4 Months Down/Rockabye Baby CD's

Well, we've officially been on the waiting list for 4 months now! It's gone relatively fast to this point considering we got on the list during the summer when things were fairly hectic, and the Thanksgiving and & Christmas Holidays have helped keep our minds off the wait. Here's to hoping that the next few months go just as quickly.

The CHI offices are still closed and will remain so until January 5. We are hoping for a flood of referrals once the offices re-open. Hopefully there is a huuuuuuge backlog of referrals accumulating on their desks as we speak!

We had a great time over the Holidays. We spent Christmas Eve at Staci's parents and had a blast watching our niece, Jenna, fuss with another youngster over her new big wheel (or "bike" as Jenna calls it). It was so funny! While they were fussing over it, it was time for Pa'pa Neil to open the gift Jenna had picked out for him [a pack of gum :) ] and instead of taking the risk of losing control of the big wheel, Jenna pulled it into a spare bedroom and shut the door. As soon as Pa'pa" opened the gift she ran back to the bedroom and got her big wheel. Needles to say, she has a little more work to do in the "sharing" dept, hehe.

Staci and I got the coolest baby gift from my brother and his fiance. We got the Metallica & U2 lullabye CD's. These things are cool. The album art is modeled after the original album art but with teddy bears instead (pretty funny). They're really cool! Here's some pics:

Here's the Metallica CD:

And here's the U2 version

You can get the lullaby renditions of several bands including the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Nirvana, the Eagles, etc, etc... Check them out HERE

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

We just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope your holiday is filled with love, laughter and lots of cheer!

HOLY COW!!! MORE REFERRALS!!!

Wow, just received word that our agency has had 8 referrals this week alone! Hate to be greedy but maybe there will be a few more by the end of the week. Last week CHI had 2 sets of sibling referrals. The sibling referrals are much more rare and to have two in one week is amazing! Unfortunately, our agency will be closing for Christmas break at the end of this week and will be closed until January 5th. Hopefully once they reopen they will continue raining referrals. We're getting closer!!!
Other than the referrals not much to report in our personal lives. We had a great time this past weekend catching up with the Payne side of the family. Really wish we got together more than once or twice a year. I have actually had thoughts of pulling the crib box out of the garage and getting started on putting it together. God knows if I don't start now I'll probably still be trying to figure out the instructions while we're on our way home from the airport. We've got the changing table/dresser in the nursery but haven't really done much else. I told Staci we'll start getting serious about the nursery after the Super Bowl. That seems like a good target date to start our nursery plans. We've got some ideas, it's just a matter of agreeing on some things. The nursery is the one room in our house that we have yet to touch since we bought our house 5 years ago. It's got this "lovely" pale greenish/blue colored walls and one wall is covered in wallpaper with tiny yellow flowers all over it. IT'S HIDIOUS!!!
Until next time, Merry Christmas to everyone and congrats to the families that received their referrals this week. What a great Christmas gift!

Light at the End of the Tunnel...

It's been a rather slow 3 weeks for the Ethiopia program. After an awesome 2 month period of referrals, they seem to have come to a screeching halt. But don't fret fellow adoptive parents! We have been told that although they haven't given any referrals yet, there are children currently receiving their medicals in Ethiopia and that it just takes time for the translations of the reports. There is a light at the end of the tunnel!!! We made a mad dash to K.C. last Monday to renew our fingerprints before they expired. My days off are Wednesdays and Sundays and of course, as luck would have it, they do not renew fingerprints on Wednesdays. I was off at 1 and the last available appointment time was 3. We hurried and made it with 10 minutes to spare!

Had a great Thanksgiving! The night before Thanksgiving, Matt & Maisie stopped by and we had a nice visit. They were on their way to the Fax (local bar) so we decided to join them. The Fax is our local bar and the night before Thanksgiving is annually, it's busiest night of the year. It was nice to catch up with lots of old friends that we don't get to see very often. We spent Thanksgiving day with my side of the family and had lots of fun playing with Abby and watching the Dallas Cowboys DESTROY the Seahawks! There's nothing better than watching America's Team whoop up some other team on Thanksgiving while having a belly full of turkey.

We've got our first Christmas coming up this weekend at my cousins house in Lawson, MO. Last year we had to cancel due to snow and ice so it will be nice getting to catch up with some of the family and see how everyone is doing. Welp, gotta go. Staci beckons! She's telling me it's time to make holiday cookies/candy. Until next time, here's some pics from the last couple of months that we haven't gotten around to posting:

Abby and I (Thanksgiving):

Dad getting his turn with Abby:

My artsy photo attempt in St. Louis (October)

Staci and I after the Obama rally:

America's Team!!!

