Homestudy #1 complete

Well, we had our first Homestudy today and it went great! At least, I think it did. Our social worker is amazing and so sweet.  It is really great that we feel comfortable with her as some intense questions are asked.  Brett and I were joking this morning that we should have a Homestudy every week just so our house can look so good!  Ha.....although we were vacuuming about 5 minutes before she showed up!

Today she did a tour of our home and we sat down for interviews with both us and the grandparents.  A ton of questions were asked about us as a couple, all four of us as a family and some questions about our personalities.  It was really fun to sit back and think about Brax and Wyatt and be able to describe them to her.  I am actually reading a book right now called Parenting Plus for Parents.

It is a great book and I highly recommend it to all!  I learned about it in my mom's group (Mom Matters) at North Point Community Church.  It talks about the 4 temperaments that God has given your child and how you are to be a student to your child.  You are to parent them based on their God-given temperament rather than to how we, as parents, want to parent.  Also, if you are a family with multiple children you can do your children a favor and parent them differently.  You can also take the test for yourself to figure out what your temperament is and then it will give specifics on how certain parent temperaments should parent certain child temperaments.


Anyway....back to the Homestudy today......
It was pretty easy.....after the interviews she toured the home, closets and all....yikes!

I also have to post this picture of the boys' room.  I had told the boys this morning that we had a meeting about the adoption today so Brax (on his own) cleaned his room:

ummmmm....where did everything go???

oh!  there is it.....all shoved under Wyatt's bunk!  Ha!
And to my controlling surprise, I left it just like this....
figured it showed truth to how we are involved as a family in this process

We then went downstairs to meet Mom Mom and Pop Pop.  We toured their part of the house and then sat down for a brief interview.  When we started this process we had no idea that they were going to be as involved as they are.  They are troopers.  I certainly want to be sensitive to what they can handle at 88 & 89 but at the same time really want this process to run as smoothly for them so that they are not overwhelmed.

On a funny note, as we went through the interview with them today, Pop Pop was asked if he had ever been diagnosed with a psychological disorder or ever attempted suicide.  His answer was , "Not yet".....I wanted to nudge him and say "not appropriate."  I mean, we all know that he is joking but she has no idea as she had just met him 5 mins prior.  Well, Mom Mom very quickly shot some "serious eyes" from across the table and he quickly changed his answer to "No."  It was funny, especially if you know him but maybe not such great timing!

Our next Homestudy is our detailed interview and will take place in about 2 weeks.  We have about 5 pages of questions to answer that will basically write our autobiography from childhood until now.  We will discuss this in full detail individually with our SW.  So please be praying for us to get this all on paper in the next 2 weeks.

And I just have to end on a sweet sweet note.....
Ahhh, my Brax....such a sweet boy.

This may just be a spoon....a cheapo plastic "throwaway spoon", but for us we will keep forever.

You see all along this process I have prayed for Brax & Wy about expanding our family.  Doubt has never crossed my mind about our adoption but my mind certainly got to thinking of how this would look for them and how they would receive it.  Well, as I told you in my last last post, they are ecstatic about having a sister and have been talking about it daily.  The question this morning was "How many minutes is it going to take us to go to China to get her?".....whoaaaaa, a lot, a lot a lot of minutes my dear:)

So Brax came home from school last Friday and was so excited to show this spoon to me that he wants to give his sister.  I am guessing he had some sort of snack at school and this came with it so he kept in and tucked it away in his backpack for her.  It was the sweetest thing ever....the sweetest thing to see my boy already wanting to give so much love to someone he has yet to meet!
God is amazing!
That.is.all.

Until next time.....
Kelli