Where Have We Been???

I know, I know...I've been WAY behind on blog posts!!!  What has been keeping me from blogging you ask?  Well, I started my first official nursing job at the end of August, taught a Dale Carnegie Course in Minster, Ohio on one of my days off, and we held a Pampered Chef Adoption Fundraiser Party as well!  My wonderfully sweet friend Holly, who is also a Pampered Chef consultant, jumped right on board with the idea, and it was a wonderful success!  Thanks again to all of you who purchased items from the sale!  We are so blessed by you!  I wish I had a picture of the party, but we were too busy having fun cooking, eating, and chatting to pose for the camera!  I also did a few other things over these past few months.....

like make mostly purchase pieces for our Halloween costumes this year.  Yes, we were Despicable Me if you hadn't see this one already :)  

My awesome sister just got married too, so we were busy with wedding things...like Derby themed bachelorette parties and you know, all of the great things that go along with getting married!  Unfortunately, I don't have one single shot of Karah and Dan, but I do have a great sister shot!

Isn't she beautiful?  Anyway, life has settled down about as much as it is going to, so this past week or so we've been working hard at getting all of our paperwork completed for both our agency and home study. WHAT???  

So there are probably a few details that I should probably mention.  As I had mentioned in my last post..ahem..which was two months ago, we were trying to make a bunch of decisions related to how to go about adoption, where to adopt from, etc.  It was just about at this time that we determined that we were being led in a different direction than what we had originally planned on.  Ha!  Isn't that always the case when we try to make our own plans instead of trusting in Him?  

How did this all go down?  One day I was just cruising through my Facebook page, and came across a sweet picture of a precious boy needing a family.  On a whim, (or the nudging of the Holy Spirit ;) ) I decided to send a message to the girl who posted the picture of that sweet guy.  I discovered that he was on the waiting children list in China.  It was then that Michael and I started discussing the possibility of international adoption.  Before this time, we just assumed we would do domestic infant. But...we felt that going this route was what we were really being called to do all along.  So, with all that being said, hopefully we will be able to introduce you *virtually* to the newest member of the Schaadt family within the next month! 

What can you do right now you ask?  Pray!  Pray for everything to go smoothly with the initial submission of paperwork, and also for our home study to be able to get started quickly as well.  Most of all, pray for ALL of the 150 million orphans worldwide.  November is adoption month, and we are so thankful and blessed that we will be able to start the process of making a difference in the life of one of those 150 million precious children.   

Updates to come very very soon!