I should have known it was going to be a long day after I dropped the first bite of chili-cheese nachos on myself (note the nice stain on my jersey)

Three months down!!

so we have officially been waiting for our baby girl three months!!! I can't believe how close we are and at times it feels so far away. We are slowly getting ready and we have ideas for the nursery but have not done much yet, we don't want to jinx ourselves. At my count we are 73 on the waiting list, so in three months we moved 30 spots, I think that is pretty good.

We had a nice Thanksgiving weekend, we were able to spend time with both sides of the family and see friends. We spent some time with my sister and her family last night and today for lunch which means we got to play or "pay" as our niece calls it, she will be three in March and has so much personality and we just love her to death!! She lOVES her uncle Kris!

We are heading to KC tomorrow to renew our fingerprints and hopefully get some Christmas shopping done, I now know what to purchase everyone just getting it done is another story, thank goodness for the Internet.

Christmas Cards Ordered!

Found a really cool website through one of the blogs we follow. To go along with our Ethiopian adoption, we decided to send out Ethiopian Christmas cards this year and here's the best part: the money used goes towards a very good cause. The project is called Jimma Banana Art. The cards are hand made in Jimma, Ethiopia from various parts of the banana plant and the proceeds help to employee the 30 women who make them in a city where unemployment runs rampant. To read more about Jimma Banana Art and it's cause click HERE. Below are just a couple of their card designs.

Girl Referrals!!!

Quick referral update. Just found out that our agency has sent out 5 referrals today, 1 boy and 4--count 'em--4 infant girls ranging in age from 2 to 3 1/2 months!!! The House of Hope has GOT to be bursting at the seems with all the referrals they've been passing out lately. For those who don't know, the House of Hope is where the children stay and receive phenomenal care from CHI's wonderful care-takers. The House of Hope serves as a transition home for the children while they wait on their forever families to bring them home. This is where we will meet Baby Marley for the first time and hopefully where we will be staying.

The CHI House of Hope in Ethiopia

Free giveaway and something NO baby should be without

A really cool company called sloppybaby.com is having a giveaway for some baby sets. Click HERE to enter.

I've found the one thing that no baby should go without. Check it out:

This is the coolest thing ever!!! Now If I can just get Staci to go for it! Found it HERE

My Turn To Post.....

This week I was informed by Staci that it's my turn to post an update. It appears she's suffering from a severe case of writer's block. Combine that with the fact that we live the most boring lives ever and you can see why it's difficult to come up with something interesting enough to post about. It seemed like only yesterday there were parties to go to, friends to see, things to do every other night. What happened? Now it's, go to work, eat supper, watch a little tv, go to bed by 10, get up, go to work, etc., etc... Jeesh, how did we get so OOOOOOLLLLLLLLD? I guess I do have one thing going for me, I'm not AS old as Staci.

As I mentioned, we live the most boring lives so needless to say we haven't had a lot to write about the past few weeks. A few weeks ago we made the cross-state trek to St. Louis for the big Cowboys-Rams game. The Boys only come to this area once every blue moon it seems. Heck, the last time they were in K.C., Troy, Emmitt, Irvin, and Deion Sanders were still playing for them (and of course they get beat the one time I get to see them). I was sooooo excited about the Cowboys coming to St. Louis this year not only because I never get to see them but because they were playing the Rams who, by the way, are AWFUL. The weeks leading up to the game I was just waiting for a big injury to occur so I wouldn't get to see them at full strength and sure enough, in overtime the week before the Rams game, Tony Romo breaks a bone in his hand and was out 3-4 weeks. Long story short: the Cowboys had a geezer at QB who couldn't throw the ball more than 20 yards without getting a running start and they got KILLED! I had to do the walk of shame down the stairs half-way through the fourth quarter with every Rams fan heckling me (and every other cowboys fan leaving). It was mighty hard holding my tongue but I think I handled myself well, Staci may not agree. The humiliating loss made the long drive that much longer. Fortunately I was able to channel all my frustrations and focus them on the "idiot" drivers that inhabit I-70. If you've ever driven I-70, you know exactly what I mean. I may or may not have had a slight case of road rage on the way home.

