New Wheels...

We are the proud owners of a van! We knew that this was a necessary purchase... Our Home Study Agency wanted us to be able to transport all 4 of our kiddos at the same time! So another item on the to-do list bites the dust! We continue to wait for the referral phone call... it literally could be ANY day! :) We are staying busy with fundraisers... we are trying our best to say yes to their faces debt free! God continues to provide and we keep stepping out in faith!

Wow!!

Shirts are designed and ordered!! See design and information to the left. --> The stairway bunk bed was purchased and assembled!! Now to start on the HomeStudy Questionnaires that are due tomorrow!! Staying busy... but being productive. I love it!!!

A Little More Progress...

We completed our first 5K on Saturday while supporting the Kruer's adoption! That was the one and only significant goal of the weekend! Today: 1. We got our veterinarian's approval to adopt again! :) She had to complete a form that basically said, in her opinion, Preston did not pose a threat to any person. 2. After the kids nap I have my adoption physical. (Not going to lie, I am kind of excited to step on the scale and have them record a number 40 pounds lighter than my last visit!!) 3. I filled out our I600A form (Petition to Homeland Security to adopt 2 orphans) and wrote yet another check... but I can't mail it until Chuck signs it tonight. 4. Working on the house for the HomeStudy! Less nervous this go round but I still have a list a mile long... 5. Trying to get a Stairway Bunk Bed from Craigslist. It was posted today! If we are able to snatch up this deal we would be saving at least $300 - which would be AMAZING!! 6. Still working on our t-shirt design. Nothing super exciting yet but I am just trying to keep everyone informed. :) -Abby

Successful Mission

We had our fingerprinting done at the Sheriff's Office this morning and I mailed in the request for our FBI Background Check. Another item bites the dust! :) -Abby

Checking Items Off the To-do List...

1. Took the kiddos to the pediatrician this morning for their required physicals... 2. Scheduled our HomeStudy in-person meeting requirements. (October 10th Interview and October 16th Home Visit.) 3. Submitted Employment Verification Letters... Trucking a long one item at a time... My goal is to complete ONE adoption item EVERY day. That makes today a success and it's just lunch time! * Hoping to get fingerprinted at the Sheriff's Office in the morning! -Abby

Ready for Round Two

That's right, we recently started our 2nd adoption process. We could not be more excited! We are confident that God has called us to adopt from Ethiopia again and the time is now. Yes, there was a lot of prayer involved and this adoption may prove to be even a larger step of faith than the first. Currently the paper chase has us knee-deep in adoption paper work again. We were able to send in our HomeStudy application with supporting documents on Friday. (This included almost $3,000 in expenses too.) We are in the process of creating t-shirts to sell and we will begin this fundraiser as soon as possible. We have chosen to use Mary Kendall Adoption Program as our HomeStudy agency again - which is a blessing because we will be working with our same case worker equaling reduced fees. :) As for our placement agency... we have selected Adoption Avenues. This is different than round one because Holt is only accepting families who are looking to adopt children 5 and older. For all of you who know Zeek this will come as no surprise... He is VERY 1st child and we think that it is crucial that he remains our oldest child. Therefore, we are requesting 2 children 3 years of age and younger (exactly the same parameters as round one.) Thank you in advance for your love, support, and encouragement! We could not do this without you! More to come about EVERYTHING. This is just a start. -Abby

Greatest weekend, maybe ever!

We got the call! That's right The CALL! We got to see our children for the first time Friday! Both are healthy and happy. Layla is 6 months old and Ezekiel is 2 years. We would love to post pictures but for security purposes we cannot. We are so blessed! We have approximately $10,000 dollars left to raise so please be in prayer for us and our children.

Excitement!

We are officially number 21 on the wait list!

Where to begin....?

Let me first say that when ur spouse is gone u are reminded of how much a helpmate they are to u! Since Sunday Abby has been in Mt. Sterling on a mission trip for which I am so excited to see that passion for missions wailing up in her again! Since we are mostly certain that we will be traveling once before the end of the year to Ethiopia I have to bank as much of my vacation as possible so I wasn't able to go with her! I expected to use that time to get the house caught up, mow the grass, clean the house maybe do alittle fishing and with bow season opening up in September maybe even go scouting but none of that happened! I closed at Panera on Sunday and Monday and Monday afternoon I got a phone call from USCIS whom calmly left me a message saying there was one small problem with our application and I needed to call as soon as possible! Being at work I wasn't able to call until Tuesday(woke up sick throwing up) where I was told that since we obviously didn't read the request for an amendment to our application that we were being considered for denial. But they were going to gve us another chance if were able to get this fixed immediately! This began a llllooonnngggg drawn out process that took approximately 5 hours to resolve going back and forth between our home study and uscis. All the while remember I am on a solo mission with Abby being gone! In the end I was headed out the door to fax a paper from work giving permission for uscis to contact our homestudy group when I got a call from uscis saying, Mr. Robinson I have good news! I spoke to my supervisor regarding ur application and see feels that u have met all the requirements and have given me the go ahead to approve ur application!". Do what!?! I felt like asking if she was loco? But instead I opted for thank you and I hung up the phone! After shedding a few tears over the whole ordeal I checked my email only to discover that Holt International had sent an email letting us know that. Our dossier was now in Ethiopia!

