BLOG ADDRESS CHANGE, effective immediately

Hello all!

A couple of days from now, we will be changing our blog address from what you have to:

bfamilypost.blogspot.com

I'm not saying this to pridefully assume that SO many people follow this blog that you will want to make this change. Just letting you know!

Thanks so much! Love y'all!

CHOSEN!

Hello Everyone!!!

This is our official announcement about our latest and greatest news in our adoption journey -- we've been chosen by a birthmom!!! We will be expecting a baby in July if all goes with with this process. A baby boy!!! That's all we can say on this blog because of the very public nature of the internet and the sensitivity of this adoption process.

We want to thank you all so much for praying and encouraging us up to this point. We are beyond humbled by this precious birthmom and her tremendous sacrifice in offering us this most precious child. Please pray for her as she navigates these last 3 months of her pregnancy and all of the ups and downs of this decision. Please pray also for this little baby boy who is growing and getting closer to being OUR boy with each passing day! We love you all so much. Praise God for His continued faithfulness and His glorious plan!

Trip to Great Mamaw Tate's

This past Thursday, Kilee and I got to take a day trip to my Mamaw's house. We had such a great time visiting and Kilee enjoyed playing games with her "Me-maw Kate" as she called her after we returned home. Here are a few pictures of our fun day!

After we had picked out our outfit for the day, I was reminded of a comment someone made at one of my baby showers. They told me that from now on, my children would always be better dressed than me. This is totally true, but I LOVE it! Here she is, rocking it out in her Garanimals. Work it, girlie! ;)

Playing catch with Mamaw Tate.

Good throw, Me-maw!

A big grin!

Ring around the rosie

Great-Mamaw and Kilee

Waiting for Baby . . .

As I mentioned a few posts back, this month marks 1 year since we started the adoption process. Granted, we did switch agencies in October and restarted the waiting process, but it has still been a long year. We definitely feel like our hearts are ready for our next little one and we are praying that he or she will come soon, however we are trying to daily (sometimes hourly) submit ourselves to the Lord's timing. It's so hard to wait when it seems like there are so many babies that need homes, but adoption is a painstaking process that must be completely followed no matter how long it takes. Sometimes when things are really quiet in the process, we start to wonder, "did we choose the right agency? is our family profile being well-received? why is this taking so long?" But the answer to each of these questions is two words, "trust Him." We know that the Lord has led us down this particular road and even when our faith waivers, He does not waiver. We need His loving reminders that His grace is sufficient for us. He will not leave us or forsake us. His plans are not our plans, nor His ways our ways.

We are so thankful to our friends and family for your excitement and prayerfulness through this adoption process. It means so much every time you ask us how things are going, even when we have nothing to tell you. Thank you for investing in our lives! Please continue to pray for us and our next little one whenever you can.

Visit with the Mudds

This past week, we had the pleasure of spending time with our dear friends Evan and Katie Mudd. Katie was my maid of honor at our wedding and she and her family now live in Wisconsin where they moved to help plant a church. Evan was in town for a work conference and so Katie and her two sons spent their time with us while Evan worked. We were so excited to have them!!! Kilee and Joshua played so well together and Baby David ("little D") was absolutely adorable. On Tuesday, we got to hang out with our dear friend Ainsley, too! We had such a great time!

So sweet! Kilee and Joshua decided to hold hands during lunch.

Kilee and Joshua eating raisins in their pj's.

Katie and Me

Ainsley, Katie and Me

The LBL Adventure Race!

This past weekend, Scott and my brother Jeremy competed in an adventure race called the LBL Challenge at Land Between the Lakes! They participated in 45 miles of trekking, orienteering, canoeing, and mountain biking over the course of 12 hours. Needless to say, it was totally exhausting! They completed 20 out of 23 checkpoints, which was pretty good for their first race! Here are some pictures of the event. We were so proud of them!

The Adventure Racers

Cinderella

These pictures are from Scott's brother Chris's musical, Cinderella. Obviously, these were taken before and after the performance. Chris is a high school choral teacher in Bowling Green and has done an OUTSTANDING job in his first year of teaching! Congrats on a wonderful musical, Chris!

Kilee and Uncle Chris

Great-Grandma

Kilee with her Mamaw and Eldon!

Around the House

Kilee is a creative little girl. I've especially noticed this lately during our playtime together. Here are some of her newest original ideas!

Going to bed with her baby. I couldn't believe she fit in this little play crib!

Kilee called me over to the kitchen table saying "spider! spider!" I took off my shoe and proceeded to look around for a creepy crawly little critter, but she was referring to her play-doh creation as pictured above. Isn't this cute?!

She liked wearing her lifejacket around the house the day before we rode on Papaw's boat. I think she was hoping we'd leave sooner if she went ahead and put it on!

Wearing Mommy's pajama pants as a dress.