Enough about the Cowboys! The Ethiopia program has been kicking major booty here lately (is it alright for a guy to use the word "booty")! Each week has been filled with referrals since the courts reopened in October. As of Wednesday night CHI's referrals for the week included one sibling group of infant twins, and 4 infants/toddler boys. I know that the family waiting on the sibling group waited 11 months so congratulations to them and every other lucky family this week. Man, at this rate, we'll have a referral before we know it! Here's to hoping the referrals keep coming. Not quite sure where we are on the waiting list but I'm thinking we're low 80's high 70's. The last 2 1/2 months have flown by. Having previously been in the Vietnam program we are trying not to get too excited but it is getting harder and harder to hold these feelings in.

If you missed the latest episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the travel channel, you can catch a re-air on November 17th at 9/8 central. This week Andrew was in Ethiopia! It was really cool to get an upclose look at the lives and traditions of the Ethiopian people. I'm really hoping that we don't have to eat some of the things he was eating though. YUCK!

TWO DOWN!!

Well, we have officially waited two months!! By my calculations we are #92 on the list. I know that seems like a high number but hopefully we get some steady referrals and it continues to go down. Kris and I made it to St. Louis and back in one piece. We had fun even though the Cowboys were terrible!! We were able to check into our downtown hotel early on Saturday so we were able to make it to Arch not long after the Obama rally started. Since I am so short and there were thousands of people there all I saw was his hand waving, Kris was able to see more. It was really neat to experience something like that and see how the crowd reacted to things he said. It was beautiful in St. Louis all weekend so we headed inside the Arch and did the tourist stuff, I had never actually gone up the Arch so we did that and look around. We were hot and tired so we walked back to our hotel checked out Washington Ave and headed to our room to rest before
dinner. The weekend would have been perfect if the Cowboys had won, we still had fun anyway!!

Nothing else new to report we are enjoying the weather and keeping buy with work.

We're back!

Well we are back on-line, we were very surprise to get our computer back in a 1 1/2 weeks, with a new hard drive so hopefully no more problems. I can't believe that it is October with such beautiful weather, I love it! We found out that we will be getting a new nephew!!!! We are so excited for this new addition to our family.

The courts opened up in Ethiopia a week early so that is good news to all those families with their referrals who had to wait that much longer. Our agency has been receiving lots of referrals since the courts opened, we got 5 last week and three this week so by my count that puts us at 91. Most of these have been girls, come on girl referrals!!

We are planning a weekend get away to St. Louis next weekend, romance you say, no the Dallas Cowboys football game, Kris LOVES the Cowboys so the great wife I am is giving up romance for the Cowboys;) So all you wives out there please cheer for the Cowboys so our 6 hour car ride home will be somewhat pleasant.

I would like to thank all of our loyal readers for keeping up to date on us, hope everyone out there is doing well!!

One down!

Well we have officially been waiting for one month, wow how time flies. We are trying to keep ourselves busy, our wonderful friends threw us a couples shower and we had fun hanging out with our friends and got some wonderful gifts. We are very blessed to have so many wonderful, supportive friends. We have been enjoying the weather and finally got most of the outside of our house painted, a project long over due. We have been having some issues, with our somewhat new laptop so we will be away from the blogging world for a few weeks while it is being fixed, hopefully. We will probably be checking in, just not as often. So keep us in your prayers that this process continues to run smoothly! Hope all is well with all of you!

IT'S OFFICIAL!!!!!

We are now a waiting family!!! our Dossier was sent to Ethiopia on Friday August 29th so now comes the hard part, waiting. As you can read from the title of our blog we decided to unveil her name, Marley. Kris actually picked the name; he heard it last winter and really liked it, and it has been the only name we both really liked and agreed on. She will have two middle names Ann (my middle name) and her given name. We had originally decided not to tell her name but there are at least a dozen pregnant women in our town and we thought it might be better to put it out there so people are aware that it is OUR name so they will not use it. I know Marley is not a common name but you never know. Also I had never posted that Kris and I are going to have a new niece or nephew, my sister is expecting again in early February, we are all very excited!

So please pray that our agency starts receiving lots of referrals and that our referral comes quickly!!!

Quick Update

Well our dossier was sent to DC yesterday the 21st!!! So hopefully it will be a short process and sent back to CHI quickly, they will review it one more time and send it to Ethiopia. We are getting very close to that waiting list!!

Bundle of Nerves!!

Well today after checking and rechecking to make sure I had everything we needed we headed down town KC to the state building to have all of our precious documents state certified!!! We were so nervous that something was not going to be right and I did not want to have to correct things and return at a later date. So when we arrived we signed in and the very nice lady started looking over all of our documents and found problems on several of them with the notary. As our hopes start to fade they said they would be able to fix them and an hour and half later we were out the door with everything done correctly!!!

