friday should be our Bi-Weekly update from our agency so I should have an idea for some new unofficial numbers. Yay! Don't forget to do your voting on the sidebar. I like polls. Do it! Do it now. Five, Four, Do it, Three, You know you want to, Do it Michael, Two, One. Do it now. Oh, how I love the Office.

drum roll

Ok, for the most part, we have told our parents. Mind you, we each have several sets of parents. Hopefully this week we'll get to tell (in person!) our numbers to Justin's Dad and Bonus Mom. But since they don't read this blog...and nobody will really tell them, I feel like it's alright to post.

Are you ready?
Drum Roll please.

According to our phone call LAST WEDNESDAY, we were OFFICIALLY
#25 Girls (Cindy- good guess!!!)
#15 Boys
#9 Sibs

BUT!!! There have been at least TWO referrals for girls this week, maybe three and I'm not sure if any of them were on multiple lists. All I can say is that it's pretty nifty to be on The List for 5 days and already move a few spaces. How cool is that?

The current debate is whether or not the girls number will get anywhere close to the boys number. Justin is definately convinced it's going to be a boy (has been all along) but my grandparents are really pushing for a girl. You can cast your vote on the sidebar if you'd like. I think it would be a fun game. Julie (AGCI) said that you can never tell what the numbers will do or where you will be on either list when you get "the call". I hope she's right. I want to be guessing until the end! I love surprises! In fact, if we could not know until we went to Ethiopia to meet our baby, that would be awesome. I know, I know, you're all thinking I am crazy. Oh well. I never said I wasn't.

So those are our numbers. And we're still celebrating. Especially since there's been movement!

WE HAVE NUMBERS!!!

And I want to tell you.
Really I do.

But we haven't been able to tell all of our parents yet...
so please,
be patient!

I promise you will know.
They are awesome-
by the way,
in case you were wondering.

(Shout out to Julie @ AGCI who looked at our stuff the moment it arrived and was able to get through it all - without laughing too long at our ridiculous pictures - and call me back with our fabulous numbers on Wednesday. Did I mention that the numbers are fabulous? Well, they are.)

YAY Day

That's right. It's a good day. Or rather, yesterday (Monday) was a great day...and today (Tuesday) has been pretty nifty, too.

Look! Here we are at our favorite neighborhood eaterie celebrating the completion of our dossier. Yep, that's right. I said (typed) completion!!! We spoke with one of the managers, Shane, who was so excited for us --we nearly fell out of our chairs with laughter when-- he squealed.

Yep. Squealed. It was awesome.

Oh, and look. Here we are at Fed-Ex/Kinkos making our last copies and mailing our dossier.

Yes. We finally mailed our dossier.

Here we are laughing because Ken, the guy at Fed-Ex/Kinkos, was so deadpan hilarious. "Wow, I've never seen anyone so excited to send a package." And also, "I misquoted you, so I'll give you the discount overnight rate of $14.80 --because it's a good cause. And you can't stop jumping up and down." (This is because I asked my hubband if it would be ok to spend the (misquoted amount of) $25 to overnight the package...he responded, "With the thousands we've already spent, I don't see how twenty five bucks is a big deal." Also deadpan. Also hilarious.)

So YAY!!! We finished. And we mailed. And we celebrated. And today (Tuesday) at 6pm CST out "mail order baby" was picked up from Spring, Texas and shipped as fast as can be to Portland, Oregon. Because of our ridiculously long homestudy and dossier prep work (have I mentioned lately that it took over a year???) that our AWESOME case manager, Julie, said she'd look at it tomorrow instead of waiting until Friday like normal. Yay!!!

My next post

will for sure

for SURE

be

NUMBERS!!!!!

YES!!!

hip hip hooray!

First of all, I am so excited to see so many referrals lately. That is total awesomeness. Yes!

Second of all, my new friend Kim is beating me in the numbers race because she's already overnighted her dossier to AGCI.

But most importantly, our HOMESTUDY is COMPLETE and APPROVED and being mailed to me asap! Praise Jesus! Finally. Our dossier stuff has been ready and complete and just waiting to be mailed for oh...months now. But it's all good, because in God's perfect timing, our child will be home!

Now, onto the list!

