Snow!

We had a little snow here in NWA. The kids love it when it snows, so we got out to make a snowman. Enjoy the pictures...

The kids were in awe of the snow coming down outside.

So we bundled everyone up...



And made a snow man. We took a picture with Erin too, but she threatened to kill me if I posted it.

Funny story: We made the mouth out of fruit snacks, which just happen to be Sophie's favorite things on the planet. So... She stole them while we were distracted making snow angels.


You should have seen the fit she threw when the snacks were all gone! No wonder she is so "healthy."

On the list!!!

That is right folks! The Kennedy crew is officially waiting! We got word today that our dossier is on it's way to DC. It might be the quickest time from application to waiting list in the history of adoptions, considering we requested an application on October 22nd. That is only 3 months!

We are more excited than ever to bring our little boy home. We are going to name him Addis, after the capitol city of Ethiopia. The twins pray for him every night... "Dear Jesus, help baby Addis come home to us soon."

Now, we just sit and patiently wait. God has obviously had His hand in this from the beginning, and we are trusting Him with our baby in the meantime. They say this is the hard part, but we have 3 things that should keep our mind occupied; Easton, Catherine, and Sophie.

Thank you all for your prayers and support along the way. Please pray for our baby boy when you think of us. There is a good chance he might have already been born.

CIS Approval!

That might be the quickest CIS approval in the history of adoptions. The CIS office in Fort Smith received our Home Study on the Tuesday, January 15th and we got our I-171H in the mail today!!!!!

This news is only slightly dampened by the fact that the FBI left out the "letter of procedure" from our clearance packets. I had to call them on Thursday and get them to mail it out to us. It should be here sometime next week, and our dossier will be complete. Kate at KBS actually already has quite a bit of the dossier authenticated (we sent most of it to her a month ago), so the waiting list is almost here!!!!

Approved!

We got our approval email from Gladney today! They are sending us copies of our home study, as well as FedEx-ing a copy to CIS. We have all of our Dossier paperwork completed, and most of it has already been mailed to Kate at KBS. Once we get our home study here, we will mail the remainder of the papers and then wait for CIS approval. Kate will then send all of the Dossier paperwork to the state and federal government for authentication. Once authenticated, we will be on the wait list for a referral.

Hopefully CIS will be quick!

Marshmallows

We were given some money for Christmas so we bought a handy dandy fire pit. The kids love roasting marshmallows. By the way, I had no idea marshmallow was spelled with an "a." It looks strange. I would think marshmEllow, but no one asked me apparently.

Here are some marshmallow pictures.

Easton wouldn't get it close enough to the fire...
Catherine wasn't fond of the smoke...
They both loved the end result.
And Sophie ran away with the marshmallows.

In adoption news, our Home Study is complete and has been sent to Gladney. We haven't heard from Gladney that they received it yet, but it should be any day. They will turn around and mail a copy of it to CIS (Citizen and Immigration Services), and the word around here is that the Arkansas CIS office takes less than a week to send out the approval once they have the Home Study. The waiting list is coming closer every day.

As you go, here is a picture of our crazy kids in their product RED stuff they got for Christmas. They wouldn't stay still, and Sophie kept trying to get away. Makes for a funny picture though.

More Papers!

We have some good news. It seems as if we haven't abused our children, at least not that the government knows about! Our child abuse clearance letters came in a few days ago. Anne from Gladney sent an email to let us know that they had come in and that our home study could now be completed. Andrea, our home study gal, just has to make copies of it and send it to the appropriate places.

It will go to CIS, and then we have to wait for approval from them. We have just now had to begin to endure the waiting, as we have had paperwork to fill out until recently. It has Erin a little worried that all of this waiting for approval will push our babies court date into the rainy season (AUG-SEP). Ethiopia shuts down EVERYTHING during the rainy season, including the court. If our referral comes to late, it could cause us to have to wait until October before we can pick him up.

Please pray for the final paperwork to come in quickly so we can have our baby home before the rainy season starts.

In non adoption news, Sophia put two words together tonight for the first time. At dinner she said mo caca, meaning more cracker. We thought she would never talk!

Christmas 2007

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the Kennedy house,
All three little ones put on their new pj's for a picture in front of the tree. (I know, it doesn't rhyme. Don't expect much better throughout the rest of the post. Just enjoy the pictures.)

They put out food for the reindeer on the front porch.

And left cookies for Santa...

At last, it was Christmas morning.

It was the thing he was hoping for, a football uniform.

And Catherine got a...

Front pack for her baby...

And Sophie got her favorite thing in the whole world.Chapstick!

Christmas 2007! They loved every second.


Please continue to pray for Seth Joshua. He is still in Children's Hospital in Little Rock, and it has been a roller coaster of emotion for my brother and sister in law. Pray for recovery and for wise plan of action as the doctors move forward.

Question for Adoption Lurkers...

Do we have to send our Home Study into CIS before we will receive the I-171H?

