Day 15

Hi all!
Do you ever feel like you cannot catch up no matter how hard you try? Honestly, I have felt a little overwhelmed in every aspect of my life right now. Christmas is coming and I am NOT ready! We are finishing our last week of school before break and trying to help the kiddos make it through this week! Masters classes were ending, so I had finals this week. Then our adoption stuff too! WHEW...this week is almost over. I haven't really been able to focus yet on our adoption scrapbook, because of all of the above and I am really looking forward to just finally diving into it over break! Tons of ideas are swirling around in my head. My friend, Jess, gave me her book to look through which really helped me have a template! Yesterday, Matt and I had our first home study. We met our new social worker, Heather. She is really sweet and is around our age. We both felt really comfortable with her. Yesterday, we went over the LONG checklist of things we have to get done during our home studies. When I say long...I mean long! Just lots of background checks, CPS report, driving record, insurances, taxes, pay stubs, physical, etc. None of the paperwork was hard..just a lot of things to gather and collect and think about. Matt and I are so good though, we already have two things checked off the list...YEAH! We are so excited and really can't wait to meet our little one! Our next home study is Wednesday, December 30th. We will meet Heather at the agency. This will be the personal one, where we discuss our history, views of parenting, childcare, and what we want for our child. After that one, she will come to our home and be sure it is suitable for a child. When we left yesterday, we realized each appointment or each thing we complete gets us closer to our baby! Very exciting and a little nerve wrecking too. Our dear friend, Mia, who works for an advertising agency gave us our first real baby item. It was a case of formula that she was using for a project. Silly how exciting it is to get something "baby". We are hoping to get started on making the closet bigger and moving our laundry room, so our new little one has some where to put his or her clothes...so that means we will be contacting Adam or Matt in January...hopefully they will be willing! Well, I think that is it! I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas! Talk to you soon!