Wordless Wednesday: This makes me happy

My Beauty

Stay-at-Home Saturday

My absolute favorite.   Especially in the fall.  When it's cloudy.  And cool.  And football is on ALL DAY LONG.

I love it.

We've had a super busy and sleep deprived week so a Saturday at home is just what this girl needed. 

I'm starting to get a little antsy about the wait.  I thought I would feel better after our home study was sent to Korea because I would have my part done.  Out of my hands.  I've done what I can.  Uh, no.  Now we have to worry about our I-600A and getting fingerprints.  We sent in the I-600A on Tuesday and now we're just waiting to hear that they've received it and to find out when our fingerprint appointment is.

I-600A:  Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition

For adjudicating the qualifications of the applicant(s) as prospective adoptive parents. Filing this form will generally speed up the part of the processing relating to the qualifications of the prospective adoptive parent petitioner(s).

All of these paperwork steps to bring our child home have to be sent and received and processed and approved and sent again and received again.  So complicated.  And so stressful.  I'm pretty sure I'm gonna lose it before this is all over.

No bueno.

Empty Promises

I know that I promised I would eventually write about and have pictures of (pictures are what your here for, right?) Kinley's birthday.  Well, I've got bad news.  I'm having major camera problems.  Actually it's my CF card but the point is I don't have very many pictures.  Hopefully my family was able to get the moments I missed because of my faulty card.

Kinley had a birthday week.  Eight days to be exact.  The Friday before her birthday we celebrated with our playgroup friends.  That was a super fun party and we loved having everyone here to play and celebrate Kinley turning two!  Thursday (Oct. 7) was the  BIG DAY!!!  And when I mean big I mean jam packed with lot of Kinley's favs!  We started out by heading to the Disney Store.  Kinley had never been there so this was a great way to start our day.  I wish I had video of Kinley's reaction to all things Disney.  Kinley can get pretty excited.  Big smiles, giggles, a little dancing and arm flapping are all good indicators that Miss Thing is super excited.  That's why I was so shocked by her reaction.  All she could do was walk (VERY SLOWLY and with tiny little steps) and stare quietly at all the Disney characters lined along the top of the walls of the store.  I've never seen her so overwhelmed that she was absolutely silent.  She eventually came out of her little excitement induced walking coma and had some fun picking out a stuffed Mickey and Nemo.  We spent a lot of time in there and had a blast.  We'll be going back.

The rest of the day was full of more Kinley favorites.  Toys R Us where we Blake bought a Barbie 4-wheeler for the birthday girl.  Ted's Mexican food for dinner.  The park for some marathon swinging and sliding.  And finally her favorite movie, Madagascar, in bed with popcorn.  It was a perfect day.  We went all out this year for sure. 

Her big birthday party was Saturday (Oct. 9) and we had more friends and family over to help us celebrate.  Kinley received lots of nice gifts including a kitchen from Grandma and Grandpa and an easel from Granny and Papaw.  Both have been wonderful and are keeping her very busy. 

Ok, ok. Here ya go. Remember, this isn't everything. My memory card ate some of them.

 Helping daddy put together her new table and chairs.

 Such a big helper!

 Kinley rearranging her new chairs.

 Loving on Nemo.

 I forgot to mention that she's apparently scared of fire. 

This is right after we put her birthday cake in front of her

and right before she started crying.

 Bad quality picture but good quality movie!

 Marty is so funny!

 Blake's purchase.

 Her cake was AWESOME!!!

 Whoa!!!

 Kinley's BFF, Gavin.

 Miss Emily riding the 4-wheeler.

Snuggled up with Nemo after a long day.



Lazy Blogger

So I've been a little lazy with my blogging lately.  We've had a very exciting couple of weeks so I think I'm coming down off that high and trying to get back into the normal swing of thing.  Excuses, excuses.  I know.  I PROMISE to post some pictures of Kinley's birthday extravaganza EARLY next week.  Promise.

I do have some fabulous news!  Our home study was sent to Korea today!  We are officially waiting! 

Let's pray our wait is short.

As short as this post.

Yesterday was a huge day for our family. First (and most important), my baby girl turned two yesterday! It was a really fun day that was full of her favorite things. I'll post more later (with pics) because I'm just too darn tired tonight. Second, our completed home study was sent to Holt in Oregon and hopefully they'll be forwarding that puppy on to Korea very soon! We were told that if we got our home study to them by the middle of November we would very likely have a referral by the end of the year. So Blake and I decided to make some guesses. He guessed that our referral would come on December 13 and I guessed December 17. What's your guess?

Thank you Mr. Edwards

Kinley turns 2 this week (yay!!!) and today Robert Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his development of in vitro fertilization.  Without this technology I absolutely would not have my sweet miracle baby.  Infertility sucks!  So I am eternally grateful for people like Mr. Edwards and my doctor, Dr. Kallenberger.  Here are a few (ok, more than a few) pictures of what those amazing doctors did for me.

 
Gosh, I am one lucky blessed momma!