AdoptionBug.com

Our approval is under way. I can hardly contain my excitement to finally be officially waiting on our little one. The agency has assured me that we will be approved this week and our bio will be up on the website. We can not wait to finally be active. I think now that we do not have any paperwork to fill out I have been feeling a little antsy. I have started buying a few outfits at local resale shops. It occurred to me that if we get a call we will not have anything for him/her to wear. It makes sense to me that we at least have a couple gender neutral clothes on hand. I am going to try to find a diaper bag, and a few receiving blankets as well in the next few days. I just have to be sure not to get ahead of myself. It could still be a long road.

While I was looking for adoption grants I came across a website called AdoptionBug.com. It’s a company that sales Christian adoption shirts with a commission going to the couple of the buyers choosing. She will set us up a store with our pre-picked shirts. This company has many great shirts to choose from but we had to only choose 6 for our store. The shirts that are in our store will be the shirts we get a commission on. She will give us a link to our store so we can send it out over blogs and Facebook or Twitter. If any of our friends and family to choose to purchase a shirt from our store a commission will come to us for use on the adoption. I hope you all can purchase a shirt in the next few weeks. They range from $22-$25. This store should be up by THIS FRIDAY March 23, 2012. I will let everyone know as soon as I get the links so they can go check it out.

Hope to have some really good news over all by Friday. Have a great week!

Need Help Fundraising

Our friends Kenneth and Lili Lane came up with a wonderful and easy fundraising idea. Lili made the above flyer it from a picture that our friend Sarah Halferty took at Christmas time. The flyer itself is a 3x5 and fits into a sandwich sized Zip Lock baggie. She made 300 of these little baggies to hand out to folks who want to help fundraise for us. The idea is for those who wish to help to take as many bags as they think they can fill. So if you know 3 people who are able to donate $20 you would take 3 bags. If you want to take 10 bags that is even better!

If you live in another city I can mail you these bags and I will include a stamped envelope for you to return the money in. No cost to you. All you have to do is ask your friends, neighbors, co-workers if they are able to donate $20 towards our adoption. If we work together the $6000 will come together rather quickly.

If you are able to help fundraise please email me at Shelly.Hollon@gmail.com with your name, address and how many bags you would like to take. If you are in the Hurst, Euless, Bedford, Keller or Watauga area I can meet up with you in person. If you live outside of that I will mail them to you.

Thank you SO much for helping out with our adoption. We appreciate any help anyone can give.

God Bless.

"God sets the solitary in families" Psalm 68:6

Weird or Coincidental?

After our adoption orientation in October I had this really strong feeling that the birth mother of our future baby had conceived. I told a few friends this and told my mother in law what I thought. Some thought it was a little strange, but then again I am a strange bird. I have always been told I am sensitive to people's feelings and might be a little over sensitive to others emotions. I just had this strange feeling that our baby is already conceived and a birth mom is pregnant out there with our child.

Jonathan and I have been joking in private that we will most likely get a baby when he is in California for Dallas Cowboys training camp. Not that that is a problem, but you know how it goes. Just as an example: you want that new job that pays more you do not get the phone call you have been waiting on so you decide to go on vacation out of the state. Just as you are getting on the plane that employer calls and wants you to start tomorrow or you are already in that state and get the call. Luckily, Jonathan's employer is great and willing to fly him home if that is the case.

Then something weird happened last night. Our friend Loyd looked right at me and said " I had a vision that your baby was born on August 9th." I looked at Jonathan and asked him if he had told Loyd about our "funny inside joke" that we would get a baby in August. He said no he had not told him. On a side not, I think people who have visions are tied into their faith greater than most. They see things differently than people who do not have visions. I hope one day to be one of the few people I have met who have visions. It was just all to weird that Loyd had said that.

I got home last night and got ready for bed. I started thinking back to what Loyd said then remembered back to last October. August 9 is exactly 10 months or 40 weeks from last October when I had first thought our baby was conceived. I get chill bumps thinking about this. Of course I am not putting all of my hope into this date at all. I just think its interesting how things work together and can come full circle. Weird or Coincidental?

Home Study part 2

This morning we had the pleasure of meeting with our social worker Amy for part 2 of the home study. The majority of the meeting was to discuss some of the questions we may have had from last week. We also had an opportunity to discuss our photo album and financial questions we had plus any concerns. Amy was so gracious to discuss and willing to lead us in the right direction. I love that she is always available for us and even lives right down the road if we need her. What a blessing.

We spent quite awhile discussing our options and she through some "what if's" into the equation that we had not that about before. I had never thought of a potential birth mother who may have to take a medication during her pregnancy. Since we are adopting it is going to be hard to place stipulations on the birth mother regarding medications. Sometimes these medications, for example for a mental disorder such as depression, must be taken during pregnancy. I have been thinking on this and the only thing that came to my mind was God is in control. We have really left this whole thing in God's hands. Why start now placing stipulations on the birth mother? Since the beginning we said this was in God's hands. This is where I am right now in regards to the medication. Of course, in the end we have the right to say no to a birth mom if she has a diagnosis we are not comfortable dealing with. God will lead us in that. We just have to leave it in control of Him.

