Leafty Family Reunion

This weekend was my mom's family reunion. We had it at Glenadan Beach. I had so much fun! I was in heaven spending all that time with so much family. This is the view from our condo. It was so beautiful. I love going to the coast and seeing the beautiful things God created. It is humbling.

 Justin loves hats, and he loves this boy. One of our nephews took Justin's hat and put it on. He totally posed and was like, "Justin, are you going to take my picture?" He didn't actually say that, but his face did. It was so cute.

 We had so much fun playing with all three of our nephews this weekend. Aren't they so cute?!? I love seeing my dad with them as well.

One of my favorite things to see are little fingers poking under doors. One night this week as my siblings and I were playing games two of my nephews were supposed to be sleeping. We heard them playing and went to investigate. We saw them both sticking their little fingers under the door. Soon there were five of us adults around the door taking pictures and playing with them. : ) Someday there will be another hand added from our little one joining the cousins.

 The newest addition to the family was starting to crawl this weekend. It was so fun to see him learning and figuring it all out.

Of course D didn't want to be left our so when he saw L crawling to me he joined in on the fun! My mom got some fun pictures of all of us playing together, swimming in the pool, and just having fun being together. All this family together time really makes me think about what it will be like when we are able to bring our little one home and have our family grow.

We are moving along in the adoption process. Right now we are waiting on our Bishop's Recommendation. He should have had it for a week now. I am going to call this afternoon and make sure that he did get it. After that is turned in, we will be plowing ahead preparing for our home study and taking our training classes! I am excited for our journey ahead of us.

Orientation

Thursday I got a text that we got mail at our PO Box. I was so excited to get our first donation there! However, when we got there it was junk mail. Ugh! That was a little bit of a let down. It was nice to have a little outing together though.

Yesterday was our Orientation Interview at LDS Family Services! I was so nervous. Justin kept telling me there is no need to be nervous. I still don't know that there is nothing to be nervous about, but I am excited to get started on the paperwork and the process. We did get the phase one paperwork. I already have most of it done. Once I do the person we are working with will send our references their letters to fill out. Then we pay our application fee and get started on our home study. Also, we have online training we have to do before our home study. That will take about 14 hours so we want to get started on that as well.

We do know the time it is going to take to adopt varies a lot from couple to couple, however we did ask what the average time is. He said he would say two years. However they do have a couple that had been waiting for going on five years. What this all means is that we really need your help. The best way for us to find our baby is with your help. Please keep you eyes and ear peeled for anyone that might be looking into placing their baby. Spread the word around so others know you know someone who is hoping to adopt. I know we have great friends out there and you guys will be great!

Off to work on our paperwork! Have a great Saturday.

We made a wish...

We made a wish and you came true! I saw that today and love it! I am hoping to put it on the nursery wall.  The past few days I have been reading adoption stories and words from birth mothers about how they made their choice. I have cried a few times. You can see some as well at https://itsaboutlove.org/ . Reading everyone else's experiences are really getting me excited to start our journey. However, I am also really nervous for our orientation/intake interview Friday. I know there are a million ways this can go wrong from start to finish. I am trying to remember to have faith and put it all in the Lord's hands. Please pray for us Friday!

Here we go!

We are so excited! We have chosen, more like we have been led, to an adoption agency. Funny enough, we really should have just gone here first. We have decided to pursue the application process with LDS Family Services. We know they are an honest and established agency, and we feel like the Lord has lead us here. Our orientation interview is this Friday! We are so excited! I literally can't hold it in! We know there will be hurdles and lots of paperwork to fill out before we are approved and then an undetermined waiting period with we wait for a birth mom to feel inspired to unite our families. We are ready! It feels like we are officially starting this journey, even though we have really been on it for years. We ask for you prayers as we embark on this journey.

Updates

I have updated the Current Events and Our Progress pages! Remember to keep your eye on those so you can see all that is going on throughout this exciting journey!

Thank you!

Thank you Camille! You have been such a blessing in our journey if trying to start a family. Thank you for all your support as we went through our fertility treatments, and now as we are moving onto adoption. Camille has sponsored a puzzle piece! That is one more! I couldn't be more excited.

