What a Week!!

It's the busy holiday season and we all have A LOT on our plates, Christmas shopping, holiday events, family get together's....all fun but when you add it together it can leave you feeling worn out.
  Last week on Tuesday I began working on our shutterfly profile photo album. The book that the birth mother will select us by. I knew this was going to be no easy task because I have created a shutterfly album for my mom of her and Maylena for a Christmas gift last year...it took me 3 hrs to make and I wasn't trying to impress anyone but myself. This go around our whole lives needed to be packed into just 20 pages, with not too much wording but also enough to tell a story about your family. Starting before marriage until now. It was hard just thinking about how to start. Finding photos spread out over that many years was task number 1. Then last Tuesday after my 10 hour work day I on a whim began the book and as Billy went to bed I shut myself in my closet with the light on and ended up working 3 hrs and didn't go to bed until close to midnight. By the end of that first night it wasn't looking too good. I spent that long and hardly got anywhere. The options are endless as to layouts, backgrounds, etc. Working multiple late nights and some over the weekend I finally accomplished a rough draft about 16 hrs of work later. Next I had to submit it to a lady who works at the agency for review and critique. I held my breath hoping for good news. I really wanted this book done as soon as possible because shutterfly has their photo books on sale this month for 50% off and I really want to get in on that deal since we need it soon anyway. Debbie, from the agency reviewed it and gave minor changes that were quickly fixed and I was so happy! Now that big project is finally off my plate. Just when I completed it and felt the burden lift, we woke up to our downstairs heat broke in Monday morning. Billy immediately contacted the family friend, the only one we trust to work on our units, only to hear he is in the hospital and can't come out until probably later this week. Thankfully we have had milder weather this week and all our bedrooms are upstairs where the heat still works. We have been plugging in a couple of space heaters in the rooms we sit in downstairs and we are making it work. That same day that the heat broke Maylena started getting really sick by the afternoon and we called to make her an appointment but they couldn't see her until today. Turns out she has pink eye in both eyes and a bad sinus infection!! We are going through it right now. I always know we are on the right track when obstacles fill the path. But we will continue to press onward through these attacks. However I would appreciate prayers over our family for our health, safety, and this adoption process.
   We heard from our social worker yesterday and she will come out to our house this saturday at 9am to walk thru our home and meet briefly with Maylena and talk to her. She is hoping to have our home study submitted to the agency for review by Christmas. It's still blowing my mind how fast this has all started to move. I will attach a link to the blog or through Billys Facebook page soon for those of you who are interested in viewing the album I put together.