I just received back from the State our authenticated Power of Attorney letter. Can you believe it? I mailed it out Tuesday evening and have already received it Friday morning. You go PA!!!
Yesterday's home visit went very well. Our SW was here for about an hour and half. She interviewed Matt by himself first, then she interviewed us both about our marriage, Katelyn and the way we discipline. Fifteen questions down and one hundred more to go. I feel so much better though. The hardest part is not knowing what to expect. Now that we know it is very easy we are no longer stressed. On a funny note- we were sitting at the table yesterday when she was interviewing us and both Matt and I look up at the ceiling fan and yes we forgot to clean it. Boy was it dirty. So before Tuesday's meeting I have to clean the ceiling fan.

In case I don't get on until after Sunday I would like to wish everybody a very happy and blessed Easter. Praise God for sending us His one and only son, so that He could make a way for us. What a wonderful Savior!!!

UPS!

So you know how I was saying in my previous post "only in America". Well now I feel the same way about UPS. I mailed our Power of Attorney document today to the State to be authenticated and had to send a pre-paid air bill for them to return the paper. Lets just say that I walked into the UPS Store at 4:09 and walked out at 4:47. CRAZY!! I was praying the entire time I was there for our document to make it to the Department of State. A couple of times I actually thought about grabbing it and running out the door. The next time I am definatly going to FedEx.
ONLY TWO DAYS LEFT TO OUR HOME VISIT.

Clean, Clean, Clean

My weekend was full of cleaning. Our home visit is this Thursday. I can't believe how fast this month has gone. I know, I have read about how you should not worry about how clean your house is, but this obsessive compulsive cleaner in me just came out. I think I have officially rearranged every room in my house. Some exciting news is that we already have the crib set up in the baby's room. After we moved all Matt's furniture out I didn't want to just leave that room empty, so we moved in all the furniture. Katelyn was so excited. She made me put her rocker in there so that she can rock the baby to sleep. The cute thing is that she goes in the room and reads to her baby dolls. I think it is going to help her to start the bonding process, plus get her used to the fact that there is a baby coming. I will post pictures as soon as I can.

My Husband!!

This is my favorite picture of Matt and I. It was from our trip to Myrtle Beach for my brother and sister-in-laws vow renewal. It was such a great trip. I also just wanted to give a shout out to my wonderful husband. Today he came home with a pair of pj bottoms and a polo shirt from American Eagle for me. I told him I didn't want anything for my birthday, but I guess he couldn't resist. I love you Matt!!!!

The second picture I cherish as a parent. A couple of months ago Matt's mom and dad gave him his bible that he got when he was confirmed into church when he was like 12.
Matt decided that he wanted to give the bible to Katelyn now and let her have a bible like mommy and daddy. Well the one morning I walk into her room and she has her bible as you can see right next to her pillows. My heart melted. Then as I walked closer I noticed that she had her play cell phone on top. I guess she sleeps with what she holds dear.

The Start of Our Dossier!

Last night we had our dossier orientation call with our case manager. I think I will be ok with getting all the documents done correctly and in a timely manner. While I was on the phone with her Katelyn kept saying in the background, "tell her I want a baby boy from Ethiopia." It was so funny. For anybody that has any advice for us on completing our dossier, please let me know.
Today is my 26th birthday. It is so hard to believe that I am already 26!!! I just can't believe how fast the years have gone. I had a great day. Thursdays are our administrative days at work. We don't have any patients and we go out to eat lunch. Being that I was princess for the day I picked the Olive Garden for lunch. I got there endless soup and salad, which is probably by far my favorite meal. I was so full!!! There is that special rule that applies on birthdays that you don't count calories!!! (Though I am going to work out as soon as I am done blogging.) My thoughts today like every other day continued to turn towards Ethiopia. I just kept thinking about what stage will we be at next year. Will we be home (I hope), how long will we have been home, will we be adjusted, you know all those thoughts that adoptive parents think every day of our journey.

Other exciting news that I have is that we finally finished Matt's den!!!!! Yippee! Here are some pictures of how it turned out.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Ligonier, Pa. It was about 65-70 degrees and sunshine. This was great considering that last Friday we had a huge snow storm that dumped about 6in. of snow. I know I said huge and it was only 6in. but it took us 2 1/2 hours to get home from work when it should only take about a 1/2 hour to 45 minutes. Anyways, it was a very good Monday. We went to see the Bodies Exhibit. It was absoulutly amazing. It really makes you realize how awesome our God is. Just to see how our bodies are composed and how each tiny little fiber and nerve matters. It made me begin to think about the church as a body and how important every single person is. No matter our size, age, income, color of hair or race, we each matter to our God. When I left for work today it was pouring down rain. I got Katelyn in the car and she said "God hates the rain." I said "No Katelyn God made that rain. He made it to wash away the dirt and to make flowers and grass grow and to provide water for us to drink." Why is it that we take each and every tiny thing and make it a complaint. Unless we wake up morning and the sun is shining and it 75 we are not happy. I have learned through my years that God takes the rainy days to make the sunny days better.
I got an email from AGCI yesterday stating that they recieved our contracts and they were going to start to process them. By Friday they should mailing out the dossier packet. Also thanks to Robin (my sister-in-law) who found an ad for nursery furniture on Craigslist.org, I was able to purchase a crib and furniture for the baby's room. One more thing off my large list!!!!