Also, I do think we have picked our adoption agency. I am playing phone tag with the director, but I do believe we will make contact today. Once everything if for sure I will announce it. As you guys can probably tell, I don't like to talk about specifics until they are sure things. : ) We have just had way too many things not go as planned in our lives. I know that is because God has a plan, and it is better than ours so we need to trust it and Him and come along for the ride. I really am so excited to move a little forward in this process though.

Please keep those puzzle piece sponsors coming and I will keep you all updated. Thank you!

Blessed

People are being so supportive. Thank you so much! I have met so many wonderful people throughout this journey of trying to start a family. One of my friends is being so generous and doing a fundraiser for us. She is doing a fundraiser with her Etsy shop. My friends will receive 10% off and 10% of the profit will go to our adoption. The coupon code will be JKHADOPTION. Her shop can be found at www.etsy.com/shop/PreciousHardware. I hope you all check it out!

Also, we are still attempting to choose an adoption agency to work with. However, we may have narrowed it down. I called them yesterday to look into getting started and they said I should receive a call today. I am excited to get that step done. I feel as though once we are officially with an agency we will be on track. I have to many friends who have offered to help us by editing our letter to our birth mom, helping with the graphic design for our blog/website, pass out fliers and business cards, prepping for evaluations, and however else they can. Thank you so much girls for being there and supporting me in this journey. God has really blessed me throughout this trial.

We are making progress on our puzzle. I can’t wait to order it. However, I am still waiting on a few pictures. The day a few were supposed to be taken my sister-on-law went into the hospital. After being in there for a week my niece was born! Welcome to the world and this crazy family beautiful little girl!

Here is a sneak peak at one of the pictures for the collage that will be the puzzle. Enjoy! Please sponsor a piece!

And it has started!

Yesterday I woke up to two emails informing me that two people have sponsored puzzle pieces! We was to shout thank you to Mandy Lewis and Wendy Mitchell! I will try and post pictures of the puzzle every 100 pieces. We are currently at 22! We have 5 of the pictures done, two getting done today, and then two more to go. We are getting close! I can't wait for the puzzle to get here!

I hope you all had a great 4th of July. I was blessed to spend it with two of my sisters. We had a great time. I am ready for all the family that is out of town to get back though. Also, I am looking forward to our family reunion later this month! That will be the best!

Ok Ok, here you go...

This weekend and now week have been really busy. I am attempting to get together our next fundraiser in the midst of this heat wave we are having on the West Coast. Working at the pool has been torture with the 95+ weather and not being able to get in to cool off. Doesn't it look so inviting?!?

 My baby sister Clarrissa was in town this weekend. Family means the world to me so I was so excited when everyone showed up at the pool! Justin just loves our nephews, and they love him too. D especially likes putting on Justin's hats and glasses.

 I really enjoyed watching everyone have a good time. Since Clarrissa was in town I was able to get a jump start on the fundraiser prep. Since Justin has to go to Boise this week it is pushing back the completion of fundraiser prep so I won't be mean and keep you in suspense any longer.

We are going to do a puzzle fundraiser. If you haven't heard of it, don't worry, it is easy to participate in. I have a page on here that is specifically for the puzzle fundraiser. Pretty much what you do I sponsor puzzle pieces for a puzzle that will hang in the nursery. It is taking a lot of prep because I am doing a custom puzzle.

The puzzle will be a collage of pictures of Justin's and my family members holding up signs with messages for the baby. It is going to be so cute! I have four of the nine pictures done. I thought I was going to have three more yesterday, but I am not sure. I will follow up on those this week. I really wanted to get the puzzle ordered today, but since I don't have all the pictures yet it will have to wait. Justin and I still need to have ours taken. He forgot he had a meeting when we were going to take the picture. Once I get all the pictures put together it will still take 15 days for me to get the puzzle. It will be amazing though! If you want to start sponsoring pieces that is OK, I will start putting the progress of the puzzle up once I get it. My Grandmas was our first sponsor. She is so sweet and Amazing! Grandma gets a shout out because she sponsored 20 pieces! Thank you so much! Head on over to the Puzzle Fundraiser page and sponsor your piece/s! Thank you for your support!