Moving Right Along

We had our home inspection, done by the Wichita Children's Home, on Monday. It went really well. We both felt really comfortable with the two social workers who came out the house. They were both entertained by Frankie the Bulldog and his crazy sidekick, Lamar the Cat. It was interesting to say the least! :) Despite our crazy animals, our social workers liked us and were excited about having us on board. We submitted our KS criminal background check and child abuse registry check forms last week. In the mail today, our licensing packet should have arrived. (Nathan is on his way home at this moment to check on the whereabouts of said packet!) On Monday evening, we begin our seven week course, called Deciding Together, otherwise known as DT. We are both so excited!!!

Other neat pieces of news: As of next week, I will be half time at the office. Once we license I will be a full time momma but for now, I'll be working four hours a day. I'm excited about this change. It will be wonderful to have more time at home to keep things in order and more time with my church kiddos. I've really been missing them since I went to work full time. Also, through my job, I met a great artist, she is the local art teacher at the high school. She painted a wonderful mural at the Child Advocacy Center and she and I are working on the possibility of her painting murals in both bedrooms that we will be using for all the kiddos. She told me today not to worry about the money, we'd work something out, because she thought Nathan and I are doing such a great thing. I thought that was really generous of her. Her work is really beautiful and I've already got some ideas of how I'd like her to paint our rooms. Also, Nathan's grandparents apparently snagged us a really nice stroller so he's bringing that home today too. He told me that his cousin Lindsay, might have a nice convertible crib we could buy. We are wanting two convertible cribs, so that we can adjust to accommodate whatever ages of kiddos we might get. I went to a yard sale on my way to work this morning and got a bunch of little girls clothes, a crib sheet and bumper set for a girl, a neat bouncy play pen, a little boys bike, a toddler bed for a boy, and some cute little toys. I was pretty excited about those finds! And the greatest news of all for today is, Nathan finally was called for an interview with Hawker Beechcraft for the internship they wanted to create for him. He said it went really well and he expects to hear more from them sometime next week, so be praying for this job!!!

So, all in all, there is a lot happening right now. As is usually the case with our lives with God, when we're finally on His path, things move at warp speeds. It can often take us a while to figure out just where we're headed but every change seems to have brought us closer to where He wants us to be. I'm so excited about where we're at and I'm looking forward to what happens next! Be blessed all...

More Stuff

After a lot of prayer and discussion, we have decided that the dynamic duo is not the right match for our home. It was a very hard decision because these boys are desperately in need of a home. We wanted so badly to be a good match for them, but we are not. We are praying for a good home for them and we would ask that you would do the same.

Thinking about the boys and working toward a decision about them has really opened our hearts to some different things. We have a good friend, whose oldest son is in our youth group, that does emergency placement for infants and toddlers. She and her family take in these little ones for the first 72 hours of police protective custody. During that time, social workers work to find an appropriate long term placement for the child. If the child goes into care long term, the emergency placement family has the option of taking the child in for a longer period. If the parental rights are terminated for the child, then they have the opportunity to adopt the child. Our friends have adopted three of their four children this way. After some more thought and prayer, we have decided that this might be the right path for us. It would require that I stay at home and Nathan have a much better job than the one he has right now. We still have not heard anything from Hawker Beechcraft but Nathan did interview at Coca Cola yesterday morning so we are hopeful about that position. We have chosen to go through training with the agency that our friends work with, called Wichita Children's Home. We have a home inspection with one of the recruiters for the children's home on Monday evening. We are excited about this new possibility but as always are praying for God's continued leading. Thank you for keeping up with us. We love you all!