We’re planning a huge yard sale for Saturday, April 24th. If you’ve got stuff you don’t want lying around your house just collecting dust, please consider giving it to us for our yard sale. As they say one man’s junk, another man’s treasure.

We have a truck and we’re more than willing to come pick up whatever you have. Also, if you overhear friends trying to get rid of stuff, please ask them to donate too!

Our first immediate goal is $7,500. This amount will pay for our formal application fee, home study, and agency fee. Once we have this amount and finish our home study, we can go on the officially “waiting for a baby” list. Then we’ll have about a year to raise the additional $22,000.

So bring on the junk…

As ya’ll know we’ve been on a waiting list for about 6 months. Hadn’t told everyone but about two weeks ago we were told that they only received 7 spots for the year (this means only 7 couples on the waiting list will be allowed to adopt from South Korea this year). We were number 16 on the list, however there were a lot of Korean couples below us on the list who are given preference and moved to the top (obviously they’d rather a Korean baby grow up with Korean parents). We were told the odds were VERY SLIM that we would be given a spot.

Over the last two weeks they went down through the list giving out the spots. AND amazingly they made it to our name on the list and we were given one of the spots!

This means we can officially start the process now (home study, mounds of paperwork, raising a bazillion dollars, etc.).

I can’t tell you how excited we are. We feel SOOO blessed to have such great prayer warriors who PRAYED US INTO A SPOT! THANK YOU!!!!!

Here’s the scoop… our agency sent out an email this week stating they had received their quota for the year (seven spots… we’re number 16 on the list). We knew this was going to happen so not too stressed yet. They basically wanted everyone who was still interested in adopting to reply to them before March 1st. I IMMEDIATELY (well right after calling Daniel) emailed them to let them know WE WANTED A SPOT!

Then came the depressing news… only seven spots and they have a lot of families of Korean heritage this year. Those couples are automatically moved to the top of the list despite where they were on the list. Obviously a Korean child would benefit from having Korean parents so I understand… but still…

So even though all bets aren’t off yet, we’ve been told our odds are not very good at all. We should know sometime after March 1st.

Please pray for us to have wisdom to make the right choices, the guts to go for whatever we think God wants for us, and the strength to deal with the already coming heartaches.

We should hear anytime whether we are one of the lucky couples given a spot and able to officially start the adoption process! I’m nervous… very nervous!

Believing that God will provide the money for us to adopt and actually waiting for it to play out is a beast. I’m so worried about so many different things and trying to convince my head to believe what my heart knows to be true… feel like I wrestle with this a lot.

I guess it’s the control freak in me that BEGS for some kind of proof that it will all work out. Because I handle our money and I KNOW, quite honestly, we ain’t got it!

It would just be nice to know that…

• We WILL be given one of the South Korean spots this year!
• We WON’T have any emergencies that will suck up our application fee that we’ve saved.
• Our application WILL be accepted by our agency.
• He WILL provide the $1,800 we’ll need for our home study.
• He WILL give us a GREAT social worker who won’t care that our carpet’s falling apart, our dogs like to put random holes in the walls of our laundry room and rip up the flooring, that our money situation never adds up on paper but that we have a GOD who always makes it okay, that we will be able to provide for a child despite it all, and that will “get” us and know that we desperately want this and feel it’s what God wants FOR us.
• He WILL give us the strength and clear mind that it’s going to take to complete the mounds of paperwork with accuracy and to their specifications.
• He WILL provide $5,150+ to pay our agency.
• South Korea WON’T have any problems with giving two “poor” people a child.
• That it WON’T take years to get a referral.
• That He WILL will provide $16,000+ to send South Korea once we accept a referral.
• That our local government WILL have grace on us and not require us to jump through even more hoops.
• That South Korea WILL complete all of the necessary paperwork and approve our baby’s VISA in a relatively short amount of time.
• He WILL provide $5,000+ we’ll need to travel to South Korea to pick up our baby.
• That our post adoption reports back here in the States will go well… we’ll find the additional $1,000 to cover the costs.
• That our marriage will remain GREAT and strong enough to handle all of the stress that’s going to come along with this adoption.
• That we will have strength and wisdom to deal with any problems that come from adopting a baby from a foreign country, taking them from the only life they’ve ever known and forcing them to live with two white people!

There’s just so many things weighing on my shoulders right now. Sometimes it can get a little overwhelming to think about all of the obstacles we are facing and quite honestly I need your prayers!

