With Love, Mommy

We are trying to prepare as much as possible during this waiting period.  I worked very hard to finish our scrapbook last weekend, and it's looking good.  This scrapbook is something that our licensing worker will show to CPS caseworker when they are deciding if we are a good match for kids.  We will also use it to show the children so they know what to expect.  We have pictures of our house and backyard, their room, and our family.  We have pictures of our extended family, our pets, and the activities we like to do like going to the park, the zoo, Disneyland, and the children's museum.  We also included a page for each of us on our hobbies. I am also trying to get our organization systems ready before we hear about the kids.  We will have binders for each kiddo with medical information, incident reports, important contact numbers, and reports from CPS, therapists, or any other professionals in their team.  There are so many things to get ready! We received a letter from th

Our homestudy is officially in the hands of the state of Arizona!  Our adoption application was mailed on Monday to the Court and they will make the final decision if we are certified for adoption.  Today, our foster care homestudy was submitted to the state board.  The foster care homestudy will be reviewed separately and we will be licensed based on the investigation that we have been through.  So now, we wait!  It will take a few weeks to hear back about both of these.  There is a potential that kids may be matched and even placed in our home before we are licensed though.  So we are busy preparing ourselves! There are a few very important things that I would like to mention.  Remember that these kids will be coming into our home from foster care, which means that we have very strict rules until they are officially adopted.  We are not allowed to publicly share pictures of the children or any details about their case plan, for their own safety.  Pictures in particular, are to be s

We have some good news!  We are practically "paper pregnant"!  Maybe there's no growing belly or morning sickness, but we are EXPECTING!  We are expecting one or two children to love, we are expecting years of happiness, we are expecting laughter and tears, and we are expecting to complete our family in the most amazing way.  And now starts the waiting game. Details, you ask?  Well, we met with our licensing worker last Tuesday.  We passed our second inspection with flying colors, which means that we now go to quarterly inspections until we are no longer licensed for foster care.  We had our couple's interview and finished talking about some of the details.  We talked about the children that we feel we would be able to parent, along with their special needs.  We feel like we can be good parents to children with developmental delays, some medical issues, or emotional issues.  We do have some limits, but these children all deserve a loving home and family. Our adopt