I wish I could stop time!

Man o man has little miss sass been growing. I would love to stop time just to hold onto these moments!

Her speech is really coming along and her motor skills are through the roof. I am amazed at what a little time and love can do for a child.

This journey is a tough one. It has roadblocks and obstacles that will kill you. Once you get past all of those it is something like you can't even imagine. The joy in your child's face. To watch them grow and develop into their own little person is really amazing.

She has brought so much joy to our life and we cant imagine life without her!

Merry Christmas Everyone, From Our Family!

Well what a year it has been! We went from being a family of three (including our furry baby boy Toby) to a family of four!

It has been truly amazing to see Christmas through Julia's eyes. It is like we are seeing Christmas for the first time. Her excitement and joy over the family, gifts, Santa, and Christmas lights has been so much fun!

Julia genuinely loves her cousins! My sister, her husband, their five kids, and my mom came up to spend four days with us. Julia is only 5 days older than her twin cousins. They play together so well! When they left poor Julia cried so hard. It broke our hearts... Then we went back to Kenton's side for Christmas. Her cousin B is so protective over her, I love it! She looks up to him like a big brother and loves to snuggle with him. He watches over her like she is a porcelain doll. Making sure she doesn't hurt herself in any way. Meanwhile she wants be the daredevil that she is! her younger cousin b also adores her. Julia loves to take walks and play basketball.

Julia is also to a point now where she asks for papa, both grandmas and grandpa. We can be driving in the car and she will say " I want to see papa". She is one loved little girl!! We are very excited to see what this year holds for our family!

A year ago today.....

One year ago today K and I landed in Warsaw to meet our beautiful daughter. I remember how we laid in bed that night wondering what type of questions the central authority would ask us. We kept guessing questions and then answered them. Funny thing is the questions we thought of were way harder than anything they asked.

Here we are a year after meeting our baby for the first time and AMAZED at how far she has come. If you would have told me Julia was going to be this outgoing, fun loving, sassy, yet brilliant and nurturing child I would have looked at you weird.

When we first met Julia she was super shy, wouldn't look you in the eye and just laid on our shoulders. She didnt talk hardly at all and didn't want to play anything.

Fast forward to today and that little girl is active, active, active. She loves her family (all her family) so much and gets so excited when we Skype with her cousins. Her main love is Toby and he loves her. Watching her with the family is an amazing piece that I treasure every day. Whether it's sitting on her Grandma W's lap, running around with the boys, giggling at Grandpa W, keeping poppa on his toes, chasing the twins around, ordering D around, charming Grandma Wendy into everything, and making tons of friends. She loves to be the social butterfly.

Some of her favorite things to do are play outside. She loves to be outside and would probably freeze her fingers off to stay outside. She loves to swim in our friends pool during the summer and even put her head underwater herself! She is a little fish and turns blue because she is in so long! During this dreaded winter time we are doing so much! I taught her how to make snow angels and she is in heaven! It is so fun to watch her try to get her legs and arms to move at the same time! We attempted to make a snow man, but the snow fell apart! She had her car out in the snow tonight and it was so much fun to watch her!

While it is winter and we are stuck inside she plays with her baby dolls and kitchen set a ton! She is so funny, I love watching her treat her babies the same way as I treat her! Giving them kisses, changing their diaper with the same silly song I do to her, and they way she tells them she loves them. We are happy to see that the way we love her is reflected in the way she loves!

She also LOVES arts and crafts! We draw and color all the time. We have created a nice big play room for her and in there we have an art easel and art desk. She also has tons of dolls and other things!

I would have to say her favorite thing is to copy us. With me she loves to cook and bake with me! I love it and it is everything I always dreamed of! She likes to dump what ever we need to dump into the bowl!

She sure has come a long way and I cant wait to see where else she takes us!

one year ago....

Friday marked one year to the day we received the referral of a little girl that we accepted.However, due to medical issues, we did not go through with it.

I looked back at the blog and realized I never spoke to what happened. I think I was in a complete fog at the time. Being a mom is something I had wanted since I was young. We had been through many years of trials, heartache, and despair. As we went through the adoption process my mind was completely focused on getting our child. I was in complete shock when I received the phone call from Lina. I dont remember much, but I guess I kept saying I need time to process. As I think back to November 30, I am still extremely impressed with how Poland and our agency handled the situation.

