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We are OFFICIAL!

Derek and I are officially an approved family! Excitement is filling our house as we anticipate the blessings that God has for us as we see this journey continue! 

I can't help but cry tears of joy as we are seeing His faithfulness through each phase of adoption! Our God is good and it is made more evident each day. 

Three Prayer Requests:

1) Please pray for our patience as we wait for the perfect child/ children! 

2) Please pray for the moms who come into the adoption agency to view our book or who go online to & view our profile! Each of them are making such a hard decision and we hope that our book just radiates the love that we have for this precious child that we don't even know yet! 

3) Please pray for us as we continue to save money for our sweet Baby Parker! 

Love y'all!

Karilyn & Derek

One More Step Closer

Tomorrow, Derek and I have our interview with the agency which is another step for our home study. We are so excited to be moving a little closer to bringing Baby Parker home. Thank you for all of your prayers and shared excitement as we go through the process! 

Also, a big shout out to our sweet friends JT and Mary who brought us a ton of fabulous stuff for Baby Parker! They really loaded us up and the glider is perfect for the nursery! Thank y'all for the awesome baby items!

Now, we are looking for a car seat and stroller for Baby Parker. There are so many different kinds and we are slightly overwhelmed. I would love to know if anyone has a type that they love. I need all the help that I can get. :)

Love y'all!

Karilyn

Right on time - Never Late or Too Early

Through this whole journey I have been wondering:

How is our story going to play out?

Where will we be going?

What emotions are going to be rushing through our minds when we get THE call?

What is the woman (who is making me a mom) going to be like?

What feelings are going to be pouring through us as we hold our child for the first time?

As most of you know I'm a planner! I need to have a game plan. This journey has been far from being planned out by us. God has led us down a path that we never had planned. We (really it has been me) have had to learn patience and it hasn't been easy. I would be lying if I said  that the wait has been easy and painless, but it has been a time of learning and growing. 

This article sums up what I've learned through this journey and still learning!

http://www.joycemeyer.org/articles/ea.aspx?article=when_gods_timing_is_taking_too_long

Now for some FABULOUS news...

We received an email that our home visit for the home study will be this Monday (February 10th) at 10am! HIP HIP HOORAY!

Also, we have been working on finishing the nursery which has been pushed into overdrive because of the home visit. Here are some pictures of the nursery progress! I love this room! 

We are so excited about the progress and moving closer to bringing home sweet Baby Parker!

Love y'all!

Karilyn

Blissful Waiting

I wish that I could post some fabulous new event that is moving us closer to Baby Parker, but we are waiting. We are waiting not only for our home study to be started/completed but we are waiting for God's perfect timing when we will meet our little one. 

Is the waiting frustrating?

You better believe it! But I continuously hear God reaffirming that His timing and plan is more perfect than I can imagine. 

All of our paperwork is in and we are just waiting on a social worker. So until we move forward, we are blissfully waiting for the time when God expands our family with sweet Baby Parker! 

Love y'all!

Karilyn

Blessed Our Hearts & Hopefully Soon - Our Arms!

At our meeting in Columbia two weeks ago, Derek and I were asked to start completing lots of tasks. One task was completing our physicals so we can begin our home study. I am happy to say that we have completed these and we are waiting on the adoption agency to get the paperwork. Hopefully, we will know soon when the home study and interviews will start! After the interviews and home study, we will be on the waiting list!

I am always truly amazed at how God is just opening doors and blessing us through this entire journey! I am so humbled by your prayers, sweet notes and help with fundraising. 

A sweet group of friends blessed our hearts this Christmas by being very sneaky and changing a $20 gift exchange into one of the sweetest ways to help our adoption. I was seriously in shock and I'm not sure that I said, "THANK YOU!" enough times. I sat there like I was in a dream and played it over and over again in my head to process the love and friendship that was in that room! Thank you to my sweet "Girls of 29369"! Y'all have blessed our hearts and hopefully soon - our arms with a sweet baby! XOXO

Also, my sweet faculty at school did a charity donation during our Christmas party and our adoption was put in the basket as a charity and was drawn! We are continually blessed and just beyond grateful for your love! 

To say the least, our Christmas has been blessed beyond measure and we know that we don't what the future holds for us but we do know who holds our future! 

Love y'all!

Karilyn

Thankful for Wonderful Family & Friends!

Things have been really busy with adoption progress and fundraisers! This blog post is LONG overdue!

First, I have to give a HUGE SHOUT-OUT to everyone who helped us at Pizza Inn on November 21st! That was no easy task and our family and friends just jumped in and helped us tremendously!!! THANK YOU so much for giving your time to come and take orders and serve drinks at Pizza Inn! I don't think that I will ever be able to repay each of you for what you did to help us that night! Derek and I just keep saying that we can't believe how many people showed up to help us! We are so grateful for everything that you did to help us reach our dream of becoming parents. Y'all made the night run so smoothly and you have blessed Derek and I beyond comprehension!!!!

To everyone who came & feasted on pizza and generously tipped the ever so lovely wait staff, THANK YOU! It was so wonderful to see each of you and be able to talk & fellowship with each of you! We are so thankful for your friendship and love!

Without both of those groups of people, our Pizza Inn fundraiser would not have been so successful! That night we raised over $2000 for our adoption! WOW!!! This is beyond what we expected to raise that night! The Pizza Inn staff couldn't believe what we made that night either. They were already begging us to come back and do another fundraiser for our adoption! It is amazing the way that God is just pouring His love on us during this whole process! We just know that the child that God has for us is out there and we are looking forward to meeting him or her!


Update on the Adoption Process...
We have turned in our paperwork to start our home study with our agency. Unfortunately, this agency does not accept our previous home study, which is a bummer because we loved the lady that we did our first home study with last year. We are waiting to hear if we made the training session in Columbia next Friday! I will update the blog when we find out!

Please keep praying for this whole process, but more importantly please pray for the woman who will be allowing us to parent her baby! She is making a huge sacrifice for us. She is a woman that I will always cherish, because she is the woman that will make me a mom! What a hard decision to make!

We have been told numerous times that adoptions can happen just from word of mouth. If you know someone who is considering adoption, please share with them our adoption book. It is just a little inside look into our lives!

Click here to see our adoption book!


Love y'all!
Karilyn