Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas! It's hard to believe that Christmas is in a few short days!! Temperatures here are in the 60's...seriously...I wore leggings and no coat today! As nice as that is, I would love a white Christmas. Not looking like that is going to happen this year though :( It's been a busy few weeks around here. Last week I went to see Breaking Dawn again, this time with the girls from school. Amanda bought Twilight stickers for us all to wear on our faces! HA! I have to say the movie was just as good the second time, if not better. I was able to notice more and I really really like the soundtrack :)

My girls!!

Check out our cool Twilight stickers!

And Amanda brought in candy AND a drink! She learned that from us ;)

Friday was our last day of school before Christmas break. We had pajama day because we let the kids watch Polar Express! And what would pj day be without some really cute baby goats?? :)

Okay..I know that was random! Missy, the one in the middle, has baby goats. So we really wanted to see them and asked her to bring them in! This in no way ties into our curriculum...we just wanted to hold cute little goats!! And cute they were! This is Bonnie and Clyde and I totally wanted to take them home :)

How much cuter can ya get???

Amanda has taken on the task of helping me pick out colors for our nursery and some ideas for the other rooms in our house. We have decided on a pewter gray for the nursery because it will be a good neutral color. If this private adoption of the little girl progresses, then I am going to go ahead and get my bedding and crib. Amanda had some great ideas for decorating and I cannot wait to get started. I know it still may not happen like I have planned, but I have been waiting for almost 4 years to decorate a nursery!! I really am so excited :) We also want to paint our kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom. Amanda and Noah came over yesterday and she helped me decide on colors for these rooms. Then I went to Home Depot today and got some samples to look at. We are going to paint the nursery first and get that finished since that is the most important. I am very excited to paint and re decorate our house though!! Here are some colors I picked out today:

We are going to do a red family in the kitchen to go with our coffee theme. We are looking at a lighter brown to beige color for the living room, a gold for the bedroom and a chocolate brown for our bathroom!!
I picked up these throw pillows at Marshalls today. I loved them both but I ended up getting the brown ones. They are soooo cute :)

I also picked up this adorable onesie at Target!! Since we are known as the "rock star" team, I thought it was fitting if I have a little girl!!

Allen and I sort of kicked around the name Delaney the other day. We still really love Laney Grace, but I think Delaney is pretty unique too. I guess we will just have to wait and see once we know we are having a little girl. I don't mind changing the middle name either, since we already have a Grace in our family, but I just don't know what I'd use. Kate and Grace are great middle names but they are already used by both of my nieces :) HA!! Oh well...maybe I'll take a poll on here once we get closer to knowing what's going to happen :) Right now I am just hopeful that we will be adopting in 2012. Whether its this sweet baby girl due in February, or another baby, I am hoping and praying that God will answer our prayers in the new year!

On another note, sweet Hank got groomed today! He absolutely hates getting in the car now. I guess he thinks we are going to leave him somewhere...poor fella :( So needless to say, it took them hours to bathe and trim him. I know it was hard on him and on the groomers. All he has done is lay around the house tonight!! I know he's exhausted after fighting it all day!! But he smells good and looks so clean :)

I love the bandana they put around his neck :)

This picture sums up how he feels when he gets home :)

I think I have finished all of my shopping and I wrapped a lot of presents today too! I have a few more to finish up but that should be about it. Tomorrow night we are having Christmas with Allen's parents and sister. I still can't believe it is already that time of year again :)

I absolutely love seeing our Christmas tree lit up with presents underneath it!! I think it is so beautiful and magical :) I cannot wait until next year, when HOPEFULLY we will have a precious child to share this joyous holiday with. And although I love the tree and the presents, I cannot wait to share the real reason for the season with our children; Jesus!! HE is and was the best gift of all!! Merry Christmas!!

Officially "waiting"

We got an email yesterday saying that our profile fee and form were received, so I guess that means our profiles are ready to view :) We are praying for God's will to be done. Whether through this agency, or a private adoption, we pray the Lord will bring us a sweet baby really soon. I hung up our adoption announcement at school today and was flooded with encouragement all day. One teacher was even in tears!! I am so amazed at how much everyone is praying for us. I know we are loved and that between our family, church family, and school family, us and our baby will be taken care of!! Just wanted to add to our timeline a little, mainly so I don't forget :)

Thursday, Dec 8: Sent profile check and form
Friday, Dec 9: Received phone call about a possible private adoption of a baby girl due in February
Monday, Dec 12: Lifeline received our check and form. We become an official "waiting" family :)


CANNOT wait to see what God adds to our timeline in the next few days/weeks/months :)
Also we have been tossing around names...actually I've been doing that for about 3 years!! HA! We have always liked Laney, but today I kicked around changing it to Delaney...still has Laney but with a twist. What do ya think? We have plenty of time to decide, but I love imagining what our sweet child will be named!!