I am a firm believer that God has a plan. I always say "I know God has a plan, I just drive my self crazy trying to figure out that plan". I also know that God doesn't give you more than  you can handle, but I think at times he has grossly misjudged me! I know that Julia has been our daughter since she was born, but we had a rocky rocky road to find her. However, I need to stay on topic! Right before our date to leave to meet the little girl, we received a phone call that there was a medical finding and it didnt look good. I am extremely impressed that they even called to let us know. We had already accepted, they could have just kept it a secret and sent an ill little girl home with us. Then the second impressive thing Poland did........ They had Julia as the referral and we could keep our dates to travel. Yes, we had our flights to travel. It was an extremely emotional day. We had been preparing for one little girl and we were hurt to know she was so ill. We were extremely grateful for the new referral of Julia, but our hearts still hurt for that little girl. 

We found out on our second trip that the original medical diagnosis was not accurate and she was going to be placed with another family. We are extremely happy that she has found her forever family! 

I don't want this to come across that we arent EXTREMELY grateful for Julia, we are! Julia is us from her nose to her toes! She was meant to be with us.  I am just reflecting on how crazy our road to her was and how wonderful Poland was to us!!! 

Where does the time go?

Every time I want to sit down and update everyone the time seems to disappear! Work is super busy and I am learning so much! Between the hustle and bustle of that, school, and Julia I feel like the days go by in a blink!

Julia is growing up too fast and I want it to stop! We ended up donating half of her closet because she had a growth spurt and things were suddenly too short! Then I looked down at her feet in Target and her toes were hanging over. WHAT when did that happen! Her legs and torso both decided to spurt up so she looks so much taller to us! Her height isnt the only thing that is growing super fast! So is her hair!! I didnt notice that as much until I looked at old pictures.... We ended up taking her in for her first haircut, which was hard on me. We kept a lock of her hair and she was a champ during the process!

She continues to LOVE school! I drop her off in the morning and K picks her up int he afternoon. We have this cute little ritual where she gives me a kiss good bye and then runs to the window. Once I am on the other side of the window we hold our hands up together and then she blows me a kiss. She is so excited to do that in the morning. At school she does TONS of art projects and is learning her ABC's. She LOVES LOVES LOVES school. She get so excited in the morning, even grabs her back pack to go.

Her speech and motor skills are on fire! Tonight I told her we needed to get out of the bath and she replied with "no no no". I almost died laughing! She tries to say every word we say. Right now my favorite is when she tries to say "home" she puckers her little lips up and says "hooomie". It is the cutest face Ive ever seen! We are really happy that her speech is starting to come a long. She said little words here and there, but this week it has really taken off!

We are also in the process of potty training. She has good days and some bad days! Tonight she had big girl undies on. Julia had one accident, but I heard trying to get them to poopy in the potty is a challenge! We really can't complain she has been doing great!

Right now her favorite thing to do is to treat her baby doll like we treat her. It is HILARIOUS to watch her be a "mommy" to her dolls. She also tries to put K to bed, complete with patting him on his back! I love it, it means she enjoys the things we do for her!She also LOVES puzzles! She is a pretty creative child so it will be interesting to see how she channels that in the future!She is also soooo into clothes, shoes, sunglasses, and her owl purse. I cant complain! I will have a great little shopping buddy!!

Being outside never gets old and we have to listen to her scream "side" all day on football Sunday! I finally created a coloring diversion because we thought we were going to go nuts! "Side side side side"!!! Her swing set and car are probably her favorite outside activities. Every once in a while she wants to be in the stroller, but not for a very long time. She is so independent that she wants to do things herself!

We also converted her bed to a toddler bed. She kept jumping out of the crib (I dont know how she didnt break something) so we decided we better do it before we had an ER visit! She adjusted to that extremely well and I think likes it better this way!Speaking of her bed... One new thing is she suddenly wants us to cover her with her blanket at bed time. So she is now covered by a blanket and sleeps with a glow worm... This is a child that would throw everything out of the crib when we were in Poland!

Another change from Poland is TV. While she still rarely and I mean rarely watches it, she has a show she loves to pieces. It is called Harry the Bunny. It is a small learning show and she will start hopping around the house when she wants to watch it... It is HILARIOUS!