To all of those non-adoption lurkers out there, that sentence makes zero sense. Those are our two last sheets of paper we need to be finished with the paperwork, and I think one is dependent on the other. If you still don't understand, don't worry about it. It doesn't make much sense to me either at this point!

We got our FBI clearance packets in, and except for my two previous assault charges, everything looked good. One down, two more pieces of paper to go!

Waiting list, here we come...

Kids...

It never ceases to amaze me what kids say. Here are a few of our recent favorites.

We explained to the kids about the changing of the leaves in the winter, how they change colors and fall off. Easton came charging out of the bathroom later that day and announced, "Mom! The poop turned green because it is winter!"

Catherine has a boomy, loud voice that she has a hard time keeping down. Erin took them to Old Navy today, and the store was empty except for a few workers. One of those workers bent over to pick something up, which Catherine noticed and said: "Mommy, she has a BIG hiney!"

We were eating out last week, and the restaurant was mostly empty except for a nice couple sitting one table away. Catherine, once again as loud as possible, announced: "I need a bra for christmas!" We were shocked and didn't know what to say. She then said, "I am a big girl, so I need a BIG bra!"

And lastly, Sophie did something pretty funny today. Erin went in during naptime, and Sophie had stripped down totally naked and had fallen asleep with her "hiney" sticking up in the air. What is worse, Erin didn't wake her up to put her diaper back on, so when she got up from nap time she had wet all over everything!

Thought you would enjoy the stories!

Waiting...

We are waiting on:

1. CIS Approval (I-171-H)
2. Home Study written and approved
3. Criminal background checks

Yes! Only three things, and we can't do anything to speed it up. Two of them involve the government, so you can only guess how that will go.

I am putting updates on our new nephew Seth Joshua on my brothers blog. He had a much better day today, but still needs prayer as it is looking like it might take a while for him to pull through this.

Pray for Seth Joshua

My brother and sister in law had a beautiful baby boy on Friday. However, he has had a rough go over the weekend. Below is my brothers blog entry from today. The link to their site is on the right if you would like more information. Thank you for praying.

From Josh:
Just writing to give you an update on Seth Joshua Kennedy. He was born on 12/7/07 at 9:10pm after an 18 hour labor. When he was born, he was not breathing with an initial apgar of 1 at 1 minute. He was intubated an quickly extubated as he coughed and sputtered when they put the tube down. His 5 minute apgar was 9 (praise the Lord!!!). The neonatologist (who only came as a courtesy... good thing she was there!) told me she had not seen that kind of spread in a long time!!! Long story short, we found out yesterday that Seth has a heart defect- an ASD with pulmonary hypertension to be more precise. Please pray for little Seth. He is under an oxygen hood right now. That makes mommy sad because she is not able to hold him or feed him right now. To make matters more difficult, our OB is sending us home today... without our little baby. That is going to be tough for both Marci and myself. Please pray for our strength and courage as we leave the hospital. Pray for the doctors and nursing staff who are taking care of him at UAMS. They have been WONDERFUL so far. Pray specifically for the cardiologist who will be looking at Seth's echocardiogram (ultrasound of his heart). Pray that he will have a specific plan for what to do. Pray that it will make sense and that God will give his mommy and I peace about what to do. Pray for his healing, but most of all, pray that God's will will be done, and that people will see His light through us. Thanks so much in advance for your prayers!! We will post pictures soon! He is the cutest, most handsome little guy in the world!!!! We love you all!

$4 Setback

One of the many papers we are required to fill out is a criminal background check for the state of Arkansas. We have been waiting for ours to return for 4 weeks now. Gladney recieved them in the mail yesterday, but they hadn't been processed. Seems the fee went from $23 a person to $25 a person, so our check was $4 short. Instead of calling and asking for $4, they mailed everything back FOUR WEEKS LATER!

We are beginning to understand how this process can get frustrating at times...
Our papers have been re-sent and we are waiting again.

CIS and the Fiber Optic Eagle

Big news on the adoption front today. We received our FBI Clearance packet via FedEx and traveled to Fort Smith for our CIS fingerprinting. Our appointment was at 3:00, and we didn't have anyone to watch the kids, so we took all three of them. We had read on other blogs that most people got in and out, so we weren't too worried about it.

Leave it to the Kennedy's to get stuck in there for an hour and a half! We were greeted by the Security guard who was very friendly. He had several grandkids so he was right at home entertaining our three. Easton was memorized by his gun and his stick "that he hits the bad people with." He told us of a great catalog that everything is under twenty dollars. In it, you can find a wonderful porcelain Eagle, wings spread wide, feeding its young, with fiber optic lighting to give it a little extra pizzazz. If you have any interest in ordering one for some one on your list, I did manage to find it online. (sarcasm, unless of course fiber optic eagles are your thing)

The kids were great, thanks to the help of the security guard and a few suckers. They got a Chocolate Mess for their good behavior. We now have to wait for CIS to mail back a form, and that and our home study documents should complete our dossier! Then, we wait for a referral which might take a while...

In other news, the house is now decorated for Christmas. Here are some shots of the kids decorating. We will post some pictures of the rest of the house later this week.

