Let's start from the beginning...

I feel like since we are going to be finalizing the adoptions of both of our littlest boys in a few weeks, I should start from the beginning and explain how we got here.  I can't really remember all of what I documented about these adoptions and I really like to have it all down to refer back to and to share with those of you who are not in my "real life" circle of friends and who just found me in cyber space.  I am willing to disclose a bit more now that we are down to the wire, but will still be keeping the details to a minimum...

In April of 2011 (ironically within days of when our "baby" was placed in foster care) I photographed a couple of children who I fell in love with.  They were foster children.  I wanted them.  Plain and simple.  Sean and I knew we wanted to grow our family more.  We had discussed adopting again, but financially didn't know how that would be realistic for us right now.  We discussed doing foster care and just "seeing what happened", but never acted upon it.  I felt God leading us there through some new connections with people at that time.  Upon meeting these 2 young children, I called Sean.  Like while still in the car at the photoshoot.  I told him that I wanted these kids.  I was crying, it was a bit dramatic.  Shocker coming from me, right?! Ha.  To my surprise, he was receptive.  Not gung ho like me, but willing to listen and entertain the idea.  That's all it took and I was on the phone within a couple days setting up a time to get information on becoming a licensed foster family so we could adopt these 2 kids.  Little did I know, it doesn't really work that way.  I learned quickly that it may not happen smoothly, but I was willing to do whatever to at least try to get these children.

Within a month we were in the informational meeting and we were both convinced that this was a road we wanted to take.  We were scared and nervous, but it felt right.  We scheduled our training to begin at the end of the summer last year.

In PS-MAPP (training for foster families) classes that lasted 10 weeks, things changed.  We really evaluated what type of child would be best for our family considering all factors.  We discovered that the 2 kiddos (one of which ended up being reunited with her family anyway) may not be the best fit for us. 

Only a few weeks into PS-MAPP, a little 2 1/2 year old boy who needed a home was brought to our attention.  We saw his picture and oh my, he was ADORABLE.  So naturally we were intrigued.  We were told he had "extensive medical needs".  That's it.  He was on the website under the list of "Waiting Children" and so we inquired.  Technically, you aren't able to get information about these children unless you are already a licensed family, but somehow the fact that our homestudy still wasn't complete must have slipped through the cracks and we were provided with lots of details about this little guy.  Upon learning of his medical needs, we were scared off a bit.  Not that we weren't intersted, we just hadn't considered taking this type of thing on.  Sean was initially like, "no way" that's too much.  Then we read on...

There was a list of things that they wanted this little guy's adoptive family to have...

One parent in the medical field...check
One stay at home parent...check
Within driving distance to U of I Hospitals...check
Not a resident of Iowa City...check
Large support system...check
Only children in the home older than said 2 1/2 year old...check

Ummmm...ok God, we get it.  We ARE the family for this one...we just knew it.  So the minute our homestudy was complete, we sent it with a cover letter explaining why we felt that we were the best fit as a Mommy and Daddy for this little 2 1/2 year old bundle of joy. :)  We waited...

THE DAY AFTER our license was approved, we got a call.  It was for a baby, 10 months old, lot's of medical/mental health needs.  Again...mental health needs?  We never considered or thought about the possibility of having to deal with that.  We still had that little now 3 year old in our hearts.  We contacted his caseworker and inquired as to whether a decision had been made.  To make a long story short, we were pretty much told we should take other children at this time and the chances of getting this little guy weren't great.  Sadly, we accepted this knowing there was a possibility that we may still get the opportunity to raise him, but it wasn't likely.  We met the sweet 10 month old bundle and FELL IN LOVE.  We were smitten.  We were scared.  We didn't know if we would get to adopt him or not, but we were willing to take the risk and fall head over heels in love with him.  We did.  On Christmas Day he came to live with us.  Best.Gift.Ever.

2 weeks later, we got the call that sent us into a tailspin.  "Oops, we do believe you actually might be the best candidate for that little 3 year old."  Oh my, panic set in.  Well God, you've opened this door for us, we will walk through and explore.  We did.  We fell in love again.  To make a long story short again, the little 3 year old love was placed in our home on March 8th.

Since then, things have been a WHIRLWIND!  We have had an average of 6 appointments per week between these 2, we bought a house, moved, had a hospital stay with our middle child for a week (while remodeling our home), Tate graduated from preschool and started Kindergarten, our 3 year old started preschool, in the midst of all of that our baby started to crawl and eat solids and grow and change and develop more rapidly than we (or any of his doctors and therapists) ever dreamed and now we are in the midst of getting things prepared to finalize the adoptions of these 2 amazing boys who in our hearts and minds have already been finalized as our children.  Also, we have decided to renew our license so we are in the midst of trying to get all of our necessary hours under our belts that we need to renew.  It's been THE CRAZIEST year of our lives! 

