Home Study update

Jonathan and I have *FINALLY* submitted all of our paperwork, autobiographies, home sketch, and everything in between. I feel like having a party! We are so glad to have that portion over with. The autobiographies really had us hung up for some reason. I think the home make over really helped take our minds off of it, so we could finish writing them last week.

With all that being said our home study is set to begin next Tuesday 2/7/12. Its a 2 part home study. The first part will take about 4 hours. This is the interview step. Our social worker will ask us some questions together then apart. The second part is the actual home study where she comes to our house. That will most likely be the following week. The actual home study part is nerve wrecking to me for some reason. I have never really looked around my house for things out of place while putting on my shoes in the morning. Or looked at the ceiling to see little dust bunnies that I have never seen before. What is the best scent to have in the house? What scent says "We are ready to be parents?" I am actually laughing as I am writing this, because it looks funny on "paper". In my head it sounds logical for some insane reason. In the end I know our social worker is not a "bad guy". She is here to help us find our baby. She is not looking for that dust at the top of the shower, or the frog statue in the living room that is "out of place", or even those few dust bunnies in the corner. As far as the scent of the house goes, I am sure whatever Scentsy I have burning that day will be fine because it will be normal. Normal for the Hollon household. That will be the true picture of us. Which is what she is looking for. She is there to make sure we have the necessities: running water, proper beds, toilets, and our house is ran in a safe manner.

We are very excited to see what the next few weeks bring us. I will definitely be blogging about the home study. Please keep checking back.

And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me.
Matthew 18:5

January 2012 updates

Since it has been a long time since I have posted anything here I thought I would put up an update. We still have not had our home study yet. Why you ask? Jonathan and I decided to put a little TLC into our house. We really want to make sure the house is taken care of before we get a wee one.

This past month we have painted the nursery, all white, and installed new carpets in the nursery and computer room. The reason we painted the nursery white is because it is neutral. We can do anything with it. I saw on Pinterest.com where a couple hung cute material on the walls of the nursery like pictures. This way it is easy to change out and no more painting is involved. Score for us. :) We really like this idea as we can be very creative with it.

A few weeks ago we went to Buy Buy Baby and picked up the crib set that I fell in love with back in August. We put it together this weekend and boy howdy... IT LOOKS GOOD IN THE NURSERY. I am so excited to finally be set at least with a crib. You can see the picture above of the new crib in the nursery.

Our friend Shane Kislack donated one of his photo shoots to us as a fundraiser. Someone took him up on the offer! We are so blessed to have so many great friends in our lives that are willing to sacrifice their time and resources towards our family. Thank you Shane and to everyone who has helped in one way or another. You can check out Shane's work at www.shanekislack.com.

For now, we are done with the house. Our eyes are set on the home study. We do hope between now and the end of February to have that done. So keep us in your prayers that we get those items that are left to be undone... done.