Since we were in town we were able to meet up with our good friends Matt & Maisie and their adorable little boy, Grant for lunch and had a great time.

Since we made it home before the post office closed I was able to get our dossier in the mail to our agency and they should receive it by noon tomorrow, they will review it and send it to DC to be authenticated, then it will be returned to our agency for a final review and finally off to Ethiopia!!! This is the point when we are officially placed on the waiting list!

We want to thank everyone who is following our story for all the kind words and prayers. It all means so much to both Kris and I. We are very excited to be able to share our journey with so many friends and family and can not wait for the day we can introduce our baby to everyone!!

Here is Kris and I patiently waiting and enjoying the wonderful weather in KC

Here we both are with our certified documents!!!

(as you can see Kris is very excited)

IT'S HERE!!!

Finally, we got our immigration approval today August 16th after 6 long weeks of waiting!!! Very Excited!!! Now, hopefully if things go well we will be on the wait list in the next three or four weeks!! Then the long wait to our happy ending will begin!!

Of course we were in KC yesterday and had we had it two days earlier we could have gotten everything state certified yesterday but oh well we will do it Wednesday.

Not much going on in life at this time, work and home. We continue to work on the basement and almost have it done. Kris just celebrated his 30th birthday:)

July Fun

Well, we don't have any news to report at this time. I mailed our info to the immigration office in KC on July 3rd and still have not heard back, I was hoping it would not take very long since we have been approved and only need a country change, hopefully we will hear very soon. Kris and I went canoeing a few weeks ago in south Missouri on the Current River with a large group of people and had a wonderful time, it's always nice to go away and always nice to come home. I will have to post some pics when we get them developed. Kris and I spent last week working on our basement he scraped the popcorn off the walls of our stairwell and painted while I was on clean up duty, of course we still have more work to do.

We have both been very busy at work this summer and can't believe it is almost time for school to start again. I have to say that I am ready for fall and which will put us closer to our baby girl.

4th of July fun!

This 4th of July was pretty typical for us, we spent time with family and friends barbequing, golfing and watching the fire works. It also gave me a long weekend away from work. This has always been one of my favorite holidays and can't wait to share it with our daughter next summer. Kris spent the last weekend of June at Beaver lake with some friends and had a great time, while I spent time with Brenda and Jenna and went to the pool. Update on the adoption front, we were very excited for our home study to get updated and done again. I was able to mail it to the immigration office in KC on July 3rd so we can be approved to adopt in Ethiopia instead of Vietnam. It could take us up to three months to hear but it only took one month the first time around so I am hoping for a quick turnaround. I also sent copies of our dossier to our social worker in St. Louis to be reviewed for any mistakes, she thought everything looked good so once we get our approval from immigration we will take it all to KC to be state certified. Next week we will be going to south Missouri with a large group of people canoeing for a long weekend, we have done this for several different summers and I am very exited to be able to say that we will probably not be attending next year due to having our daughter.

I started cleaning out the babies room last weekend, it has kind of been a catch-all room and I was excited to start. We are slowly trying to get our house ready for her.

Beaver lake from the boat

Jenna "driving" the tractor

Jenna and her first sparkler

Take Me Out To the Ball Game

We actually had some excitement this past weekend (for a change). We decided to take in a Royals game with Brenda, David and Jenna. We've been wanting to go for a while, just never gotten around to it. I think the last time we were at a Royals game was 3 years ago against our cross-state rivals, the Cardinals. This was Jenna's very first time at the ball park. She seemed to be having more fun climbing from seat to seat, watching birds fly, and pulling my nose off and throwing it out on the field :) It was a really good game. For once we actually got to see the Royals win in person. It seems in the past we've always been more of a jinx than anything. The new upgrades at Kauffman Stadium are looking good so far but there is still a lot of construction going on. The huge High-Def scoreboard is insane! Although the Royals are in last place they are currently one of the hottest teams in the bigs. They've got lots of promising, young talent, not to mention an awesome closer named Joakim Soria. This guy is lights-out. He actually made a batter fall down swinging at a pitch! It was great! On the adoption front, we're still waiting on paper work to get back to us and for our home study to be completed. Here's some shots from Saturday night:

David, Brenda, Jenna, & Staci: This High-Def Screen is Cool!!!
The inevitable self-portrait:

Happy Father's Day!

