My Adoption Shop

I've been working on this for a little bit, and it's up and running. In addition to my growing Noah's Ark business, I'm also opened up a webstore for unique gifts.

www.MyAdoptionShop.com It's unique gifts and items that are helpful for folks who are adopting, but there are also things for new parents and parents to be =) . I'm adding more stuff daily as I find it and see that it fits.

14 months

So, we hit the 14 month mark of being contracted out today.

Not too much to report, though things have been busy this past month, and some things are still pending. New profiles are out, we're featured on the website under the "featured families" on the birthmother pages, new home study is completed, etc.

We want to thank everyone for your thoughts and prayers, they really mean a lot to us! We know it's going to happen when it's supposed to happen.

Who knows, maybe #14 will be lucky for us!

Featured on the website

We received an email on Monday, and we are now one of the "featured families" on the Lifetime site. It's in the "it's your choice" section of the birthparents' pages, and we are in the rotation. It rotates several different families in random order. It's a picture of us boarding a cruise ship, and says we can't wait to plan family trips. =)

Our profiles are in =)

We mailed off our profiles on Friday- and then took off for the weekend. We went to Windy Hill to relax, and had a great time.

We also received an email this weekend- our homestudy update is also completed. It looks good =)

That's all for now, but it feels good to have two things checked off the list!

More profiles almost done

Well, it took a little longer than expected, but we have more profiles to turn in. We are in the process of finishing them up, doing the binding tonight. We'll send them off for priority mail pick up tomorrow. They turned out nice (after a mess with one mass chain printer that couldn't do it right), but geez, profiles are expensive! This is fairly cheap, and it's $11.25 a profile! We've been quoted a lot more too. We're looking for somewhere cheaper to do it, we just haven't found one place that we've been satisfied with yet.

Anyway, they are very similar to our old profiles, just have a few pictures changes in them, and different ribbon. The colors, most of the words, and the basic set up are the same.

If you want to see one, let me know, we'd be happy to share!

We had several visitors this week

It was a wonderful week here in our household, with lots of visitors!

Sunday, our almost 5 year old nephew came over with my sister to bring our niece to visit. He had a great time hanging out with us, and telling us stories about what is going on in the world of a five year old.

We had our 18 month old niece visit us Sunday through Wednesday. It was a lot of fun, and great practice for Mike too. He was in charge of her and her needs every time that we were together. He is WONDERFUL with our niece. And she absoultely adored him. He changed poopy diapers, gave her a shower, fed her, played with her, dressed her, put her to bed, got her up in the morning... And he was fantastic.

I love that man! I can't wait until he's a daddy!

We were a bit spoiled too. She is such an easy kid, and tons of fun. We've been joking (sort of serious too) that we want one just like her. She's was at restaurants, very friendly, but not misbehaved. She listened, and when we told her no- she paid attention almost 100% of the time. She loves to people watch. She slept through the night. Went to bed easily, naps too. Woke up singing and happy- and played in her crib for a while. She ate everything we put in front of her, and has learned how to politely ask for "mo peas" and "tank du" and even "uuuu wehcome". She has really learned to talk quite a bit the last month or so- and she says Mike's name with the custest southern accent. Mine too. =) She is so cute when she toddles! And she loves to explore and wander. And, she started to tell us when she had a dirty diaper too. Too bad we can't clone her! We want one just like her!

Then, on Thursday, our other niece and our two year old nephew came over to visit. We went out to lunch, and Mike joined us. You should have seen the big huge smile my nephew got on his face when he saw "Unka Mike". His face lit up! And Our little niece, she's only eight months old, and had a great big smile when he gave her a kiss. I fed my niece guacamole, and she loved it. She had a great big grin. And my nephew had ice cream- one of his favorite treats =) They were so much fun.

networking and spreading the word

I was searching for some cute adoption pictures, and came across these. What a cute way to network, and spread the word :)

We do business cards, giving them out to people, etc. One thing we do is leave an adoption card in every one of those "fish bowl" things where you can enter to win a free lunch/dinner. One more way to network =)

Our baby has a footprint

Even though this poem is geared toward international adoption, you could replace "oceans" with "rivers" and it could be relevant to us adopting domestically as well.

We do believe our baby has a foot print, and one day will be in our arms.

Baby Signs

One thing we've decided to do is teach our little ones how to sign. There have been many discussions on this, it's still slightly controversial. There are two schools of thought on this. One is that babies and toddlers who learn to sign are a bit slower to start speaking. Another is that babies and toddlers who learn to sign actually speak quicker because they learn the works as they are signing.

We've been doing some research on this, and have determined that it would be very beneficial for us. We are looking forward to learning along with our children, and communicating with them at an earlier age. Several friends of mine have done this successfully with their little ones, so I am confident it's going to work well for us. After quite a bit of research, we found a couple sets/kits that we are going to try. Babies do react a bit differently to the different styles of learning (even though they all tech the same thing), so we are looking at a few different sets. One thing we are going to do is learn a bit ourselves ahead of time, so we'll be a bit more knowledgeable when the time is right and have an easy transition into doing it.

We purchased one from Discovery Toys. It comes highly recommended because the babies in the books and dvd help the little one to easier comprehend how to sign. From those who have used it, and I've talked to a few people who have, it appeared to be the best for their little ones because they could relate to the other babies and toddlers in the program. We ordered it, and will be watching, teaching ourselves a bit as to how to do it before our little one comes.

We are also looking at Baby Einstein, My First Signs DVD. Mainly because we do like a lot of the Baby Einstein products, and expect that this one would probably be beneficial as well. It appears that an adult, not babies are signing, but many of the Baby Einstein products and dvds are educational and beneficial to babies, so I would expect that this one would have it's positives as well. Even if it's background noise, a little one will pick up on some stuff.

Anyway, our Discovery Toys one comes in any day now, so we can't wait to start learning it!

What we've been up to this week...

I know we didn't post a lot last week. We were (and still are) working on our profile in order to get it done and turned in.

But, we also did TONS of work to the nursery. Here are pictures to enjoy!























We still have quite a bit to do, but for now we are more than prepared to bring our little one home. We want to get a chambry laundry basket, similar to this one from Toys R Us, and have a sailboat painted on it, similar to the one over the crib. And we need a diaper pail too. Right now, we are using ziplock bags and putting diapers in them, then in the trash can. We want to get the Graco Touch Free Diaper Pail. But for now, we are off to a good start!