Can't wait to share their faces and more details with you all in a few short weeks!

Adoption Paperwork...

We signed it this morning.  Seriously, I got butterflies just typing that! EEEEEKKKKK!!!!  I even bought a "Big Brother" shirt for Tate to wear at the adoption hearing...I am serious, it's THAT close that I am already thinking about the kids' wardrobes. :) 

Please know that if you are a close friend or family member, we are welcoming you to attend the finalization hearing.  So many of you have been such an incredible support to us and it would mean the world to us if you were there to see the 5 of us LEGALLY become a family...however, we already are a family in our hearts.  It will be an indescribable day and so many of you have played huge parts in us getting here.

As soon as we know the date, we will let you know.  The hearing will be held at 8:30am on a weekday sometime in September.  That's ALL we know as of now.  We plan to have a bit of a gathering/reception with breakfast at our home following the hearing.

Oops...

Well, apparently my phone has my private blog and my public blog mixed up...in the last 2 days when I have been posting from my phone, I have posted 3 posts (with pictures of our littles) that were supposed to be put on the private blog and they accidentally got put on my public blog.  So, if you happened to check out my blog in that 2 minutes the pictures were on here before I was able to get them switched, you got a sneak peek. :)

Rules

Tate had to write out and draw 1 rule he thought of for school and 1 for home.  He brought the worksheets home yesterday.  So cute.

beautiful finds at the Farmer's Market...

I went to the Farmer's Market this morning with Lora, Sophia and my baby. It was fun to just have the little ones. James watched the big kids. :) Thanks, James!

 

Amongst other things, I purchased some beautiful sunflowers from Seeded Earth.  Seeded Earth is owned by an old highschool friend of mine and she has beautiful things!

 

I love sunflowers.

Funny though, my favorite things about sunflowers aren't the beautiful, bright yellow petals, but all the other parts.

Loved taking these pictures...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And they look fantastic in my livingroom...it's meant to have sunflowers displayed in it. :)  Wish I could have them displayed all year round in there!

Hand me downs...

Tate's favorite clothes are the ones he knows his cousins Brigg or Bode have worn before him.  He recently got some jammie pants and a robe that were Bode's...he loves them! :-) 

Photo Dump #2

Still can't get the photos I want out of one of my albums on my phone! ANNOYING! Due to that, this will be completing my photo dumps for the night.

Tate loves the mini carts at Hy-Vee.  So do I...it keeps him occupied and feeling pretty big time...

 

I still haven't Scotch Garded my couches.  I know, I know...my mom is going to be so irritated with me. :)

The morning of Tate's 1st day of school.  He is addicted to this stuffed monkey and he had it taken away from him a week or so prior to that morning because of some bad choices he made.  I gave it back moments before this picture was taken so he insisted on the monkey being in the picture with us.

My morning survival...

My afternoon survival at least once a week...

 

On a side note...I think I'm comind down with a cold or my allergies are really flared up.  Unfortunately, I am pretty certain it's a cold.  Ugh.
Goodnight!

Photo Dump #1

Several of these pictures you may have already seen if you follow me on Instagram or are friends with me on Facebook. :)

Photo Dump #'s 2-856 should be coming soon, but I am having problems figuring out how to get the photos in a certain folder on my phone onto my computer.  Any help would be appreciated...it's so frustrating.

Tate and I...don't even remember taking this.

 

I want this clock...ours broke in the move and I saw this one at the mall...

Our basement still looks like this.  Ugh...

I feel like half of my life is spent in these little doctors offices with my 2 littles...

Tate got orange skinny jeans...only he's so skinny that they don't look "skinny" on him...

The Burback Kids came and stayed with us a couple of weekends ago.  Tate was in heaven with his cousins...

I served them a breakfast of cinnamon and orange rolls on the porch...

Brenda clearly doesn't know how to do the duck face...

I LOVE my bedroom.  I have never had a bedroom that I loved until this house.  I spend lots of time laying in bed, watching TV in the evenings. :)

No recollection of taking this picture either, but it was on unpack your backpack night.  Tate loves this hat...has had it for 2 years.

Unpack your backpack night!

Tate's friend Kiley goes to Adams too! :)  We get to have her and Ava a few days a week after school until their parents get off work.  The kids love it.

Tate and I in Kinnick Stadium for Kids at Kinnick.

Sean and I at Kinnick...

Chris and Brenda moved back to Iowa several weeks ago.  It's nice to be able to have them over and just hang out whenever we want to see them!

We had Stewart Girls Night out with my mom, sister and sister-in-law.  It was so much fun!

