We are FULL of thanksgiving as we think of all that God has done in our lives this year! The biggest blessing we praise God for this year is our son! What joy he has brought into our family!
We had a fun long weekend. On Thanksgiving we had lunch with my (Erin's) extended family. There were about 35 aunts, uncles, cousins, etc... It was good to be together. Then, we headed to Michael's parents for dinner. All of the food was delicious and we enjoyed being together!
Early Friday morning--4:15am to be exact--I began my hunt for good deals! This has turned into one of my most favorite days of the whole year!! I was very successful and about 7am I headed home to pick up Michael and Riley. We shopped for several hours and got most of our Christmas shopping finished. Then, we came home and decorated our house for Christmas! This "day after Thanksgiving" has become a fun tradition for us. We were exhausted by the time we went to bed Friday night, but it was a very fun day spent together.
Here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving weekend!
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Saturday, November 18, 2006
We (Riley and Erin) just returned from visiting Michael's sister Beth and her family in Denver, Colorado. We were there almost a week and enjoyed a lot of shopping and spending time together! It was fun to have all the boys together--Austin (almost 4) and Jacob (2). Here is a picture of the three cousins! I can't add anymore right now because Blogger isn't cooperating.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Our little turtle!!
Monday, October 30, 2006
Riley's jersey
What a happy boy we have! He has survived his first cold of the season and is growing and learning all kinds of new tricks. He can now stand all by himself without holding on for a few seconds. We're going to have a walker before we know it!!!!
Saturday, October 14, 2006
In the end zone
Fun at the fair!
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Our little Wolfpacker!!
This picture was taken the night of NC State's game against Boston College that they won in the final seconds!! It was too late of a game for Riley to make it to, but he was sporting his Wolfpack gear cheering for the red and white!! The cute bear is compliments of our good friend Leigh Anna and the outfit is compliments of Mammy and Pops (Erin's parents).
Riley is doing SO WELL!! He has settled into a routine and is sleeping and eating great! He is an active little boy and is very curious. He can now crawl like a pro and is pulling up on everything in sight. He smiles and laughs a lot and really seems to be bonding to us. We can hardly believe that this Wednesday will make 4 weeks that he's been with us; the time has gone by so quickly.
We love being parents to this precious baby boy! He is such a blessing and we praise God for bringing him into our family!
Riley's latest trick
At the soccer game!
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Our precious blessing!
I'm sorry it took so long to post more pictures---we think we left our camera cord for our computer back in the hotel in Detroit. So, I finally went and made discs of all of our pictures. I will try to update more frequently.
Hope you enjoy the pictures!
Loves that pacifier!
Bath time!
Riley and Bismarck
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Riley!!
Monday, September 11, 2006
Tomorrow we head to Detroit. We leave early in the evening. I think we are as ready as we can be. Our bags are packed and our house is clean, so I think we are physically prepared. We are so excited and can't believe that it's really almost time!!! We are taking our laptop with us, so we will try to post pictures and details of our "Gotcha Day" Wednesday night. Please pray for safety for us and Riley and that we have a smooth transition!!
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
OUR BABY IS COMING HOME!!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!
We got our travel call late this afternoon!! We are still in shock! Riley will be flying into Detroit next Wednesday (September 13th). Our flight is scheduled for next Tuesday evening and then we will return next Thursday evening with our baby!! We are SO EXCITED!!! We really wanted to fly in and out of our local airport so that all of you, our friends and family could come to the airport. But, the cost was extremely expensive, so we are flying out of another airport about an hour and a half away. (I don't want to post where b/c this is a public blog; feel free to ask me!)
Thank you all for praying for us and encouraging us during this process! We have really needed your prayers as we tried to endure the wait!
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
It is so hard to wait when we are SO CLOSE to having Riley home!! We could really use your prayers as we wait for our call to travel. We are really on an "any day now" basis. It is hard to be patient when we are so close!! Every time that telephone rings, we wonder if it's "the call"!!! Please pray with us that our call will come VERY SOON!!! Thanks for standing with us!!
Monday, August 14, 2006
Today we found out that we have received our final approval on the American side of things for Riley to come home!!!! We are so excited! We are now on "alert" for our travel call. We know it will take at least several business days for things to receive their final processing in Korea. And, tomorrow (Tuesday) is a national holiday in Korea so all government offices will be closed. But, we are hopeful that sometime in the next couple of weeks we should be getting our baby!!!