While things have been  AMAZING, we still have a couple things to work on. The first one being her fits in public.. Man oh man... She did it to me again in Target. The screaming at the top of her lungs and then kicking. She doesnt like to be in the cart, but will run a way from me when I put her down. We are working through it and I am sure it will be fine. The second thing is basically laughing in our face when we tell her no, which is then followed by a lovely tantrum....The third thing is water, we can not get her to drink water to save our lives! We have tried everything. Took her juice and started adding water, nope she knew and WOULD not drink it. Soaked strawberries in water to give it that water flavor, nope hated it!We are at a loss and end up giving her milk, chocolate milk or juice just to make sure she is hydrated! So I will continue to find ways to get her to drink water!

Well it is time for bed! So I am signing off!!

We love being home!!

We have been home for a little over two weeks and are so happy to be here! Julia did AMAZING on the near 10 hour flight home. While she only slept 3 hours, it actually turned out to be a blessing!! She adjust to the time change in one day. It took Kenton and I a full week to adjust (we were super jealous).

We were lucky enough to have a Dreamliner that functioned without incident from Warsaw to Chicago. My father-in-law and nephew picked us up from the airport. We were surprised that our 10 year old nephew wanted to come to the airport as it was July 4. He skipped the fireworks just to come see his new cousin. My sister's new twins ended up coming home the same day we did. They had been in NICU for 3 months. They were born at 24 weeks. we are very thankful for modern medicine and the staff kept the little fighters going. This is my sisters 2nd set of twins, that means she has 4 children under the age of 26 months.. YIKES. Because her husband is a police officer, he works nights. My mom has very graciously been helping her. That meant they couldnt be at the airport. Then my other sister broke her ankle playing soccer with her daughter. My dad had to help her with her little ones.... It went from being a big group welcoming to the two. However, it was probably for the best. Customs was beyond ridiculous. I am still annoyed with them. The embassy told us to get in the US passport  line. We did that and get up there and she tells us we have to go to the green card line. Waited in the green card line and they told us we had to go to the VISA line. At this point Im so mad! It has been 24hrs without sleep and we have on cranky two year old on our hands! We wait in the visa line and she says oh hold on you need to go in the back.. Thank you, that is what we told the other two people.... So we go in the back room wait 25 minutes, they stamp her paperwork and ta-da she is a citizen.

We stayed the night at K's parents the first night. Then we ran around to see the majority of Julia's great-grandparents. We are EXTREMELY fortunate to have all but 1 of our grandparents. My mom's father passed a way before I was born.   Then on Saturday we attended one of the best showers! My Aunts and Grandma did such and awesome job! I love the attention to detail!

We have been in our house for exactly two weeks. Julia has slept in her own room and through the whole night. She takes her naps on schedule and has done a fabulous job adjusting. This is not the same child we picked up from the orphanage. She babbles soooooooo much, laughs all the time and is learning tons of new things. This week she started "uh-oh" and "oh-no". It is HILARIOUS! She also loves to swim!

Today we attended the Pulaski days parade and she loved it. Our friend Gosia (who is from Kilece and it was her brother we stayed with for part of the trip) was able to meet her for the first time. Her cousin, Agata (who met Julia in Poland) is visiting! Julia recognized her and even pointed to her before I realized she was there. It was fun to see her interact with them!

Introducing our little girl Julia!

Sorry, I didn't post much during our bonding period! I was afraid of jinxing it! I know it sounds kind of dumb, but Poland doesn't like things to be released publicly until everything is official! I was worried something would get out or whatever!

We arrived in Poland on May 17 and attended court on May 20 in order to gain temporary custody of Julia. Even though we had custody of her, we had to visit her at the orphanage the first three days. Thursday May 23 we took her back to our apartment!

When we left the orphanage, we thought there would be a big melt down. We were shocked, she jumped in the stroller and walked right out with us without any tears. Once we arrived at the apartment she started playing with the toys as I prepared lunch. Right after lunch it was nap time. Then we had a little meltdown so I laid in bed with her on my chest until she fell a sleep. When she woke up she was happy and playing again. She did well until bed time. We ended up letting her sleep with us, but she now sleeps in the crib on her own.

