Baby Has a Cough

Emerson has quite the sense of humor. She really enjoys making herself and others laugh :) Never posted a video before-hope this works!

Em's First Swim

We had a great time today at our church picnic/ pool party! Emerson enjoyed her first swim :)

Good News!

We've hoped for the last few months that we'd have our referral--information about the child we are going to adopt, complete with a picture!--by Thanksgiving. Today we called JOH to inform them that we have a fingerprinting appointment set for August 12th. Much to our surprise we were told that we'd be paper ready (and able to accept a referral!) by early September. WOW. It's all starting to sink in--this is real. We are so close to learning about the child God has for us in India. He or she is alive and just waiting for a family-our family. There is a mama, daddy and baby sister here in Ohio anxiously waiting on this little one. We've been praying for our Indian babe and his or her birth family tirelessly for more than a year now. And we are almost there. We know it'll be a long wait before we can be united as a family-- but we are so looking forward to learning about the region of his or her birth, studying the first picture we receive endlessly for clues about our little ones personality, and preparing ourselves to become a family of four!

Summer Sale #2

We had our 2nd fundraising sale Friday and Saturday. Our Ohio friends donated most of the things for us to sell. We set out thinking that if we raised $300 we'd be pleased. Unbelievably we made $941.91! It was so apparent to us that God was in control. People were coming from everywhere wanting to talk about God and adoption--two of our favorite subjects :)

Today, after our Sunday afternoon nap, we heard a knock on our door. It was a lady (Gloria) we met at our sale yesterday. She has fostered dozens of kids and adopted SEVEN. She bought a ton of stuff at our sale and after talking to us about our love for children, said she'd pray about us fostering someday and reminding us that "we can't get past God." Anyway, awesome lady. So, the knock on the door...it's Gloria. How about she had her car full of stuff she wanted us to have for our next sale! God continues to amaze me. It's no accident that Gloria and we met this weekend. Praying for one another, helping one child at a time. So, I guess we'll have another sale --eventually :)

Summer Sale #1

Our first sale in Sheridan over the weekend was a success! Sales and donations totaled $527.80--pretty amazing considering everything was donated by family and friends! We are so thankful for everyone that donated items for the sale, helped set things up and contributed to our adoption fund! It was a lot of work but Justin and I honestly enjoyed ourselves. It's fun to work towards a goal together and even better when you can do that and visit family at the same time! Sadly, I have no pictures to post. I guess I was just too busy!

Dossier is on the way!

We mailed our dossier to Journeys of the Heart today! What a HUGE relief!! It's another step closer to the child that God has for us AND we are done with an unreal paperchase. Justin mailed our package from work today and said it weighed 6 pounds. That's the kind of unreal paperchase I'm talking about:) We are off to Sheridan in a couple hours to visit family and to have our first garage sale of the summer. Please pray that God provides good weather and lots of shoppers!

Lemonade for Love

Today reaffirmed that God has our back. His people have our back, too. Just as soon as we started really focusing on how we are going to finance this adoption, we are blessed. A friend from the preschool I used to work at told us yesterday that she was having a garage sale today. Monica said she was going to set up a lemonade/cookie stand to benefit our adoption :) We were blown away by her thoughtfulness.

The kids posing with Emmy

Justin, Em and I stopped by to say thank you (and take pics for the babe's eventual scrapebook) and learned that her kiddos, and a neighborhood friend, had operated the stand. It was so sweet. The kids were so happy to give us the money they had earned. What a wonderful experience for all of us. It feels good to be loved. What a great lesson for those kids--how good it feels to give to another. God is so good!