Blessings

  On Friday I made my way to the post office to mail out the funds raised to The Apparent Project after dropping Maylena off at preschool. I closed out the first set of product they sent me which was the necklaces, bracelets and earrings....and thanks to all of your generous support we raised $398 for the people in Haiti and $398 to go towards our adoption!!! Wow, amazing that we raised that off the first fundraiser alone and were able to send that to Haiti with your help. We are almost ready to send back the second shipment of unsold product from the bracelets and ornaments they gave me next. I think every single ornament sold out of the 100 ornaments they sent and that was in a large part due to my wonderful mother-in-law, Debbie, helping get the word out and showing all of this Haiti product to many friends and family members. Soon I will know the total on that fundraiser.
  We are still in the works on our formal application. I attached a lot of needed documents this past Friday while Maylena was at school. I use those 3 hrs every week for catch up on all kinds of errands and I do a lot of adoption tasks that day as well. I was able to upload our marriage certificate, birth certificates on all 3 of us, recent bank statement, Maylena's medical form that was filled out by her doctor, tax return information from last year, and a signed consent form. There is still a few more items to complete and the deposit to pay to get our home study started, but its right around the corner for us. The main tasks left is for me and Billy to finish our autobiographies and upload those as well as meet with our pastor so he can fill out a letter of reference on us. We hope to be done with these last couple of needs in the next 2 weeks, and then I will be able to update you about the home study as we go along. Can't wait for that to start because then it feels more official.
  Maylena is getting so excited about having a baby brother. She talks about how she will hold him and help change his diaper, and help give him a bottle...we will see if that all comes true, but she can't wait to be a helper. We have started clearing out what was our guest room to turn it in to his nursery. We got rid of the older queen mattress and took down the bed frame to store away. We have been sorting through baby stuff and I set up the changing table topper on the dresser we put in there and I have a blue cover on it and a few little boy blankets I recently picked up at a consignment sale. We are trying to start working on the nursery bit by bit so when the time comes and we are matched with a birthmother we have things done and we aren't scrambling last minute to put it all together. It's exciting doing another baby's room!!