The first couple of days were days of adjusting and getting used to each other. We knew that Julia had some issues with tantrums. We have seen hints of them, but nothing like what  her legal guardian warned us of. She took to me faster than K, but that has changed. She is learning so much every day and progressing leaps and  bounds. She loves to copy everything we do (which means we have to watch ourselves) and is so proud of herself when she looks like us (facial expression or putting her socks on). We really are amazed by the changes. While there are great strides, we do have our challenges. Because those a private to us, I wont go into detail. We will continue to work on them and pray we can make similar progress in the future!

Our final adoption hearing was supposed to be on June 10, but there was a law change somewhere between us getting here (not sure if it was the first time or this one) and our paperwork was incorrect. The judge very kindly moved the new hearing to June 12. That was a little scary, but Magda and the attorney took care of everything!

We have finished  week one of the appeal process and are looking forward to getting home! Seven weeks of living somewhere other than home has its challenges. Don't get me wrong it is nice here and the apartment is nice, but we are getting a little stir crazy without a yard. K and I are outdoors people. While we have walked the city many times and even went to Kielce for a week to visit friends. There are times when we would like to sit on the deck while Julia played in the yard! Just fourteen more days!!!

I will try to update once we are home and settled in! Thanks for following our journey!

June 10, 2012 first final court date

June 13, 2012 the rescheduled final court date-- FINALLY--- She is ours! 

In Kielce enjoying flowers Mariusz put in her hair!

One of my favorites of her.....

Princess here we come!!!!!

Today we received our travel dates and couldn't be more excited! We will have two court dates, which is different than what we have seen before. We can't wait to go get her... Now the mad rush to pack!

I feel like Rocky at the top of the stairs waiving my hands in the air!

Sorry for not posting earlier. I came down with this mega killer stomach flu... For the past two days I haven't been able to keep anything and I mean anything down. However, that didn't stop me from keeping this adoption moving right along. We received notification Wednesday that our  final immigration approvals were on their way back to us! So I emailed our agency and asked if we could go ahead and wire the visa money to Poland... Yep we could, so we got that all taken care of and the signed paperwork USPS Express. 

We finally completed everything required by us for this adoption. Now we wait for that paperwork to get to Poland, our Article 5 to be issued from the US Embassy (In Poland) and delivered to the judge. Then…. We leave for POLAND! YEAH!!!

It doesnt seem real..... It has been a long journey, we just pray that we wont have to wait long now!

So many things to talk about!!!

Well it has been an eventful three days! It started off on Saturday when we received an email from the orphanage stating our daughter loves the care package we sent. They said she is happy, healthy and very active! They also gave us a list of songs she likes. We have Polish class tomorrow and Gosia is going to get them ready for us to sing!

The second bit of good news is I spoke to our immigration liaison today and we should have approvals in the next 14 days! After we have that approval we send everything over to Poland and wait for our court dates! We are so excited and cant wait to be moving on!!!! Yeah!

The paperwork is on its way to USCIS!!

I dont have a whole lot of time, but had to post that the paperwork is now its way to USCIS (immigration). We are super excited and can't wait for the approvals (hopefully in the next two weeks). We are sooooo close!

Really missing our little girl....

Well, we are coming close to being home for three months and we miss our little girl terribly! We look at her pictures every day and talk about how big she must be getting! If I knew they would allow us to see her, we would probably fly over for a visit.

We have been told this is the hardest part of this journey and it is. So many things are going on in your head and the emotions of just wanting to hold your little girl again! For those who have never been through this process, they often assume something is wrong that you don't have your paperwork yet. That gets a little tough to explain because you can tell they don't believe you. Thankfully, we have met an amazing group of people that know exactly how we are feeling. They have been here are here or about to be here and that helps get you through the really rough days. To those of you who are new to the process, it is really important to have a good support system. This is a long and tough journey, it really helps to know you aren't the only one going through it!

For now we will continue to pray for that paperwork and keep practicing our Polish!

Dzien Dobry Paczki!

Gosia, invited us to the Polish Heritage Societies Paczki Party.  We had so much fun and met so many wonderful people. We had cabbage rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, kiszka, Polise sausage, sauerkraut, and pierogi filled with cottage cheese, apple or prunes. Of course we finished the meal with Paczki.