Thank you for your prayers! And, please, continue to pray that we will receive our travel call very, very soon!!!
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
GREAT NEWS!!! We got an email last night from our placing agency in Michigan that they had received Riley's legal forms!! This is a huge step! The legals are on their way to us; we should get them tomorrow or Thursday. Then, we can fill out our final piece of paperwork to bring Riley home! Approval of this final piece (in NC) is taking about 3-4 weeks. Once we have approval then Riley's permission to leave Korea should come pretty soon. Then, we will be waiting for our travel call! Thank you for your continued prayers!!!
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Another picture
Where we are in the process... We are currently waiting on Riley's legals (his birth certificate from Korea). We have to wait for this so that we can fill out the FINAL piece of paperwork for the U.S. government. Meanwhile, Korea is working on their end of papework to give Riley permission to leave the country. Once we receive Riley's legals and fill out the papers, we will wait to get confirmation from the US that says that everything is approved on our end. Then, once everything is approved on the Korean end, too, we would soon get our "travel call"!! If there are no glitches with any of the paperwork, then Riley should be home sometime in August or September. Once we get our travel call, we will probably have about 48 hours notice to be in Detroit to meet his flight from Korea! What an exciting day that will be!
Please continue to pray for us! It is really hard to be patient and wait and wait and wait for Riley to come home. Also, PLEASE pray that the paperwork would go quickly and smoothly. Thank you again for sharing in our joy! We still can't believe that God is blessing us with this special treasure!
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Riley#1
WE ARE PARENTS!!!!
We received a referral of a beautiful baby boy on Thursday!!! We wanted to talk to our international doctor before we posted and accepted, but last night our doctor gave our little one a clean bill of health! He is three months old. I can’t believe that we are finally parents!! We are SOOOOO HAPPY!!! It feels very surreal! We are so thankful that God has allowed us to be the parents of this precious baby!
Thank you for sharing in our joy and for all of your support through this process. We know we will need you even more as we wait to bring our little one home! (We now have about a 2-3 month wait to bring our baby home.)
Here are some pictures of our sweet baby Riley Michael!!!! (We will be calling him Riley!!)
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Today was a busy day for us--it was our Fingerprinting Appointment Day! We had filed our I-600a form with the Department of Homeland Security (Citizenship and Immigration Services) on February 28th and our appointment wasn't until TODAY! So, after an over three month wait we got up early this morning and drove to Charlotte (the only office in NC where you can be fingerprinted). We had appointments scheduled at 9am and 10am. But, it was similar to the DMV where you go in and they look at your paperwork, give you a number, and tell you to have a seat until your number is flashing. So, after waiting for about an hour and a half we were called up and "fingerprinted." It was pretty uneventful to say the least! I'm still not exactly sure why we had appointment times??? Oh, well, bureaucracy at its finest! :) No other news to report...the wait continues!!!! UGH!!
Sunday, June 04, 2006
We are 3+ weeks into our wait for a referral. We could really get a call at any point now. I had my first baby shower last week. It was given by my sweet friends Laura and Jenni for the teachers and staff I work with. It was SO much fun! I couldn't believe the generosity of so many people. As I have been putting the gifts away it has made everything even more real! I am now completely finished with work. There is never anything quite like summer vacation, but it's even more different this year knowing that in August I won't be going back. I will definitely miss my students and the sweet people I work with, but I am SO ready to be a stay-at-home mom! I can't believe that soon it will really happen.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
We are almost 2 weeks into our official wait for our referral. It has gone by pretty quickly for us! I am busy wrapping up things at school, so time seems to be flying! Friday is my last day of school with students; next week will be teacher workdays. Then, I will officially be "retired"! I have looked forward to being a stay-at-home mom for a long time, and it's hard to believe that it is actually just around the corner!!!
I am never far from my cell phone as we are just waiting for our call that we have been matched with a baby! Every time it rings I wonder if it is "the call"!! We probably have at least a couple more weeks until we would actually be matched but every day is still a possibility!!
While we are continuing to wait, it would be great to know who is following our journey through this blog! Please feel free to leave us comments!! We would LOVE to hear from you!
Thursday, May 11, 2006
It is finally happening!!!! Our homestudy is being mailed TODAY to Korea!!! We are THRILLED!!! It is hard to believe that it is really happening. We are on cloud 9! Thank you for faithfully praying for us; we are praising God that this major step in the process is now complete!
