Baby Kull's first Christmas (in our hearts)!

Happy New Year everyone!

We have always known how awesome our family and friends are, but this Christmas we were very reminded of all the love and support we've been blessed with. On Christmas morning, we had as many gifts to open for Baby Kull as we did for ourselves! The t-shirt we got is from my parents and I can't wait to wear it! They also got us an awesome baby book that is for adopted children, and its great. There's a place for us to write about Stephen and I as a couple and why we chose adoption, and there's spots to put picture of all the baby's first. And they aren't your typical firsts like "first step" (our child will likely already be walking) but there are things like "first family holiday together" and "first birthday celebrated as a family" I can't wait to fill it up! My parents also got Baby Doo (Stephen and I decided we needed a nickname to call our baby, and its a long story, but that's what we came up with) a Little Tykes Noah's Ark, complete with all the animals. Its the baby's first toy, and I can't wait for them to play with it! And we got some books that I think will really help us build our baby's vocab.

Stephen's sister Virginia crocheted us this BEAUTIFUL blue blanket and I don't know if she intended for it to go in the nursery but we think it will look perfect there! Stephen's cousins Mark and Heidi got us two Thai cookbooks that I can't wait to use! I'm a little nervous, seeing as how traditional recipes don't always turn out so good for me, but I am definitely up for the challenge!

My brother and sister in law made us the wall hanging that says "A match made in heaven." I can't believe how creative Rachael is. She is definitely going to come in handy when we decorate the nursery!!! We also received a letter from our future baby, complete with an authentic return address from an orphanage in Thailand. We received the letter on Christmas eve and both Stephen and I cried when we read the words, telling us how much our child is looking forward to meeting us and how they already feel our love for them. I hope Michael and Rachael know how much that letter meant to us. It also came with key chains that say "Someone in Thailand loves me" and we are proudly carrying them with us!

My grandma also sent us a blanket and a super cute "lovey". Its a green and white dog and Stephen and I have already decided that it will be the first thing we put in our first care package to our baby. We are encouraged to send things to our baby once we received their name, that way they have things from us, and things of there own that they can bring with them here. I'm excited to hold that stuffed animal and think someday our child might hold it as they fall asleep!

The second picture is our nursery as it is now. We've decided not to buy any furniture or decorate completely. We really want to make that room special and individualized for our baby, so we'll wait until we get our referral. But, its been absolutely impossible to pass by the baby section and not splurge once in a while.

We also just want to say a special thank you to those who gave us special, heartfelt gifts towards our adoption fund. We never expected to receive such generous donations, but please know that your gift means soooooo much and we can never say thank you enough.

Happy New Year everyone and we pray God will bless you abundantly! We love you!

Practice Makes Perfect!

For those of you who haven't got to meet this cute guy, this is Noah, our nephew and we LOVE him!!! Today we got to experience first hand the awesomeness of full time baby care. Unfortunately my brother and sister-in-law are really sick, but fortunately for us, that means Noah gets to spend the night! Its about 9 pm, and so far, so good (except for the brief unhappiness we captured in the first picture!) So, maybe I'll blog again tomorrow and let you know how the night goes ;)

Things with the adoption are still moving along really well. We had our second homestudy today. We're just waiting on a few more papers (reference letters, doctors forms, Angie's passport) and then we can send everything to our social worker. She said she should be done with her part in a week, then she forwards it to our international agency, and hopefully they should be done in one to two weeks. From there is goes to ICPC (I think that's it) I know part of it is "interstate compact" and I think they'll have it three to four weeks, and finally it goes to another state agency with a lot of letters (I know part of that process includes INS and them agreeing to allow us to bring an international child into the state) and they'll take up to ten weeks. So, we really want to get all the of final papers to Susan (our social worker) this next week so we can begin that whole process. Its only after our dossier travels to all those places that it can then be sent to Thailand to be matched with a baby!!!!! I just keep praying that by Christmas next year we can at least know who our baby is. It so hard to talk about your baby and remain abstract. I want to call him or her by name, and shop for them.

Today I totally had a moment in regards to all that. We were at practice today for our church's Christmas Cantata and we were practicing the song where the kids choir comes in and sings "Sleep Baby Jesus." and I was totally overcome with tears. Now I'll admit that I always get a little teary-eyed when the kids sing, just cause they're so darn cute, but this time was different. I could just picture our child singing with them. And to hear the words they were singing and to think that we are going to be taking a child from a country that is nearly 100% buddhist and instead teaching him or her the love of Jesus. It makes me cry again just thinking about it. I keep praying that our little one is safe and healthy this Christmas being loved by a wonderful caregiver in Thailand.

