Transition

We have started the transition. Moving bedrooms around. We are moving the boys in together in the basement. Which means that my parents and I (ok, mostly my parents) spent the majority of last weekend moving Haylie upstairs to her original bedroom she had when we moved in 6 years ago. They boys moved back in together in their old room for the time being. Next on the list is to paint, again, the basement bedroom to make it more boy friendly. It is a bigger bedroom for them and has a bathroom. They like to say it will be the man cave.

This will make room for "Ruby" in the upstairs bedroom right by ours. That will be a fun project also! Picking out girl things! Will we need a crib? Probably....will she be in a twin bed, maybe. All depends on how big our little tootie is! I had bedding that Haylie originally had when we moved in. Pink and green, so cute. I tried to sell it a couple of years ago at my garage sale and then on ebay or something. It didn't sell. I was looking at this bedding and going to list it again and then decided that I just couldn't part with it. It was too cute, it had all kinds of accessories that were custom made to go with it.  For some reason, I just couldn't part with it. Now I know why. It was the Lord saying, keep it, you will need more girl bedding in the future. Right?

I have had a few of these God moments happen. Decisions Jeremy and I have made thinking it was just a good decision or a change of heart. Well, in hind sight, it was the Lord saying "Stop, those plans are not My plans. Follow Me! I have something better in mind" It has been so great to look back at the past year or so and see all those moments where God was working in our hearts but we didn't know it at the time.

Our home study is being written. She will be done with it by the end of next week. Then she has to send it to our Agency in Tennessee. They will review it and hopefully approve it. Then it is time to apply to immigration to be able to adopt. Step by step. Closer and closer. I am excited things are moving along. I am nervous because soon the process will be out of our hands. Nothing we can do to move it along. Once our dossier gets to Africa we are at the mercy of the government there. They do match days every 2 months. We could be waiting  a very short time or we could be waiting a very long time. Only God knows, and has His timing all worked out and it will be perfect.

That's all for now.
God Bless

Update

Sorry I have been MIA for a while. But in this stage in the game there really isn't much to report. We are still doing the paper chase that is called a home study. We have one more meeting on the 14th. She will come to our house and interview the kids and check out the house and make sure there is a place for "ruby" (that is what we are calling her for now, it will change).  I hope the kids are on their best behavior ;) 
We have also been doing A LOT of training. They have a requirement of 10 hours of training. Either we have to read a TON of books or do 3 different online trainings. So, we have had many evening of us on the couch with the computer watching and reading online. I have also had the job of keeping Jeremy awake during all of these sessions. They aren't the most exciting things to do! I do have to say I have learned a lot and have become aware of a lot of things that she is going to go through when she gets  home.
We hope to have the home study done by mid November. Then it is an application to USCIS to get approval to adopt. After that, the dossier gets to get mailed to Lesotho!!! After that we play the waiting game.
So, that is where we are. We sure can feel the prayers and support. Thank you! Keep it coming!

This weekend we are off on a shopping trip with my sisters, daughter, niece and mom. Its an annual tradition for us girls and I am very excited for the day when Ruby can come along!!!

I'll try to keep this updated a little better in the future!
For now, I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of the kids with their latest wild life scores!!

Haylie scored an 8pt buck her first time hunting. She went out with Jeremy during the Youth Hunt in Sept.

Jeremy took the boys fishing on the Pier Marquette river last weekend. They scored some HUGE salmon!!

Thats all for now. Until next time.......