keeping things interesting…

I can't believe Zoey is a year old and we've been waiting for her to come home for almost 5 months! We had a fun little party with a few friends and family on the 23rd (since it was actually her birthday in Korea at that time). We thought it would be fun to find out the sex of baby Searls (early) the day before the party and have a cake reveal the surprise, so thankfully, he cooperated and we were able to see the goods. Brad and I found out at the ultrasound but kept it a surprise for our party guests until we cut into the cake Friday night. But not before I doctored it up as the layers had shifted on the drive home from Strossner's and the BLUE cake was very obviously showing. Hello? That's not a surprise!

I'm so glad we got this updated picture of Zoey with her birthday gifts we sent to her along with her foster mother (sorry we aren't allowed to show her face). Come home soon, Zoey! There is going to be one more EP submission batch before the end of this year, so there is a slight chance that she could be home by Christmas. And that would be another miracle. Time is really flying by with all the changes going on in our family…

When we found out about baby brother Searls and Zoey's adoption moving forward (not to mention China baby's arrival down the road), it was obvious that we needed to do something about our living arrangements. We had enjoyed the "downtown living" for a couple years and loved it, but realistically, we needed a long-term housing situation that could accommodate a growing family. Anyone who knows us, knows that we are notorious for buying/selling houses and moving every couple of years...for the past 9 years. We think it's fun. Call us weird, but we enjoy it. Because of our good success with the flat fee MLS listing (which also saves you 3% commission, by the way) we decided to go that route again with our current house. Praise God we had a signed sales agreement in under two weeks! Incredible - especially since I didn't know how much longer I could stand the 1 hour notice for showings and getting the house all put together, cleaned up and dogs cleared out. I think we had 8 showings total before we finalized our sales agreement with the couple in France who found our house online!

Obviously, moving is a lot easier without children which is why we are looking for a house that can grow with our family. As much as I love house hunting, I think we found one already! My sister, mom and niece were in town last week and we went house hunting one day - it was actually the very first house we went through with our Realtor. We made an offer yesterday and are waiting to hear back about that…we apparently have some competition and other offers that we are up against. But either way, we will be moving somewhere in a few short weeks. Just keeping things interesting! We are really hoping this is the house for us, after all, we walked into one of the bedrooms and saw this…

…remember the plaque I bought for Zoey's room? I think it's a SIGN! literally…

what a month…!

GREAT news on our China adoption. We JUST BARELY met the deadline for sending our dossier to China. God is good and enabled us cram two months of down time (while we were petitioning for Zoey and not wanting to add another dynamic to our relationship with the adoption agency) into 2 weeks! That was a crazy couple of weeks filled with redoing paperwork, trips to Columbia, phone calls, multiple Fedex runs and making sure everything was perfect for the dossier requirements - because we only had one chance to get it right. I'm glad that part of the process is behind us. Now, we sit back and wait for baby number 3 to be announced - this could take 5 years or more unless we decide to switch over to the special needs program. Thankfully this will (likely) happen after sufficient adjustment time with Zoey and baby #2!

What else is going on in our world…as if we didn't have enough going on to keep us busy, we decided we need to sell our house and move somewhere more practical (keeping in mind that we will be a family of 5 before we know it). So we did the smart thing and entered a flat fee mls listing (hopefully saving us the 3% sellers agent commission). We staged the house, rented a wide angle lens for photography and the MLS listing went live a couple days ago. Amazingly, we had a showing yesterday and another scheduled for today. Praying we get some offers soon!

Zoey turns a year old on Saturday! First birthdays (dols) are a HUGE deal in Korea so we hope she gets an awesome party with her foster parents and/or at the agency headquarters with the other September birthday babies.

Just wish we could be there to celebrate. Hopefully we'll at least get some photos and an update soon. We love you, Zoey! We're planning a little miniature scaled get-together tomorrow for our own celebration and baby #2 gender reveal…if it decides to cooperate later today.

(back to) digging to China…

Since everything has been settled with Zoey's adoption *cheers*, we are back to working on our dossier for our China baby adoption! (which, by the way, will be +/- 5 years from now)

Talk about throwing a wrench in things…after some new adoption requirement that our agency in SC does not meet, we are under a very tight deadline to get logged in with China. And we have one chance to get everything right, so please pray it all comes together smoothly in the next week. We go to Columbia tomorrow for State certification and then our courier will take care of the DC authentication. Stressful? yes!

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In "Zoey News"…the day of our fundraiser, we met a local businessman who saw one of our posters in Starbucks and came to meet us along with his son. We talked for a while and exchanged adoption stories (he adopted an adorable daughter). He ended by telling us he wanted to feature Zoey's adoption story in Business Black Box (a really fantastic business magazine in the Upstate). A couple weeks ago, I met his editor in chief and told our entire story which took about an hour. It was so great to meet her and learn about her desire to adopt as well - there is this immediate bond anytime I meet people who share my passion for adoption. Then last week, we had a photo shoot at Fisheye Studios – incredibly talented group and so much fun! I can't wait to see how they turned out. Look for our article in the October issue in the "What Matters" section near the back! 

I really hope our story motivates others into expanding their families through adoption! And what an awesome story to share with Zoey one day.

God moves mountains!

 

We are so thankful that God has answered our prayers and Zoey will be joining our family! Every day I wake up I want to shout it from the mountains - truly "The king's heart (including Holt International's powers that be) is in God's hand"! It is truly evident that God's plan is for Brad and I to be Zoey's parents. We are so blessed…

I'm not going to lie, was a VERY long and trying 7 weeks of uncertainty but it was ALL worth it in the end. But we'd do it all again for Zoey! I know that there were many praying for us during this time and we are so thankful for those prayers. Even with all of the uncertainty and stress, I never had a sleepless night and that is truly a miracle. (honestly, I did loose some sleep at times but I never went totally without!) Our faith has definitely been increased.

