Back to Driver's Ed

Ya'll-
Have you ever moved to a new state?
I HAVEN'T.
It was obvious today. :)

I had to go get my new driver's license and get new tags for my car.
I took ALL the needed documents, except for the title to my car, so I have to go back tomorrow and get the tags renewed.

I was able to get my new license-
It looks terrible by the way since you aren't supposed to smile.

Anyway- I turned in all the documents they needed then she told me I'D HAVE TO TAKE THE WRITTEN TEST. Huh?!? The written test- like you take when you are 15! That was 1/2 of my life ago! HA! I asked what happened if I didn't pass and she said I could come back tomorrow and take it again- so I told her I'd give it a shot.

When I turned it in I was 50/50. Maybe I passed/maybe I didn't. Well----I DID. :)
I knew I was a safe driver, but you know those tests can be tricky sometimes.
So now I'm legal to drive EVEN IN INDIANA.

Not sure if every state makes you re-take the test, but it's good to know it's a possibility and be prepared none the less. :)

Memories of driver's ed were a bit blurry today, but luckily experience has paid off.

Registries and Such

I started looking at registries today. I tried to think of some things we would need and got completely overwhelmed. Realized we only have 88 more days. Then I got even more overwhelmed and just started thinking about all the people who are going to come visit when little Jeremiah gets here and it put my heart at ease.

The only thing I know that I want is the bedding and my parents are getting that for us. Check it out:



I figure seasoned moms will know and suggest things to get. :)

I know I want a brown minky dot cover for the changing table deal, but I couldn't find one to register for. That was what tipped me over the edge and made me stop even trying. The one think I was looking for could not be found...We need to actually go to a Babies R Us and register instead of trying to register online. Today I was wanting to mainly do research and see what I thought I might like/need, but it was useless. Completely over my head. I've heard that itty bitty infants don't need that much, but I'd like to be prepared none the less. I think I accidentally registered for some things at Babies R Us...if you go there and see that I have three things on my list don't laugh at me. I got overwhelmed and gave up. :)

88 days! Can you even believe that? I can't. So crazy to think about 88 days.

Wii Resort

No adoption updates today, but Wii Resort is awesome.
Daniel got the Wii Resort game for his birthday and it comes with a special sensor that makes it more accurate? Not sure the exact terminology, but it is awesome.

We played a bunch of the games for the first time tonight. The water sports were super fun, and archery. Basketball was hard for me to get the hang of so Daniel won. I had to remind him that it wasn't real life. (In real life I ALWAYS win in Basketball.)
:)

Fun times in the Doss house tonight as we played Wii games.

Funny how Jeremiah enters my every thought these days. Thinking we should make him a mii character. (I didn't think it was fair that Daniel had Scott Combs mii on his basketball team- Scott coaches B.Ball at APSU in Clarksville. I did have my mom, and she dunked once- so that rocked.)

I bet he will love to play the wii someday.

Also we had a huge tree stump cut down in front of our house today- it was right off the road and the state department had to come take it down. All I could think about was that Jeremiah would love to see the big truck and dozer that were in our yard. Fun times are yet to come. :)

Proud of Unpacking Job

Our social worker from Catholic Charities is due to arrive in 5 minutes. She will get to "inspect" our house for the home study. She will prove that it is a good place for Jeremiah to live and that he would be safe and sound here. Just another step in the process, but for adoptive families sometimes this is such a stressful step. I want the house to be just perfect. I want everything to be in place. I want her to not only think it's a safe place, but to think it's the very best place for him on the planet. I want it to be spotless and clutter free. So I'm trying to de-stress before she comes and I will remind her when she gets here that we just moved in 13 days ago. :)

Actually it looks pretty good since we only moved in 2 weeks ago. All the rooms are unpacked except for my "scrapbooking room" and in the living room/kitchen I even have out my fall decor.

Anyone else out there get nervous when people come over to your house?
Anyone else out there have any fun homestudy stories to share?

**She was here for 10 minutes. I showed her around and we were done. Why oh why do we stress about stuff that really isn't stress worthy?? Oh well- glad it's over. :)

Roller Coaster

Today was to be a big big day. A week ago I spoke with our birth-mom and asked her if it was ok with her if our lawyer contacted her. From this point forward our lawyer will be our middle man and will handle all money exchanges. In Indiana a birth-mom can receive up to $3,000 of living expenses. She has to state what each of these expenses go towards- I kinda think of it as she has to turn in bills or receipts for each expense. She can't just say that she needs the entire $3000 and get it. So the lawyer will oversee that process. The lawyer we have hired: Kirsh and Kirsh was going to meet with us today and we were going to get to meet our birth-mom today.

