Just Stroll-ing Along . . .

last night we had our final homestudy session for to be approved by children's services. the last things laura needs are our physical & tb test results which we'll be able to give her next week. she was over for almost 2 hours and we went over a lot of things. some fears i have, concerns we have for the children. everything is on a "need-to-know" basis, but suffice it to say that all of the children we've expressed interest in need lots of love & prayer. the next step is for laura to take our file to matching meetings, where she would present us as potential parents to specific children. at this point, we're interested in 1 single child and 2 different groups of siblings. laura feels that it would be best for her to present us at meetings for all of them, because obviously we are not the only ones taking an interest in these children and it's very possible that we would not be the 1st match. if it turns out that we are not matches for any of them, then what we will most likely do is be on a list for fostering legal risk children, that is, children that will most likely be taken into permanent custody by lccs - in which case there is a higher chance of us being able to adopt them down the road & not necessarily having to give them back.

we are learning & praying every day.

speaking of kids, we received a photo yesterday in the mail of my sister's five kids. i am looking at it right now and missing them. a shout-out to the most irish-ly named kids in the south. :o)

just an fyi to those of you who receive christmas gifts from us: because of all the added expenses we've had, we are in a major financial situation and will not be able to do traditional gifts this year. we will be giving handmade gifts & buying as little as possible. i know no-one expects anything at all, but we still want to give, and this is the way we can. :o)

i found out yesterday that my friend's fiance, who was diagnosed with leukemia two weeks ago, is quite possibly in remission already. praise the Lord!

just one more thing: i had quite the anne of green gables moment on sunday morn, when i walked into the kitchen & realized i had left some unused frosting in my mixing bowl. i pulled it out from the back of the counter, picked up the spatula and saw the dead mouse lying in the bowl. i actually think i suffered a small stroke, i don't really remember what happened after that, except the smells of bleach & my hubby telling me all was well.