Still Chasing Paper . . .

Hello!

So I figure we are more than overdue for an update! We have been in a little bit of a lull over the past month or two.  Matt and I finished gathering most of our necessary documents and completing our part of the home study so it was time to sit and wait on others to complete their tasks before we could proceed to the next steps.  I have to admit, at first I was a bit frustrated with the waiting, however it has been a nice reprieve.  

In the meantime we completed our t-shirt design and collected orders from family and friends-many of them you!  We so appreciate the support we have received!  We know that the Lord has placed so many of you in our lives to encourage us along the way and we are so grateful!  The t-shirts are being printed now and we are hoping they will arrive in the next week to us so we can begin to distributing them.  I also took on a new endeavor as a Matilda Jane Trunk Keeper in order to help contribute money towards our adoption funding.  For those of you who are not familiar, Matilda Jane is a company of clothing for babies, girls, tweens and women and it is absolutely ADORABLE and fantastic.  I have enjoyed using one of my "hobbies", as Matt refers to it (AKA buying cute and quality clothing for Taylor, Madelyn and myself), and sharing it with others while providing towards our adoption.  It's a win for everyone!  You can see the clothing at www.matildajaneclothing.com and look me up! (Jenn Wallace, Trunk Keeper #3223)

Today Matt and I continued our paper chase with a visit to the County Clerks Office in Memphis.  We have to have each of our documents that are notarized confirmed by the County Clerk (and of course each there is a fee for each document ;) ).  We had the sweetest lady helping us.  Each step is so stressful in the process because if anything is messed up you have to start the whole thing over again for that document.  And the rules are CRAZY.  Like "Don't mess up the staples or it will look like you tampered with the document and you will have to re-do it."  WHAT THE HECK?!?  So every time she stapled I watched with sweaty palms. . .seriously, not joking.  If I survive this process without hypertension I will be amazed.  Next the documents go to Nashville and then Washington D.C. and then the Chinese Consulate (also in D.C.) and then to CHINA in the Dossier!!!!  That will be a fantastic day.  We still lack one document called the I800A which is the governments approval for us to adopt a child from another country.  This approval can take up to 90 days (holy moly) but we are hoping that it will be more like 45ish days.  We shall see.  This will be the last document we wait on for the Dossier (AKA large pack of documents that goes to China).

Our sweet friend who helped us at the County Clerks Office!

We literally had to search through these books for a notary that wasn't in the computer system.  Matt was pretty sure I was going to be arrested for taking this picture!

Outside the County Clerk Office with "The Adoption Files Box"

So that is our update for now.  Still paper chasing.  But getting closer all the time to seeing the precious little one that the Lord has chosen for us!  I think about what he/she is doing now.  I pray for him/her as I am certain he/she is born.  I pray the Lord covers him/her with His feathers and protects them from pain and sorrow and keeps them safe until we can come to bring him/her to their forever family!  I was in Sunday School (I still call it Sunday School even though I'm a grown up now) the other day and a verse we read jumped out at me and brought tears to my eyes.  The Lord was telling me that He is still in control, as He always is and I so easily seem to forget.  I love this verse as it is so fitting for our family right now.

I also LOVE the song by Natalie Grant called "King of the World".  It talks about how we can sometimes forget how great and mighty and powerful and AMAZING God is.  After all if He created this whole world, I'm petty sure He can handle all of the "goings on" of the world as well.  So when I get stressed that things aren't working on MY timeline or how I want them to go, I realize it isn't about what I think should or shouldn't happen; but that I serve an All Powerful, All Knowing God who's got this under control!  Praise the Lord!  Here are a few of the lyrics:

When did I forget that you've always been the king of the world?

I try to take life back right out of the hands of the king of the world

How could I make you so small

When you're the one who holds it all

When did I forget that you've always been the kind of the world

Ohhh, you set it all in motion

Every single moment

You brought it all to me

And you're holding me

The Adoption Paper Chase...

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for all of the kinds words of encouragement and prayers you have given us since we have shared the news of our adoption journey with you. These sweet gestures mean the world to Matt and I!

