Updates...

We decorated our house for the holidays a week ago! We had a fun family night of "decking the halls" and food!

Danny and the boys crashed before we finished.

They weren't up for the decoration-a-thon I had planned,

 I guess!

Adoption Update:

Our homestudy is finally complete! Our agency now has it and they are reviewing it before it is sent to the USCIS. They are supposed to be through reviewing it by the end of the week. (Please, please, please!!) And they will send it back to the social worker to correct any needed thing they found in need of change. (Which is also a short process) She will send it back to the agency who willl stamp it and send it on to the USCIS! That can take from 1-3 months, depending on how many people are awaiting international adoption approval in our state. We shall see. By the time we get a call from the USCIS, we will already have our dossier ready to send to Peru where we will wait on our final "stamp" of approval. That one usually takes a couple of months, but sometimes less. Finally, we will be able to begin the process of searching for our child. Some days I am thankful for all of this time to prepare for our new child. Some days it already feels like we have been waiting forever. As with ay life changing event coming in the near future- but still months away, it is as if I have to set it on the shelf of my heart and not allow myself to think about it constantly, or I would feel like this was all taking forever! We began the adoption journey 6 months ago. We will have a minimum of 6 months from here, even if everything was textbook, and we were immediatly matched with a child upon approval. I am praying for patience. We do still have a very large ammount of money to raise. We have raised $7800 up to date. We still have an aproximate $18,000 to raise. I think we will re-focus on our fundraising after the holidays. We are beyond thankful for all that God has provided. It has been amazing and stretching in so many ways. Hopefully I will be updating soon with news that our homestudy is on the way to the USCIS!! Please pray for us as we wait. Please pray for the child who will be ours. May God be glorified in it all!!