Hi, There.

I know I said I'd try to get photo and trip notes up soon.... I failed. It's been a long week (and a half) and I've been exhausted. But I did post a tiny preview of trip pictures in the new header. And here's one more that's not in the header. This boat was along the beach in Negril that we visited. I just loved it. And the fact that there were awesome God reminders every where we looked on this trip. He had a lot to tell me and I can't wait to share it with you! You know... after I catch up on emails and sleep and editing. And blogs! I've finally read at least the last newest post on most of the blogs I read. I'm so far behind! Let me know of any great posts I've missed the last few weeks!! :)

We're Back

Hello again, bloggy friends! It's been awhile. I'm not sure I even know how to blog anymore. I hope to get pictures and blog posts up going again soon but first I have some major catching up to do around here. I'm working my way through the hundreds of emails I returned to and trying to take care of them on a priority basis- it's not working so well. If I miss yours, PLEASE email me again!
Jamaica was (of course) amazing. R & I kept saying it was the best week of our lives. I stood at the bottom of Dunn's river falls and was sure God made it just for me. It was pretty spectacular. I promise to try to get some picture posts up soon!
Happy Monday!

Day O

We are on our way home. We are singing this song. But we are changing the words to "me NO wanna go home."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGj-3heDWKg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

How To Make A Stunt Man Shirt

Today's HOW TO is one that's too cute not to share. It comes from Ashley at Under the Sycamore. As you can see, we adapted Morgan's. She clearly did not want her's to say STUNT MAN. Or girl. So she stood on her head to see what words she could think of and as she started to tumble over she said "WHOA!" Go check out Ashley's page for more great DIYs!

Getting Started in the Adoption Process

This guest post comes from Janel over at Team Sullivan. She is a great servant for God and is the sweetest person! We live in the same small town but hadn't met in real life until we ran into each other at the local Dairy Queen one day last year. I love how the blog world can work like that. :)

I was so glad she was willing to do this post. It really puts a lot of the 'getting started' pieces together. Hopefully you find it helpful as well! And be sure to visit the Sullivan blog to keep up with all the exciting things happening with them!

How to get started in the adoption process….

I remember when we began our adoption, I sat down in our living room to organize all of the paperwork we had gotten from our agency. I had been advised to sort of make a check list of all the steps we would be going through so that we could stay on track. I remember my two kids were in their rooms napping, and I recall planting myself on the floor with a load of paperwork and beginning to sort everything into piles. As I began sorting, I ended up with an entire circle of stacks of paperwork surrounding me as I sat there in the middle of it. At this point, my mind floated to my to-do list up on the counter of all the other things that I needed to get done during naptime…..just organizing this paperwork alone had taken 45 minutes of my 2 hour chunk. I took a look around at the piles of papers that engulfed me and I became completely overwhelmed, to the point of tears. And then this thought popped into my mind: Why are you doing this? Why are you spending all this time and money on adopting? And this was just the start of the numerous times all throughout our adoption process in which these sorts of doubts and fears would creep in and threaten to paralyze me. However, what I realized with this particular doubt was that it was indeed good for me to continually remind myself why we were doing this. Your ‘why’ might be different than our family’s ‘why’. But I believe this is a great starting point. Why do you want to adopt? Whatever your answer is, have confidence in it! Because you will be asked this question over and over and over. From case workers, to family members, to friends, to like I said, it may even be you questioning yourself. You will have doubts, worries, setbacks, unforeseen happenings, and situations that will test your faith all throughout this process. Work through, contemplate, consider, and come to a conclusion on your ‘why’. This will become invaluable encouragement and motivation to cling to in the midst of navigating the adoption waters. Here was our family’s ‘why’:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:34-35)

