Estuardo turns 1...April 22, 2007

Happy First Birthday, My Little Man!!!
Estuardo was very excited on his first birthday!
But just a little camera shy...
Opening lots of presents with the help of big bubba Kory!
And a beautiful birthday afghan sent to him from his Grandma in Utah!

IT'S A MATCH!!!!!!!!!!!

DNA is 99.99% a MATCH!!!!!!!!!
Onnolee, Mama's coming to visit!!!

They done did the DNA!!!!!!!!

I found out today that Onnolee's DNA testing has already been completed and is at Labcorp being processed!!!!!!! That's over a week ahead of the anticipated time! YAYYYY!!!!!!!!! That means I will be able to visit sooner than I thought.
Also, her 1 month 10 day measurements were 9 pounds 12 ounces (!!!!!!!) and 20.5 inches tall. She has grown a bunch and looks wonderful. The pics they sent were in an Acrobat file so I don't know how to post them. But fostermom is doing an awesome job with her. I can't wait to kiss her chubby little cheeks!!!!!!! What a wonderful day!!!!!!

April 27

We found out today that Onnolee's birthmother interview with the social worker in Family Court is scheduled for April 27. That is also probably the day that DNA testing will be done. Definitely not as soon as I had hoped, but at least we have a day and it is next week! That means visit trip will probably be towards the end of May. I can't wait to meet Onnolee!!!!!!

DNA is ON THE WAY!!!!!!!

We found out Thursday that the Embassy has authorized the DNA test for Onnolee. Hopefully some time in the next week or two Onnolee and her birthmother will have their DNA tested to make sure it is a match. Then Mama will be able to go visit!!! I can hardly wait to meet her!
We think our case was also submitted to Family Court on Thursday, so it is finally moving. I hope to receive some new measurements soon so I know how big she is getting. I already bought some Pampers and bottles for the trip... We also applied for a passport for Estuardo so he can go with me. Should be an interesting adventure having two little ones for a weekend on my own...

Home Sweet Home...

We closed on our house today!!! Wahoo!!!

Frustrating...

Well, our lender tells us we may have an answer...tomorrow. Same thing they have been telling us the past several weeks...GRRRR!!!!! It is getting harder to be patient. Stew was actually much calmer today for some reason, but I will take it as a good sign.
And no word on DNA, so now we drag on until at least next week, as government offices are now officially closed for the holidays.
Looks like both the baby and the house have become tests in patience.

New Pics of Onnolee!!!! (1 month old)

Here is Onnolee with her fostermom Maritza. I can't wait to be able to go and meet the both of them! Before we are allowed to visit, they need to do the DNA test to make sure that Onnolee's birthmom's DNA matches hers.
Onnolee appears to be growing some serious cheeks!!!
"Okay, guys, so when are you going to do my DNA test? Mama is going crazy waiting!!!"

Taking a peek...

We got some updated pics today!!! Onnolee has been working on cheeks in the past few weeks! She's about 4 weeks old in this pic. More later!

The housing situation etc.

I haven't really posted a housing update in quite awhile, sort of left it hanging while I was concentrating on Onnolee. All of her paperwork is now in Guatemala, and now we have entered the waiting game...
So for the house... 2 weeks ago we were given permission to move in and a verbal approval from the lender, so we filled the biggest U-Haul TWICE with all of our stuff, and still managed to leave a few things behind. It took 3 days just to load and unload the truck plus a lot of sweat to clean up the old place. Right in the middle of it all, my body decided it was time for a kidney stone attack, just to add interest and more stress.
Last week we got written approval from at least one bank so now we wait anxiously for a closing date. We are about 1/2 unpacked, still living among the boxes, but we love the house and look forward to spending a loooonnnnng time there, as none of us wants to move ever again! I will feel a lot better, however, when we officially close and can say, finally, that it is "ours".

IT'S A GIRL!!!!!!!!

Welcome to the world, beautiful Gloria Briseyda, to be known as Onnolee Kaya Briseyda! She was born on March 1, 2007 and weighed in at 6 lb 13 oz and was 18 1/2 inches long. Check out all her hair!!! We think she is absolutely gorgeous and were thrilled and honored to accept her referral. Now we only pray for a smooth and speedy process to bring her home!

Prayers please!

Still no definite word on our mortgage but the clock is ticking down. We pretty much need a "yes" by tomorrow or we are going to have to find a rental house again and stay put for another year at least. I am starting to get a little bummed as we have watched 3 mortgage offers pretty much fizzle out. We had our hopes so high but I guess we will have to trust in the Lord as to whether or not the time is right. It's just hard sometimes.

Waiting...
We are waiting on the final answer as far as our new house goes. We have someone working on a mortgage for us and we should know in the next few days, and maybe possibly close by the end of the week??
We are waiting on the final few documents to get back from Phoenix from the Guatemalan consulate and then our dossier will be off to the agency. Word is that we may possibly have our referral by the end of the week??

Is it ever easy?

Here's the most recent pics of Mama's Little Man Estuardo!
He was very cooperative! Mama had to buy a lot of pictures!