Worked on the duck face with mom...she's terrible at it!  The guy at the table next to us saw us taking this and said, "that's more like 'sucking through a straw face'."  HA!

We'll stick with our normal faces...

However, Brenda has CLEARLY mastered the duck face since the first time she tried and it just must come natural for Cassie and I. ;) Ha.

This is more natural for Cassie though...

 

More to come!

vacationing...

It's strange...for the first time ever, we are limited to the dates of when we can vacation.  Spring break, Christmas break or summer.  So we plan to fit things in for sure.  Originally, we thought maybe we'd do a cruise (no kids!) over spring break, but due to the fact that we really wanted to do that trip with at least 1 other couple and no one else was game this year, we had to think of something else.  So Florida it is. :)  Our 2 littles have never been.  I CANNOT wait to take them.  Especially our middle child...he gets amazed by almost everything new he sees.  He will love it!  We may drive, but since our middle is completely OBSESSED with airplanes and if we flew we could spend an extra couple of days down there, we may bite the bullet and fly.  It's looking like we will be down there alone part of the time, with my parents part of the time, with some friends part of the time and just this morning I found out that another set of friends is likely going to be down there at the same time in the same area so we will hopefully get to meet up with them as well!  Is it bad that I am already looking forward to our spring break trip and it's still August?!  Ha. :)

Hoping to squeeze in a couple of other weekends away between now and then.  I wouldn't mind doing a few days in NYC.  (MOM????  You in?  You ARE having a big birthday this year! ;)) We'll see. 

For right now, with my 2 oldest kiddos in school, I feel like I am on vacation right now!  I'm hoping that feeling doesn't wear off.  I mean, c'mon...I have time to blog...in the middle of the day!  Unheard of!

and another one starts school...

Tate's 1st week of school went great!  He is goig to do really well, I think.  He loved it!

Our 3 year old starts his first day of preschool tomorrow!  Eek!  That means, I'll be home alone with the baby from 8-2 Monday through Friday.  Not gonna lie...I am pretty excited about this!  However, it will not be leisurely, that's for sure.  Our baby, as you all probably know, has several appointments per week, so it will just make things easier for me when it comes to those appointments since it will just be the 2 of us.  I won't have to lug any other kids with me, or keep kids out of the way when the appointments are at our home.  It will be nice.

I am also super excited that I can say I currently do not have any outstanding photos to edit from my shoots.  I just completed the edits today from my last shoot that I had.  It is such a good feeling to be free of editing for the next week or 2...that is unless I want to finally edit some personal pics!  I need to take some personal pictures to edit first.  I will be taking several of our 3 year old for his first day of preschool tomorrow, but unfortunately it will be a few weeks before I can post those! :)

I am looking forward to coffee tomorrow morning with a friend and then hearing how our middle did on his first day after school gets out.  For now, I better get things set up for his mini photoshoot in the morning! :)

and he's gone...

That's how I feel...like he's gone...forever.

Now, while he's living with us, he'll never NOT be a student (well at least we hope!  Ha.).

Then, he'll move out and go to college and drink under age and party and not call home and won't hug me anymore, I won't know where he's at or what he's doing at all times, he will skip class and eat frozen pizzas and cheetos all day and will be embarrassed of me.

Okay, that may be a bit overboard, but in this moment, that's how I feel.

I want time to freeze...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I want him to always willingly pose with his arm around me for pictures.
I want him to always give me kisses when I ask for them or even when I don't.  I want him to flash me the "I love you" sign unprompted and hold my hand when he is walking next to me.

He didn't look back when he got out of the van...not once.
He ran off to line up with his class.
He didn't even say goodbye.

We are so proud of him and I am just not ready to have a Kindergartener yet...not at all.
I remember like it was YESTERDAY when we were praying for a child, when we got "the call", when we layed eyes on him for the first time and then minutes later, put him in our car and drove away.  I will never forget his 1st birthday, his first steps, first word, first surgery.  I will never forget this day.
It's still unreal to me that my baby is a Kindergartener...because that's what he is, he's my BABY!
We love you Tate Kenneth and are so proud of the little boy you have become! 

this boy...

This boy...

 

...and this boy...

...and this one...

...and this one...

...and this one too...

...and don't forget about him...

...oh, and this one who is so excited for preschool roundup...

...and this one...

...and this one on his first day of preschool...

...and this one...

 

...yup, those are all my baby.  Even in this most recent picture, he is my baby.  He is the one who I have spent nearly every waking moment with since the moment he was first placed in my arms.  He is the one who made me a mother, who made me realize I never knew what love really was.  He was the one who brought me closer to God, who strengthened my faith, who made me want to live for something so much more.  He is my baby.

 

He starts Kindergarten in the morning and it's almost too much for me to take.

The end.