3 Days!!!!

3 DAYS!  That was all it took to have ALL of the pieces in our jewelry fundraiser SOLD!  Yay!  We have such awesome family and friends!  A huge thank you to all of you who purchased from us!  There were a few people who wanted to purchase but didn't have the chance because everything went so quickly.  I am partnering with Compelled Designs again and throwing out an additional 10 pieces up for grabs!  They will be a different mix, including pieces specific to China and Africa!  The Chinese pieces will be identical to the piece I had specifically requested in the fundraiser that was my early Mother's Day present.

Here she is.....

Oh I loved it the moment I saw it!  The heart lies exactly over the area where our little man is from.  Be still by beating heart!  I love it!  I will post the new round of jewelry as soon as I have them in.  Eek! 

I wish I had super exciting news as far as our home study report being finalized, but unfortunately we wait.   Please be praying for it to be finalized within the next few weeks so we can send out our I 800 A.  The good news is that I was told by our agency that it has been taking 90 days to process the I 800 A, but I have recently been seeing that for most people this time has been reduced by nearly half!  Praying that this will be the case for us!  Hopefully we will have an update on this soon!!!

Compelled Designs Jewelry Fundraiser!!!!!

As I had mentioned in my previous post from earlier today, I won a drawing for a jewelry fundraising kit from Compelled Designs to raise money to bring our little man home!  I'm sooooo over the moon excited about this opportunity!  Each piece will be sold for $25, which includes $1 towards the cost of shipping, (unless you are local of course.)  They are beautiful pieces, and far exceeded my expectations!  As soon as I laid eyes on them, I was in love!  Each piece has a Bible verse reference on the back, so if you are interested in knowing which verse corresponds with a specific piece, let me know!  Best way to get in touch with me is via email at theschaadts@hotmail.com, or via Facebook message.  These are first come, first serve people, so don't wait!

Home Study Completed and a SURPRISE!

Happy 2014 everyone!  2013 of course closed out for us in a very exciting way, and now 2014 is off to a very exciting start as well!  We completed our home study last week, so now we wait for the actual home study report to be finalized...which *hopefully* will be by the end of this month.  As soon as that hot little thing is in our hands I will be jumping up and down for a few reasons.  First of all, that gives us the green light to send in our I 800 A approval, which is a document required by US immigration.  It is an application to adopt a child from a certain group of countries, which China is one of them.  I am currently working on filling out this application because it needs to go out seriously like the day after we get our home study report!  Our agency told us this week that immigration has been running about 90 days on processing these applications, which is making me a little bit very nervous!  Our dossier has to be to China by the first week of June, so if we got the I 800 A into immigration by the first part of March, we would only be sitting a month short of our deadline by the time we received it back from them in May.  Again, I'm really concerned that the home study report will not be finalized by the end of this month, so we will be pushed much, much closer to the first part of June than I care to admit!  Nevertheless, we are moving along and gathering all of the documents that we need for the dossier gathered and notarized, so we are good there!

Something else very exciting happened this past month as well!  One of our new found adoption family friends who are also in the area AND adopting a little guy from China, the Whitacre's....well, more specifically Jessi Whitacre, (you can find info about their adoption journey here,) posted about a contest from Compelled Designs, an awesome pottery jewelry company that specifically works with families and groups to raise funds for things like adoption and missions trips, on her Facebook page.  I figured, why not register for the contest as well? Well I'm glad I did because I WON!!!!!  Whooo hooo!  What does that mean?  It means that I was sent a great selection of awesome pottery jewelry to sell to raise funds to bring our little man home!  Yippee!  My little package arrived yesterday and I was super excited!  I mean, just look at these awesome pieces!  You know you want one...or two...

So how do you acquire one of these glorious gems you ask?  I will be creating a separate posting for them individually listed later, (either today or tomorrow,) with numbers for each.  Each piece is $25 each, which includes $1 for shipping.  If you are local, you can save yourself the $1 :)  What is super awesome about these necklaces is that they are beautiful, each has a Bible verse reference on the back, AND...ALL of the $24 goes straight towards our adoption!  Can you tell I am just a little excited about this?  Michael is begging you all to help him out and to buy these pieces, because honestly, I wouldn't mind keeping every last one of them for myself!  Obviously counterproductive!

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support!  We are so thankful and grateful that we have such wonderful friends and family to walk this journey with us!  Again, please continue to pray for our sweet little man, and for a quick turnaround of our home study report!

It's official!!! We are expecting!!

I told you I would have BIG news soon, didn't I???  We got our PA (Pre-Approval,) from China last week, so basically what that means is that China acknowledges that we are interested in our little man, and now the clock is ticking to get that all encompassing, mother of all documents, (AKA: Dossier,) to China within six months.  Six months may sound like a loooooong time people, but trust me, right now it feels like it's going to take me a good 4 1/2 months just to get all of my required documents together and notarized.  UGH!  I already hate the word notarized.  Makes me think of the movie, The Lion King, where they say the word Mufasa, and the hyenas shiver....yep, same concept for me and notarized :)  

Other news...we also started our home study tonight!  YAY!  Visit numero uno is under our belts!  It was actually really sweet.  The first thing our little lady asked our social worker was where our little man was (referring to him by the name given to him through our agency.)  Our social worker of course had no idea what she was talking about, but it was adorable!  I told her she had to wait a bit more before he can come home to be with her!  Since the holidays are quickly coming upon us, our remaining visits will be scheduled in January, which is fine by me. We were happy just to get started this month!  

