Disaster!!!

The morning started really early with the pounding rain and the howling of the wind outside. I didn't realize how much damage there was until our babysitter was an hour late because of traffic due to the down trees blocking the streets. Luckily Rudy and I were planning on going out to breakfast before we met with our caseworker for our home study. While we were waiting for our babysitter to show up I decided to call the preschool I wanted to register Lawson for. They had in house registration on Monday and I was planning on standing on line at 4:30 am to get him registered on Wednesday. Well they filled up in house and told me if I wanted to get on a waiting list I could sign up at 6:00 am tomorrow, but there is already an in house waiting list. In other words, I was not going to get him into the preschool I wanted.

I was panicked. The morning was a disaster!!! The babysitter was an hour late, Rudy and I could not go to breakfast together, I couldn't get Lawson into the preschool I wanted, and now we were suppose to go meet our caseworker. I was convinced it was going to be a disaster too. But to our surprise our caseworker for our home study was really nice. We had our orientation meeting at her house which lasted approximately an hour. We went over the policies and procedures, documents we need to collect, the number to times we need to meet with her, etc.

We will meet with her again individually after we are done with our personal profiles. The personal profiles is 16 pages of questions all about you. Some are easy such as where did you go to high school, other are more thought provoking such as, how did your parents teach you to be self-reliant. After we both meet with her individually and she has all our paperwork she will visit our home. So everything went really well, it was not the disaster I thought it was going to be. I am starting to feel more relaxed about the home study.

Our first phone call

On Tuesday February 19th we called our social worker and scheduled our first appointment with her. After the phone converstaton I got very excited and starred working really hard to get together the paperwork we already have as well as ordering other documents. As usual I am trying to organize and label everything and Rudy laughs at my organization but at the same time is very appreciative. We are really excited about starting the home study, and are counting down the day until next Tuesday.

The Home Study is Moving Right Along

We sent the home study application on Monday and by Friday we received a packet from our home study agency stating that they were going to accept our application and assigned us our social worker. Tomorrow Rudy and I are going to call our social worker and hopefully set up our first of four appointments.

This weekend we had another gathering with the Georgia Ethiopia adoption group. Stephanie and Jason openned up thier Rainbow showroom to host this gathering. Of course Lawson and all the other kids had an amazing time playing on all the playground equipment. We too, had great time on the slides, but most of all we enjoyed talking with friends we made last time and making new friends this time. Thank you Stephanie and Jason!!!

We Finally Sent the Application!!

Our intentions were to send the home study application out two weeks ago, but for several days we forgot to sign it, then we forgot copy it, etc. Finally today 2/11/08 I mailed out our home study application. I have also created a sheet for keeping track of all our documents needed for the adoption. WOW!! We need a lot of documents.

Last week was Eli's first Birthday (2/4/07). He was born on superbowl Sunday last year. We had a great birthday party for him Saturday. It is so much fun to watch all the kids playing together in our playroom. I expected Lawson to get a little jealous of his brothers birthday but he was amazing. He was so happy for Eli and just wanted to celebrate his birthday with him.

Back to the adoption; I am going to start collecting all the documents we need this week. My initial thoughts are that it is not going to be difficult just tedious, and time consuming. We will see. I am sure I will have plenty of comments on this later.

It's Almost February Already!

It's almost February already, where has January gone? Aside from a sniffle here and there we are on the mend and back into our daily routine. We have filled out our home study application and will be sending it in on Monday (January 28, 2008). I am not sure what to expect during the home study. I have heard that it is not big deal and I have heard they are very intrusive. I guess it depends on the agency and the social worker you are assigned. Eventhough I am a little nervous about this part I am really excited to see what questions they are going to ask us and the assignments they are going to be giving us. I think that is the psychologist in me.

I have started scrapbooking Lawson as a baby, I would like to have Lawson and Eli's books caught up by time we bring Kennedy home. Ha, Ha, Ha, is't that a funny idea. Rudy bought me a pink scrapbook for Kennedy. The idea of pink in my house is so exciting.

Happy New Year

Christmas was difficult both boys got sick. Eli got sick the second day we were in Buffalo; he had a viral infection and was miserable. Lawson started getting sick on Christmas day and eventually ended up with bronchitis and a double ear infection. Since both boys were sick we ended cutting our trip short. We couldn't wait to get home and get well.

When we arrived at home a packet from our adoption agency was waiting for us. We were so excited it was there, but it took us a few day till we could sit down and look at the material together. The packet was from our consultant and contained all the information we need to complete our dossier, the USCIS paperwork, etc.

Yesterday I spoke with our consultant on where and how start all this paperwork. WOW!!! This is going to be a very busy year gathering documents with 2 children. In the next couple days we are going to be contacting our home study agency to start that process. I am already feeling a little overwhelmed!

Rudy has started back at school, he is teaching to classes on top of doing research and guiding his students. I am sure he will have another great semester.

2008 is going to be an amazing year!!!

Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow

I don't even know where to begin. So many amazing things have been happening. Since we had our international adoption awareness meetting we have, told my family about the adoption, we had dinner with our ethiopian adoption in Georgia yahoo group, we submitted our formal application and we are waiting axiously to tell Rudy's family.



To tell our families we have decided to print out the Ethiopian Flag and make flags with our blog address on the back. The first person we told was my mom while she was visiting us last week. We handed her a flag and said Happy Hannukah. She looked at us with a confused face, so we told her to read our blog address "the gleasons are growing" thinking this would give her a clue. Well she was still a little confused and thought I was pregnant. So we told her "NO", but we are going to have another addition to our family, and that we are adopting an infant girl from Ethiopia. She was so excited. We then sent the flag as an e-mail attachment to my brother and sister-in-law along with the blog address. They figured it out when reading our blog. We told everyone else in my family over the phone. Everyone is very excited!!! It is so excited being able to talk to my family about this wonderful event in our lives. We are getting ready to tell Rudy's family on Christmas Eve. We are going to do the same thing hand each family a flag and see if they can guess first, if not we will solve the puzzle and tell them the amazing news.



We also had dinner with the Ethiopian Adoption in Georgia Yahoo group. This was the most amazing experience!!! Approximately 20 families in the metro Atlanta area that are adopting from Ethiopia met at an Ethiopian Restaurant in downtown Atlanta to get to know each other better, and to celebrate the 7 or so referrals that have recently taken place. We met so many wonderful people. We are so excited about this community of friends that we are going to have for us as well as for our children. We can't wait to meet up with everyone again in January.



On Monday December 17th we mailed our formal application to our adoption agency. We called today to make sure they received the packet; and they did. Maybe next year Kennedy will be celebrating Christmas with us. The formal application took us awhile to fill out, but we were really excited about. Our next step is having our consultant assigned to us. We will also begin our home study process after the New Year when we return home.



We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Very Happy New Year!!!