God certainly hasn't given us this opporunity on a silver platter but I still hold to the promise that he is in control! What a journey it has been so far and even though we have quite a long road left to go with some big financial hump in the way I know we are following in God's footsteps! We are counting on some rough terrain before the end but He has made lite the way for us to go!

Emergency Call at lunch(or so I thought)

Being a restaurant manager, my wife knows that the worst time to call is right in the middle of lunch! Well yesterday the 30th, I got one such call! As soon as I heard that my wife was on the phone I rushed to find our what was wrong! Of course she had cried wolf I guess! Excitement had overwhelmed her and without thinking she ran in from the mailbox dancing all the way holding our fingerprinting appointments and dialing the phone all at the same time! That's right everybody and we don't even have to drive to Nashville for them! On July 20th at three o'clock I will go and then on the 21st at 2 it will be Abby's turn! I can't believe that I am saying this but as soon as we get fingerprinted and get this approved we will be up for placement! It's hard to imagine how quickly our children will be here! There is still so much to do but today means one less thing that has to be done!
Please continue to pray for us as we still have approximately 25000 dollars left to raise!

The Big D is approved and Washington is now holding it!

We just got notification that on June 25th from Holt, that they have approved our dossier and that they are sending it on to D.C. Once D.C. approves and seals the Dossier it will be sent on to Ethiopia! We have heard from many different people about all the changes and amendments that had to be made to their Dossiers when they sent theirs in so we are PUMPED that we got it right on the first try(well at least so far). My wife is the one to take ALL the credit for this happening! I think my nature was probably more damaging to finishing the Dossier than helpful! Every other comment I gave was, "Awww, its fine like that!" or "Aww, they will never notice!" Thank you honey for all your hard work! I love you!

Where is that fingerprinting appointment?

The Big Double D's

That's right I said it! The Dossier is Done!!! Woot! Woot! We mailed our Dossier on my Birthday! I like doing big things like this on special days cause that means I won't forget it! Man, I never thought that we would get here and now that we are, I am blown away that it is here! We just sent our Dossier off for approval! That includes the $3000 dollar translation fee (side note: 3000 DOLLARS TO HAVE SOMEONE TRANSLATE IT? For Real?!) We are thankful to have that money set aside without having to worry about what we were going to do! Although the next big fee is the processing fees for our children which will be around 20,000 dollars and we have no clue where that is going to come from yet! We trust as we have in the past that God will provide! What a relief to have off of our shoulders! Now if we could just get our fingerprinting appointment!

One more thing!

Lately I have felt very overwhelmed with all that is going on in our lives! Even though things are moving along swimmingly it seems that it has taken so much to get to this point! This month has been CRAZY with farewells, new bosses, adoption paperwork, school coming to an end, graduate classes, unseen financial obligations and others that I am sure I have forgotten because there were so many! Due to that the blog has taken a bit of a hit so for that I apologize! I know that if you are trying to keep up it must get aggravating to check and not see anything different! So I promise that you will now receive at least weekly updates regardless of what is going on! So stay tuned in to see what excitement is coming!

Wow! Where to start!

Yesterday we had our final homestudy at our house! I was up basically from 7am Saturday morning till Sunday night at 8:30. I did take a two hour nap but the rest of the time I was working on the house minus a 10 hour shift at Panera! Well after a long weekend Monday brought us the final homestudy! I wasnt as nervous this time around and I feel that we have been very lucky to have the case worker that we do! She has not only been pleasant and friendly but has become quite a blessing to both Abby and I!
She came at about 2:30 and stayed with us until 4 o'clock or so! We continued to receive many questions about our family and our marriage and then she did a walk through of our house! We are happy to inform each of you that we have passed our homestudy! Now of course its not official until we receive our paperwork in the mail but she said we were approved in every way possible without saying we are approved! I feel like I have lost a few pounds since this burden has been lifted!
Now it is time to start the dossier and even though it is a huge task to fill out this paperwork and get all the correct signatures and approvals we feel confident that the hardest part is behind us now! We so look forward to what the future holds and of course the arrival of our two children!
Please join me in prayer for our children, whomever and where ever they may be right now! Father I pray that you will watch over our kids even if they are not born yet! You know who they are! I pray that you will bless their families in hopes that they will care for them to the best of their abilities and if they cannot care for them I pray that you place them in a situation where they can be cared for! Prepare their tiny hearts for all the changes that are to come and our Lord! You are in control of this situation Father and we only hope to glorify you in it!