Our social worker said that it still looks like average wait times for receiving referrals is about 1-2 months. So, anytime, in the next few weeks we should receive our referral. A referral is when we are matched with a baby and we are sent pictures, medical history, etc... From the day that we accept our referral (via paperwork) we start a 1-3 month wait until our baby would come home!
We are SO excited and SO incredibly blessed!!
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Still waiting!! I actually looked up the meaning of "waiting" while I am waiting and the dictionary said "to remain or rest in expectation." I would definitely say that we are remaining in expectation but resting is a lot more difficult. We are still at the point of hoping that our homestudy is in Korea or on its way. I am waiting to hear back from our social worker to see what our status is. Once we are HSTK (homestudy to korea) we will be SO EXCITED because that will mean that we would actually have a chance of being matched with a baby.
So, while we wait, we continue to pray for our baby--for God's love to be shown and His protection and His PERFECT TIMING!!
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Nothing too new going on with us. It was encouraging this past week when another family using our agency received a referral of a little girl! Their homestudy was sent to Korea about three months before their referral. This encourages us because it seems like the timelines we have been quoted all along are actually pretty accurate. They were requesting a girl which typically takes a little bit longer than requesting a boy or in our case "either." So, it looks like if our homestudy EVER makes it to Korea that we are probably looking at 1-2 months from that date until we receive our referral. Thank you for continuing to pray that God will give us patience as we wait!
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
I talked to our program coordinator in Michigan to check on the status of our homestudy. She said that they had received it, but they needed a few more details added to it so they had emailed it back to our social worker back here. She said that once those remaining details were added it would be on its way to Korea! So, it seems like a good guess that in the next week or so it will actually be on its way overseas! Later this afternoon I talked to our local social worker and she got the remaining details she needed and was getting ready to send it right back to Michigan!! Hooray!
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Nothing too much to report...just waiting, waiting, waiting!!! We did meet with our pediatrician today. We were impressed with him and his office. He seemed very down to earth and hopefully will take good care of our baby! We will have a specialist look at our baby's medical file when we are matched. The specialist is a doctor who is very familiar with international adoptions and knows what things to look for when examining babies from other countries. The specialist lives too far away to be our regular doctor, so we thought it would be a good idea to have something set up in our town for when we bring the baby home. Just one more thing accomplished to mark off the list of things to do while we wait and wait and wait!!
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Our homestudy is on its way to Michigan! Its next stop will be Korea! Over the next couple of weeks it will be approved by our agency in Michigan and translated into Korean. Then, it will be sent overseas, and we will begin waiting to be matched!
We have continued to make preparations! We bought a rocker/glider yesterday, and it is now in the "nursery." We have found an international adoption specialist/doctor in Concord who is going to read over all of the baby's medical records/history (when we receive our match) and make recommendations.
Thank you for continuing to read our updates! And, thank you also for your continued prayers! Please feel free to leave us comments! We would love to hear from you!
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
One short update...Our social worker emailed us last night to say she was finished writing up our homestudy!! Hooray! Now, we are waiting for her to have it typed up. Then, we will proof it, and it will be on its way to our agency in Michigan and translated into Korean. One more step closer to bringing our baby home!!
Sunday, April 02, 2006
We have had a fun weekend! Friday evening was the middle school dance at my school. I was the teacher in charge, so Michael and I spent Friday evening at the dance. We had a lot of fun! At the end of the evening about 10 of my students called me to the front and presented me with a sweet little baby blanket and a Vera Bradley diaper bag!!!!! The bag was just what I had wanted! I was SO surprised! It is now sitting in the corner of the "nursery" just waiting to be used.
On Saturday Michael and I headed to Babies 'R Us and we began registering! It was SO MUCH fun! We registered for the things we know we will need regardless of the age or gender of our baby; things like carseats, strollers, pack 'n play, washcloths, etc...
No updates on the homestudy, so please continue to pray that it will be finished SOON! Thank you for keeping me, Michael, and "Baby K (for Korea!)" in your prayers.
Friday, March 31, 2006
I'm so glad that it is Friday! Easter is so late this year that spring break is later than normal, but now it's only one week away! I think everyone should have spring break. And, not that I am counting, but I only have 35 more days of school! Hooray!