To update you on a little more of the details, we are currently in what the adoption community refers to as "The Paper Chase".  We have spent about 3 months collecting various birth/marriage certificates, address records of where we have lived since 18 years old, background checks, child abuse clearances, doctors appointments, pet health records (!!!), updated passports and the list goes on!  We are completing our home study and then continue with more paperwork to complete what is called our Dossier. This is basically a group of various documents that is notarized, approved by the county, state, US and finally embassy prior to being mailed to China to give China a picture of who we are.  Let me tell you, it's not for the faint of heart but worth every moment I know!  We don't know for sure but we will likely not be matched with our child until our Dossier is received in China. The Dossier takes about 6 months on average to compile.

One of our fabulous paperwork sessions!

So about our child, we do know a little.  We said we are open to either a boy or girl up to 2 years old. We also filled out information about certain medical conditions we feel comfortable with. A great part of my excitement in this journey is seeing how the Lord reveals His plan to us.  Much like when I was pregnant, I have a picture in my mind of what our child will look like (gender, age, medical needs, etc).  But most of all I am confident in the Lord's plan and know He has our perfect little one already knit together and being prepared for us as we are being prepared for him/her.

We think (very key word...think!) we might travel sometime next Spring or Summer to China to meet and bring our little one home.  The trip is about two weeks long and we will be in various parts of China during the that time.  After that we take the short (ha) flight back home and begin our life as a family of 5!

I have been absolutely overwhelmed by the Lord's provision for us during this time! The ways in which He has showed up are unbelievable to me, truly we serve a mighty, loving, kind, gracious and powerful God!  I have a journal documenting every single thing He has done so I can be reminded.  He has shown me in tangible ways that He truly knows how to meet our every need, and in ways that are better than I hoped for! We pray and know that He is providing peace for our little one like He is providing it for us.

Again, we are so grateful for all of the sweet words. Thank you for praying and loving on our family-it means so much!

ADOPTION!! Here we go!!

So. . . after a 2 1/2 year hiatus from blogging I've decided to start it up again to share our adoption journey.  In the meantime, since my last post, we have added Madelyn to our crew (who is now 2 years old! Holy moly I had completely neglected anything that resembles blogging about the fun exciting times we've had since she came along.) So, here we go!  Hoping this will help keep everyone updated on our journey to our newest little addition to our family.  The Lord has already taught us so many things in the past year as well as showing himself in many ways and I just know this will be a time of growth in our faith.

Many of you know that adoption has been something that has been on our hearts for a while.  About one year ago Matt and I began to seriously work towards beginning our adoption journey.  We had no real "place" we necessarily wanted to adopt from.  I have always be drawn to international but equally love domestic as well.  We were basically open to many countries, including the US, and we just thought that we would work towards many places and the same time and go with whatever place got us our child the quickest.  Ha!  We learned immediately that it doesn't quite work like that.  Each and every country's process is so very different and the requirements are different, requiring you have to choose your country before anything else can start.  So dang, first "road block".  I initially felt my heart being tugged toward China.  We looked into China and quickly became scared of the process there.  So we looked at a few (or many) other countries to see how their process worked.  Then we had Orphan Sunday at our church and, aside from squalling THE ENTIRE TIME, I started to wonder if God was leading us to domestic adoption.  We met with two different fabulous agencies in Memphis and thought we had found where we were meant to be.  A weeks into that processes a couple of things happened to shift our course yet again.

First, I read a post from Ann Voscamp (www.aholyexperience.com/2016/03/when-you-dont-feel-enough-our-year-long-story-and-a-new-chapter-coming/), where she announced that their family was adopting as well.  She mentioned in their journey how there was no dramatic "fireball" showing them what to do.  After months of praying she still didn't feel like she had a clear answer.  Her husband finally said, "Let's do it." And as she writes, "you can only walk so long before you get to a fork in the road and you've got to take a stab at faith".  Wow!  This was where we were!