We also pray that all of you are having a wonderful, happy Christmas. We love you all!!!

Our first taste of Thailand!

Well, I have to admit, I was nervous to try Thai food for the first time, I'm just not very adventurous. But, the food was AWESOME! We went to dinner with our friends Bo and Sarah and their adorable baby Brody when we were up in Ohio, and we had a great time. I can't remember the name of the dishes themselves, but there were noodles and chicken and broccoli (that really narrows it down doesn't it!) When we got back into town, we checked out another Thai restaurant here locally with my parents, brother, sister-in-law and nephew (also absolutely adorable!). I was feeling brave and ordered a dish I normally would never had tried. This time.......not so much. I didn't like it at all. So, if any of you have any recommendations of what to order next time, let us know. It was just fun to be in the environment. Of course, we know that a Thai restaurant in the US is likely nothing like what we'll experience when we travel to Thailand, but it was still neat!

When we got back from our trip (which by the way was great!), we had a big packet waiting for us from the agency. We hadn't planned to hear anything for another week, so we were really excited. Of course, it was filled with another stack of forms to be filled out........and a rather large bill :( But, we knew that was coming. Right now we are concentrating on getting together all of our "vital records" (birth certificates and marriage license) Once we get the official records, we then have to send them off to the state of origin to be authenticated. I'm also going to get my passport and we'll need to get our physicals redone and more of that kind of stuff. We've been super blessed that all of the money that we put into our home study for the domestic adoption has carried over, so we only needed to pay a little more on top of that to add the extra stuff for international.

So, that's where we're at, papers, papers and more papers. We put up our tree today, and I keep thinking that this time next year we could be so very close to having our baby! Now I just need to pray for patience!!!! God Bless.

FORMAL APPLICATION--- DONE!!!!

Hi everyone. Even though we have already been talking back and forth with our social worker at AAI and making plans, we still needed to send in a formal application. So, we mailed it off this week (that's us holding the envelope- we've decided to take a picture of each step, no matter how dorky that might seem now, maybe someday our baby will be proud to know how excited we were to prepare for him/her!!!). We had to send proof of insurance, our marriage certificate, tax returns from the past three years and a picture of ourselves (and no this was not the picture we sent!) We've already been warned that paperwork will be the theme for us over the next year. Our social worker from Lutheran gave us a list of all the documents we should start collecting since we'll need them to include in our dossier that goes to Thailand.
We're taking a break from all the paperwork for a while though and going on a much anticipated trip! At the end of the week we'll be leaving for Ohio to help our best friends move :( then its off to Tennessee for Thanksgiving with Stephen's side of the family. We're really looking forward to seeing Stephen's parents and getting to talk in person about all of this exciting stuff!! We pray you all have a wonderful holiday and please know we are soooo thankful for each one of you!!!!

Sawat-dee thook thook khohn!

Angela & I would like to welcome you to our first ever blog. This is new to us, so bear with us. For those of you that do not know, Angela and I have been in the adoption process for some time now. We started in the domestic side and recently decided to look into International Adoption. After looking into agencies, we settled on Adoption Advocates International (AAI) in Washington state. We have chosen to adopt a child from Thailand! By the way, the title to this posting is Thai for Hello Everyone. Since we had already processed for a domestic adoption, the paperwork process will not be as difficult or time consuming as it normally would be. In addition, we found out that our domestic agency, LCFS, works with AAI, so we do not have to redo our homestudy! Their website for that program is http://www.adoptionadvocates.org/thailand/thailand_process.php

We have been told to expect a 12-18 month wait. We are open to children with minor special needs and will most likely receive a boy. The children are typically older (2 years) by the time they come home. Once we receive a referral for a child, within 3-5 months, Angela and I will be traveling to Bangkok, Thailand to pick them up, go before the adoption board, and bring them home. We will be in country for at least 10 days.

In the meantime, we will be updating you throughout the process and hope that you enjoy this and maybe even learn something along the way. We are also looking into learning some of the language, since we have some time. If anyone has any tips, please let us know.

We are extremely excited to have been blessed to be able to do this. We are also so blessed to have such great support from friends and family from all over the country. Please begin praying for our child. Although we do not know who he/she is, we know they are out there somewhere.

Check back frequently for updates!