Well, our paperwork made it into underwriting with our local bank before they decided to boot us out to the secondary lenders. We are trying not to lose hope as the house just feels like it is ours. It doesn't look like we will be able to close in time though, as we have to be out of our rental by the 11th. So anyone reading this please keep us in your prayers!

As far as our latest adoption journey, that seems to be quickly falling into place. We finally will have our final draft of our homestudy this week, so the last batch of paperwork can make the rounds. I am hoping to have our dossier to the agency by next week, then we will be "waiting for referral" of our new baby girl!

Never a Dull Moment

Well, we have been very busy, even more so than usual. Our wonderful landlords decided that we can no longer have our pets, despite our one-year lease that they approved in September. So we came to the decision that rather than rent, we are going to try to buy a house!
We are also now paperchasing to adopt another baby from Guatemala, this time a baby girl. We are almost done with our paperwork, getting ready to send our dossier and then begins the wait for referral.
We found a house that we fell in love with last week out in Edgewood (NM). It was on 5 acres of land and came complete with a horse barn and a newly renovated kitchen. We put an offer in and then found out that there was another family who had first right of refusal, who had put an offer in awhile ago but needed more time to get things in order. So we waited out the 48 hour time limit and yesterday we found out that they will indeed be attempting to purchase the house. We had thought for sure it was ours and had been packing with excitement, so that was a big disappointment. Well, being the optimistic person I usually try to be, I figured that something better must be waiting, so we started searching again, online and in the Sunday paper. We put in a phone call on a for-sale-by-owner house that had 5 bedrooms, out in Edgewood also. The price was about the same for a bigger house, so my hopes weren't that high that it would be as nice. Well, we stepped through the door and to my amazement it was as if our perfect house had dropped out of the sky. It is absolutely wonderful! So now we have to wait through a Monday bank holiday until tomorrow to see if we actually can get it financed. If so, we will be moving in the next couple of weeks. The current owner says we can start moving in any time as it is empty and he lives out of state.
So rather than turn into a crushing defeat, the first house apparently led us to the second one, which I love even more! Anyone reading this, please keep us in your prayers/thoughts that we can successfully finance this place. There is even a 2 1/2 acre backyard complete with a treehouse for the kids, a fence for the dogs, and a deck for our hot tub and for some of those Cracker Barrel rocking chairs!!!

Estuardo's first Christmas!!! He enjoyed every minute and had fun exploring his new toys...
...then the toys got dirty and needed a bath!

Here's four of the kids enjoying the tree. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Kory is holding Estuardo. Jesse's in the back, and Marisol has the biggest grin...

Merry Christmas everyone!

This has been a very eventful year for our family! I have decided to venture out and learn to blog so I can document and share our journey.
I started my job at Carrie Tingley Hospital last December as a staff nurse on night shift after a brief attempt at working in ICU. Carrie Tingley is a children's orthopedic/rehab hospital and it has been a dream job. Several months ago the night charge nurse position opened up and I worked up my courage and applied for the position. After 23 years as an RN, I am learning "management"! It was a step out of my comfort zone but I have learned a lot and I am glad I stepped up to the challenge. Now I have also started back to school to finish up my Bachelor's degree in nursing, and possibly will pursue my Master's degree also.
My husband Stew has also had a busy year at home with all of the kids. More days than not he is shuffling them off to one, two or three appointments a day and managing to keep track of all of them. Meanwhile, he is seriously studying for his MCAT exam and hoping to be accepted into med school sometime in the near future.
Jesse battles daily with his cerebral palsy and his growing teenage self. He struggles a lot just to get around every day but we push him and hope to keep him as active as possible. In the next year he is hoping to start using canes rather than a walker, and also to learn to use a communication device to talk for him.
Breanna's life was forever changed last year after a severe illness, and I wasn't sure she'd still be here this Christmas. But despite her many challenges, she still smiles and laughs every day. One very special event this year was when a very dear friend of mine did a major fundraiser and blessed us with a wonderful new hot tub for Breanna.
Kory underwent some fairly major surgery on his right leg and practically had to re-learn to walk on his prosthetics again after 2 months in a cast but his physical therapy quickly turned into swimming lessons, and so as a fringe benefit he can now swim the length of the pool. Pretty good for a quad amputee! This coming year, he is hoping to get a new prosthetic arm and learn to use it.
Marisol is growing fast and finally starting to get a little more serious about learning braille and using a cane for mobility. She is facing plastic surgery and will probably be getting prosthetic eyes in order to improve the structure of her upper face and prevent her from getting eye infections. She continues to progress with her ability to play on the piano and I am hoping to get her some professional piano lessons for this.
Last but way not least is our Guatemalan adoption journey that started in January when I first popped the question to Stew. Could we possibly maybe try to adopt a baby boy from Guatemala?? At first he said "no" but less than a day later, he also knew it was what we were meant to do and despite the ongoing difficulties with Guatemalan adoption we had a wonderful experience! In April, we were presented with a photo of a gorgeous 5-day-old little boy and 4 1/2 months later, we brought him home forever!! We named him Estuardo Luis Danilo and he has truly blessed our home with joy. It has been my pleasure to watch him grow over the past 4 months.
Looking back, and forward, I feel so very blessed!