More info and Oh Christmas Tree!!

If you read my previous post you know that we have been told there is a birthmother in our area who is considering placing her child for adoption and is interested in Allen and me. The grandparents of the baby know Allen's parents and therefore they know we are interested in adopting. All we know right now are these few things: The BM has other children which these parents are raising; she is due the end of February; We do not believe she has used drugs; The baby is a GIRL!!! We have to wait until after Christmas to move forward for a couple of different reasons. We will be contacting our agency at that time if we do decide to pursue this private adoption because we cannot have our profile on file if we cannot commit. I am praying first and foremost for God's will to be done through this. If we aren't supposed to adopt this little girl then I pray the door will close. However I have a feeling in my heart that this may be the opportunity we have waited 3 1/2 years for.

Last night, Allen and I went to pick out our Christmas tree. We went to a local farm that grows them. They were all so pretty!!

I spent some time decorating it and was pleased with the finished product :)

 I always enjoy putting this ornament on the tree. This is my 1st Christmas ornament. I cannot wait to put it beside our baby's 1st ornament!!!

I also got this ornament tonight at Hobby Lobby. Since we found out today that this baby is a little girl and we could potentially adopt her, I thought I'd go ahead and get an ornament with an L on it for Laney. Even if this doesn't work out we may have a little girl one day, or I could always give the ornament to a friend!!

I love how it looks on the tree :)

Today at school our team wore our candy cane shirts!! Don't we look cute?? We also had a gift exchange! We all got each other such cute stuff!! Rachel drew my name and gave me 2 cute scarves, a necklace and earrings :)

These are the funny gingerbread men my kiddos made!!

We have our team Christmas party tomorrow night and then we have several next weekend! Please pray for us as we continue to wait and see what God has in store!

Crazy!!

I need everybody who is a prayer warrior out there to pray for us!! Allen's parents got a call today from some friends whose daughter is pregnant. She is older, not a teenager we think, and has several other kids that these parents are raising. She told Allen's mom, "Tell Allen and his wife if they want the baby, they can have it." Yep..just that simple! HA! Anyway, she is due in Jan or Feb, not on drugs..that is all we know at this point. We just sent our profile fee check YESTERDAY..how crazy God may be working huh? We are praying for HIS will to be done. If this is not supposed to be our baby, then we pray for peace about it. It is hard to not get excited and get our hopes up, but I don't want to go down a road we aren't supposed to. We are going to try to get more details tonight and contact a lawyer to see what needs to happen, but the timing of it all is definitely divine. I just wanted to document this day just so we can look back at it. Allen's dad called him about an hour ago as we were getting ready to walk Hank. So we discussed all of the details and called Joel to ask about a lawyer. Now we are waiting to find out more details!! Allen said it would be so funny to have a baby in our home by Jan or Feb since that is the same time 4 people in our SS class are due! I would be so excited to have a baby the same time as so many friends :) Please pray for us. Please pray, even if this doesn't work out, our profiles will be shown soon and that we will be chosen!!

	I love this verse!!! I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him.  1 Samuel 1:27

Adoption Timeline

So I have been reading all sorts of blogs this week about couples who have adopted domestically! I've decided since we are done with everything (Sending the profile fee check tomorrow!!), that I would take this time to outline our adoption timeline. This way we will always be able to look back at the dates and see how the process progressed. Our social worker emailed today and said she received the profile books and they look great!! I was so glad :) She said she was SO excited for us and that we really worked quickly compared to other couples. That was nice to hear since I felt like we would never get to this point. I'm only hoping that the whole process will move quickly as well!! As crazy as it sounds, we could get a phone call over Christmas that we are chosen!! How crazy would that be? I'm not getting my hopes up that it will work out that soon, but I know God has it under control and I can't wait to be amazed!!

