"Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)"

I'm seriously the worst blogger ever!  The last few months have been such a blur but I'll do my best to cover the major events that have come and gone!

April:  Chase was offered a fantastic opportunity with a great company...in Plano!  He accepted and moved to Dallas at the end of the month.  Baby girl and I had to stay behind until the adoption was final.  Our wonderful case workers did their best to be sure that everything was in place so that we could join Chase as soon as possible.

May:  Nothing....still waiting

June: We FINALLY had a court date - Monday, July 1, 2013 at 8:30am!!  Once we had a court date I started looking for a job and thankfully received an offer to begin the 2nd week of July!  We also frantically looked for a place to live and found a great house north of Dallas!

July: THE DAY WE HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!!!  We made sure that anybody who wanted to attend knew all of the details...Monday, July 1 - 8:15am - Jefferson County Courthouse, 2nd floor, Judge Randy Shelton's court room!  We were joyously blessed with 20+ attendees sporting the bright turquoise shirts we had designed for this super special day!  We were also featured on Channel 6 news (in Beaumont) on their Forever Families segment!  A huge thank you to Ashley Gaston and Channel 6 for being there while we celebrated the most exciting event in our lives alongside the most wonderful family and friends that we could ever ask for! 

Everyone waiting to enter the courtroom!

We had a packed house!

Our Forever Family with Judge Randy Shelton

Our interview with Channel 6 News!

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Introducing Miss Aubrey AnnMarie !!!!

We cannot thank you guys enough for following our journey over the past few years!  Your prayers and thoughts have carried us through when we could see no light at the end of the tunnel.  We always knew that our Lord God had a beautiful plan for us and if we could endure the heartbreak and the cracks in our path with fearless determination, we will be overwhelmed with blessings in the end.  We look forward to the journey ahead and will continue to live our life to serve Him through the ministry of foster care/adoption.  Now that we are finally settled in our new home, we have begun the process of transferring our records to an organization locally and will eventually open up our home to another child.  Again, thank you for following us and I look forward to many many more updates in the near future!



"Right Where I Need To Be"

Oh my goodness, it is already MARCH!!!  I just realized that I haven't updated in a couple of months!!!  Well, if you guys have been following, then you know that TODAY was supposed to be THE DAY!  Obviously, it's not!  As we sit idly by, we pray that files have been requested and that SOMETHING is happening behind closed doors to get us an adoption date.  I'm happy to say that the 90 day appeal period if officially over and we have secured an attorney....just waiting for the big day!  We also celebrated the one year anniversary of Baby Girl coming into our home on February 7!  Time flies! 

 

We know that all things happen in God's time.  We faithfully continue with our lives and are calmly waiting for our time to LEGALLY become a family.  As you all know, we were a family from the moment she came into our lives! 

God is so good!

 

With that being said, I decided to go out and design the shirts that we will be wearing to court that day (whatever day that may be).  They are still working on a final design, but they are going to be awesome - turquoise, yellow and orange :)  For those of you interested, they will be $14.00 each, add $2 for 2XL and 3XL (will also have youth and toddler sizes available)!  I will have order forms ready as soon as possible so let me know if you are interested!  There is no maximum number of ppl who can attend court that day and we would LOVE all of you to be a part of this amazing day!  Email me or message me if you want an order form! :)

 

I'll be sure to update as we get more information!  As for now, we are just enjoying our 14 month old and looking forward to a wonderful future!

 

Thank you all for being such a great support team and praying for us! 

We love all of you!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!!!

So I was recently reminded that I needed to update my blog with birthday info!!!  Baby girl turned 1 year old on December 31!!!   My how time has flown!  Even when she is throwing a temper tantrum, I still look at her and can't comprehend how we were so blessed to see her grow and be a part of her life over the last 11 months! 

 

Her first birthday party was Saturday, January 5 and although we had quite a few people who could not make it, she still had about 40-50 friends and family attend!  It was crazy and so much fun!  I know she really enjoyed herself!

(A big thank you to my Aunt Chris for letting us use her house, Kelly's Kreations for the fabulous cupcakes and cookies, Blue Bear Embroidery for her onesie and bloomers , Bowz and Curlz for her gigantic bow, Dana Daniel for her fluffy tutu and Lora Beth Waller for the awesome photos...oh and Pinterest for my super cute ladybug table decoration ideas!!!)  

 

In other news...we had a permanency meeting to discuss what is to come in the next few months!  The appeal period will be over on February 21 (WHEW!!!!) and then it's just a lot of paperwork.  We will get a social and medical history (as much as they can gather) and an official name change!  YAY!!!  Our original finalization date was March 8 BUT now we aren't too sure!  It seems like we are looking at either April or May! GRRR!!  Apparently the adoption case worker with CPS is a little over worked right now and our case hasn't been turned over to her yet!  Patience....patience!!!

 

Speaking of another baby...Chase and I have UNofficially decided to open our home back up to foster children.  When we got Baby Girl we put ourselves on hold because I just wasn't sure if I could emotionally handle this!  I have a renewed sense of confidence recently that has really gotten me excited about saying YES to another baby (3 years and younger)!!  We haven't made that official decision, but we both agree that God is calling us for something more and who are we to deny that?  And Baby Girl needs a playmate...I think I bore her to death  :)

 

Ok...so here are some pics from her party and a few from her photo shoot!! I'll update more often...I promise!

Can you see my cute fences with grass, ladybugs and candy??  Thanks Pinterest!

These cupcakes were awesome! 

Yummy cookies!!!

 

The big girls were such a big help with the candle and than presents!!

 Baby Girl with her PawPaw

 



She had a super busy day!!!!

 Love her little bloomers!!

 

She loves her cousin Layla - only 3 weeks older than Baby Girl!