Adoption Update

Hope everyone has had a great Tuesday! This is a busy week for sure :) Thought I'd give an adoption update! We are currently in the middle of the home study process. I feel like we are creeping along. A few weeks ago we had our office visit with our social worker. She just asked us a few questions and got to know us. We were scheduled to have the home visit part this week but she asked if we could change it to next week. Really it shouldn't matter to me, but I guess I feel like everything has been difficult for us so far that this is just another thing that didn't work out the way I want it. Whenever we hit a stumbling block, no matter how small I worry that it is God telling us we are not following His plan. It is so hard to discern what is what! 

Anyway, we have most of our paperwork turned in to Lifeline. We have to do our autobiographies, some discussion questions and then begin our profile. I know my original plan was to have our profile ready to view by October (possibly early). However as everything seemed to take longer I thought maybe it would be more like the end of October. I know that is still very feasible, but I keep worrying that something else will come up that will push it back (like this 1 week delay) Lifeline cannot start anything else until they have our home study and it will probably take 2 weeks for her to complete it and submit it to Lifeline. Anyway I guess I'm asking for prayer and patience because I know that God already has that perfect child picked out for us. These stumbling blocks may be a way for His mighty plan to all fall into place.

School is still going well. Ever since we got our new teacher my class size is ridiculously small ( :) That's a good thing!) I have 17 kids right now! I have only taught one other year with that little of kids and it was great :) I absolutely love my team!! We are still praying together every morning and we went out to dinner for Emily's birthday last Friday night with our husbands. They get along great! We ate good food, had a lot of laughs and just enjoyed ourselves. Here are a few pics:

Happy birthday Emily!

My sweet hubby!

The girls; Amanda, Emily, Me, Jennifer, & Rachel

Posing

 

 

A weird toilet bowl outside the restaurant where we ate.

I hope really soon we will bringing home a sweet baby boy or girl to join our family! I have been praying for the birth mother and the child that we will call ours. I hope God plans on answering those prayers really soon!!! I cannot wait to bring sweet Laney Grace or Eli (still not sure about boy names) home!

More parties :)

So my sweet husband threw me a surprise party the Saturday after my birthday. I have only been talking about a 30th birthday party for the last 3 years! HA :) I guess he was listening after all!! I had NO idea! My mom was supposed to come in as part of the surprise and keep me occupied so Allen could get it all set up but she wasn't able to come so he did it all on his own!! I ran errands most of the afternoon and then I wasn't home 5 min before the doorbell rang! It was Rachel and her husband Greg and Emily who I work with! I was like, umm... why are they here? :) They have never been to my house, live about 45 min away and I knew I hadn't invited them! Turns out, Allen had contacted them through Facebook and invited them. He was even so sneaky that he didn't request to be friends with them, just sent private messages so I wouldn't get suspicious!!

So, after they arrived so did about 20 other people!! He had invited the girls on my team and their hubbies (which we were so excited to finally get them together) and all of my buddies from church!! He grilled about 25 pieces of chicken and we had other finger foods. We played corn-hole and hung out and talked!! It was so special and a wonderful surprise! It made turning 30 a little more enjoyable :) Here are some pics.....

The girls

Us and sweet Isabella :) Glad she made it to my party!!

The Woods Family

The Mallery's

Rachel and Greg

Emily and James

Some of the girls

This is the picture that Amanda's 4 year old son Noah took!! 

 

 

I have to say I was so excited :) I'm hoping my 30's will bring me even more joy than my 20's!!

Happy Labor Day/ My 30th birthday!!

 

I hope everyone has had a terrific and relaxing weekend :) I haven't posted in like 2 months! My goodness :) I guess starting back to school has been a little overwhelming. I am having a great year so far. I love my team and my kiddos are pretty good too. Our team of teachers have started praying together every morning before school starts. It is such a positive way to start our day and we know what is going on in each others lives.

My awesome first grade "rock star" team!!

Anyway... on Wednesday I turn 30! Where has the time gone? To celebrate, a lot of my family made the trip to come stay with us! On Saturday my brother Shane, sister in law Anne and sweet baby niece Grace arrived! I haven't seen them since she was born in May. Oh my goodness, she is such a sweet baby! When they got here I was so excited to give Anne the Carter's outfits I got at JC Penney's! They had red dot clearance so I got 8 outfits for 11 dollars! What a steal :)

Grace Templeton 3 months old

 

 On Saturday night we watched the TN game! It is so exciting when football season begins in East Tennessee! Everyone wears their orange and it seems like a happier place! I enjoyed some alone time with Grace before the rest of the family arrived.

 Allen is infamous for giving me birthday presents early and this year was no exception! He couldn't wait to give me my new i-Phone 4!! YIPEE :) We played around with it and got everything set up. I was so excited about the Instagram app!

Sunday morning Allen and I went to church. Our youth pastor Joel was preaching and we didn't want to miss that! Everyone was to arrive shortly after we got back from church.

Isabella didn't want to talk to me! But she LOVES Allen :) She told her Mom Allen was her best friend!

 

                     When we got home Glo and Nick had already shown up and decorated the house :)

 Dad got there right after us and then my sister Leslie and Thomas arrived around 4. We just sort of hung out and talked Saturday afternoon.

 Sunday evening Allen's parents came over and we grilled out steaks. It started raining right when we started to grill so Allen had to move the grill in the garage. The steaks were yummy tho! After that I opened my cards and presents!

Next was cake :) Check out the cool 30! It stayed on fire for several minutes!

Then we tried to get a family pic :) Sadly, Grace was feeding so we are missing them :( Here are a few shots...not sure if any are good enough for a Christmas card!

Me, Allen and his parents. They were so sweet to come over too!

Me and Leslie

 As you can see it was a fabulous weekend :) Makes turning 30 a little easier to swallow! Hoping that in my 30's I will get to be a mommy!! I can't wait!!