Now, post-adoption, my husband says that our family can walk into a room, and share the gospel without even saying a word. That’s because this type of love, God’s sacrifical love manifested in us, is unnatural. It doesn’t make sense to the world. We live in a me-centered society. When we sacrifice our comfort, our home, our dreams, our time, our conveniences, our lifestyle, our money, our security, etc. for someone else it seems out of place and uncommon in our world. And this is why adoption showcases the gospel. Because the act of adoption represents a teeny, tiny fraction of how God so loved us. When we were broken, destitute, sinners, God sent a sacrifice for us, to bring us into a relationship with Him. And every day that I wake up, I think about Jesus dying in place of my sin, and it is absolutely inconceivable to me. And I can’t keep quiet about it. I want others to know the love that God has lavished on all of us. I am a blogger, so I like to use words to explain things. But as this verse above says, there is a way that we can showcase the gospel through our actions. By loving one another. In 1 John we are urged to love not with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth (1 John 3:18). There are countless ways in which we can do this. And adoption is one of them. When we love those that are hard to love, when we welcome children into our homes who society tells us aren’t worth it, when we step up and care for orphans and widows who share not one ounce of genetics with us, this says something to the world around us about God's love.

And that’s our ‘why’.

Now, let’s get to the more practical side of starting an adoption. Here are some first basic steps:

1) Make sure that both you and your spouse are on board with the decision to adopt. This means that you have together prayerfully considered adoption, have talked with one another about it, and know where you each stand. You don’t need to have all the answers, and you may not both be equally as excited about it. One of you may even be more apprehensive than the other. But it is wise that before you start an adoption you would both be at the point emotionally and spiritually in which you can each say ‘Yes, let’s do this.’

2) Domestic or International Adoption?
A domestic adoption is adopting from somewhere within your own country. If you would like to experience adopting a newborn, this is the best route to consider. Most typically with a newborn adoption the adoptive family will create a profile/portfolio of their lives (which includes numerous pictures and narratives). This profile will be presented to birthmothers through an adoption agency. From these profiles a birthmother will then choose a family for her child based on her own preferences. One advantage of domestic adoption is that there is typically an additional benefit of knowing the child’s background such as family medical history and other important information. Many agencies disclose a full social and medical history of the birthmother and test for drug and alcohol exposure. Families wishing to adopt newborns are also able to set their racial/ethnic preferences as well as whether they would like to pursue an open adoption (continual contact with birth family) or closed adoption (no additional contact with birth family). A risk associated with the domestic adoption of a newborn is that there is a possibility that a birth mother could change her mind and decide to parent or place the child with a family member. After the child is born the birthmother has a set amount of time to change her mind before surrendering/signing away her parental rights. This amount of time varies from state to state. Adoption agency personnel are trained to counsel birthmothers in this decision. Domestic adoption can also happen through the foster care system for your state.

An international adoption is adopting from a country outside your own. This was the option my husband and I chose and our first step was to decide which country we wanted to adopt from. When deciding, keep in mind that many countries have qualifications/specifications for adoptive families. These qualifications will be listed on agency websites for each country. Some countries have a specific age that they require the adoptive parents to be before they can adopt….on average this age is 25 years. Some countries specify a sort of ‘cap’ on children already in the home that a family can have heading into an adoption. Some countries require the prospective adoptive parents to have been married for a certain number of years. All of these things can play into which country you choose. With an international adoption, you will specify your preferences for a child (age, gender, openness to sibling groups, openness to special needs situations, etc.) to your agency within the application process. Eventually you will receive referrals of children (pictures and info) that fit into your preferences and you will have the opportunity to either accept the referrals or pass for another. A note on age preference: there are many countries that have infants available for adoption, but keep in mind that if your child is 4 months old at the time of referral, you may not actually be bringing he/she home until 6 months to 2 years later depending how the rest of your process goes. Risks/negative aspects of international adoption include limited information on your child’s medical history and personal background…including whether or not your child has experienced abuse (this information is lacking because of child abandonment to an orphanage or a situation in which birthparents are out of the picture or deceased). There are also corrupt operations that can be involved in international organizations. Choosing a reputable, experienced adoption agency will decrease the incidence of you being taken advantage of.