Then it was on to dancing! Gosia and I were out there dancing with the kids! I cant wait to have our daughter out there dancing!! Gosia wants us to join the society and I think I might! I just want to make sure I can fit it in and don't over commit! 

As you can tell, I loved it. Now back to praying for our paper work!

The baby shower was beyond awesome!

Today was our baby shower at my work. We had a ton of people show up! We received so many wonderful things and are so grateful for everything we received. Here are a couple of pictures, but there were several things with her name on it so I can't post them. Now we just need our daughter!

Kenton and I showed them a presentation of our first trip to Poland and answered lots of questions. Everyone had questions about Poland and the adoption. They can't wait for us to bring her home!

Emotional Day!

Tomorrow is my work shower for us! Kenton will be there about fifteen minutes before the party so I can show him around a little bit. We are super excited, but it also drums up emotions. It has been several weeks since we left our Polish Princess and we miss her so much. We watch the video and look at the pictures just about everyday. We have completed her room, which we love. However, due to privacy we have blocked her name out!

We are busy preparing for her! Hopefully we will have the paperwork soon! We can't wait to be back in Poland! I sat down and mapped out the tram system so we know how to get around. Figured out how to get around on the train system. We are still working on trying to get to the area Kenton's family is from. Then we are also planning on Kylie and Jacker Slacks visiting us when we are there. So we have been planning all of that. Our lessons are going great, we really can't stress how grateful we are for Gosia! We can count to ten, hold a basic conversation, sing a lullaby, and we have learned the proper annunciation to several words! She said we are doing well! Yeah. We are all ready to go back. We wonder if she will remember us. We miss her so much. We love you princess!!

Bajka Iskierki

Today we had our Polish lesson with Gosia! It went great, she is helping us with our annunciation and teaching us some Polish songs.

We learned a very popular children's song called Bajka Iskierki. It is a Polish lullaby and we actually sung it! She also invited us to the Polish Heritage get together on Saturday! We are super excited to be able to meet a lot of people and are extremely grateful for Gosia!

This is a great way to pass the time while waiting for our second trip!

One month ago.....

One month ago Kenton and I waited ever so anxiously for it to be time to head to Ohare. we stayed back home over night which allowed me to meet my baby sissy (I should probably stop calling her that she is almost 30) for SUSHI lunch. She was so excited for us and had lots of questions for which I did not have answers. All we knew is at 10:00 pm we would be on a flight to Poland to change our lives forever.

We put our faith in God and the fact that so many of our adoption friends have traveled this journey successfully.  When we landed we will never forget seeing our facilitator's face waiting on the other side for us. We felt safe and then the anxiety of meeting her hit... All of the thoughts going through our head and when we finally had the chance to meet her... She was perfect beyond words. Our adorable little daughter standing in the middle of the room in her jean overall dress, pink shirt and hairbrush tightly gripped in her hands. Those eyes staring at us. Us afraid of moving too fast and scaring her. Then all of a sudden we are on the floor playing with her. A moment we will never forget. The day we met the love of our lives....Our little girl!

One month down...Hopefully only two more to go! 

In the meantime, we are learning more Polish.. This week a sweet little lullaby to sing....

Sorry for slacking!

First I have to say sorry I have't been keeping up with the blog.... The time has just slipped away from me because we had so much going on!

First my baby sissy is pregnant with another set of twins.... Twin little boys!!! Yes, she will have two sets of twins and then our big boy Dev. She said she is starting her own basketball team... Haa! I am really glad it is a set of two because adding our little one makes it an even number of kids on the Argue side! Mine mine never fear your little friend is near!

Then my middle sissy, we were able to stop by and see their new house. The kids showed us their big new rooms. They were so cute giving us the tour. Then her youngest demonstrated how to use the toy Auntie Key and I purchased him for his birthday. A Radio Flyer 500... I am surprised my sister didnt kill us, that things is a tad bit dangerous for a 2 year old.. Woopsies!

As for us, it has been a whirlwind of events. I will not go into details, but we accepted a different referral. We have returned from our first visit and it was beyond amazing. We cannot express how gracious we are to our agency, polish facilitator, Polish Central Authority, and the orphanage. Once everything is finalized I will revise this post with more details, but for now we will just leave it at that.

Meeting our child was awsome. We couldn't have asked for anything to go any better. What a little trooper! Now the wait to get back..... Let's pray I can stay strong.