I did decide to do an adoption announcement on the back of our Christmas card this year. I saw this on someone's blog and decided to steal it :) The front is just a normal Christmas card but the back has a picture of Allen and me and underneath it says, "We're Adopting." It asks for prayer as we pursue adoption and feel God is going to bless us with a miracle through the beautiful gift of adoption. I guess it's kind of like a birth announcement since we are technically "paper pregnant." :) Anyway I am going to document our timeline below and hopefully one day will be able to look back and remember how it felt when we were dreaming of our little miracle :)

June 22, 2008 : Allen agrees to start TTC
December 2008: 1st doctor visit
February 2009- HSG (made sure tubes were open)
April 2009- Changed doctor
June 2009- Started rounds of Clomid and IUI's (took several breaks during this time)
February 2010: First laparoscopy to check for Endometriosis (had mild case)
June 2010- 1st appt with an actual fertility specialist. They decide to try HMG shots
July 2010- Another round of HMG shots
August 2010-Jan 2011: Took a break from everything (This was the point where once a week I got a phone call announcing someone was pregnant.)
Jan 2011: Decided to try one last round of shots (Started getting curious about adoption.)
(took a break for a bit)
April 2011: 2nd laparoscopy (still had some Endometriosis. Removed and very hopeful!!)
June 2011: Poured out my heart to Allen about our childless family :( Prayed about and decided to pursue domestic infant adoption. Contacted a family friend who works for Lifeline Children's Services in Birmingham, AL.
June 24, 2011: Turned in application to Lifeline
July 2011: Approved and began home study paperwork
August 2011: Fingerprinted and went to open adoption seminar
September 2011: 1st home study visit (We traveled to Nashville)
October 2011: 2nd home study visit (She came to our house.)
November 2011: Started getting overwhelmed and felt we would never finish. Paid for home study and finished up all the necessary paperwork for both agencies...bi racial questionnaire, desire of child form, etc...
Started working on our profile. Found a really good deal on photo books on Shutterfly so worked diligently to finish before the deal ended!!
November 29: Amy looked over our profile, we made a few changes and ordered the next day!
November 30: Profile books ordered
December 7: Profile books arrive at Lifeline
December 8: Sent last profile fee check (When this arrives we will officially become a "waiting" family)
I have faith that the Lord is going to bring along a wonderful baby in 2012. I pray for patience and understanding if it doesn't happen quickly. Our family and friends are so encouraging and supportive, telling us we will be chosen right away, but even I know it's not that easy. There are bound to be other couples just as cute, sweet, and appealing as us, right? :) Regardless I know our story is going to be so exciting and amazing. I think I am going to paint the "nursery" in the next few weeks mainly so that it will have another color besides boring white. Once we bring a baby home it will be hard to paint so it will be best to do it now in case it does happen quickly. As far as everything else, we will be waiting. I am not one to go get an entire nursery ready when we have no idea what we are getting into!! I am so glad we are finished with everything before Christmas so that we can just relax and not stress. I will post when Amy contacts us and says our profiles are being shown!! Please pray that our little miracle will arrive soon!!!!!!!!!!!

Profile Complete :)

For those of you wondering and waiting....We are FINALLY done with everything for our adoption!! (we have one more payment but as far as paperwork, we are done!! Can I get a Halleluiah??? I worked on our profile the last few weeks and sent a rough copy to our social worker the other day. Apparently it wasn't as "rough" as I thought it was because she said it looked great!! She loves my colors, pictures and texts...I have to be honest, I am NOT very creative/crafty so I was really worried she wouldn't like it :) But praise the Lord she did!! We had to make a few changes but very minor. This was all perfect timing because we used Shutterfly and they were running a special until Wed the 30th, buy one book get any after that 50 % off!! Talk about a steal...did I mention we had to buy 5?? Yep! So that helped us out! PLUS they had free shipping AND my friend gave us a 10 dollar off code!! So....we bought 5 books, 25 pages a piece for a grand total of 119.00 shipping, tax etc and ALL!! Can't beat that :) I am so glad we didn't go broke over the profile books because we still have to pay 500.00 for our profile fee. I am so relieved it is done, especially right before a very busy time. We have 3 choir performances this weekend, a Christmas parade, and a youth workers Christmas dinner!! Sheeesh... and that 's only the beginning of December! HA!! I seriously have something going on at least every other night from now until around Christmas :) Tis the season to be jolly, right? ;)

Another thing I thought I'd share is what a sweet friend at school bought us. She told me she was going to wait until we brought a baby home, but then decided to give it to us when we had all our adoption stuff finished.

 She knew since we were Phillies fans that our future baby would HAVE to own a Phillies bib :) HA!!
I also wanted to show you a pic of my sweet niece Grace. She is 6 months old and apparently into everything now!! I can't believe she is crawling and Hannah, my other niece is walking everywhere. It seems like they both should still be little babies.

I can't wait until these sweet little girls have a cousin to play with!!! We know it could still be years but we are praying for that sweet baby that will become a part of our family one day :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving from the Goins' house!! I'm baking 2 chocolate pies today and Mac & Cheese Casserole tomorrow :) Guess now that I'm 30 I need to start doing my part in the Thanksgiving dinner :) HA!! We didn't travel to see my family this T-giving but I'm so glad we can spend time with Allen's sweet family! I've already gotten a lot of sugar from sweet Hannah (who btw is walking and is into EVERYTHING!!).