We also discussed our families again. Jonathan showed Amy a sample of our photo album. We just wanted to make sure we were on the right path on how to assemble the album. She loved it and loved how creative Jonathan was with the theme. He took a clip art pacifier and turned 4 of them different colors. Pink, Blue, Purple and Green. Then arranged them on a page then placed pictures around those pacifiers. I would say we are about half way through with the album. Well, really Jonathan. :) He head up that project in the end. He is very good with Microsoft Publisher.

After that we gave her a tour of our house. She said we were "very creative" people. She loved all of the art in the house and all of Jonathan's photo's we have in the living room. After giving her the back ground on all of the art and pictures in the house it started to feel like we were in an art gallery and we were the curators. It kind of made me laugh because at one time Jonathan was telling Amy about his photo collection of "people who work with their hands". I never realized how many pictures we have of people's hands around our house. I need to be more observant. Sorry honey I never realized that before or maybe I forgot? I plead the fifth? We showed Amy the nursery. She absolutely loved the furniture we chose out. She said it was perfect and could not wait for us to have a baby. For those of you who have been to our house and have seen our guest bathroom, it has blue walls and a silver disco-esk shower curtain, Amy loved the bathroom. That is so funny to say that because I think it is one of my favorite rooms of our house too. I was just thinking that the other day. When we came to look at this house it was the first thing I saw that I loved. It reminds me of a artsy bar for some reason. She loved Shane Kislack's "Window into New York" that we have hanging in there. It is literally a picture Shane took placed into a old window sill. He gave it to us for a house warming gift. It is funny because we had so many stories to share with Amy about our art. It was so cool that she let us share them with her.

After that it was over. No more questions, no more looking around. I did send Amy home with 5 red velvet Valentines cupcakes. Not trying to butter her up, but I did want her to know about our fundraiser Cupcakes for Our Cupcake. She loved it and was so glad that we made something for her and her family. We are so glad that the home study is behind us. I think for now we want to just relax and wait for what is next. No more worrying. Just relax and let it be. Like Bob Marley said "Don't worry about a thing, cuz every little thing is going to be alright!"

Love to you all!

Home Study Part 1

Preview :The nursery

This last Tuesday was part 1 of our home study with our wonderful social worker Amy. We met at Richland Hills Church of Christ for a 4 and half hour interview. It was very long, but at the same time seemed to go by surprisingly fast. She started the interview with us both in the room. We went over every detail from our paperwork regarding our future baby. She wanted to make sure that we really were ok with the things such as health issues with birth mom or birth father and things we allowed regarding the possible baby’s health issues. Nothing out of the norm, but she wanted to make sure we did not accidently say we were ok with a condition when we could not handle it. Jonathan and I are firm believers that God will give us what we can handle. I know sometimes He can give more, but we believe our baby is already chosen for us by God. So, why would we even but limits on what we can handle? Of course we had some limitations, but those limitations are private.

After we agreed to all those things she allowed some time for us to ask questions or talk through things we have been feeling. She asked us about our marriage and our families reactions to us adopting. We are also open to bi-racial children. She wanted to make sure our families were as well. Luckily for us, we both have a mixed family so it is no biggie. We have a niece, nephew, and a sister who are all bi racial and I am sure even more extended family who are mixed. In this day in age what is the big whoop anyway? Isn’t everyone a Heinz 57? If you can tell me you are 100% (insert your race here) I would probably say you are lying.

Then we split up for individual interviews. Each one lasted about one hour. Questions ranged and were exactly the questions I had posted about before. We went through our autobiographies and she asked us questions based off those. Then we talked about our marriage, our faith, discipline, strengths and weakness, and grants for adoption. The hour seemed to fly by and by the end of the day we were both exhausted. I think, for me, the hour wait while Jonathan was in his interview did me in. After the interview we both went home and were in bed asleep by 8:45. That is how exhausted we were. It was a great process don’t get me wrong, but we had been so stressed over it that we were tired.

On the plus side, Amy said that we should have NO problem adopting a baby THIS year. She says we are open to so much and it should not be much of a wait. Of course she can not be certain and can not predict this, but in her opinion we will not have to wait long. We let her know the nursery is ready for a baby. She said she could not wait to see it next Tuesday when the second part of our home study starts. She said not to go crazy cleaning and organizing because she is there to see how we live and make sure we do not have “giant holes in the floor”. Glad we do not even have small ones. ;)

Home Study dates

Its official! Part 1 and 2 of our home study has been scheduled. Part 1, which is the interview process, will take place next Tuesday 2/7/12 at 1:00 at a church in Richland Hills. I have done some research on what typically happens in these interviews and what kind of questions they ask. First they will interview us together then seperatly. A few questions I pulled off of Google that could be asked range from disciplining the child, down to what type of school they will go to: public or private. They can also ask questions about our families and our history. It is going to be very interesting. Jonathan and I have already gone over some of the questions just to make sure we are at least on the same page on important things such as discipline. We are excited and not to worried about it.

Part 2 will be scheduled on Valentines day 2/14/12. It will start bright and early at 8:45. At Home Visit the social worker is looking to make sure we have proper standards that meet the agencies expectations. example working smoke alarms, safe storage of firearms, safe water, pools covered/fenced, and adequate space for each child. Social workers are not typically inspecting your housekeeping standards. A certain level of order is necessary, but some family clutter is expected. A comfortable, child-friendly environment is what is being sought.

We are very excited to see what these next few weeks bring us. Please continue to pray for us while we take these next steps. Our love to you all.

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.