Birthday Boy!

One of the few pictures taken on his actual birthday. It's bedtime, but I don't think he had caught on to that yet :)

Reading his first ever birthday card. He loved it, but when he started to bend it, I took it back. It has to be perfect for the baby book, right??

Disclaimer: Our house isn't always that messy. I had spent the last day or so sorting all the girl clothes that were given to us, and that huge pile was what we're keeping!

Trapped!

Mark put Steven on our bed while he was changing clothes, and when he turned around, this is what he found.

Steven, obviously, thought it was hilarious. What a goof!

In Jail

I took this pictures because of the shirt he's wearing. He's wearing a plaid button down, and if you know Mark at all, you know he's usually sporting the same look. When I saw the shirt on sale at Children's Place, I had to buy it.

However, in these pictures, he looks more like a little jail bird!


We make sure we put the gate high enough for the cat to get under it, and Mark was telling me that I was putting it to high. I disagreed. . .until Steven crawled under it one day. This day, however, it was not high enough for him to escape, despite his determined attempts.

Mom, stop taking pictures and get me out!

In the Mail

Today I sent our completed paperwork to the adoption agency. It included a lot of different forms:

Mark's 2008 self study
Rebekah's 2008 self study
Sadie's vet records
Josie's vet records
Steven's immunization records
Our statement of faith
A signed copy of the agency's statement of faith
A signed copy of the agency's disciplinary policy
A signed copy of permission to access our work records (one for each of us)
A signed statment saying we received the privacy policy information
Fingerprinting forms (one for each of us)
A copy of my physical results (Mark's will be mailed by the doctor)
And, at least several more documents that I'm not remembering.

What did our packet NOT include?
The check. It's still in my wallet :(

Still to do:
Complete and send in financial statement (forgot about it until I saw it this morning)
Send the check that's sitting in my wallet
Request one last letter from doctor.

Could that possibly be it? I doubt it, but I can't think of anything else right now!

Pictures!

Here's my little tiger from Halloween. Don't you just love his little tongue in the last picture!!

Almost There!

On the days that we've both been home with Steven, we've been working with him on walking, and he is getting the hand of it! He's gone at least 4 steps before either falling down or reaching his destination. We might have a walker by Monday!

My temp. job is done now too. Yay! I didn't mind the work, and I'll definitely miss my new friends, but our house definitely reflects the fact that I've been working full time for the past month. A two week part of the project starts on Monday, and only 10-20 people were invited from our room (60ish). I was one of the ones invited, which was cool, but I had to turn it down because it requires 100% attendance, and I have too many doctors' appointments that we're trying to fit in before the baby comes/end of the year flex spending expires. It also would have been crazy since it would have finished just one week before the due date!

We had a nice time celebrating Thanksgiving with my family last night. Yep, Friday night. On Wednesday night my parents and sisters ordered in, and the girls got pizza and my dad had wings. My mom and sisters got horrible food poisoning, so we delayed Thanksgiving. I'm so glad that they're all feeling better again!

Steven thoroughly enjoyed his first Thanksgiving dinner. Mashed potatoes are one of his favorites, and he certainly didn't turn down the turkey, stuffing, and rolls either :) We got a few pictures of him feeding himself mashed potatoes (I wanted to eat too!), and once I find/look for the new memory stick adaptor, I'll post them.

We've had a lot of stuff going on the past few weeks, mainly with work or the adoption, and I am so glad to be "slowing down" a little since work is over. I've been busy sorting and washing girls clothes, and our pack and play in the living room is now filled almost to the top with clothes that were donated to us. We didn't get too much in the way of hand-me-downs for Steven, so this has been an amazing blessing. Thank you so much, Jessica and Lilly!

I'll try to do a better job of keeping this updated. There's nothing quite like a neglected blog :( I'll have another baby update Tuesday evening after Steven's birthmother and I go back to the hospital ultrasound. Please pray that baby girl's stomach is growing so they don't have to move up the due date. We truly do appreciate all your prayers as we go through this process!

Adoption Fundraiser

Dear Friends,

As you know, we're adopting Steven's full biological sister! A c-section is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 21, and we are busy getting all the necessary documents collected and turned in.

We weren't anticipating adopting again so soon, so we are scrambling to get the necessary funds together. We will be applying for grants as soon as our homestudy is approved, and we are also holding a magazine fundraiser.

This program allows you to renew or subcribe to your favorite magazines at a discounted rate with a 40% of your purchase going toward our adoption. I figured that just about everyone gets at least one magazine in the mail, so this is a relatively easy way to raise money. The site is www.magfundraising.com/markandrebekah.

If you have family or friends that might be interested, please forward this information along to them. We appreciate your prayers and support as we work to bring our baby girl home!

Sincerely,

Mark and Rebekah

Poor Little Buddy

Today Steven had his first experience with the stomach bug :( He's never vomited before, and it wasn't exactly the most fun. At least he wasn't sick on his birthday.

Yay!!

Happy birthday, little buddy!!

Yet Another Adoption Update

I know, it seems like the only time I update anymore is to give you info. about our baby girl's adoption. Working full time is killing me, and by the time I get home, I'm almost too tired to move :( Reading and scoring 200+ essays a day can do that to you!

This week we accomplished the following:

1. Got both of our physicals.
2. Passed our TB tests.
3. Got our blood tests and drug screening, waiting for the results.
4. Took Josie to the vet. (At least I think that was this week!)
5. Got Mark's employee release form submitted so Bethany can verify that he really does have a job.
6. FINALLY got our adoption verification letter (for Steven's adoption) sent from Bethany to Mark's employer. Our $5,000 reimbursement check is on it's way. We'll be using that to pay off his adoption/pay application fees for this one. (Definitely not getting rich off of this!)
7. Took the birthmother to her doctor's appointment yesterday. (More details to follow in another post.)

Things we still need to accomplish:

1. Submit the rest of the paperwork. We need to revise our statement of faith (to reflect new church/ministries we're involved in), and I need to finish my self-study. We really want this in the mail by Monday, so I'm praying that I'll feel up to completing it this weekend.
2. Drop off Josie's sample at the vets. It's not essential for the adoption, but we already paid for it, and it just needs to be done.
3. Get grant applications ready. Maybe I'll be able to do this next Saturday since I don't work then. I hope!

Could that possibly be it?? I sure hope so! I'll still have plenty of other stuff to do, such as update the identical scrapbooks that I make for Steven's birthmother and for us. I also need to get working on baby girl's books. This time I have ultrasound pictures to put in it. That is so exciting!!

Our other big thing is to get ready for Steven turning the big 01! Yep, that's tomorrow!! (It's also the day of THE game!) It feels much longer than a year, and we didn't even bring him home until Dec. 17th :)

Someday, I really will post pictures again. We have a new camera, and I don't have the memory card adapter in a highly accessible place (aka I don't know exactly where it is and don't have time to search for it). Someday soon. . .maybe when my temp. job is over.