REFERRAL!!!!

At 10:30 tonight I was on one of our phones talking to my mom when we got a call on my cell phone.  I didn't answer the cell because I didn't completely recognize the number, but suggested to Kevin that I thought it was the same area code that our adoption agency was from.  He was at the computer with Carissa and Tyler and quickly looked up the area code - and it was from the same state!  Rather abruptly (Sorry mom!  I was excited!), I hung up with my mom after telling her it was our agency calling.  While on my phone calling back our agency, Kevin's cell phone rang.  Kind-of in slow motion we all turned to see who was calling on his - our agency!  My belly was doing flip-flops by this time - why else would our agency be calling at 10:30 at night but to give us our referral???

We answered Kevin's phone and put it on speaker.  It was Nichole from Children's Hope.  She said she had just come back into the office to get a little bit of work done when she noticed there was a voice mail.  She checked it and got our good news!  Their contact in Colombia said they had a referral for us, but the oldest child was a little older than what we are approved for.  We are approved for up to 8 years and 11 months, but the oldest one is 9 years and 3 months.  Would that work for our family?  Nichole must have heard the cheers in the background from Carrissa, Tyler and Laurel.  They were really, really excited!  (They wanted us to adopt children who were their same ages, so they were really happy that the first child is 9 and not 8.)

So... the oldest child is 9.  I think that is wonderful.  That child will fit right in with Tyler and Laurel.  Want to know the ages of the other ones?  The next one is 6 years old.  Oh, my.  I love that age!  At times, I still think of Laurel as 6.  She will be 10 next month!  There's more...  the third child is 4!  Two 4 year olds?  Lyric, our daughter from China, is 4.  I think it would be great for her to have a sibling/playmate close in age to her.  I can just see them playing make-believe with the toy-kitchen.  We must not forget the last one!  Yup!  There is one more child that may by added to the Burgess family.  The last one is just an itty-bitty tyke at 2 years old!  Wow!  A 2 year old!  We are going to have A LOT of (busy!) fun in this house! 

Our family is going to be doing a lot of prayer over the weekend, but we are feeling really good about this referral.  At least about the ages.  We don't have any other information yet.  It feels like Colombia just let our agency give us a nibble of a freshly baked cookie instead of giving us all of it!  :)  We know the ages of the children, but we don't know if they are all boys, all girls, boy-girl-girl-boy, girl-girl-girl-boy, and so on... Ah, the suspense! 

Nichole said she would call or email her Colombian contact to ask if she could get any more information on the children, so that should be our next bit of news.  Other than that, we will have to get an update to our home study done.  We will need to be approved for up to 9 years old instead of 8.  Hopefully, it would be a quick process.  Oh, and if/when we do let Colombia know that it isn't an issue having a 9 year old instead of an 8 year old, we would soon be getting information on the children, including pictures!  One really good thing about adopting from Colombia - you get a lot of information on the children.

We would appreciate prayers for our family this weekend about our decision.  It's a big one that will have major effects on our family, including the children who were referred to us.  Prayers for them would be nice also.  Really, it isn't hard for me to imagine at all having 10 of us sitting around our dining room table.  If this sibling group is the one that God had planned to be a part of our family all along then Kevin and I would officially have 8 children.  They would be 13, 12, 10 (in October), 9, 6, 4, 4, and 2!  Perfect.

In His name,

Karen

WE WERE APPROVED!!!!

We just got a call from Nichole from Children's Hope - WE WERE APPROVED!!!  Wahoo!!  Kevin and I were a little nervous.  Nichole called and left a message for us to call her.  We called her right back but she was already in a meeting.  Sneaky, bad thoughts soon started to enter our minds (well, they did mine).  Were we approved?  Do they need more information?   And the worst - could we of been denied????  Bad, bad thoughts.  About a 1/2 hour later she called back and gave us the good news :)  Why did I ever let those thoughts into my head?

So what happens now?  Nichole emailed their representative in Colombia to see if our dossier was already sent to a region.  Once it is in a region, they will review our file to see if there are any children available who could be referred to us based on our dossier.  If there are - we get our referral!  Once that happens, it takes about 2 months for all the paperwork to get done so we can travel.

It is still possible for us to travel by the end of the year.  We would have to be in Colombia by about Nov. 20th in order to get the adoption completed in 2011.  If not, we might have to wait until January to travel.  Funny, we traveled on Thanksgiving day in 2010 to get Lyric in China - could it be that we travel Thanksgiving weekend to get the newest members of our family???  Whenever we get our children, it will be with God's perfect timing.

Praising our Lord!

Karen

Nesting - big time!

It would be a bit embarrassing to have anyone over to our house right now.  Really.  I'm not the cleanest wife in the world nor was I the cleanest daughter in the world when I was living at home!  But looking around me right now... well... it's pretty bad.  I would take a picture to show you, but I think I'll wait until I get it looking at least half-way decent first! 

I am nesting.  A lot.  And to make matters worse, I'm one of those people who can only do 1 or 2 things half-way decent at a time.  (I should be preparing to teach the kids their home school lessons!)  Right now, it is decluttering the ENTIRE house for a fund-raising sale - and putting away food for the winter.  With the cleaning, I feel like yard sale season is tumbling towards me and is going to knock me down and keep on going before I ever get around to having our sale.  And with storing the garden produce, I feel like I'm a busy squirrel frantically gathering nuts for the winter so I won't have to think so hard about the menu after bringing home our new family members.

Today, as a labor of love because I would have just froze them, my oldest daughter and I canned 4 half-pints of pickled baby corn at the request of my husband... and my oldest daughter..., froze 4 bags of sliced zucchini, and made the preparations for canning zucchini relish tomorrow.  We also need to pick and can more dilly beans (I sure hope they are good!),  bake some sugar pie pumpkins in order to store the pumpkin puree, and at some point I still need to pick the basil and turn it into basil jelly...

And right now, I should be heading to bed.   My husband and I just finished sealing the grout on a small mudroom we tiled - in anticipation for the freezer chest that will be arriving tomorrow morning.  I'm actually really excited about the freezer chest.  Since I have gone on this "storing food for winter" kick, I have run out of freezer space.  My plan is to get a 1/4 or a 1/2 a side of beef to put in the freezer and then stuff the rest of the freezer full of homemade meals that I will lovingly serve on our new dishes. 

We have waited years and years to get new dishes (we just celebrated 15 years of marriage!).  For the past few years, our dishes haven't really matched.  And because I like the lightness and durability of them so much, I rescued my mom's old Corelle dishes from one of her yard sales and started using them for our own.  They aren't exactly... stylish, but they work great - which made me finally break down and order a set (different from my moms!) - with enough plates and bowls to go around for all of us, our new children, and any company we may have over. 

As it is so late and my mind is rambling a bit, I was thinking about putting some of the plates and bowls in drawers instead of the cupboard, which would make it easier for little hands to put the dishes away.  All I would have to do is find some other place for all the items in our junk drawer(s)!

Okay... before I tell too much embarrassing stuff about my lack of housecleaning skills I had better call it a night!  But first, I want to tell my husband how much I love him, how I thank God for him, and for the wonderful 15 years of marriage.  I can't wait to see what God has in store for us for the next 15 years!  Thank you for working so hard for our family and for being a great dad!  I love you!  (And now I will go put the laundry away that is piled on our bed so you can go to sleep!)

Night'

Karen