Nesting....

"Around the 5th month of pregnancy (or referral waiting), the 'nesting' instinct can set in. This is an uncontrollable urge to clean one's house, brought on by a desire to prepare a nest for the new baby, to tie up loose ends of old projects and to organize your world."- pregnancy weekly

So, we are 5 months and 3 weeks into the waiting game, and I am beginning to feel a lot of pressure to get things done. I will not call it crazy. I will call it nesting!:) Around the Plumb house we are organizing drawers and closets, changing pictures in picture frames, and trying to knock of some "To Do Before Baby Gets Here" tasks.

I actually had a panic moment a couple of nights ago.

We haven't picked out a name yet.

I can't find the perfect baby bedding. (I know I mentioned in a previous post I had bought bedding, but it wasn't perfect enough!:))

Baby Plumb's Life Book is no where near finished.

It is getting close to time to update some adoption documents.

We still have some training videos to watch.

And the list goes on.

So motivation has hit. Let's start crossing tasks off the list!

Brian will be so excited.:)

Oh, and Brian wanted me to add that he is awesome. Whatever!:)

T-shirts are in!

We got the t-shirts!

I will be contacting you guys who ordered shortly to get your shirts delivered to you!

We also have some extras!

If you got a shirt, we would love it if you would send us a picture of you in your shirt!

We would like to put it in Baby Plumb's life book.

(We may even sneak them onto the blog, with permission of course!:))

Thanks again everyone!!!

Family photos

I don't have a whole lot of pictures of me and Brian over the past couple of years. I seem to be the one that takes the pictures in our families. Brian and I haven't had our pictures made since our wedding day almost 6 year ago! So, a few weeks ago Jennifer fixed that for us. Thought I would share a few of our favorites!


She really did an awesome job! I love them! Thanks again Jennifer for taking our last official family of 2 photo !

And in referral news... there has been 2 referrals for baby boys in the past week! We could not be more excited for both families, especially our friends the Carter's!
Yippeeeee!
Movin' on up!

Is this good news or bad news?

We got some unexpected news on the adoption front yesterday. The Ethiopian government announced yesterday that all adoptive parents must travel to Ethiopia for their court dates in order for adoptions to become finalized. This means that we will now have to make 2 trips to Ethiopia, once to appear in court and the second to pick our son up and bring him to the U.S.

The first trip will last about 5 days and we will have a chance to meet our child and appear in court. The second trip will be after the adoption is finalized and will be to appear for a U.S Embassy interview to process our son's immigration visa. The second trip should occur 3-6 weeks after the first. We are still not sure of all of the details, but should hear more from our adoption agency soon.

I must admit, yesterday I had a really hard time with this. 2 trips! Really! We definitely had not planned for this extra expense. And having to travel twice so close together! How is that gonna work with our jobs? And probably the worst part, having to meet our son, begin bonding, and then have to leave him behind!?!?!? Oh, I can't even imagine!!!

All of these thoughts became a little overwhelming and I will say, I threw myself a little pity party. I just started feeling a little down about the fact that the average wait time for referral has gone from 7.5 months to when we first got on the list, to 9 months at this point. There also just doesn't seem to be a lot going on with the unofficial wait list! And now 2 trips!

But the optimistic Shannon did find her way out eventually! Now we get to take 2 trips to Africa! We also get to meet our son 3-6 weeks earlier than we originally would have gotten to! God has blessed us so much, and we know that he will make this all work out.

Brian reminded me that when we get our son, nothing else will matter.

FIVE

Why is the number five so important?

Well, there is The Jackson 5

You can split lunch with a friend for $2.50 each, which makes $5.

(Sing it with me folks, "5....5 dollar....5 dollar foot loooong")

There are 5 Olympic rings.

James Monroe, our fifth president.

"Five Golden Rings!"

And we have been on the waiting list for FIVE months!

Wooohoooo!

This calls for a high five!:)