Wedding Cakes, Home Study Visits and No Sleep

I'm pretty exhausted. We had a crazy busy weekend and I'm still trying to recover.

Friday night after life group I got busy making my second wedding cake for a friends wedding that was at 9AM Saturday morning. I think it turned out pretty good in spite of the fact that I was up until 4AM working on it!I wouldn't recommend that to anyone... it's really exhausting. Ben stayed up with me to help me lift the layers onto each other because I haven't figured out how to do that by myself. Cake can be surprisingly very heavy. I think he also stayed up to make sure I didn't fall asleep in the middle of it! I can just see me falling asleep as I'm decorating it and my head go crashing into it like you see in those videos of kids falling asleep while eating (not that I was eating it of course ;-)). That would not be good. :-) We finally went to sleep at 4:15 and I got back up at 6AM to get ready.

When we got to the reception location to set up the cake we realized that nothing had really been organized so I set to work getting everything set up. Tables and chairs, tablecloths, decorations, food,etc. Thankfully Ben was there to help and a couple of the grooms friends came with us to help. I don't know what we would have done without them! We were there from 9 to 1 and going non stop the entire time. When we got home we sat down on the couch and I was out like a light. I slept for a couple of hours and for those of you who know me, you know that I don't sleep during the day. Exhausted doesn't even come close. It was a nice reception though and I did have fun doing the wedding coordinator thing so it was worth it. Ben said he even had a good time!!

After sleeping for a couple of hours we got up to go an open house at the Norwood's salon so we could see our friends who just came back from Ethiopia for a short time. We told them about our adoption and they were very excited and encouraging. We are going to try to get together with them before they go back so we can talk and get advise from someone who's been there and can tell us more about the country, the orphanages, the kids... kind of what to expect.

Sunday after church we raced home to prepare (clean) the house for our first home study meeting. It went pretty well I think. Our social worker was here for two hours and asked a bunch of questions and looked around the house. She was really nice and encouraging through the whole meeting. Thank you SO much to all who prayed for us,you are amazing. Now we have our individual meetings with her Saturday morning. They are going to be pretty in depth and intense so please keep those prayer coming!

So of course after staying up till all hours of the night Friday and Saturday, Sunday night I couldn't get to sleep so I was pretty much a zombie the first part of the day at work on Monday. I'm happy to say that I'm functioning today so that's a definite improvement!

L

Forward Motion

Last night we got the call from our social worker to set up our Home Study Visits!!! Ben and I had actually been talking that morning about needing some contact from them to feel better about the wait and Ben said we just need to be still and know that He is God, so I prayed that the Lord would help me remember that throughout the day...and then that evening she calls. I get chills just thinking about it. Once again God is gracious and gives us what we need just when we need it. He is SO good!!!

Our first meeting will be this Sunday afternoon. I'm really excited and just a little nervous. Then we'll have our individual meetings with her the following Saturday and one last meeting most likely that Sunday. After all of the meetings are complete she'll compile her report, send it to the appropriate people to get it finalized and send back to us to put in our dossier. She says this process will take about a month. A month sounds like a long time but I'm sure that will fly by.

Please keep us in your prayers that the meetings go well, that we can feel calm and confident as the Lord carries us through this step and that everything turns out a-okay!

L

Happy Birthday

Ben turned 30 last week! We had such great fun at his party...thanks so much to everyone who came, I can tell you he felt so special!! He's actually feeling pretty good about turning the big 3-0 which I was surprised about. Maybe men handle it differently than woman. I wouldn't know cause I'm not there yet... haha! Anyway here's a couple of pictures of him blowing out the candles and being surrounded by the kiddos. Awww, so sweet!
Happy Birthday Love!!!!!!!

Hooray!

Monday we mailed off the Home Study paperwork!!! I emailed our social worker and told her that it was on the way...mostly because I was hoping that she would get it and start working on it faster (I don't think it really works that way, but hey, it doesn't hurt to try!) and I wanted to find out how long it would be before our first home visit. She said that once they get the paperwork and look it over to make sure everything is correct, they'll do a background check on us. After that is done she'll call us to schedule the first visit. It sounded like it might take about two weeks or so. I can live with that. :-)

Focus

Here's a pic of Ben really focusing on getting his autobiography done! I thought it was cute so I wanted to share. He's been working very hard and tonight he got it all done!! Now all we have left is to get the pets up to date on their shots - which I'll be doing first thing Saturday morning - and then we can mail out the home study paperwork. Woo Hoo!!!! I'm so excited... it still seems so surreal that we are actually doing this but I think that when we finally meet with our social worker face to face it will hit me that hey, this is really happening. Please pray with us that the home study meeting process doesn't take too long. We still have to send in our dossier packet after the home study is complete and I'm so ready to have our names on the waiting list. I'm putting my trust in Christ because I know He's in control and His timing is perfect. All the glory is yours Lord!!

L