Adoption Services- aka ALMOST matched with the kiddos!

Adoption Services- We are finallllly here!  What does this mean?  It means that the people who get to decide what children we will be allowed to adopt, have all our paperwork.  It may not seem huge given the gazillion steps we have already done, but this is huge.  HUGE!  Hopefully soon- in a week or two- we will have our referral!

An added bonus- when we got the email, on Sunday, that we were at AS, it came with new pictures of Asher and Annalise!  Asher is actually laughing in one picture, which made my Mama's heart SO happy as he has looked rather pensive in the other pictures we have.  Annalise has crazy, beautiful curls, that evidently the orphanage just piles into a waterspout pony tail on the top of her head- so totally adorable!  In the background of these pictures are other kids playing and lots of fun, colorful, clean toys.  This also made my Mama heart happy.

As we drove around today- the song that we have deemed "Asher and Annalise's Song"- Love Never Fails- we heard it 5 times!  FIVE!  Each time we hear it we stop what we are doing and pray for Asher and Annalise- and we are so excited to have been reminded to pray for them so much today.

Good things will be happening soon.  I can just feel it!

Chick Fil A

Adoption isn't cheep.  But we aren't letting the cost stop us!  Another fundraiser we were able to was to have a Chick Fil A Night!  It was lots of fun and many people were exposed to the fact that there are millions of children world-wide that need Forever Homes.  And hopefully we will get a little money to put towards the adoption!

Signs we had out by the spinning wheel

The Spinning Wheel- we got 100% of this money!

This part of the restaurant was entirely full of our neighbors, friends & students!

This sums up these two- SO excited to tell people about their brother and sister who they can't wait to meet!

In Translation...

Our documents are being translated.  This is super exciting and also another chance to practice patience.  Hopefully the translated documents will make it to the Adoption Office in Lithuania soon.  By mid-October we should have our official referral in our hands!!  And by the end of October we should know when we will be traveling!

So. Super. Exciting!

And So. Super. Scary.

I can't believe how drastically our lives are about to change forever.  It's scary and exciting all rolled into one.  God is good, though.  We are continually blessed by friends and family- always at the perfect moment and in the most perfect way.

Almost daily we get little confirmations that God is lining things up for our new kiddos- finding out our current eye Dr has a staff member who speaks Lithuanian, finding out there is a family at my school who has 2 children from Lithuania, finding out that there is an elderly Lithuanian lady who just lost her husband and desperately wants a new project (us!).

While we wait, Al and I read and learn all we can about Brain Balance, Out of Sync Children, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum, and all things Lithuanian.  The more informed we are, the better parents we will be for these two- and lots of what we are learning is actually helping us be better parents to Alden and Adeline!

Hopefully we will know something soon about our kiddos!