3) Choosing an Adoption Agency
This is quite possibly the most important/biggest decision you will make in this process. With adoption, you are not going to know everything beforehand. You will learn a lot of things as you go along in the process. In fact this is a huge part of your agency’s role in your adoption. They are responsible for putting resources in your hands and educating you on everything you will need to know to make your adoption successful. Once you pick your adoption agency, they will guide you the rest of the way with paperwork, progression of steps, and education. When you actually start filing through agencies, I would suggest that first and foremost you would do the good old ‘word of mouth’ approach. Which agencies have any of your friends, family, or people at your church used? What was their experience with their agency? If you don’t have any contacts of those who have adopted, the great thing is that agencies have a list of families who have used their agency that you can call or email. This is a tremendous resource in being able to ask really anything you want about the agency from someone who has actually used them for an adoption. Since this is so important, I am including a few agencies below that my friends have used and have had good things to say about. This list is by no means all-inclusive…..just people I know who had a good experience with their agency:

Domestic Adoption Agencies:

Christian Adoption Consultants
http://www.christianadoptionconsultants.com/
Email for information packet: tracie@christianadoptionconsultants.com
This is the most recent organization I have heard great things about. If we were wanting to adopt a newborn baby domestically, this is likely who we would go through. The founders of this organization have established a team of adoption professionals, consultants and social workers to assist prospective parents. This organization is unique in that your family profile is presented to multiple birthmothers at various agencies that meet your requirements. This means a faster adoption (typically less than 6-10 months) and lower cost because upfront application fees are waived by the agencies that CAC works with. This organization also only works in ‘adoption friendly’ states in which the birth mother usually signs consent within 24-48 hours after birth and cannot revoke her consent after she signs….you can use this organization no matter what state you live in, you just have to be prepared to travel to a different state to bring your child home once he/she is born. This agency also offers a service in which they write and design your family profile for you.

Abrazo Adoption Associates
http://www.abrazo.org
My friends: http://thejlees.blogspot.com/
Note: This agency is infertility only.

Bethany Christian Services
http://www.bethany.org/
My friends: http://nate-natalie.blogspot.com/
Country my friends adopted from: U.S.A.
Other countries this agency assists adoptions with: Bulgaria, China, Columbia, Ethiopia, Guatemala (not accepting new applications right now), Haiti, Hong Kong, Lithuania, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine
Note: Unfortunately my friends listed above are currently in a situation with their second adopted child in which the birthmother has not yet signed to terminate her parenting rights, and she is thinking about changing her mind. It is has been heartbreaking, but will hopefully have a happy ending. You can follow their blog for more updates.

Foster Care for the State of Iowa
http://www.iowakidsnet.com

International Adoption Agencies:

America World Adoption
http://www.awaa.org/
My friends: http://nicoladoption.blogspot.com/
Country my friends adopted from: Ethiopia
Other countries this agency assists adoptions with: Brazil, China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Rwanda, Ukraine

Holt International
http://www.holtinternational.org/
My friends: http://tam4buit.blogspot.com/
Country my friends adopted from: Ethiopia
Other countries this agency assists adoptions with: Bulgaria, China, Haiti, India, Korea, Mongolia, Philippines, Thailand, Uganda, Guatemala (not accepting new applications for Guatemala right now though)

MLJ Adoptions, Inc.
http://www.mljadoptions.com/
Note: Many families from my church are currently using this agency for adoption from the Democratic Republic of Congo and have good things to say. They are all in-process.
Other countries this agency assists with: Ukraine, Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti, Ethiopia, Russia, Taiwan, Nepal, Vietnam, Guatemala (currently closed), and Bulgaria.

