surprise!!!

We have been keeping a secret from you :) (it's been so hard not to tell!)...

From the beginning of this process, we have felt that there was another kiddo out there for us....we didn't know who s/he was or where s/he was.....we just felt very strongly that Sheppard wasn't going to be the only child we were bringing home...

So we prayed. We asked God to show us who this second kiddo might be. We looked through the many (many) other faces of kiddos listed on Reece's Rainbow. We prayed some more...

And then, one normal morning as I was sipping on coffee and trying to wake up, we got an email from our team in country- Sheppard has a best friend in his orphanage. He is also available for adoption. Yep, you read that right! A BEST FRIEND! I almost spilled coffee all over my desk!

Meet "Pierce":

That's right! :) We are bringing home TWO teen boys! (are we crazy or what?!?) Since our second son was not already listed on Reece's Rainbow, we had the honor of choosing his alias- we chose the name Pierce, which is my maiden name. We think he's trying to look like a rock star for his picture- his hair cracks us up! ;) We can't wait to meet both our boys (and we can't wait to tell them they are going to be BROTHERS!) We are in awe of how God is orchestrating all this out for us. He is so good.

Adding on another kiddo to our adoption will add some more costs in fees once we are in country- it should be around $5,000- I'll update our page of estimated fees and our fundraising thermometor once I figure all that out. We know God's got this. He is leading the way for us and all we have to do is say yes. (I've had Hillsong-United's song "Oceans" playing on repeat all day...haha. It's becoming our theme song.)

Thank you for your support and prayers :)

Tshirts!

Just a quick update today- the Tshirts are arriving!!!! You can see the funds are in from our Tshirt fundraiser and have been added to our thermometor on the right! God is so good!

Ok, so if you ordered a shirt and want to be featured on the blog, please email me a pic or post a pic to my facebook page of you wearing your shirts and I will put a giant blog post together of all our wonderful supporters!

THANK YOU! You all ROCK and God is using you to do BIG things in Sheppard's life!

WE LOVE YOU!

first snow and paperwork madness

We have a snow delay! Our first snow of the season (finally) has brought with it a delayed work schedule, which of course equals time for MORE ADOPTION PAPERWORK. Which at this point seems NEVER ENDING. But we know there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and all the paperwork is of course worth it!

I did make some time to take a few pictures of our dog in the snow though!

Yep, we have a husky! Her name is Tehya and she is loving this weather. I'm pretty sure she sniffed every single snowflake in our yard this morning.

Then she stood guard over her domain. This is her favorite perch outside- she can survey the entire yard this way.

Tehya loves loves loves babies and kiddos. We can't wait for Sheppard to meet her! 

We have cats too, but they were grumpy this morning so they didn't get a photo shoot ;) 

and now for what the rest of my morning has consisted of...

The infamous "paper baby" that I had heard so much about... the never ending piles of forms that must be filled out perfectly, notarized perfectly, apostilled perfectly....not to mention the fees for it all as well...All of my dreams are about paperwork these days. Thankfully, my sweet friend Chrystal who is also adopting a son from the same country we are came over one day to help me organize my binder! SO helpful! Now I have everything in order and I know where it all is...and anytime I start to find it difficult to breathe from all the stress I just close the binder and look at my sweet son's pictures. Perspective- Sheppard, you are so worth it! Before we know it, this paperwork is going to be done, our training will be completed, the fundraising wil be finished, and we will be waiting for our travel dates so we can finally be with you in person instead of an ocean away...

Well, now Alden is awake and we are making bacon (mmmmmm). Which reminds me- my friend Chrystal is having an amazing fundraiser this Saturday!!!

 

If you live locally, come on out and support their son's adoption and get some awesome smoked meat in the process! 

Here is a link to their blog as well: http://daffodilsandearthworms.blogspot.com/

 

and their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=7816850&ref=br_rs#!/bringtavinhome