Amen!

Ok it's settled!

We finally made the decision! We are going to adopt two together at one time! We always knew we wanted more than one child and our home is nearly ready for two so we are just going to go ahead and go for it!

HOMESTUDY STARTED

We have been waiting to get our homestudy started and yesterday it did! There is this tendancy to think that they are out to get you, to fail you and this kinda of thinking is easy to believe. We are so thankful that we chose a christian origination to do our homestudy. Not only did we walk away excited about what happened but we left with a blessing! We feel that everything went very smoothly and that we are on our way to a two thumbs up go ahead and adopt homestudy completion!!! On a side note dont eat at the taco bell across from cracker barrel in E-town. Ohhh my, gross!

Back to work!

After our wonderful picnic we got the word that our home study is finally going to happen! The first meeting will be Tuesday the 11th. We will be driving down to e-town to meet our case worker and then our home visit will be on Monday the 17th! Pray for us, we have a lot of house tuning to do but we are confident that everything will go smoothly! God is good!

Finally a day off!

Lately even when Abby and I have a day off its not really a day off! Every moment that isn't filled with work or church has been filled with adoption stuff so we decided to take a day off!
Picnic time for us! That's right we headed down to the creek for some peace and quiet! Finally!

We are officially CPR certified!!!

Its hard to get past the thought that I might have to give you mouth to mouth I know but at least now I know what I am doing! Once again we are one step closer to our final goal! Have fun at my expense and enjoy the photo's!!!

Background checks are in!!!

We are officially one step closer! I got home Friday and was about to open the door when it flung open and Abby said its official you are not a sex offender! Ummmmm...... Pardon me? Well that's good and I never thought I was! Kinda freaked me out needless to say! We had just gotten our background checks in and that was Abby's way of telling me! As weird as it was I was happy to know that one more thing was out of the way!

Praise God!!!!

Finally Abby's car is fixed and we its only going to cost us $125! We were beginning to get tore up over this whole situation! Thank you to everyone that prayed for this situation! Our God is good!

Just when you doubt!

Abby and I went to pick up the car Wednesday and before we got off the lot we ended up with more problems. Of course we have already paid for it to be fixed and now its looking like it may cost more! We don't have the money to invest more money in the car right now and we are not sure about what we are going to do! Matter of fact we are a bit short with what we have already paid, THEN out of the blue $350 dollars showed up! As long as the car doesn't cost us anymore then we will have just enough to pay for the homes study at the end of the month. Now the odds of that happening is slim to none but this situation has reminded me of something. Abby and I are trusting that God will provide a way for this adoption and why shouldn't we trust that God will provide a way for this car thing! We are blessed! Nervous but blessed!

Weeellllll.....

So I decided to call before I left for Splatter Inc. and of course nobody answered! Whats the deal with that! Used to be there was someone to answer the call on the first ring! Oh well! No biggy! Going to try to go after work tomorrow.

I am sure that everyone says this but there is SO MUCH PAPERWORK!

So Abby and I decided to give up our DVR and cable the other day so we could save as much money as possible! At first I was like I cant do this, then it was I can do this for my child, but now its no big deal! Hulu.com is the bomb! I can even watch in Hi-def! what what!

Home Study Time!

On March 25th we received our application approval from Holt! It is now time to start the Home Study process! For whatever reason I am more nervous about this part than I am anything else so far! Maybe its because of having no idea what to expect but regardless, here we go!

Overview

Abby and I have been on a blessed journey for the past 7 years in marriage and it is now time to expand our family. One of the most difficult moments in our relationship was the day that I had to tell Abby that we would not be able to conceive a child. Today, we want you to know that God has a plan! We are blessed with the opportunity and awesome privilege to become parents. (No, Abby is not pregnant!) God is calling us to expand our family through adoption. Without a doubt we are confident in our decision and timing but need your help to make this dream come true. Adopting from Ethiopia will cost approximately $30,000.00! We know that God will provide! We have had the opportunity to meet other Christian families who have adopted from around the world, we have a wonderful adoption agency, and we have been surrounded and encouraged by family and friends! We know that God’s provisions will continue!