Secondly, I was watching a YouTube video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgWk5Bsy9es) from Francis Chan and his wife from a marriage conference.  I still remember being in the kitchen cooking dinner while Matt was at the playground with our girls.  I was listening to the video and all of the sudden the "marriage" discussion was talking about adoption.  What?!? The Lord was bringing so many things into our lives to confirm His plan for us.  So naturally I started bawling again.  (Which I realize is pretty much my baseline, but this adoption thing has taken it to a whole new level.)  My key takeaways about adoption from listening to Francis and Lisa were:
     -What if we didn't do that?  Look what we would have missed at on!
     -Why wouldn't we assume adoption, unless we hear a voice from heaven saying "Stop".  That is    what the bible is about.  Assume action.
At that moment the Lord continued to press China onto my heart.  I talked with Matt later that night, discussing all that I heard and was feeling and he looked at me and said "Let's do it!".  Whoa, we had made our decision, one year after we started at China we were back here again.  This time with confidence that this was where the Lord had our next child.

This was my fabulous plan to spell "CHINA" with our hands.  Looked so much better in my head! ;)

After that, things went pretty smoothly.  We picked an agency, found a home study agency and began preparing for a journey to our child.  We can't wait to share this journey with you.  I'm not going to lie, it's exciting, and nerve wrecking, and frustrating, and plain terrifying at times.  But as I said earlier, the Lord's hand is on this journey and we have already seen His provision and grace along the way.  We can't wait to see how the journey continues!  We appreciate your prayers as we journey along!

Thanksgiving in Atlanta!

We had a great trip to Atlanta to celebrate Thanksgiving with Uncle Richard, Aunt Linda, Memaw and many of our cousins! We were even able to spend time with our cousin Zach who is currently training for the Army in close by Fort Benning, GA.  It was great to see and spend time with him for the first time in many years!  For Thanksgiving dinner we all pitched in to make some fabulous food!  We has fried turkey (a first for me!), ham and all sorts of other delicious food!  It was so nice just to spend time together as a family.  We even got to see Aunt Jana and Uncle Jim for a little while after they got back in town.  After our trip we were able to bring Memaw back to spend some time with us in Memphis for Christmas.  It was definitely busy chasing around after two little ones- but there will only be more to chase after in the future!  It is so crazy that all the cousins are getting so old these days!  Hailey is a sophomore at Auburn, Matthew and Garrett (the youngest of this crew) are both in high school, Zach is starting his career in the Army, and Ashley and I are both married with babies!  It is just crazy to me.

Ashley, Hailey, Jenn and Matthew

Handsome Matthew and Ty

The whole crew

Memaw with some of her grandkids

Buddy and Naly with their grandbabies

Matt entertaining the kids with the iPad-one of the few times they were both still!

We also went to the Georgia Aquarium with the kids while we were in Atlanta.  They really enjoyed seeing all of the fish and other sea creatures!  We even went to a Dolphin show and they were both mesmerized to see the dolphins jumping and swimming around with the trainers.

Free cokes from the Coke Museum as we went to the Aquarium!

Taylor and Ty playing the the Christmas display outside the Aquarium

 

Daddy and Taylor hanging with the Penguins

We have so much to be thankful to the Lord for this year- good health, growing babies, new additions to the family, our jobs, time spent with family and friends, and countless other blessings in our lives!

Fall Recap

We had a great fall!  We started off our fall with a visit to the Nashville area for one of my best friend's son's 2nd birthday party!  I was able to see both of my good friends, Katie and Lindsay, which is one of my most favorite things to do!  Lindsay's little boy, Harrison, was the birthday boy and we had a great time celebrating his big day!  At the party was a ball pit and giant jumping castle and Taylor LOVED playing with both of them! While we were in town we participated in a Halloween parade.  Taylor didn't have her costume but she sure enjoyed the wagon ride with Harrison through the neighborhood.  The parade was for all of the kids in the neighborhood and was lead by a fire engine!   Of course we also went out for our standard mexican meal while we were all in town.  Nothing better than great food with great people!  I am such a happy girl to have them just a quick drive away!  

At home in Memphis, Taylor enjoyed an en promote trip to pick out pumpkins for our porch.  She picked out two small pumpkins which were just her size!  She also enjoyed climbing around and looking at all the bigger pumpkins too! 

