Starting the profile book!

Well, it's been a few days, but it's been a busy few. On the adoption front, we've chosen our agency and they want us to make a profile photo book for the birthmoms to look at. So of course my artistic side got into the swing of things immediately. I made a list of the different pages it'll have:

Dear Birthparent letter
N's intro
My intro
S's intro
SS1's intro
SS2's intro
Our wedding/relationship
Our home/neighborhood
Baby's room
Friends and family
Family vacations
Holiday traditions
Family time

I've been gathering some pictures I've already had in my collection since I love scrapbooking and have had to take a few new ones since I don't have any of our house laying around and I need to take some of the awesome huge park by our house. That's ok though because S has been wanting to go feed the ducks at the big lake in the park and it's supposed to be a nice weekend weather-wise. But while putting together the book, it seems it's a little harder than I thought. I find myself over thinking things occasionally but then have to remind myself to just show my family as they are naturally. All in all it's fun though. I'm hoping to take some pictures of the finished product to share. Hopefully it'll find us our baby soon after we complete our homestudy.

Also, being the book fiend I am I was at a thrift store earlier and saw this little board book and immediately thought of the baby:

Aaaand I may have gotten a great deal on a box full of baby boy clothes, from newborn to 18 months, with onsies, bodysuits, shoes, hats, shorts, blankets, jackets, pants, shirts, etc. Since you never know when the perfect little boy is going to just pop into your life and may need clothed and diapered...

I actually ended up trading the pink diapers and some of S's old baby clothes I hadn't donated yet for the little boy clothes. I'd say it was a pretty fair trade.  :-)  I'd say short of formula we're pretty much ready for the newest member of the family. I'm expecting to start the homestudy by winter, so that by next spring we'll be in the pool of waiting parents. So exciting!

The Picture Post

Well, I was thinking about doing a play on the Dear Birthmother letter we're going to do for our adoption profile and do a Dear Future Son letter, but I need another few days to think of all the things I want to say. So instead I'll just post a frivolous type post about the things we've gotten for our future baby boy so far. Sometimes I think the whole "nesting" urge never really left me, because I love getting things my babies need.  lol

Anyways, when S broke her piggy bank, I wanted to get her one like the first one. Luckily I also found a matching blue one just right for her brother. S's college fund goes in hers, as will Marcus's when we get him. For now it hold the funds for the adoption.

And of course there's clothes. I have this routine where as soon as S has grown into the stash I've built up for her in her closet, I'll go out and replace things in the next few sizes up: pants, shoes, socks, shirts, pajamas and maybe an accessory or 2. Now I don't go nuts doing this- everything's a mixture of new and thrift stores because kids clothes are always brand new looking and adorable.

There's also the cloth diapers, but I won't make you look at those, mostly since my stash isn't quite done yet. I bought some newborn cloth diapers before we tried to conceive a sibling for S and then just packed them away until we got to use them. Now that we've opened our lives to adoption, I can get them out and pick the patterns and colors I like. It's funny, but I never used to consider doing the cloth thing, but when S was about 8 months old, I did a paper for an english class I had to take and researched disposable diapers. I did some research on cloth and that night, I ordered the ones I'd been looking at and as soon as I got them in the mail I donated the package she had left and have never looked back. I don't look down on those who use disposables but this is my choice for my babies. I'll write more on my parenting philosophies in another post since this is already pretty long.  :-)

One more thing to show since I loved how the jungle stencils turned out the last time I used them, but since I had an ocean animal type theme picked out for baby boys room, I found these stencils to use around the wall by his crib:

I can't wait to make your life full of love, fun and family little guy.  <3

In the beginning...an introduction

February 6 has 2 interesting happenings. It was the original due date for my husband's and my daughter (2011) and it was the date we decided to adopt a baby together to complete our family (2013). We had tried repeatedly to have another child but life didn't agree with that it seems, so we turned to adoption. I had always imagined when I was a child having a couple biological children and then adopting one. What ended up happening was 4 pregnancies, 3 babies lost, 1 beautiful daughter, 2 stepsons long distance and the hope of adopting a baby boy. There's times when I feel a bit odd about requesting a certain sex but then I think that there's so much about this process I have no control over, I would at least like to be able to choose if we get another daughter or a son to do "boy things" with. I've had so much fun and have loved having my little girl, choosing dresses, buying toy horses and dolls, trying to frilly her up occasionally while teaching her how to be her own dragon slayer. Now what I long for is a little boy to call my own. A little boy to dress up in "handsome" clothes, the rough and tumble play that only boys can manage, a little boy for my husband to bond with doing father/son times and a little brother for my daughter to be an exuberant big sister to. I know the right birthmother and little boy are out there for us, and when it's the right time, we'll meet and start the next phase of our journey.

My name is M. I'm 29 years old. I joined the Navy right out of high school and got to see much of the world before getting out and settling back in my home state of Arizona. I've always loved the desert although thanks to my naval service I've grown to love the coast too. After growing tired of fast food and retail jobs I went back to school and am currently in the process of getting my Masters in Social Work. I stumbled on the profession accidentally during a psychology class one day, pursued more info, changed my major and never looked back.

My husband is N. He's 29 years old also and has a similar background, only he was in the Air Force and is majoring in Environmental Science. He also happens to come with 2 boys from a previous marriage: SS1 who is 6 years old and SS2 who is 4.5 years old. Their mother is on a journey with them at the moment but hopefully we'll get to reconnect with them soon.

Our daughter is S and just turned 2 recently. She's an awesome little girl, beautiful and smart and charms almost everyone she meets. She loves the usual little girl things like ponies and dolls and has an obsession with babies she sees in public, but she also loves things like her toy cars and basketballs and digging in the dirt.

We live in a beautiful home with 4 bedrooms in the desert of AZ. We have a huge backyard that's new to us since we recently moved and already I'm imagining Easter egg hunts, a swingset and a garden.  lol 

I look at S and I know the best thing I've done in my life so far is becoming a Mommy. I can't wait to become a Mommy to another awesome child, no matter who he may be, with the love and support of my husband, who is not only my daughter's Daddy, but my best friend.