Our First Egg Hunt

Hannah and Benjamin went to their first Easter Egg Hunt today with Grani, Papa, and Mommy. Next weekend we have another one at our church. It took two tries for Hannah to catch on that you need to pick up the eggs and put them in the basket. The first time she only got 3 eggs and the field was clear! The second time there were less people and she was catching on so she filled her basket - that means - candy for Mommy and Daddy!

She LOVED the Easter bunny. I was so surprised. She went right up into her lap. When we left she threw a fit to go back. So I stood in line with her again and let her sit in her lap again. It was so funny! I had to make her get down so the next person in line could have a turn.

Little Brother

Practicing for Easter

Big Sister

Uncle Andrew's Request

Here are some pictures of Aunt Mela playing with Hannah's hair!

Better Shots?

I tried to get some better shots so you can see what he looks like. Hopefully these are better, we will see.

More Pictures!

Announcing....

Benjamin Jaylin

Born 2-14-07

Welcomed home 3-26-07

Mother and baby are doing fine.

Showering of BLUE Gifts

More Cousins!

A little more waiting

Well, everything is going well but it looks like we will have to wait a few more days to pick up the baby. Apparently something came up with the agency that is placing him and they will not be able to meet with us until Monday. But, the good news is we have been approved so there should be no problem with me saying:

WE HAVE A BABY BOY!!!!!

If anything changes I'll let you know but for now we plan on heading to pick him up on Monday! Let's hope something changes! I really want to leave right now to get him!

While We Wait

Well, I'm just waiting on a phone call. The homestudy is complete, my fingerprints are still MIA, but they are waiting on a phone call about them. So while we wait I'll give you some information about adoption in TN that I found out today. Since our last adoption was in KY we just don't know the TN laws.

Apparently when a baby is born and the mother wants to place him/her for adoption they go into foster care for 10 days. This is the waiting period from the time the mother signs over her rights and the time she has to change her mind. Her rights are then terminated at the end of the 10 days and the baby is then elligible to be placed in an adoptive home.

Finalization can take place, I think, as soon as rights are terminated and all of the court papers are turned in. There are a couple of post placement visits that have to occur before our lawyer can petition for the finilization.

If the birthfather is unknown or has not signed then there is a 6 month waiting period before finilization and the father has to be actively searched for during this time. In our case the birthfather rights have already been terminated so we should not have this waiting period.

So I guess once we are able to pick up the baby (hopefully tomorrow!) we will call a lawyer and start the finilization process! It would be funny if Hannah and baby boy (we will tell you his name as soon as we have him in our arms) both have April Adoption days since they both have February birthdays!

Anyway, that's all for now. I'll let you know when I find out about heading to pick up the baby! Not much longer now. Daniel just e-mailed and said this must be like waiting to go into labor and my sister-in-law said the same thing!

Ok

Ok, now the paperwork SHOULD all be in. HOORAY! I no longer have to think about that! Now all I have to do is WAIT! Hopefully the wait will just be until tomorrow. Then we will talk to the lady about when to pick the baby up!

I'll keep you posted!

Keep Praying

Hey,

I hope my previous post did not make you think you can stop praying! We still need your prayers. The person who told me our lab work was in this morning was mistaken. So our medical forms are not complete yet. We need the lab work to come in tomorrow so that I can go by and pick up the form and take it to the agency. So please pray the lab work comes in. I'm not sure if my fingerprint results are in so continue to pray for that as well.

We know God is taking care of the details but please continue to pray that all will get turned in tomorrow, at the latest Wednesday, so that we can go on Thursday to pick the baby up!

I'll keep you posted on the status of the above mentioned.
We appreciate all of your prayers!

Our God is so Big....There's Nothing our God cannot do..need proof?:

So our specific prayer request was that the lab work and fingerprints would come back faster than normal.

For the fingerprints we were told 6-8wks. Daniel's were in on Friday (4 days) and hopefully mine will be there this morning (1 wk).

We were told the lab work would be in at the earliest Monday (1 wk), it was in last Wednesday (lab work was done Monday night 8:00pm - so basically 1 day)

God is working out all of the details! We knew He would if this was the baby for us! If all comes in as expected we should be traveling on Thursday or Friday to pick up the baby!

Littleton Cousins

Hi

Sorry, no creative post name. Just wanted to let you know that we heard again from the agency and things are still moving forward for the little boy. They are a bit concerned about the fingerprints and they were going to check to see what could be done to get those results quickly. They want us to pick him up next week if all is in. All we are waiting on is lab tests and fingerprints so keep praying those come in fast.

Here are some more pictures of Hannah this week

Prayer

For those of you who like to have specific things to pray for here is what I'm praying:

• That the fingerprint results would come in exceptionally fast (we were told 6-8 weeks for results, I paid to speed up the results but the receipt did not reflect the payment, when I called to try to fix the problem they told me they couldn't fix it and that really that didn't guarantee speedy service, she wasn't sure why it was a option.)


• That the medical tests/blood work would come back to the doctor's office exceptionally fast


• That we will get to pick the baby up soon/or at least get confirmation we are for sure getting him!


• That the lady in Memphis will not get impatient and try to find another family to place this baby with.

I guess that is it for now. We have heard nothing since Monday, but didn't really expect too. The social worker has to type up our homestudy update but she was hoping to have everything finished by this Friday. The problem comes with the above mentioned results coming in.

Oh and One More:

That we don't pull our hair out with all this waiting, and waiting, and waiting!

Another One Down!

Wow! We have another homestudy under our belt! Things went great today with our interviews! We got our fingerprints done today and we got our physicals and lab work. So now it is a matter of waiting for her to write up the homestudy report, for our medical work to get in, and finger print results. I have no idea how long that will take.

She told us she was excited for us about the baby boy, so it seems that she thinks we will still get him. We just don't know when. Hopefully next week!

I'll keep you updated. Pray that all the stuff that needs to come in will come back quicker than normal!

The Cousins are Here!