    Tuesday night Vanessa (SIL) and I went to see Breaking Dawn Part 1!!It was sooooooo good :) I am going back next week to see it with my girls from school!

Last night we hung out with Allen's family and looked through some old photo albums while watching Christmas Vacation! Love that movie...it never gets old :) Here are a few pics of Allen that I thought were blogworthy!!!!

 If the Lord does bless us with biological children, poor things cuz Allen and I both went through an EXTREMELY awkward phase:) Does anybody else think Allen might be wearing skinny jeans in that picture??;)

Allen and his"RAD" moment (He is big time into BMX bikes again so he was so excited to find this photo :)

Hannah giving Allen night night sugar :)

Allen's parents had a swing at their house that Hannah used when she was a baby. We decided to take it home and put it in our "nursery"! So we have a new addition to the nursery now :) And it's even in my boy colors, blue and brown!!

I also got a sweet pic from my other sister in law today! Sweet Grace is now 6 months old!! Crazy how time flies!! She is crawling everywhere and just got her first tooth!! How much has she changed??

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lady Antebellum and a little hockey

What a fun weekend! I feel like I post that weekly now :) Guess I have a pretty fun life right now!! Friday night I went to see Lady Antebellum with my girls from school! I was so excited about this concert. This was their first show as a headliner. They are so awesome and very entertaining!!

I just brought my stuff to get ready to school on Friday and got ready at Amanda's house. She helped me accessorize my outfit by providing cowboy boots, a scarf, and a cute jacket! I am going to buy my own boots one of these days! I know which kind I like I just can't find my size and I hate spending so much money on them when we are trying to save money for the adoption!!

We met up with Lori and then Rachel and Emily and grabbed a bite to eat in Market Square at Soccer Taco! YUM :)

1st grade teachers plus Lori!

Amanda, me & Emily lovin some Mexican food!

Rachel & Lori

After we finished dinner we headed over to the concert! Like every other woman in the place we had to make a stop at the restroom! I felt it was a photo opportunity while waiting in line!! ;)

Looking cute in our boots!!

 We found our seats and listened to Randy Montana and Josh Kelley. Then Lady A hit the stage! They came out with "We Owned the Night" (one of my favs) and it was incredible!!!

They were incredible and we had soooooo much fun! I just love these girls :)

Saturday I cleaned while Allen went fishing and then I did a little shopping! We are in major need of some nice sheets and towels. I am so tired of getting the cheap-o stuff. I'm asking for both for Christmas :)

Saturday night we went back to the Coliseum to watch the Knoxville Icebears Hockey game. Allen and I had never been before and Amanda's son Noah was skating during intermission so we thought it'd be a good night to try it out. We met up with everybody at this awesome barbeque place called Dead End Barbeque before the game. Then we all road together in our car to the Coliseum. Our seats weren't the greatest (we were right above the Icebears goal so we couldn't see when they scored!) but they were good seats to see Noah when he was skating and we had lots of room to move around :)

The boys

Section KK

Enjoying the game

Noah is the little one in yellow going after the puck!

I won a prize from the Icebear's dancers :) HA!!

We had a blast hanging out with everyone! Honestly I really didn't watch much of the game but it was fun to go. Sunday we got up and went to church. Then Allen and I ate lunch and went to get stuff for our Operation Christmas Child boxes. They were due that day and I had forgotten :( So we put them together Sunday afternoon! Sunday night church is a prayer service. It has really become a special time for me. I love praying with fellow believers at church and just leaning on others during the hard times. This week was an emphasis on adoption since November is National Adoption Month. At the beginning of the service our Associate Pastor had everyone who has adopted or is in the process of adoption come forward to be recognized. He then asked that during the prayer time people come gather around those of us up front and pray over us with the whole adoption process. I have to say it was one of the most moving moments I've had in a while. I felt the Holy Spirit pouring down on us. Hearing all of these people praying aloud for us and our child was something I cannot explain! It was amazing just to know that God is in control and that we have the support, love and encouragement of this church body to help us along this journey :)

I had to share this picture with you. These are some kiddos from 2 families in our church. All of these children were adopted, most from birth. We have several other families who have and are still in the process of adopting internationally as well. I just wanted to show you these sweet faces :) This gives Allen and me a lot of hope. These mommies and daddies waited a long time for these precious babies and I know God is going to be faithful to provide for us as well!

One last picture before I go!! This is sweet Isabella, the cutest 3 year old around :) Her parents waited 15 long years for her and she is truly a walking miracle. I am so blessed to be surrounded by so many people who are going to love our baby one day!!