We of course shared every picture and video with our family and friends. I don't think there was a dry eye anytime we showed them. It is also neat to hear the older cousins tell us what they are going to teach our child. I love that they are already thinking about this stuff! Everyone is just as vested in this process as we are. Our co-workers, our family and our dear friends. When I returned to work I found out that every morning they had a little huddle to see what update we had sent. Pretty cool when you think about it! The power of friends and family!

Not only did we meet our little one, but we met another great family while we were there. It was super nice to her their experience and meet their little girl! She was super cute with this AWESOME personality! Hopefully we can meet up with them once again!

As for keeping busy... The furniture was delivered on Christmas Eve, which was awesome! We love it so much more than we remembered. We put the bedding and some of the decorations up. Now we are just waiting for the artwork! I also did somes shopping with my mom... I left the house with good intentions to just let her use my coupons at Carters and Ralph Lauren... Then we got there and I ended up with a bunch of stuff. Oh well!

Well that is the update for now! Congrats to our adoption friends who are in Poland right now and to the others that are leaving soon. As for me and several others, I pray our second trips are here before we know it!

Oh us... Yep we are still waiting...

It has been almost a month since my last post and we still haven't heard a thing.. We emailed our agency and they just said they are working on it.. We have been praying it is soon. The first four weeks were a breeze... Then a friend of ours received their dates and are there right now!! All of a sudden I need that date today! Plus it is Christmas, I would love to just know that things are moving forward and this will be our last Christmas without a child.

The other thing that made me realize I really hope it is soon is watching our nieces and nephews. Our child is about the same age as my twin niece and nephew. This weekend is my other nephew's 2nd birthday. To celebrate the Argue girls and the kids went out for lunch. Seth grabbed Scarlette's hand and was walking around with her. It was so cute, but poor Carmine didnt have a partner.. Once our little one is here he can have a little friend to hold hands with!!! So for the sake of mine mine (his nick name) we need this to hurry up ;).. haaa haaa!

So you want to know how I have been dealing with my stress?? Shopping it off and we have to stop! So far we purchased the furniture, painted the bedroom or I mean had it painted, hung new lighting and new blinds. Then my mom purchased all of the bedding, but we changed our mind on the size of the bed so we had to exchange it...

Well I promise to post when we know more, but for now I say good night!

Am I nesting?

Well this weekend has been one of deep cleaning and organizing. We originally thought that we would be receiving two children, which meant I had been keeping the office and upstairs spare bedroom semi empty/ some junk. Yesterday I started by cleaning all of the main living areas.. Which led me to realize it is time I cave and get a cleaning lady... Well actually I have wanted one for a while... It is Mr K who doesn't want someone in the house. I just haven't pushed the subject, but I now realize I REALLLLYY need help. I am trying to finish my MBA, adopt, work an active full time job and oh sleep somewhere in all that. I dont know how I am going to to keep up with everything.. Hence the cleaning help. It takes a full day to clean this house... Having someone take that over would really help me! So I have to make my sales pitch and give it to Mr K.

Anyway, then today.. Pulled everything out of both rooms started throwing stuff out and rearranging. Everything is now spotless and organized. We are going to leave the office an office and possible slash an upstairs play room. That means we are turning the upstairs bedroom into little Wentz's room. We decided not to go full fledged decorating overload until we get back from our first trip. Our strategy is one of it will give us something to do while we wait for that second trip and we are trying not to jinx anything...

I have to laugh at that second thought a bit.... Because we are buying other things all ready... It is like Christmas, the packages just keep showing up! We are slowing down a bit on the shopping as an unexpected additional charge dropped into the mix last week.... That was a bummer, but what do you do? It is just tough when you are cash flowing this process to get slapped with things like this. While it was in the contract (as a possible additional cost), we hadn't heard anything about it until a couple weeks after the referral... So I was spending it ;) lesson learned....Wont do that again! Any who, Daddy picked up a learning dog (it is super cute), baby monitor and a couple of SUPER CUTE outfits. We figured we can leave the clothes at the orphanage and they can keep them for the other children. We are so excited and anxiously awaiting for our trip...

Officially Accepted!

Today we officially accepted our referral! Of course, there were more tears of joy!!!

