Home Study Approved!!!

Our home study was officially approved about a month ago! We were so excited when we got the e-mail saying everything was done! It has been unofficially approved for a little while now though. This thankfully gives us the green light to start applying for grants. We are praying that we will be awarded a couple grants in order to help us with the cost of the adoption. Applying for a grant reminds me of applying for scholarships for college. I'm a little nervous about it since I know there are so many families who are applying as well. I am just hoping that we will stand out a bit more.

Since being home study approved, our adoption profile is now active with our agency. This means that when they have a birth mom that is ready to get matched with a family, the agency will give the mom about 3 profile books to look at. A profile book is similar to a scrapbook that gives a glimpse into our life. We put ours together on Mixbook.com and it turned out great! After a few weeks of looking over the books, the mom will select a family she is interested in creating an adoption plan with. Once selected, the family and birth mom meet and decide from there if they want to go ahead and be matched for the adoption. There is a lot of nervous waiting and praying on our end!

Daniel and I have had our profile viewed a couple times now but have not been matched yet. The first time we weren’t selected hurt a bit. I don't handle rejection the best, but then again who does?! However we know that God has a specific baby for us to be part of our family. We trust in His timing and plan for us. It is also an exciting time for the other families, who have been waiting like us, to be matched for their baby.

Now that we are in the waiting stage of the adoption process, we have been finding things to do in order to keep busy. We have been working on our parent training required by the agency. The are having us read the book, The Connect Child, and completing a workbook about it. It is a great book and we have been learning so much about parenting an adopted child. Daniel and I have been having some really good conversations and it has been great for us to read through this together.

We have had another project that we have been having a lot of fun with!!!! Recently, we went into nesting mode! 

We had a blast painting and decorating the nursery! We chose Lion King since we love Disney and we wanted a gender neutral theme. I really love the yellow color we painted the walls. It is very warm and welcoming. Perfect for a baby! Daniel and I are planning to add more once we are matched and know if we will be adopting a boy or girl. We will most likely add some light pink accents for a girl and some green accents if it's a boy.

Now that it is summer, I plan on keeping busy working on projects around the house. I'll also be working extra hard on my Scentsy business since all my income for that is being saved to use for when we adopt and I take FMLA leave from work. Daniel is also working on reopening our Etsy business as well!!! I can't wait for him to share some new designs soon!