Mother's Day Surprise!

Happy Mother's Day Graphics provided by MySpaceAnimations.com

Ok I can see how this post title might be a little misleading.  On Friday, I got an email from our Home Study contact as well as our Adoption Agency.   So in short I got to celebrate Mother's Day as a "pretend" or almost mother to be!

Our Home Study has been completed/finalized and we are Approved!!  We passed with flying colours (according to myself).  The process went much quicker than anticipated as well as slower than anticipated.  After our initial meeting we got our finger prints done and sent those puppies in...thinking it was going to take around 8 - 12 weeks to get those processed.  So then we started working on our second set of Autobiographies.  (Our first set was for our adoption agency).  We got so caught up with writing these and filling out our questionnaire's that I forgot to send an email of our references.  Our fingerprints came back in record time at 5 weeks so we had to work quickly.   We finally got our questionnaire's, Autobiographies, doctors note and financial papers in.  Then all we had to do was wait for our references to send in their approval of us.  Not only did they have to fill out a questionnaire but then they needed to get a letter notorized.  What a pain for them and it took time to because they needed to find a someone to notorize as well as send in the paperwork.  Finally all papers were receieved then our contact was out of town for a week and then it took him a week to write out our report/document.  Send us a draft - which needed some editing.  Then it finally got sent to our adoption agency!

Our Adoption Agency contacted me via email on Friday to let me know that our Home Study paperwork had been received and we could begin working on our portfolio.  We are ONE step closer to our baby!!!  The portfolio is a 24 page document with information about us and TONS of pictures.  We also need to write our Dear Birth Mother letter.  We are on the waiting list to attend a seminar that encompasses adoption training, counseling and getting us ready for adopting a child.  Once we get through all that then we will be able to enter the Waiting Pool and then hopefully get selected by a Birth Mother to raise her child as our own!!

I also wanted to give a shout out to Jessica from Two Shades of Pink for her lovely Mother's Day post!

Onto Mother's Day 2012.

We had a gorgeous day here in the Pacific Northwest!  It was 80 degrees and glorious!

In the morning I attended my childhood church with my Dad and Brother.  After church we stopped by and picked up my sister so we could all go and visit my mom at her resting place.  It was somber for me.  I felt uneasy.  I am not sure how ready I am to go and visit her...much harder than I had anticipated.  I still can't believe she is gone.  Sometimes I think that its just a bad dream or a really sick joke but its not.  She was such a vibrant individual.  She lived for raising her children and we were her greatest accomplishment.  All who met my mom loved her and have such wonderful things to say about her.  I learned so much from her and I am so thankful for all the lessons she taught me.

After visiting my mom, I headed back home.  Thomas and I were hosting his family over at our place for a BBQ.  We had purchased a new outdoor dinning patio set on Saturday and started putting it together only to find out that the box for the chairs didn't come with the instructions or any of the bolts and nuts!  So I had to stop by the store to see if they could get into another box.  They found the parts on the floor of the storage room ripped up.  So I had to COUNT all of the parts to make sure they were all there....everything but one extra washer! PTL

So we got the set put together and then were ready for his family.

We had a cheese platter (thanks Natasha for the inspiration - I forgot how often my mom put these together and I did have to put one of my mom's favorite cheeses on the platter) cheeses I used were a Gouda, Coastal Cheddar and then an herbed Goat Cheese with a cracker assortment and seven layer dip.  Then we each had our own meat selection to BBQ up.  Marinated Flank Steak, T-Bone, or Kabobs and our sides was my moms famous Noodle Salad and Deanna's famous Potato Salad.  YUM.

After eating our meal and visiting for a bit we took Paladin out for a cart ride.  Everyone took turns taking a ride and Thomas got to drive him for a little bit (his second time - good thing he was driving family!!)

We had a lovely time.

How was your Mother's Day? I hope all the Mother's and Mother's to-be and almost to-be (like me) had a wonderful Day!! Did you do anything special?

♥ Ashley