Trip to LBL

This past weekend, we took a trip to LBL with my parents and my brother and his girlfriend, Katie. Since Mom is a teacher, thus a state employee, she gets a discount to state resort parks each year and we got to come, too! It was a great time. Kilee had a blast being the center of attention and she constantly said things that made everyone smile and laugh. Here are some pictures our our time together. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Dying eggs with Nana

Swimming with Nana and Papaw

Kilee and Mommy

Swimming lessons with Daddy

Pretty Katie

Yea Uncle J!

So cute in her wrap around towel!

Hunting eggs behind the cabin!

Family Picture

Our Adoption "Ticker"

Just a brief note about our adoption ticker to the right. You'll notice it has been changed to the amount of time we have been waiting with our current agency, not our overall wait time. We wanted to be able to keep track of how long it's been with this agency, because if we set it for our overall wait time, it would be 11 months today!

This may seem silly, but it's a little bit more encouraging to me to remember that it hasn't been that long with our current agency. So, I'm mostly doing this for my own encouragement more than anything else! ;) Please keep praying!

This is a brief timeline of our adoption:

March 2008 - God leads us to attend "Considering Adoption" class at church

April 2008 - God completely changes my heart about adoption and Scott and I move forward!

May 2008 - We choose our first agency and send in pre-application approval form. Began home study.

June 2008 - We're pre-approved with agency and begin work on 60 page application! Finish home study. Send in initial payment.

August 2008 - Receive full-approval from agency board. Make reservations to attend orientation in October.

October 2008 - Attend orientation at agency. Competely horrified to learn about policies within the agency that we cannot live with. Choose to withdraw application and go home.

Mid-October 2008 - Heartbroken over failed attempt with first agency, we receive a call from our home study agency that a local agency, Adoption Bridges of KY, needs profiles to show to specific demographics of birthmoms. We want to move forward, but we know that we cannot afford their fees. We pray about what we should do and . . .

God totally blows us AWAY with His complete faithfulness. We learn that a very substantial amount of money is anonymously donated to our adoption fund. And the next day, we learn that we are approved for the matching grant we had been praying for.

We cry. :o)

And praise God for what He has done!!!!

November 2008 - Our family profile is in circulation at ABOK. We attend orientation there and are certified as foster parents so that we can adopt in KY. (Not the same thing as foster-to-adopt, but we will be foster parents for the first 30-60 days of our child's life.)

Begin our monthly training sessions/support groups with the agency.

February 2009 - Take Infant CPR class as a part of training.

March 2009 - The wait continues!

March Pics

March has been another busy month for us! Scott has had a lot going on at work as he's trying to finish the computer program he's been working on since August. In additon to this, he and the other program staff at the office have been out at Cedarmore all week trying to finish the ziplines for camp this summer. Kilee and I went out to camp tonight to visit Scott and check out the zipline progress. It looks like SO much fun!

Kilee continues to grow like a weed. She is still loving school on Tuesdays and her teacher Mrs. Beth ("Mz. Buff" as Kilee calls her.) We are still in the process of waiting for baby. Our agency continues to tell us they think our match will be coming soon -- we are hopeful. It's hard to wait this long. We haven't been with our current agency for an incredibly long time, but we started the process with our former agency almost 11 months ago before we switched to ABOK in October. It's starting to feel like a really long time! We know that the Lord will bring us our baby when He sees fit and we try to keep this in mind when we get frustrated. Please continue to pray for our baby and for birthmom as there may be someone out there considering us right now!

Here are a few pictures from our March adventures. Kilee continues to wear her eyepatch 2-3 hours a day, alternating eyes. I think that it's helping, but we still see her eyes drift from time to time. She was so funny in this first picture. I was installing a carbon monoxide detector in our hallway and she was "reading" the instruction manual and telling me that the "book" was all about Elmo. So cute!

Kilee also decided to try out the old tricycle since we've had such nice weather this week. Each night, we took the tricycle out on the sidewalk and let her go. She's getting pretty good at it!



In addition to becoming a tricycle-rider, Kilee is trying out her culinary skills. Last Friday, it was my turn to host Bunko for our ladies' Bunko group and I needed to make brownies for the occasion. Kilee asked if she could help and we had so much fun! She is a GREAT egg-cracker and she loves to stir!

More posts to come!

Painting Pots

A couple of weeks ago, my 9th grade girls' group from church came over to bring in the spring season by painting flower pots! We had SO much fun! I was floored by their artistic abilities. They're just gifted girls all-around. I LOVE each and every one of them! Here are some pictures of our fun.

Our Little Gymnast!

Here are a few pictures from Kilee's Gymnastics Graduation Day. She does such a great job! Her teacher's name is Mrs. Sandie and we LOVE her. On Thursdays, Kilee wakes up and says, "It's a Miss Sannie Day!" Enjoy the pics of our little gymnast!

Small Group Time

Mommy and Kilee during Small Group Time

Daddy's up there taking pictures!

Before the backwards flip.

Kilee just kicks her legs over, sometimes before Mrs. Sandie is ready! Ha.

Almost done!

Good flip!

Jumping on the spring board

Doing a backwards bear crawl on 2 balance beams!

The rings!

Getting her ribbon with Mrs. Sandie!

Wearing the ribbon on her head. So, she's way cute, huh? :o)