The agency we used in our adoption of Justice:
About A Child
http://www.aboutachild.org/
Countries: Ghana, Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

One of the first things that will happen once you sign on with an agency is that you will complete a home study. This involves a case worker coming to your home to evaluate/write a report on your current living situation, jobs, family relationships, etc. Home studies need to be completed by a licensed case worker in your state. If you choose an adoption agency in your state, then they typically will have a case worker already on hand. If you choose an adoption agency outside of your state, then you will need to locate a case worker on your own. If you need a case worker for home studies in Iowa, this is our case worker and she does independent home studies:

Homestudy for Iowa families
Carla Tripp
Carla@aboutachild.org

4) Finances
Adoption is expensive. Financially, there is no better time to adopt than right now because with last year’s passing of the new Health Care Reform Bill, the government changed the adoption tax credit. $13,170 is now FULLY REFUNDABLE (PER CHILD) the year after you finalize your adoption. This means the amount you get back is no longer dependent on how much money you paid in taxes. And there is no more 5-year window. The government will literally give you a check for $13,170 after you file your taxes the year after you finalize your adoption. There has never been anything like this in the history of our country!! Currently, this adoption tax refund is set to expire at the end of 2011 (it likely will be renewed, but there are no guarantees).

There are also many organizations that are out there to help with adoption finances! Check these out:

www.abbafund.org : They give out low-interest loans specifically for adoption
www.nafadopt.org : They provide grants to assist with adoption costs as well as secured and unsecured loans for adoption related costs.
http://apfusa.com : The APFUSA offers loan location programs for medical, legal, and adoption expenses.
www.james127foundation.org : They give out grants to Iowa families
MBNA: This organization offers unsecured loans specifically designed for adoptive parents. MBNA Gold Option Adoption Loan offers a loan for adoption with competitive interest rates, up to $20,000. For more information, contact a representative at 800-626-2760. MBNA Adoption Foundation Credit Card offers a credit card with a fixed competitive interest rate, up to $20,000. If you are interested in more information, please call 800-932-2775 code AF2R or visit www.credit-card-applications-center.com The Credit Card Application Center helps you easily compare different creditcards.

5) Additional Resources

It is also important to search out additional adoption resources/information on your own. Online resources have become a HUGE advantage to adoptive parents these days. Here are a few information packed blogs and websites to get you started:

Just a few online resources/blogs:
http://empoweredtoconnect.org/resources/

http://joiningthejourney.blogspot.com/

http://www.onethankfulmom.com/

http://thejlees.blogspot.com/

Just a few adoption books:
Adopted for Life by Russell D. Moore
The Connected Child by Dr. Karen Purvis, et. Al
Toddler Adoption: The Weaver’s Craft by Mary Hopkins-Best
A Cup of Comfort for Adoptive Families edited by Colleen Sell
Adoption Parenting:Creating a toolbox, building connections. Edited by Jean MacLeod and Sheena Macrae

Lastly, if you are just starting an adoption or heading into foster care, it is integral that you find at least one other couple who has gone through adoption (or done foster care) in which you can meet with regularly. Get your fears out in the open. Ask questions. Even the hard ones. And actually, even if you are just considering adoption/foster care, and haven’t fully decided yet, talk to someone who has been through this!!

If you have any adoption related questions, please feel free to email me at janelsullivan@aol.com You can also tune into our family’s blog at http://www.team-sullivan.blogspot.com/ for frequent adoption related posts. Take a deep breath, pray often, and enjoy the ride!

How To Tie a Scarf

Today's HOW TO is from Kelsey over at Snappy Casual. She is the sister of my friend, Kari and she is so much fun! She has great style and a great heart. Go check her out over on Snappy Casual. But first watch the Scarf video!

how to tie a scarf from kelsey williams on Vimeo.

Thanks for blog sitting, Kels!

