And it all begins again...

I'm still trying to catch my breath after opening an e-mail earlier this afternoon from Adoption Network saying that our profiles are live!!  WHAT?!?!?  I know it's a good thing that our profiles went up so quickly...but, to be honest, I was counting on a few more weeks of calm before I started jumping every time the phone rang! 

Last time, it took them about 2 weeks to get our profiles up once we had all our "Dear Birthmother" letters and pictures sent into them.  Dave & I mailed a CD of all our pictures to Adoption Network last Monday and then spent the rest of the week finishing up our Dear Birthmother letters, which we sent in on Friday (yes, just 4 days ago).

After I e-mailed our "Dear Birthmother" letters last Friday, I spent a little while browsing around their site, where I noticed that they had over 50 couples "in progress"--meaning, over 50 couples waiting for their profiles to go live.  With that many couples waiting for their profiles to go live, I figured that we'd have at least a few more weeks before ours went up. 

So, I was SHOCKED when they e-mailed us today saying that our profiles are live on 2 websites!  Of course, this is a very, very good thing!  We are thrilled that birthmothers are now able to view our family...but it also means that any day now we could have a call!  Last time, our first call came just 4 days after our profiles went live. 

I try to remind myself that the unknowns of adoption are just one of the many things that make adoption so fun....but, it can also be very stressful.  This is just another step in the journey where we need to trust God...He already knows where our next birthmother is, when she's due, and when we will get a call! 

"You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in You, all whose thoughts are fixed on You."

Isaiah 26:3

Little Helper

Isaac & I went grocery shopping this morning, just like we do every Monday morning.  When we got home, I unloaded all the groceries into the front entry and took a few bags of frozen & refrigerated groceries back into the kitchen.  I turned around and saw Isaac walking into the kitchen with a can of pizza sauce.  He handed it to me and went back into the entry.  Over the next ten minutes, he brought nearly everything we had bought into the kitchen one by one, including a 4 pound bag of oranges!  It was a big job, especially for such a little guy.  (And I, like a good mom, stopped putting groceries away and ran to get the camera.)  :)

The only items he couldn't lift were the gallons of milk...he tried so hard and was grunting for all he was worth, but they were just too heavy. :)

Isaac: 15 Months

I've decided I'm going to do quarterly posts for Isaac's second year.  I'm sure that by next year I'll be lucky if I'm even doing yearly posts! 

Today at the doctor, Isaac was 22 1/2 pounds (25th percentile in weight) and 31 1/2 inches (50-75th percentile in height).

Signs please, thank you, airplane, train, & hat

Says

• "a-en" or just "en" (amen)
• "ish" (this can mean a trash can, laundry basket, or anything that goes into the trash can--whether it belongs there or not)
• "a-on" (pretty close to his "amen," but this means "all done")
• "dad" or "dada" (Dave, but he also calls me "dad" when he points to pictures of me in the house)
• "dat" (he says this when he wants you to tell him what something is, or when he wants DAT!)  :)

Identifies head, ear, teeth, & feet on himself

He also touches his ear when he hears a sound (usually a train or airplane, but also when he hears the phone ring, doorbell ring, or a radio on).

Favorite things:

• pretending to drive Dave's truck...my how he cries if he doesn't get to go outside to the truck when Dave gets home at night!
• looking for airplanes in the sky on walks & at my parent's house
• throwing things into the trash...my memory card, a cloth diaper, and several baby spoons are things I've recently dug out of the "ish"  :)
• playing in this cardboard box leftover from Christmas..he crawls in and out over and over and then plays "peek-a-boo" through the window

• learning to eat from a spoon

• this new fire engine from Uncle Mike is also one of his favorite things right now!  I couldn't find him earlier today and finally heard him growling in the family room.  He was sitting in the fire engine pretending to steer.  He also loves detaching the water tank from the back of the fire engine and dragging it all around the house. 
• giving hugs (one of the most adorable things I think I've ever seen...)  He also blew kisses to me from his crib the other day when I laid him down for his nap. 

I can't believe my "baby" boy is well into his second year of life!  He's full of more fun than we ever imagined...oh how we love him!

Dave's Birthday!

We had a fun time celebrating Dave's birthday last Sunday!  It was a pretty low-key birthday celebration, but we had a great dinner and ice cream cake for dessert! 

