Case Approved!!!!

I am so excited to tell y'all that our case was approved!

I am in shock because I was really preparing myself for it not to happen, especially during our first court appearance. When I was first told of our court date, I waivered between telling people or keeping it to ourselves. My nature is to do the latter but I really felt God leading me to involve others, to ask for prayers, and to let everyone experience this with us.

So I did and as a result, grew so close to my God this past month. Trusting Him for His will, preparing to give Him glory no matter what happened, watching in awe and humility as He encouraged me again and again through friends & family praying for us and for Cole.

So what's next? As much as I'd love to say we were getting on a plane tomorrow, we wait for the judge's signature, Cole's passport & our travel visas. If all goes smoothly, we'd love to be able to leave May 30th and have Cole in our arms in plenty of time for his first birthday!!

Thank you again to everyone who has encouraged us and prayed for us. And thanks to God, the powerful almighty Creator of the universe who loves us so intimately to work on our behalf for His glory.

Joy!

I can not tell you how excited I was to get these pictures today. They are from earlier in the month but it is so great to see him looking awake and healthy! Thank you to the family that took them for us!

Raising money, Spending money

We held a fundraiser this weekend by hosting a Gold Party. It's such a neat concept though somewhat unknown. People bring their unwanted gold, silver and platinum and get cash for it on the spot. For hosting, we get 20% (normally 10% if not a fundraiser) of the total money given out. We just had two sweet friends come and show their support but we are excited to use the money we earned plus that given to us by a few other friends to help meet some needs of the orphans in India.

As for spending, get to a Kmart this week because they are having double and triple coupons. I went tonight and saved around $50. I got all this for $34.60 (would have been over $80). You can click the button, STL Mommy, to the right to see all the ways to save big! I can't wait to go back again later in the week when they hopefully restock their shelves. :)

Happy Easter

We hope everyone has a blessed Easter weekend. He is risen!

This is it!

The Article 5 came through - already! I can't tell you how relieved (and surprised) at how smoothly everything has gone so far. Now the challenging wait for that last step - guardianship.
We also got new pictures today. All I can say is that he needs to be home...

Getting Closer!

Found out today that our case has gone through the scrutinization process in the courts! Under the new 800 system, we have to have an Article 5 document issued before we can be given guardianship. Hopefully that will come soon and then the wait for the elusive judge's signature will begin!

Back to reality

We are back from Disney and adjusting to real life again (laundry, grocery, flooded basement, blah blah blah). We had such a wonderful time - I could stay there forever, it's so magical. Here are a few pictures.