Craziness

February has started off with sickness, excitement, lots of research (adoption-related), being very consumed with work (report cards), and more projects around the house.  We finally got the fun stomach bug in our house after avoiding it for the past two years.  So far it has hit everyone except Cullen, and I'm hoping he just somehow managed not to get it since it's been over a week since Hayden was the first one to show symptoms.  It was pretty bad!  Hayden only got sick twice, and actually recovered the fastest.  Sawyer came down with it two days later and vomited all day Monday, and was completely wiped out, and then I started just not feeling right on Wednesday.  By Thursday I was incredibly nauseous but still not "getting sick."  Came home and slept on the couch for about four hours before I started to show actual symptoms, and at the same time had (still have) a nasty sinus-cough thing going on.  I was completely wiped out and had to stay home on Friday and didn't move off the couch.  I've luckily felt much better this weekend, although my stomach still doesn't feel 100% sometimes.  I'm so glad that it hit us when it did, as I have conferences this week, and have missed a day of conferences two years ago due to a stomach bug hitting me then.  It's pretty hard to make up 16 conferences over the phone, so I'm really thankful that we got it a week earlier!  I'm just hoping my voice makes it through the week of talking.  Not to mention that we have a BIG week ahead of birthdays in our house!!  Cullen turns 28 and Hayden turns 4!!  I can NOT believe my baby is going to be 4!  Where did that time go?  We are planning a dinosaur themed party for this next weekend, and he is beyond excited for it!  He's also getting his first "big-kid" bike, which I'm sure he will be so pumped about!  Hopefully our mild winter/spring-like weather will return and he can get outside to try it in a few weeks.

This one didn't make the cut for his birthday invitations, but I still really like it!!

Home projects recently finished:

Kitchen Back-Splash Completed!

 Mirror art was lonely so we added shelves

 Found a great wall quote to go with the newborn pics in the hallway!

 Put my newly acquired sewing skills to work making Roman-Shade like curtains for the kitchen

Magnetic Chalkboard for the kids in the basement play area

I mentioned that we have spent countless hours since the beginning of February researching adoption possibilities.  At this point, I think we have decided to wait a month or two before starting our home study simply because you need to have a good amount of money to put down at the beginning of the process, and Cullen is waiting on word about a house he and our friend Mike have purchased on the East side of Des Moines.  The foreclosure was bought in an auction and has hit some pretty big set-backs as far as closing dates.  At this point, it is likely they will take possession at the end of February or beginning of March.  They hope to make the remodel a pretty short project and get it on the market within a month or two.  It would be very nice if this all worked out and we could sell that house and use the profit to help go toward adoption costs!

We've narrowed down our search to a few options, but may be pursuing a domestic infant adoption open to any racial/ethnic background.  We have found that there is a pretty big need for families in the US to adopt African-American infants.  We still are not ruling out an international adoption from Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Jamaica or possibly even South Korea.  There are pros and cons to every scenario we have looked into.  The main drawback to an international adoption is how long it takes, as well as getting the child at an older infant age.  Not to mention possibly having to travel to the country twice.  One roadblock I wasn't expecting was that I don't really get a lot of paid leave for an adoption, so most of what I will take will have to be unpaid.  I will get to take a few personal days, and family illness days but at most that might only come up to two weeks.  This means that I might not get to take as much time off as I had hoped...a summer time frame would be really nice to help with this!!  Although, there would be absolutely no way to plan for something like that to happen!

The main drawback to a domestic adoption is the risk that you take that the birth mother might change her mind.  Domestic adoptions can happen really quickly, as far as even getting a referral for a child a month after completing your application, or can take much longer, it just depends on a birth mother selecting your family.  We are still limiting our search for a child to a healthy infant girl.  These can sometimes be the longest adoption wait times.  But, we have time...this isn't something that we are ready for tomorrow anyway!  

At this point, we are praying a lot for guidance on this decision, and would ask for your prayers as well.  Even things like trying to decide which agency to go with, since we have researched so many we can't keep them straight anymore!  We would also pray that we would start to get some good news, as it seems like it has been one disappointing realization after another the past few weeks about this whole process!

Spring is just around the corner, right?  The groundhog did say 6 more weeks of winter though!  ;)