There is really nothing new to report about our adoption...I'm still waiting to hear from the social worker that she has finished our homestudy. It could be finished any day now. The absolutely latest it would be finished would be April 16th.
We continue to pray for our baby as he/she has probably just been born or is about to be born! Thank you for continuing to pray for us as we go through this exciting journey that is full of so many ups and downs.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Today I got the word that we were unable to get an earlier appointment for fingerprinting. That is a little disappointing, but the good news is that IF we were to get a referral before June 7th it looks like we would (at that point) be able to be seen earlier. So, now I have done everything I can, and I just have to trust that God has everything under control!!
I did talk to our social worker last night and she said she is almost finished with our homestudy! That is great news! Hopefully, we will be able to send it to Korea very, very soon!
This past weekend we finished cleaning out the nursery completely! (Thanks also goes to my little sisters--Kaitlin, Annie, and Meghan who helped while they were staying with us while my parents were on their 30th anniversary trip). Now, we just need to know "boy" or "girl" so we can paint and start decorating!! Can't wait!
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Please pray!!!
One of the things that we have to have done before we can get our baby is to be fingerprinted by the federal government. Well, in NC there is only one office and they are evidently very backed up...On Tuesday we got our letter with our appointment date. Our appointment is set for June 7th! Ugh!! That is a really, really long wait for an appointment. Most states give you a date within a week or two. While this is probably not a big deal, it is possible that we could have a referral (where we are matched with our baby) and wouldn't be able to actually get our baby because our fingerprints wouldn't have yet gone through. (After we are fingerprinted it could take a few weeks before they are processed, we are notified of our acceptance, etc...) SO, I am asking any of you reading this to PLEASE PRAY! I have contacted the wonderful lady that I used to work for who is now in the Congress and she and her staff are working very hard to see if we can be given permission for an earlier appointment. I will keep you posted!! Please pray that they will find favor with the Immigration agency and that we will be able to be fingerprinted earlier! Thank you for your love and prayers!!!
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Today we have been cleaning out the "nursery" which has been formerly used as "our room where anything that doesn't really have a place belongs." We won't start painting or decorating until we know we are having a boy or a girl, but we thought we could go ahead and start cleaning it out and getting rid of stuff. We have made a lot of progress!
Yesterday, I (Erin) told the teachers I work with and my students about our adoption! It was a lot of fun sharing our good news. Only 50 more days of school!
Thursday, March 16, 2006
On Tuesday we received a letter from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that they had processed our application to adopt (I-600a). Next, we should receive a notice in the mail with our appointment in Charlotte to be fingerprinted. We are hoping that it will come quickly!
This is one of the hard parts of adoption--the waiting! We had SO much to do in the beginning--so many places to go to pick up documents, so many forms to fill out and copy and mail, and now most of it is out of our hands! We continue to pray for our little one--wherever he or she may be at this time, whether born or still in the womb, and we are encouraged because every day that passes bring us one day closer!
Monday, March 13, 2006
Our homestudy visit today went very well! Our social worker was here for a couple of hours and finished up her questions for us. Now she will begin writing up our homestudy report. She thinks she will have it finished in the next couple of weeks!! It seems like everything is coming together very well!
The next thing we need to pray for is that the U.S. government will process our paperwork quickly so that we can be fingerprinted. This is something that can sometimes hold up the whole process. Please pray that we will get our appointment in the mail very soon!
Sunday, March 12, 2006
We are well on our way to getting our baby! We have finished all of our official paperwork and have completed our first homestudy visit. Tomorrow is our second (and probably last) homestudy visit. This time will actually be a visit to our home. The social worker will come and take a look at our house and neighborhood and also spend time going over more of the answers we provided for our questionnaires and autobiographies.
Our homestudy should be finished in the next couple of weeks. Once it is finished it will be sent to our agency in Michigan who will approve it and then send it to Korea. Once it goes to Korea our official "wait" begins. Because our agency has no waiting list at this time, the estimated wait will be 1-2 months before we get our referral. Our referral will be when we get a picture of our baby and all of his/her medical records. If we accept our referral we will then have a 1-2 month wait before our baby is brought to us! So, it is looking like we will have our baby sometime this summer, maybe early fall!
We are so excited to be on this journey and can't wait to see all that God is going to do through this process. We are happy to be able to share our journey with you, and we would ask that you pray that our process will continue to be smooth and that God would bless and protect our baby!