But as the ups and downs of adoption go, this weekend she decided that she wasn't ready to meet us yet. We were fine with that, and understood that she wanted to get to know us over the phone a little more before meeting us in person. I mean I was nervous about meeting her, I'm sure she was nervous about meeting us right?!? I spoke with her yesterday over the phone and we had what I thought was a wonderful conversation. I told her a little more about me and a little more about Daniel. (She hasn't even seen pictures of us- and we've only had two other phone conversations.) I really like her a lot.

So back to the roller coaster- back to today- she was going to meet the lawyer, but they HAD to talk on the phone to confirm their meeting before the lawyer would travel to her town. **This is the lawyer's policy due to the fact that he has traveled many times to meet with birth-moms and they haven't shown up.** So he called her (later than she was expecting a phone call) and she didn't answer. So they didn't get to meet. She called him back later, but it was too late for them to still meet.

I don't think this means anything is falling through. I really don't think this means anything bad at all, but it was a big bummer. You see the lawyer was going to pretty much interview our birth-mom and then share all the info with us. And since our attorney only does adoption law that makes him the expert. I think he will have a good take on the situation once he meets her, but we will have to wait till next week for that update.

We met with our social worker from Catholic Charities and she is going to finish our home study update next week. She had to interview us on Monday. Daniel is too funny and made her laugh saying that when we fight he makes it easy because he's always right and that allows him to win all arguments. :) She is coming to our house tomorrow to see everything and make sure we are good to go on the "home" part of the home study. I'm not stressing (trying not to)- I told her there would be boxes around since we just moved in, it's actually coming together more quickly than I anticipated.

Today I also got to share the good news with my friends at Kids International. They were super excited. Kids International is the place where I've been volunteering about once a week. I hadn't been there in a couple of weeks and it was so fun to share an update. I'm so pumped to have these ladies in my life. They are kind and fun and were excited to see me today, which totally made my day and allowed me to share the exciting parts of the roller coaster ride, and forget for a moment the unpredictable ones.

Kinda Feels Like Dating

We met our favorite birthmom over the phone. It was a three way call. Now I have her phone number and can call her anytime. I stare at the phone and want to call her, but don't really know what to say. I don't want to call too much or too soon. I want to get to know her, but don't want to scare her away or be too overwhelming.

Does that kinda sound like dating?

We were supposed to meet our favorite birthmom tomorrow in person, but plans have changed and she is going to meet with our lawyer on her own. She just wasn't ready to meet us yet. **I'll have to say I was a little nervous about meeting her too. All the "what if's" kept popping into my head. So we will continue to chat on the phone and get to know each other a little better.

Will she ever know that in this short amount of time I've known her I've prayed for her so very much? (She is a Christian- FYI) I plan on trying to call her today so please pray that that goes well. She is so fun to talk to and I pray I can be a friend and listening ear to her.

Very Productive Day

Today was a day that ended up being set aside to getting the new house in order. From boxes everywhere -- to stuff everywhere and boxes empty. Today I made sure the kitchen was good- it was already in order, the living room got all nice and tidy- our speakers for surround sound were installed last night thanks to a Doss team effort, so today I finally got the guest bedroom nice and finished and the guest bathroom is looking lovely as well. Upstairs consists of a landing area, our master bathroom and our master bedroom. Now the master bath is complete and I'm pretty sure I'm done with the contact paper until the next move. whew!

I got a lovely new shower curtain for the downstairs bathroom and I love love love it. Now I just have to get some hand towels to match. Luckily Daniel had given me a Bed, Bath, and Beyond gift certificate a few months ago as a surprise gift.

So it's coming together. One step at a time. We finally have all our appliances...only the stove was installed upon closing- and it had to be switched out. But now we are all good and getting settled. I forgot how difficult moving can be. Maybe that's what happens every time. It's been just long enough that we forget and are actually excited about it.

**Tomorrow is our big launch at GracePoint. It's crazy to think that tomorrow is the beginning of this new church plant and we get to be a part of it.

Blog Title Change

From Loving Life to Bringing home Jeremiah- I am still loving life, but I am on a mission now to bring Jeremiah home!