You might be wondering how we came up with the name Zoey Bin. "Bin" is part of her given Korean name and it means "shine". We wanted to keep part of her Korean heritage and we also wanted a name that had meaning to it. While searching for first names, I discovered that Zoey means "life". What a perfect combination - we hope that Zoey's life will shine and that our story will inspire other families to adopt.

(by the way, we have decided to add a "y" to Zoey's name because the spelling had caused some confusion as to the correct pronunciation. Plus, we figured "Searls" is hard enough to live with.)

I love the updated photos we received of Zoey. She looks like such a happy baby! Since we can't have her with us now, I'm thankful we have the next 9+ months to continue our bonding and other adoption issue research and study. There are many complicated issues the older a child is when they are adopted especially from a foreign country…but that's a topic for another post. Until then, I'm content knowing she is taken care of and obviously happy in her current situation. We love you, Zoey!

fans of Zoe - part 2

Tomorrow is the big day and we can't wait to hear that God has moved that mountain for us to adopt Zoe into our family!! In an effort to remember the conversation with our agency  last Thursday, we recorded the entire thing on Brad's laptop. These are screen shots before the phone call of our message to Zoe…when we were told we'd have to wait 4 more days for the verdict…and after the phone call. It pretty much sums up how we felt at the end…

I'm long overdue for posting photos and an update of the amazing fundraiser that my dear friend Julie organized and hosted for us last weekend. We have never felt so much love and support from our friends, community and church family as we did that day and the week leading up to it. It was great to meet new friends and be able to express our thanks for the support…although I feel like we can NEVER express our gratitude and thankfulness to everyone who was part of the fundraiser. To everyone who donated items for the garage sale…those who volunteered their time helping us organize and price the items (what a JOB)…everyone who was involved the day of the fundraiser…our vendors who donated and were a part of our big day…and especially my dear friend Julie and her husband who did so much to prepare for the fundraiser. It was truly a LABOR OF LOVE and totally overwhelming - in an AWESOME way - and I thank God for all of you! It was a day we will never forget.

fans of Zoe - part 1

I wanted to post an update on the fund raising efforts that have been so incredibly encouraging to us while we have waited for the verdict on Zoe's adoption over the past 6 weeks…(which have really felt more like 6 months)

 

My incredibly talented and artistic sister came up with a great idea to raise support for our adoption…re-purposing furniture and creating must-have treasures from random items! Like the above antique plate/candle stick-turned cake stand and these bowling ball-turned-ladybug lawn ornaments! She presented us with a very generous adoption donation when she came to visit over July 4th.  

THANK YOU so much for your hard work, sis – Zoe and us feel the love and appreciate all that you do!

 

Stay tuned for a post about the amazing family adoption fundraiser that my amazing friend Julie hosted and organized for us!

a petition update…

Every day that passed and we didn't hear anything from our agency was excruciating. So, Brad called our agency on Friday to check on the status of our petition. Of course, he had to leave a message…

He heard back from the president's office later that day. The two contacts at Holt we sent our petitions to happened to be out traveling last week. Go figure. From the conversation, it sounded like she was aware of our situation and ended the conversation saying that the VP should be calling us "to talk" early next week. That could be today. I'm trying to distract myself with work and stay focused but THIS IS NUTS.

On a POSITIVE note - I'll be posting about our amazing fundraiser soon. We have been blessed with so many amazing friends and outpouring of support! (I'm really thankful we had that to work on last week as it was a BIG distraction for me.) Please keep praying!

Announcing the iPad Raffle winner…

A cheesy iPhone video documentary of the iPad Raffle drawing…totally legit. 

We were all excited (including PJ) to draw the winning ticket!

A BIG thank you to everyone who purchased raffle tickets. 

You helped us raise $1,575 for our adoption expenses!

out of our hands…

it's been an absurdly long month but I'm happy to say that our petition is finally on it's way to the powers that be. it's out of our hands and in God's. all that is left to do is pray and wait for our answer.

we were able to include a grand total of 63 support letters with our petition.
(our goal was to have 50)

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! 

we are so thankful for everyone who took the time to show us their support. we could not have done this without YOU and our petition would not have been nearly as effective without all of YOUR letters.

so, here's what the petitions ended up looking like…

1. a personal letter from Brad and I to our agency

2. a section of "what if" scenarios and our family plan for each possible scenario

3. our "support system contact list" - a chart listing our family/friend's names, what you have committed to do to make Zoe's adoption a success and your contact info

4. a HUGE section of the 63 letters of support we received

and of course, I applied my skills as a designer for added impact…I have to say, we are pretty happy with how everything turned out. 

what do we do now? WAIT some more…hopefully this week will fly by since I'll be helping Julie get everything finalized for the BIG ADOPTION FUNDRAISER she is hosting for us this Saturday. (we hope you all can come!) 

Please pray for the following:

1. that our petitions will arrive safely and make it into the hands of the correct contacts.

2. that our contacts will actually READ the petitions and be impacted positively by our determination.

3. that God will use what we have presented in a miraculous way and they will make an exception for our family's case.

For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. Mark 11:23-24

Zoe-love

whatever happens, we'll know that we have done all that we could to bring you home…

"Is anything too hard for God?"

Jeremiah 32:27