I want to thank everyone who has traveled this journey with us! I want to especially thank Children's Hospital. I cannot put into words how grateful we are to have had them helping us along the way. We highly recommend them to anyone going through the international adoption process. They were able help us understand what things meant and what we as parents can do to help our child flourish! They are a wonderful resource!

The next time you hear from us we will hopefully have travel dates!!!!!


We are so in love and extremely happy!!!

How can you love someone this much without ever holding them?

I am writing this way before many of you will ever see it. We are happy yet scared to say we received a referral at 6pm on Thursday October 11, 2012... Our child is just so beautiful...

I can't even begin to express the emotions in all of this. How can you fall so in love with someone just by looking at them?

While we were hoping for two, we just love our child to pieces and feel this is where we are supposed to be.

As you can tell, I am being evasive with gender, age and name. Poland has asked us to keep discretion in order to respect the child. We are respecting their wishes.. However, we were able to share with our close family... With that being said we have to ask our family that does know the details to please keep those themselves.. Until everything is official!!

We will be sending our acceptance letter to our agency on Monday... Next we wait for our travel dates.. To meet our angel from God!

God works in mysterious ways....

Today was our weekend to greet at church.. Which by the way is truly invigorating ! I love seeing all the smiling faces, especially the little kid-o's!

I won't get into details now, but Kenton and I have had a pretty tough couple of days. We have been praying a lot, mainly asking for guidance and peace.  I'm not going to lie, I went into church today with hopes God would give us some resolution to our situation. I often find that when in this predicament (lots of questions/ reservations and in need of guidance) the pastor's message some how seem to be directed right at me/us. While that wasn't the case today... There was actually a guest speaker... It is funny the people God puts into your life at certain times..

Back when Kenton and I were deciding to adopt, God put the Ott's back into our life.They helped us with a lot of questions regarding international adoption. Today it felt the same way... While greeting at church, I ran into someone I worked with 7-8 years ago. Back when I worked with him, he and his wife were adopting a little girl from China. I told him we were in the process of adopting from Poland and he was so excited for us. We exchanged numbers and called him this afternoon. He was great to talk to and we also found out they recently adopted a child from Ethiopia. We plan to stay in touch with them and they are willing to help us with any questions we may have. It was so nice to hear what programs they used to help "bring the kids up to speed". They are the same ones we have found and it is reassuring to know they worked wonderfully for their children!

THEN..... Another person who went through a lot of heartache with us.. Our nurse from the fertility treatments. She was also super excited to hear we were adopting from Poland. It is just funny how we have all been going to the same church at the same time for several years and we just bumped into them today... God's will....

The quilts are here!

Here are the awesome quilts my Aunt made for the kids! She even made matching pillow cases! We can't wait to give them to our kids!

Czesc.... Rzeczpospolita Polska.. Or HELLLLOO Poland!

We heard from our Agency today! Our paperwork is on its way to Poland... It feels really weird to know we have done everything we can... It is now up to God and the Polish Central Authority to complete this journey. While I know it is out of our hands, I pray that it isn't too long before we hear from them... I thought about making a bet with Kenton on how long before I lose my mind over "waiting".. Ooops too late I might be there! Just kidding!

It is kind of exciting to think we may be in Poland around Christmas... That is if our timeline takes the average I've seen for 1st trips. Lena stated our paperwork looked good and Poland should like us. I hope so! They hold the fate of our children in their hands.

I am learning more and more Polish. My Uncle bought us a new language software. I like it and its seems to be more conversational than Rosetta Stone. I can now speak three full sentences and a bunch of random words! Maybe one day it will all click. Then I will be quad-lingual... A little Swiss (very little), Espanol, Po Polsku, and Po Angielski (English).

Oh Uncle Bob if you are reading this...Excuse me is Prezpraszam (shapreshum). Uncle Bob told me that would be the first word I would learn and I would be asked to repeat it several times throughout lesson 1. Well I could remember every stinking word, but that one... I've got it now! Now the one I am hung up on is rozumie (do you understand).. I cant get my mouth to spit it out correctly!

Any whoooo. Good night everyone! I am praying for our friends who have court in the morning, our friends that are going back to keep a family together, our friends who are taking their first trip, and our friends who are anxiously waiting to get back to their children! May God watch over you and keep you all safe!