“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory…” Eph. 3:20

Disclaimer… I’ve never been one to like the “baby-looking” stuff. Just not my thing… I know some of you probably love all that pastel bears and ducky stuff… it’s just not me! Sorry… So fair warning… below are not “baby” ideas… but granted the “baby” won’t be a baby for very long and these ideas could easily move to my master or guest bedroom if our child decided he or she wanted a batman room

Picture this…

Colors: deep red, black, and white

Painting underneath the chair-rail a shade of red similar to this…And yes I know that’s going to be a lot of fun to paint over someday Anyway…

Leave upper walls, doors, and moulding white.

For fabrics… check out these swatches I threw together that I LOVE… 

I’ve always loved toile and damask… and think it could make for a very pretty quilt I already clued mom into the fabrics that I love and put a bug in her ear about putting them together for me since she’s become quite the quilter :) hehe (Mom I’m thinking while I’m out and about, if I find a fabric I love I’ll pick up a couple of yards of it)

Anyways, figured it shouldn’t be too hard to find complementary sheets and bumper pad to match…

We already have a crib and dresser compliments of Daniel’s parents. Would LOVE one of those shelving units at Target that you place the large baskets in. Figured that would be a great find to keep toys, miscellaneous clothing, whatever, etc.

Also we have a glider and ottoman to be re-covered. Seriously considering covering it in a heavy-weight black material (yes I know it will constantly be covered in fuzz but that’s okay). Would love to have damask and striped pillows for the ottoman.

Wall art – Have lots of ideas for things to put on the wall… but will ultimately depend on the deals I find while out and about

Really wanted to go with something that could easily be adapted for a boy or a girl since we might not know until pretty late in the process. Also would love to be able to incorporate some asian decor into the room… these are some ideas I’m throwing around to customize it depending on the sex…

Boy – how cool would it be to incorporate the asian dragon into the mix somehow? All those fun colors up again dark red walls, blacks and whites… pretty sure I don’t want a life-sized dragon in the room, but wondering if I can find something fun somewhere… if anybody’s making a trip to Chinatown let me know! haha

Girl – those pretty little china dolls… yeah I know our child will be Korean but I didn’t think anyone would know what I was talking about if I said Korean dolls

So that’s what I’m thinking… probably going to work on getting the room cleaned out soon and paint on the walls. We’ll be replacing the carpet soon and would like to paint first since we tend to be sloppy sometimes

1) We need STUFF!!! We’re planning a gigantic yard sale this Spring to help us raise money for our application fee, home study fee, etc. etc. etc. We just finished organizing our garage to make room for more yard sale items. We’ll take just about anything… one man’s junk, another man’s treasure! We’ll come pick up too!!

2) MORE IMPORTANTLY… we need PRAYER! I mentioned before that adopting from South Korea is a little bit of a gamble. We are on a waiting list. Our agency is only given a few spots each year and it’s possible that we may not be one of the lucky couples… please please please PRAY that we will be one of the couples that’s given a spot. If not, we will have to wait until 2011 to START the process!!! Or change agencies, countries, etc. and we’re NOT very fond of that idea at all!

Seems like Daniel and I have talked more and more about the adoption in the last couple of weeks. Here’s a few of the conversations we’ve had…

• We’ve thought that 2010 will hopefully be the year that our baby is born! We could be chosen as a family for this baby during the year 2010! We could get pictures of our baby this year!
• We’ve dreamed that for our 10 year anniversary (Jan. 2011) we could (by some remote chance) be travelling to South Korea to pick up our child! Could we even think of a better anniversary celebration?!? I don’t think so! This is pretty far-fetched but I like to ask God for impossible things and give him an opportunity to really show off!
• We’ve thought that this will be one of our very last Christmases just the two of us! Soon we will be caught up in sharing our Christmas traditions with our baby! Buying new pj’s for Christmas Eve, baking cookies for Santa, putting out reindeer food, buying our child coloring books and crayons for their stocking, watching Rudolph and Frostie with our baby, having another being in our house (besides Daniel) to make suffer through watching all of my favorite old movies: Holiday Inn, White Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, Meet Me in St. Louis…

There’s just so many things to look forward to… it’s overwhelming even to consider all of this! Here’s to hoping 2010 will be a year of celebration!!

Please pray specifically…

• that all portions of the process go smoothly and better than imagined
• a QUICK and painless 24 hour flight home with a baby that doesn’t know they’ve been praying and begging God for her for FIVE YEARS! All she knows is she’s been taken away from everyone and everything she knows.
• that God will give them the strength to deal with whatever obstacles Sara might need to overcome

I can’t imagine how excited they are!!

THIS is a squatty potty… apparently THIS is what Easterners use for a… uh… toilet! So yeah… this might be one of the most interesting “attractions” we discover in South Korea when we go pick up our kid one day WOW!