So now that I have kept you all in suspense long enough, I'm guessing you would like to meet the newest member of the Schaadt family, right???  

Ahhhh the cuteness!!!!  That face gets me every.single.time.  I can't wait to love all over those precious little cheeks!!!!  We are over the moon thrilled that we are matched with this little one.  Definitely couldn't have asked for a better Christmas present this year...that's for sure!

Now that we are matched, I feel as though, and know from other families' experiences, that the wait now is torturous.  Please be praying for our sweet little man who is so far away from us, and also for our strength as well.  

Merry Christmas and many blessings this holiday season!!!

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!  

The Story

All major life events always have a story that coincides with them.  If you need help thinking of what events these might be, you just need to think of what shows are currently on TLC...A Baby Story, A Wedding Story, My First Home...ok you get it!  If you are like me, as soon as you pick up a new book and are a few chapters in, you have to resist the urge to flip to the last chapter to find out what happens to the main characters.  If you know me, then you know I am a super impatient person, and also a big time planner.  Just so you know, that is a HORRIBLE combination for someone who is considering adoption! 

Anyway, something I have been very anxious about lately is being able to fully see our adoption story.  What I mean by that is, we are at a point where a lot of decisions need to be made that will determine which path which choose to take during our journey through adoption.  Lately it seems as though all of our discussions are surrounding which agency to use, using an adoption consultant vs. no consultant, and even more recently, international adoption possibilities.  I feel as if one person asked me each day what we were thinking of doing, that my answer would be different each time they asked!  The only thing that is keeping both of us sane during this time is knowing that luckily we are not the ones in control, but that God is in control.  Proverbs 3:5 is a verse that is continuously running through my mind all of the time now for sure!  As Michael and I were walking the other night, we were talking about adoption related things...(you know, the regular debate of how to go about adoption, financial needs, timeline, etc.,) when we started talking about how God has specifically provided for us just within the last few months.  After graduation, I took the NCLEX and hadn't gotten a job right away...ok, not that I was doing giving the job hunt my best effort, but I was still looking!  We knew that Grady's school tuition payments were to start in July, and without me having a job, we also knew that things would become very tight for us.  Come July, I got a call to do some consulting work for my old employer that was for a few months that just happened to pay...you guessed it...the exact amount of Grady's school tuition.  I also was blessed with a new job at our local hospital that started just two days after Grady went back to school, which meant that I was able to have a wonderful summer off with the kiddos!  Now neither Michael or I could've orchestrated either one of those situations to work out they way they did ourselves, and thankfully we didn't have to...because He did. 

So when my feathers get all ruffled, and I think that this whole adoption thing is crazy and we will never be able to really and truly know what to do and which path to choose that will complete our story, I take a moment and realize that I don't have all of the answers, and I don't have to have them.  The one who can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine whispers to me..."I got this."  Because of this, I know that I can be content where we are in our story...right at chapter one, and that all we need to do is sit back and listen with open ears and an open heart to His direction and calling.

Where do we even begin???

Whew!  Where do we even begin???  I've been actually pondering the thought of starting a blog for over a year now, but in the midst of nursing school, being a mommy, wife, taxi service, waitress, etc., I thought it just wasn't very good timing!  Kudos to all of you ladies who can manage such insanity!  Thankfully, adoption has pushed me into the blog world! 

Yes, for all of you who do not yet know, Michael and I have prayerfully decided to expand our family through domestic infant adoption!  What?  You didn't know that we were at all interested in adoption?  We didn't either!  Well then, let me just bring you up to speed on how this story unfolded....

Each year for Christmas, our church always gives a "Birthday Present to Jesus," and this year, we were going to be giving money to the orphanage that we partner with in Haiti so that they children could eat three meals each day for three years.  The founder and director of the orphanage was speaking at our church, and she was talking about how they are at capacity at the orphanage, and how frustrating it is for them to have to turn children away.  Michael and I both turned to each other and simultaneously said, "We would take them!"  It was at this point that we started praying about and discussing the possibility of adoption.  Our thoughts were initially focused on international adoption, but that slowly transformed into domestic adoption after realizing that there are lots of little people right here in our hypothetical back yard that need a good home as well! 


So...where are we now you ask?  Getting advice from those who have gone down the adoption road before us, calling agencies, and figuring out that financial mumbo jumbo that goes along with adoption.  We did have an adoption fundraiser garage sale in July, during which we were able to raise $700.  It was a great start towards some of our initial fees, especially considering that we had horrible weather for the two days that we held the sale, and got rained out early both days!  We are hoping to make a decision regarding an agency by the end of the month and then begin with the application process and home study. 

If you are still awake and reading, you now know most of the story.  I will have to post another time on what adoption specifically means to our family, and how the Lord was strategically working in our lives prior to that Christmastime service in regards to adoption without us even realizing it!  God was...well...Calling the Schaadt's.