We are officially on our way (I hope!). This is an auto post and there will be a couple more coming your way this week. I've got some awesome blog sitters this week that have some great HOW TOs for you. I think you'll like them! :)
Have a great week, all!! I know we will! :)

Send Me on My Way

Ten on Ten

I participated in 10 on 10 today. I didn't realize it was going on until I saw Ashley's post right at 8:00 this morning so I started it then and made due with my iPhone camera. The day started out boring at the desk but ended quite well. (If I had been thinking I would have started at 11 or 12 instead of 8 but I wasn't and I didn't.) So anyway- here's a glimpse of my day. A little work. Some makeover action. A surprise pedicure. A surprise friend (Tina who lives several hours away was there at the same time!). A surprise (well not really a surprise but trying to go with the theme here...) baby visit. I'd say that last one is probably my favorite. Isn't she sweet??

Check out more 10 on 10 photos over at a bit of sunshine. And YES- I'm officially on spring break and so looking forward to a bit of sunshine of my own! :)

Happy Birthday, Jen!

Jen is one of my very best friends! She knows more about me than pretty much anyone (Rusty excluded) and still puts up with me! She knows my heart and encourages me when I need it most but she also keeps me in check! :) She has the best eye for detail of anyone I know (which is nothing like my squint method- yes it's crazy that she puts up with me!). She is so good at everything she does and such a good friend to everyone she's a friend to. She inspires me to do so much better! I met Jen at college orientation in 2001 and I've loved her ever since!

Thanks for being such a good friend to me through so many times, Jen! You are the best! I wish you the happiest birthday! Hope you have a great time celebrating during your break!

And Jen will be sharing her birthday with Baby M. The Smith family will be welcoming their 3rd sweet little girl today!

Emails from God

After my previously busy week, I finally had some time to catch up on some blogs. As I did, a certain blog link kept catching my eye from the sidebar of several blogs I read.

Funny because I hadn't remembered ever noticing that blog before.

At one point, I actually clicked onto the link, skimmed through the first post, saw the word infertility and clicked the little red x.

Not more than 10 minutes later I got an email from God (well it had a different name as the sender but I'm sure it was from Him). Urging me to go read that post.

So I did.

You might want to as well.

She puts into words my feelings of not being good enough. Of not getting that girl scout badge.

I'm also linking to the article she links to. This article talks about what to be to a couple facing that cross. I'm posting this here not for my friends but because I know there are a lot of people that read this blog facing that same cross and it may be helpful to them.

I would add to the article some of the gifts my friends have shared with me that have been a blessing. The text that simply says, "Stay Hopeful," the email "just checking in" and the countless hugs.

This life is not what I expected it to be. Yet, this life is blessed.

Talk To Me (Thanksgiving in March)

Thanksgiving in March. (Whoa- March?!?)

I got the best 'thank you' in the mail last week. It came with blue raspberry jolly ranchers. Completely made my day and was a good reminder to me that I've been slacking on sending my own 'thank-you's' lately. So.....

Who are some people you are thankful for? Have you told them lately?

The very first person on my list is Rusty. Admittedly, I've been taking him way for granted lately. Working two full-time jobs and a handful of part-time jobs has been taking it's toll on me- and our home (ie. household chores...). He has really picked up some slack around here and I don't know what I would do without him!

I'm thankful for my students. In the past I've had students that bring me to tears by the end of the day (who hasn't?). But currently I have some students that bring me to tears during the day.... because they are so thoughtful. I have gotten some of the best cards, drawings, letters, etc. from students this year. It has really been a blessing to me. I'll have to give this topic a whole post of it's own!

I'm thankful for my friends/family that have been (and continue to be) there for me this past year. Last week I got a text from a good friend that just said, "Stay hopeful." I needed it right at that exact time and it meant the world to me. When I got home late after a long day to find a bag of jolly ranchers in the mail from another friend, it was just wanted I needed. It's so cool to see how God works through people to give you hope when you need it the most. I feel like I've been such a bad friend (and wife, sister, teacher, neighbor, blogger, etc.) lately so to have people that are still there is really a blessing.

Next Week:
Book report: I'm looking for some good reads. What are some good books you've read lately?