We had a pretty busy Father's Day weekend that included lots of quality family time. Saturday night, we hosted a BBQ for my side of the family. It was sort of a cross-celebration for my mom's b-day and Father's Day. Those attending were Mom, Dad, Grandma, Aunt Sonya, Uncle Hal, Brent, Tory, and last but certainly not least, Ms. Abby.

Here's Abby doing what she does best:

Of course, Staci had to get her Abby time:

Sonya, Grandma, and Mom (Happy B-Day)

Happy Father's Day:

Sunday we spent the afternoon with Staci's side. Everyone was there including Neil & Sharon, Staci & I, Jason & Kim, Brenda, David, & Jenna. Poor Neil had to grill in the wind & rain and dodge lightening.

Our niece Jenna, a beautician in the making???

Jenna treating poor Uncle Kris like a jungle gym:

All-in-all we had a great weekend. Pretty pumped about my "guy trip" down to Beaver Lake, Arkansas next weekend. Ought to be a really good time.

On the Adoption Front: We're still in the tedious process of collecting documents for our Dossier. Fun, Fun, Stuff :)

We can see the light!

Well these past two weeks we continued to process our paperwork, we have a lot of it done and notarized and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We still continue to wait on our background checks from the state police to be able to finish the updated home study. Albany had it's yearly Frontier Holidays this past weekend we were able to enjoy some of the events. Sorry we don't have much to report at this time, we've had a pretty boring couple of weeks.

Baby Kisses & Birthday Wishes

Nothing new to report on the adoption front this week. We are continuing to process mounds & mounds of paperwork. Kris spent most of Memorial Day weekend at the river for River Camp and had a great time as always. I spent the weekend hanging out with friends and family. My sister Brenda turned 30 this past week so we put together a little surprise BBQ for a few local friends and family at her house Friday evening, she was surprised and a good time was had by all. We also spent time with Abby this week, she is such a sweet baby and a wonderful addition to our family.

Here's Abby at 5 days old:

Our little niece, Jenna having some fun at the BBQ:

Looks like somebody had a little TOO much fun at the cookout:

Our New Baby Cousin

Last Friday evening we welcomed the newest member into the family, Ms. Abrielle Jean. Congratulations to Brent & Tory!!!

Here she is with Cousin Kris:

And again with Cousin Staci:

Paperwork & More Paperwork

Well, this week we were able to put a considerable dent in our mound of paperwork. The biggest accomplishment came last night when we finished our 10 hours of Hague Parent Ed. classwork. Now, if only we are able to pass our last test. The first 3 tests were all multiple choice but this last one was the dreaded short-answer test. We submitted it last night and should find out within a week if we passed. It takes 7 days to get the test back because it IS short answer and it has to be hand graded. I swear, I've had college classes that were easier than this stuff!!! Oh well, it's done and that's one more thing checked off the paperwork list.
Other things accomplished this week: Saturday we sent off for our passports which we were told have been taking 2-3 weeks to get back. Not that bad, it's checked off our list. Hmmm, what else??? Oh yes, got certified copies of our birth certificates in, completed a financial report, finished our Letter of Introduction, got a notorized copy of our Marriage License, sent off for our Criminal Background Records, got our employer letters back from our supervisors (awaiting notorization), and received our medical-clearance letters (also awaiting notorization). I think that pretty much sums up our week. I believe the plan for next week is to get as much notorization of our documents done as possible and hopefully get our reference letters back [no pressure guys :) ].
River Camp is this weekend!!! I know what I'll be doing!!! I think Staci is planning on hanging out at the cabin Saturday night with Kim while I'm doing the River Camp thing. Hopefully the River Camp thing doesn't include a trip to Heartland and a huge medical bill like it did a few years ago hehe. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Now the Real Work Begins

Well, this week we were officially accepted to the Ethiopia program and now can begin the long, tedious climb up the mountain of paper work. CHI is in the process of updating our home study but can't finish until we get our passports so we sent off for them on Saturday and were told that the current wait time is 2-3 weeks which is a lot better than the 6 months it was a while back. In the meantime we were able to start rounding up some doctor bills (ie: medical clearance, police clearance, birth certificates, etc., etc...) The biggest headache is that most all of these documents need to be notarized, then sent to the Sec. of State for certification and then on to D.C. for authentication. Sometime this week we plan on starting our Hague parent ed. online program. We are required to complete this 10-hour course and test before we can send our dossier on to Ethiopia. Right now it's all about paperwork and trying to remain patient. We are trying to blow through as much paperwork as possible, as quickly as possible. Hopefully we can blow right through this in a few weeks. We'll see.

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