It was also our first "big" snowfall of the winter, so Nate took Isaac out to play after dinner.  Nate tried to "steer" Isaac back toward the house two times, but Isaac kept running away from the house & back into the yard.  He was so interested in walking through the snow.  (The snow in Steamboat was way too deep for him to walk through!)

And, last night we celebrated Dave's birthday with dinner at Texas de Brazil!  It was delicious and so fun to go out downtown!

Our Big News!

We're so excited about adopting again!

Since last summer, we have been praying about when we should begin the process of adopting another baby.  Even though we know that God directs our steps, beginning the adoption process still very much feels that you are "putting yourself out there."  We didn't want to move ahead until we both felt that God had given us direction to do so, but we also didn't want to delay if/when He did show us this was the right time.

In mid-November, we had a conference call with Adoption Network, the group of lawyers in California whom we worked with on Isaac's adoption.  We were so impressed with how they handled all the different aspects of Isaac's adoption that we felt great about working with them again.  After our conference call, they sent us a contract which expired on December 31.  Along with talking this huge decision over with some family & friends, we spent the past month praying intently about when we should send in our contract.  We usually don't wait until the "eleventh hour" to complete things, but life has been so busy lately with all my concerts, Dave traveling, & Christmas that we didn't really have a chance to talk everything through until this Christmas break.  After a long (and tear-filled, for me) breakfast last Thursday morning together, we both felt that God had showed us it was the right time to complete the contract.  We signed and sent in the contract while we were still with Dave's parents in Steamboat...actually, Isaac was so excited about a baby brother or sister that he added his signature to the contract too. :)

Won't he be such an adorable big brother? ;)

Please join us in prayer for...

• efficiency in completing all our paperwork, photos, updated homestudy, & "Dear Birthmother" letters (due Jan 31)
• peace and patience as we wait for a placement
• the families of our next birthomother & birthfather to be supportive of their plans to place the baby for adoption
• God's protection over our next baby & his/her birthmother
• wisdom whether or not to accept a placement (before Isaac's match, we had a placement that we ended up turning down, and it was very difficult) 
• all the details of the adoption--legalities and potential travel out of state--to work out smoothly
• us to trust God as we enter another completely unknown situation

We can't express how much your support & prayers meant to us during Isaac's adoption process.

We love you all,
David, Bethany, & Isaac

Our friends from Taylor, David & Kelly Blomgren, are in the process of adopting a baby (or babies!) from South Korea!  Even though we weren't super-close friends in college, it's been fun keeping in touch since graduation.  In addition to having many of the same friends in common, Kelly & I are both Minnesota girls.  I even grew up in the same church as her cousins!  At any rate, it's been a lot of fun keeping in touch with them, and I can't wait to watch their adoption journey unfold.  David & Kelly have an incredible heart for orphans and are anxious to welcome one or more into their family!

Kelly's cousin (the one I grew up in church with!) designed t-shirts to support their adoption.  Whether or not you're able to order one, please check out their blog which chronicles their adoption journey (and also their beautiful daughter Norah).  :)

Fun in the Snow

We were able to make a fun trip to Steamboat to visit Dave's parents a few days after Christmas.  We'd taken Isaac to Estes Park last May, but this was his first trip to Steamboat.  He had so much fun exploring his Grandma & Papa's house for the first time.  And, we had so much fun playing with him in the snow!  We got a little infant sled (complete with safety strap!) for him to ride in...he was so bulky in his snowsuit that he couldn't move once we secured the strap!

at the top of the "sled run"

here he comes!

And, whenever we stopped the sled long enough, Isaac would grab a handful of snow to eat! 

Isaac couldn't get enough of Kelly....she's so old and gentle that she didn't mind that Isaac was always growling at her!

All the pictures in this post are from a morning of playing oustide in the snow...even though there aren't any pictures of Tim & Susie (Papa and Grandma), we did have a great time with them.  We love visiting their beautiful home in Steamboat, especially in the beautiful winter weather (just as long as we don't have to spend the night in the Tahoe due to a blizzard!).  My mother-in-law is one of the best cooks I know, and we enjoyed every single meal she made for us.  We went to a great Mexican restaurant for New Year's Eve and then went downtown to a fun little gelato shop for dessert.  My favorite part of New Year's Eve, though, was driving through Steamboat and looking at all the beautiful Christmas lights on the houses and at the ski resort.  It couldn't have been prettier!  We were even able to extend our trip by an additional day because of the winter storms in Colorado.  We were supposed to fly home on New Year's Eve, but American Airlines switched our tickets (for free!) to Saturday evening.