Easton's ornament this year is his favorite shoe, the Chuck Taylor.

Catherine is actually telling "Santa" what she wants for Christmas.
Santa then responded, "That is too many. I can't get that many."

This has nothing to do with Christmas, but a mac n cheese on the nose is always funny.

Shaving for Santa

We had our home study on Tuesday. Andrea from The Gladney Center came and spent all afternoon, asking questions about parenting and family history. My favorite question of all was, what are your wife's strengths and what are her "challenges." I thought that was a pretty creative way to keep me out of trouble!

Between Easton locking himself in his room so he could make his bed up for "the lady" and Catherine telling her that she wanted a "white baby," we passed with flying colors. Seriously, both of those things actually happened. Easton let us in once the room was clean, and Catherine was just a little confused by the question. Andrea was great, and it ended up just being like a conversation with a friend. She said she would have it all written up within the next 30 days, and that may be the last piece of paper we will have to wait on.

On a lighter note, the kids went to see Santa today. Easton came in this morning and said, "Daddy, we are going to see Santa today, so I have to shave." His Lovey got him a toy shaver, and he LOVES to shave with his daddy.

While they waited for Grammy and Auntie Mo to finish shopping, they all made friends with Santa from afar. Sophie was most fond of him, waving and laughing at him. He would wave back and she would laugh.
Unfortunately, she would have preferred that he stayed at a distance, and didn't appreciate being plopped into his lap. Catherine was the caring big sister, as usual, telling Santa what Sophie wanted for Christmas, since she was obviously in no mood to talk. Easton actually spoke this year as well, giving Santa the rundown on his list.

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving visit to Hot Springs. We had a great time hanging with our family for a few days.

The first two days were spent with Grammy and Poppa.

Catherine and Easton making Turkey Cookies with Grammy.

With Nanny Moore, 92 and going strong!

Poppa reading a coloring book to Sophie.

Then we headed to Lovey and Poppas for the last part of the week.

The Kennedy Family Christmas Card for 2007

Our Home Study is tomorrow at 1:30. We will update tomorrow night and let everyone know how it goes!

What to type?

Okay...so this is the first time I have sat down at the computer to post on our site. If you couldn't tell Zach has done every one of them. As I sat down I realized that I had no idea what in the world I was going to say. So...I have decided to give my thoughts on a situation going on in our lives right now. I have decided that raising children is probably the hardest yet most rewarding thing I will ever do. I wish all of my children could be happy all of the time. Unfortunately that is not the case. We are currently going through a very difficult time with Catherine...for those of you who do not know her the is the sweetest child in the whole world! She is very quiet and likes to always do what is right and is sooooooo helpful. Unfortunately she is going through a hard time right now. About a year ago she went through a period of time where she went from going to bed with no questions asked at 7:3o to screaming her head off for hours and not staying in her bead. It was awful. She wasn't just being obstinate. she was scared out of her mind and went crazy each night at bedtime. I could never even begin to describe the scene to you. A few know what I am talking about because I called them and held the phone out for them to hear her each night. She was also not herself during the day. She was very easily upset and seemed almost sad (getting to the point, I promise). Anyways... it only lasted about 3 months (Praise the Lord!) and one night it just stopped. She went right to sleep and was back to her old self and never did it again...until a week ago. That's right...it's back!!! I want to jump off a bridge with concrete shoes on. Okay so not really but this is not fun. I know it will not last for ever but I just hate that she is so upset. I wish I could know what would help her. I had coffee with a wonderful lady the other day and she made a statement that I found to be so profound and so true... "A mother can only be as happy as her saddest child." That is how I feel right now. So if their is anyone out their with any advice on this matter I would love to hear it. I know that this to will pass but I am hoping there is something we can come up with to help her through this quicker than last time. I should add that if we let her sleep on her brothers floor then she goes right to sleep. Can I let her do that forever?
Sorry this is so long. You are all probably praying right now that Zach continue to do all of the posts. I promise next time it will be much shorter and to the point!!! Thanks for listening!

Two steps forward, half step back

We reached another important marker in the process today. We received our fingerprint date from CIS. We have to drive to Fort Smith on December 3rd to be fingerprinted. The half step back? Our home study was moved a week. It will now be on Tuesday, November 27th.
The kids have been preparing for "that lady" to come. Like I told you before, they have been keeping their beds made every day.

They wanted me to take a picture of it. Notice the intricate arrangement of the throw pillows!

Pictures and Home Study

We went to Harber Meadows with Lovey and Poppa to take our annual fall pictures. Enjoy!






In other Kennedy news, we got a call from our home study coordinator today. One step of the process involves a case worker visiting your home and doing a 4-5 hour interview. Scary part is, they have to interview every child over three! The twins have to talk to a stranger! They rarely talk to people they see all the time, so this will definitely be a challenge.

She will be coming next Monday afternoon. Things are moving along pretty quickly. We only have a few more forms to turn in to the agency, and we will be done!

Then, we wait for a referral which could take a while.