Now we have a name to pray for: Jeremiah Cole
And we have a hopeful date to bring him home: due date Dec. 23, 2009
We are going to get creative and watch God blow us away in the area of finances.
When we signed up for adoption I thought you had to provide all the money upfront, but with this adoption we haven't.

We've paid for our home study to be completed in TN end of last year and early this year in two installments.
We've paid for our home study to be updated in Indiana about a month ago.
We've paid for an adoption consultant 3 weeks ago- who is amazing by the way!
We've paid a match fee to our birthmother's agency last week.
We're about to pay a portion of lawyer fees next week.
We're about to provide our state allowed amount of birthmother expenses for our matched birthmother each month till she gives birth.
After the birth we will have fees to the agency doing our post placement visits.
After the birth we will have our final fees to the lawyer.


And of course there are baby things that I don't even know I need yet. :)

My prayer this whole time is that we do what God would have us do and that He would provide the rest. So far He has provided a responsible birth mother who is very very nice and He has provided all the expenses we have needed thus far. We are so very thankful that the house in Clarksville has an offer on it and is moving forward. That will help- and of course remind us of God's PERFECT TIMING.

Matched

I never knew how this would come about, but now I am oh so grateful. We have been matched with a birthmom. She is so nice, we were able to speak with her over the phone. We are thrilled about adopting and are even more excited that the baby BOY is due December 23!!!

Upon speaking to the birthmom she made it clear that she wanted the baby to be named Jeremiah- because that was a Biblical name and we were thrilled with that idea quoting Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

and Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

Let me just say that the middle name is going to honor the birthmom and be representative of a portion of her name. And so his full name will be Jeremiah Cole Doss. We are sooo pumped. We still have lots of details to work out. And of course there is a chance that this could fall through. Please join us in prayer that everything moves forward smoothly.

*We've prayed for 6 years to have a child and I don't feel like the words I have give justice to the joy in our hearts. We are excited beyond measure and are praising the Lord! :)

Moved in!!!

Our new house!



Side view


We are moved it. Closing was not fun. Lots of little things came up- the buyer wasn't sticking to his end of the bargain. Thank goodness for an amazing realtor. We told her that we had more than one opposition in coming to Valpo. Satan definitely doesn't want us here ministering to the people of Valpo.

So we are here and unpacking boxes all day. Fun Fun Fun. It's actually like Christmas since we haven't seen our stuff in 3 and 1/2 months. :)

The only thing I wasn't excited to find so far was a little mouse. He scared me and made me scream. That scared Daniel because he thought I had hurt myself. Fun times at the Doss house.

**And thank you for praying!!! We now have an offer on our house in Clarksville. Hopefully things will go more smoothly than they did here with closing and we will have a done deal by the end of the month.

Home by Michael Buble

I just heard the song Home by Michael Buble on my Pandora Radio station.

I'm very excited because I am
should be packing for our trip HOME.

Tomorrow we are headed to Clarksville for a busy few days of Daniel doing some recording for A NEW RECORD!!!

And for preparation to actually move all of our stuff to Valpo.

Hopefully we will be good to go with the new house and be ready to close next week. I can't wait to get moved in and settled. It will be so so nice.

*Cindy Hall is our realtor and has gone above and beyond in helping us get this awesome house.

It will be so nice to go home and visit my parents and get to enjoy our house for one more weekend. :)

Next Steps

We are taking our next steps. We are buying a house in Valpo and hoping to move in the next couple of weeks.

We are then going to update our home study (IMMEDIATELY)!

We are getting our fingerprints done tomorrow- just to make sure we haven't caused any trouble since we moved to Indiana. :) You know the ones in TN don't count anymore.

We also made a big big step today. We got on board with an adoption consultant. I'd never ever heard of an adoption consultant, and I'll give you a review in a few months. :) But from what we understand upfront it makes total sense. The Adoption Consulting firm we are working with is able to connect us to multiple agencies so that we are on many waiting lists instead of just one. Hopefully increasing our chances of being matched quicker. And since we have no race preference- hopefully EVEN QUICKER!

I'm very pumped and am totally grateful that someone in our small group from Grace Community gave me the name of the consulting firm via Facebook. Gotta love social networking. :)

We'll see how it turns out.

I will be 30 at the end of November. I'm still wondering if it's possible to be a MOM by then....

And I found this today....



I have to have these words in our nursery. Check out this website- www.redletterwords.com (It's kinda expensive, but I could get someone to make a replica right?!?) I mean we HAVE prayed for this child for MANY years!!! How cool would this be?!?