Handmade Cards Fundraiser Update

We are so thankful so many people bought sets of cards!!!!! We have sold 63 sets of cards so far. WOW!!! THANK YOU!!!I have been busy stamping in any extra time I have and we have 3 variety sets, 4 birthday sets, and 3 thank you sets available to ship today. If you have any special requests I can usually get them ready in a couple of days. Each set is 10 cards for $15 (please add $3 if I need to ship them). Please see previous post for more information and pictures of some of our cards. Every purchase helps!!! We have about $1, 500 we need to raise before we can send in our payment to CAC and get our profile started and be ready to be matched with a birthmom!!!!
We are still waiting for our background checks to come in so we can have our homestudy completed. We found out last week that Isaiah needs a background check too. His paperwork was sent in last week. Hopefully our background checks come in very soon and we can move on to the next step!
People often ask how this domestic adoption compares to our international adoptions and so far its about the same :) This homestudy had a few less restrictions but we are still waiting for approval from the state of IL and we did that with our international adoption too! After our homestudy is completed I think the process will be very different.
The night before preschool started Jacob was so excited and kept saying "I can't wait to go to school and to have a baby!!!" Kaleb still thinks he wants a sister and Jacob thinks he needs another brother now. My boys always make me laugh!!!

1st Fundraiser- Hand Stamped Cards

It's time for our 1st Fundraiser!!! 

We were so blessed by so many people who bought cards to help with our first adoption, we decided to do it again. I have been busy stamping and we have 20 sets of these exact cards to sell!! Each pack has 10 cards and is $15 (plus $3 shipping if needed).
This set includes 4 birthday, 2 thank you, 2 thinking of you, 1 sympathy, and 1 feel better. You can order this set or place a custom order (10 birthdays or 10 sympathy, etc.) You can send a check or pay through paypal, mowen2@hotmail.com

Growing Our Family!!!!!!

We are so excited to share that we are adding a baby to our family through domestic adoption!!!

The domestic process is so different than our international adoptions so we are taking this step by step and praying for God to lead us to all the right places. Our boys are soooooo excited to have a baby brother or sister, but they are all hoping for a baby sister. :) Jacob wants to name her Maggie, like our cat Maggie (that we gave away 2 years ago). Isaiah thinks she should be named Linda (from a movie he just watched). Kaleb thinks she should be named Sister.

We met with our social worker a few times in July and beginning of August and she almost has our homestudy complete. We are just waiting for our background checks to come in and then we will have our finished homestudy. Next we will apply with Christian Adoption Consultants and they will help us make a profile book that will be shared with birthmoms. We looked at many different agencies and really felt peace about using CAC. It can be overwhelming when picking an agency because there are so many out there. But just like when we signed with AWAA for our international adoptions, after prayer and research we are so excited to work with CAC to help us add to our family!

After we are homestudy and profile ready we will pick which placing agencies that we will use with CAC. They work with 8 different placing agencies all over the US. When we adopted from Ethiopia we got on a waiting list and when we were at the top of the list we were matched with the next baby. In domestic adoption the birthmom chooses an adoptive family as she is making her adoption plan for her child. There is no timeline guarantee because each birthmom picks who she thinks is the best fit for her child. CAC says the average time to be matched with an infant is about 6-8 months. We are hoping to meet our baby in the spring some time!!!!

We would love your prayers for our baby, his/her birthmom, and finances (domestic adoption is more expensive than international adoption). Thank you for walking this journey with us!!!

2nd Annual Camping with AWAA friends

We have been blessed with some of the BEST adoption friends!!! We all spent time together in Ethiopia in early April 2011. We missed several other friends from our travel group, but we were so glad the Murray's, Buckinghams's, and Snyder's could make it!! Our weekend started a day earlier this year and it was a fun filled weekend with so many new memories made with these sweet friends! Our days were filled with swimming, golf cart rides, laser tag in the dark, capture the flag, a scavenger hunt, a food fight, an outdoor movie, singing around the campfire, s'mores, boat rides, kayaking, and more! We are so thankful our families all set time aside to reconnect each summer!!!

Sweet Boys

Isaiah spent his first 3 weeks of summer at 3 different camps. He was so excited to attend church camp again in MI at Miracle Camp. Then he attended tennis camp in Danville with my dad and stepmom. The 3rd week he was in Champaign at my moms at FCA tennis camp where Uncle Chad was his coach. He had the best time!!! Kaleb, Jacob, and I spent the middle part with him but his little brothers sure missed him. This picture was not posed, they really love their big brother and they were so happy when he was finally home!

Brothers

When you have boys so close in age (9 months apart) they want to do everything the same. After taking several photos of Kaleb, Jacob also "needed" a turn. We took 83 pictures of Kaleb to get a few smiling ones. Jacob smiled on the first try (rare!). Love these two so much!

Kaleb's 4th Birthday Party

Kaleb has been talking about his birthday for a LONG time. The weekend finally came and we celebrated his birthday for 3 days. His requests were donuts, cars, airplanes, spiderman, pizza, and strawberry cupcakes with Lightning McQueen. He took donuts to the babysitters and cupcakes to school. When someone asked him how old he was or anything about his birthday, his answer was "I have donuts and cupcakes to take to Cindy's and school." The boys LOVE to go to the children's museum in town, so we had Kaleb's birthday party there. There was a lot of snow so not everyone was able to make it, but we had fun with those that could make it. Here are some pictures of his party!

 The party was filled with Cars themed foods!
Oil covered Dip sticks, Mater's Dip Sticks, and Mater's Tow Cables

 checking it all out

 Luigi's Tower of Tires and Maters Favorite Snack Fish

 donut cake and McQueen cupcake

 Refueling Station

 birthday hat from school (he wore it for 3 days) and Aunt Mimi made Kaleb a special shirt

 Kaleb LOVES the birthday song

 he loved it so much he started singing it for himself again with his cupcake, lol

 so happy with his donut cake

 Kaleb's favorite thing to do at the museum was playing with his new McQueen car

 trying to get a picture of all the kids, everyone but Cora was in this one