Even though this was not Taylor's first Halloween, it was definitely the first one she was able to participate in.  She had a BLAST!! One of the many things we love about our new neighborhood is that there are TONS of kids-which means lots of trick-or-treaters!  The weather was yucky and rainy all day long, but the rain stopped about an hour before trick-or-treating.  So while it was a little damp, the fun could still go on!  Taylor dressed up as Sofia, the princess from her favorite show Sofia the First.  Daddy took her out to trick-or-treat to a few houses-mainly for photo and filming purposes!  But her favorite part was running to the door every time the door bell rang to say hi to the children who came by.  She ran around the house yelling "tick teat"!  And the child absolutely loves baskets and buckets so she was trilled with her pink pumpkin pail (even if it wasn't filled with candy)!  

We finished our Fall season with a great trip to Atlanta for Thanksgiving with many members from my mom's side of the family.  More to come about that in a later post. . . 

Our New Home

One of the most exciting things about this year has been a move to our new home in Lakeland, TN.  It is just about 10 minutes from our old house but closer to Matt's family and still close to mine as well.  We are trilled with our new neighborhood and home.  We closed on July 3rd and moved in shortly thereafter.  We had so much help from our family and friends, I can't even begin to thank them! Ashley and JT (my sister and bro-in-law) came in town and along with Matt's sister, Kim, and brother in law, Josh, and our parents, the guys did a TON of manual labor!  In one day they loaded up all our furniture from our old house and unloaded it in our new house.  WOW!  What a blessing to have them help!  Of course we lived among boxes for a bit but soon we were settled into our new home.  

Here are a few of our favorite things about our new neighborhood and house: 

-Large neighborhood with lots of kids

-Great public schools (with the Elementary school literally inside our neighborhood and walking distance from our house!)

-A community pool about 4 or 5 houses down from ours

-More than enough room in our house for our growing family and visitors!

-Room for entertaining

-Great small city of Lakeland with walking trails and parks to enjoy

-Driving home, walking along the sidewalks or looking out the window to see deer hanging out!

Daddy and Taylor at the pool

Swimming in the backyard to cool off on a hot Memphis summer day

Who needs a swimsuit when you are in your backyard?!?!

Taylor enjoying some of her toys in the driveway

I know we will fill this new home with so many great memories.  We are so very blessed to be able to move into such a lovely place!  And now that we are settled and have more room we are ready for visitors!

Beach Trip!

We had a great trip to the beach this summer with Matt's family.  We have made it sort of a yearly tradition to head down to the beach and rent a beach house/condo for a week with Meme, Peepaw, Kim, Josh and Kayla.  Taylor's debut trip was last year at just 7 weeks old.  This time she had a little better idea of what was going on.  She LOVED playing by the beach in this little blow up pool that was at the house.  She also spent lots of time exploring the shore with Meme!  She loved seeing the birds flying around and was quite the social butterfly greeting people as they passed by.  

Daddy, Josh and Kim ventured out for a deep sea fishing expedition again this year.  It seemed to go much better than last year with more fish caught and less sea-sickness :)  We found a restaurant that cooked the fish that they caught for us and it was very yummy!  

Uncle Richard, Aunt Linda, Hailey, Matthew and Garrett were also at the beach just a few minutes away while we were down there.  We spent one night with them which was a nice treat.  The plan was to eat at a restaurant, however there was a major monsoon on our way to meet them and all of the restaurants were full with very long waits.  So, we bought some food from the street vendors and headed back to their condo to spend some time relaxing. It ended up being a great time to hang out and visit for a little while.  

One night Matt and I went out for a nice dinner together while Taylor stayed back with the rest of the family.  Matt loves seafood so he really enjoys all the good fresh seafood at the beach.  We had a great trip and definitely spent a lot of time resting and relaxing!

Staring longingly at the beach!

Taylor spend many fun times by the ocean in her pool!

Matt with one of his fish

The deep sea fishing crew and their catches

Taylor and PeePaw

Meme and Taylor

What a life!

Family picture

Hailey, Garrett, Jenn, Matthew and Taylor

Kayla, the tan momma, and Taylor

Out to dinner