Dear elusive Wait List,

We know where you are.
We're on our way to get you.
Don't be scared.
Just give us a number
and no one gets hurt.
Thanks.
See you soon!!!

not what you think.

Ok, I realize I have left you all hanging. I'm sorry. I was trying to save this (our 50th post) for some exciting news...you know, like a number. But alas, it's not happening today. Instead I am posting to say that
1. Yay! We made it through Hurricane Ike with little damage to our property.
2. Yay! After like four or five days, we finally have power! And air conditioning! Yay!!!
3. Dear Hubband is on 12 hours shifts for at least two more weeks...with no days off. Booo.
4. Our homestudy needed some revisions, we made those.
5. Our homestudy revisions should be just about done being reivised and approved and complete!
6. We should have a number soon!!!

Yay!!!

More posting to come soon, I promise!

Thanks for checking in on us so much. I love it!!!

i could scream...

because I am so excited!!!

Just kidding, I have been screaming. And squealing. And giggling. And definately crying!

This morning I received an email from our wonderful social worker stating that our fingerprints had been cleared! Yes, that's right. We are in the clear. Justin doesn't have to go back. Our homestudy is done!

Hip hip hooray!!!

For the first hour, all I could say between the tears and giggles was "Thank you, sweet Jesus!" This has definately been a struggle. I never would have imagined that we would work on paperwork for over one year! But the Lord is faithful and provides grace and mercy to all -- and has pulled me closer even still to his overflowing heart. God is good! Soo good!

I was on my way to lunch today (I was mostly done crying by then) and thought perhaps a song on the radio would help distract me. In case you were unaware, crying while driving is not the best option. Well, I turn on the radio and there's a song playing (of course) and I listen to the words and it went something like this...

"Because He is a loving and just and merciful God...

and all the children in Africa are His..."

I kid you not! So, there I am, pulling into Double Daves and blubbering all wet faced and sure to embarass my lunch companion. But I didn't care because it's true.

I'm saving my next post, which will be my 50th...for a great entry. Look for some great news sometime next week (I'm guessing).

Yay!!!

P.S. For those not in our blog community, we'll be sending out a letter of sorts to friends and family to let them know the good news. We need a great pic for that...so gimmie some ideas of how to let everyone know. My best idea is matching Tshirts that say "we've been waitlisted"...but I'm not thrilled with it. I need your help!!

one down!

Ok Gang, round one fingerprints: check!

Several of hubband's were rejected but they'll call and make him a new appointment and get that all taken care of --hopefully really soon. I am done.

In the morning I'll call and make new appointments for an updated doctor's visit for each of us for this week.

Our case manager said that I can go ahead and get our dossier mailed in and checked out so that the day our homestudy gets there everything is ready, set, go!

I'm pretty excited.

Also, it's 2:45am and I just got back from the hospital where I met Baby Sophia! She was born just after 1am after taking her sweet time. She is definately one of the pretties just-born babies I've ever seen. Lucky for me she lives right across the street. Lucky for them, I'm awake at middle of the night feedings. Yay for babies!!!

ten days are up!

(Thanks to the Furmans for reminding me to post!)

Ok, we had to reschedule (again) because of some computer malfunctions, but! Tomorrow we are doing fingerprints. Yay for that. I know that this is going to be a bit of a frustrating time for Justin so I'm praying that people are at least nice about it. I never realized it before, but it does kinda stink to have no fingerprints.

To review, our social worker said that this should take us around six weeks. We'll go in for prints tomorrow. Justin's will be denied and we'll have to make two more appointments for him. Apparently the state has to officially deny you twice before they will do a name check even if you've already been cleared by the FBI to be in state law enforcement.

We were also advised to schedule another set of health/doctor appointments because our others are from so early in the process. Our agency rep said it was best for things to be in "fresh ink" so that's one last thing. I figure we'll schedule those in the next few weeks also so that everything will be done at the same time.

The best news is that when we finally get those fingerprints...and we get the new dr. notes...we can turn in our dossier and homestudy and finally...

JOIN THE WAITING LIST!

(Can I get an amen?)

Some more good news is that our friends (and across-the-street-neighbors) went in tonight to start the baby drugs. That's right, even though they stole our baby name, we're thrilled because little Sophia Grace Elam should be here sometime tomorrow! Yay!

See, great news all around!!!