Fingerprints - Check

Every day we move closer and closer to bringing you home. Working hard on getting our Home Study done! :) Yesterday we visited the County to gather important paperwork and get our fingerprints taken, times two, for our Adam Walsh background checks and our DHS (Department of Homeland Security) checks too. Jumping through the hoops baby.

Our First Open House at Zimmerman

Hello Sweet Baby Bean. We continue to plan for you, and dream about you, every day. Today we held our first open house at our flip home in Zimmerman, the sale of this home will help us travel to Colombia to bring you home! We are praying for a speedy sale! Your sister Zahria was there with us today, getting the home ready to sparkle!

18-24 Years of Addresses - Seriously?

Holy Man, today's feat was uncovering every address that we have ever had, (apartment #s, counties and length of time at each), since we were 18! Do you realize how many places that is? In college alone we must have 15 different addresses in that 5 year period. This is a crazy feat, but we can do it, we can do it, we can do it. I, Christy, went through all of my old credit reports and pulled my addresses. Yes, I am kind of a saver of that kind of information. Weird maybe, but it comes in handy sometimes. Note: right now! Chris, no Chris is not a saver, instead, he is the personality that just throws credit reports in trash with little regard to all of that personal information that lurks on those pages. Chris instead, goes on line and googles, and finds the most amazing website www.intelius.com and for $1.95 he had all of his addresses that he had ever lived at. Ok, so maybe that was pretty smart on his part!! ;) On to the next piece of paper. Tomorrow, off to Anoka County for fingerprints, copies of birth certificates, etc.

Bean's First Baby Blanket

What a fun Mommy Zahria date we had! About a month ago, Z and I went to JoAnne Fabrics and picked out our favorite fabrics for a blanket for her little sister. Z specifically picked out the cupcakes, it was very important that we had those cupcakes in the baby's blanket....so, we designed the blanket around the cupcakes and it is going to turn out just great! Mommy then picked a couple faves too! It is going to be a comfy soft blankie, perfect for Bean to cuddle up in for years to come. Auntie Becky is going to make our Bean her first baby blanket, just like she did for Zahria. Z still snuggles in her blanket every night when we rock-a-bye and when she goes to bed.

Totally a 'God Thing'

Let's go back a bit to July 19th, 2012. This is one of the major days that changed all of our futures!! I mean REALLY changed our futures!! :) That night, we met with some past clients of ours at their home in Big Lake......the focus of the meeting was to discuss the idea of partnering up to start investing in distressed properties, rehab them, bringing them back to their glory days, and then resell them for a profit. Here is the total God part, Chris and I have dreamed about this opportunity together, but pre-this meeting with Andy & Candy, it was just not a reality for us financially. This is one of those amazing times when you see God truly does LOVE big prayers! He knew that adoption was on our hearts, and He knew that we were totally unsure of how, and when, and where, an adoption could even be a possibility for us. Over the past 2 years we had dicussed our family on several levels, and we both felt lead to international adoption, but financially, we were not yet ready, or able, to make those commitments. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, God presents this AMAZING opportunity to us. It is like He said, 'Trust in me. In Me, anything is possible. Just have Faith! I put adoption in your hearts for a BIG reason, because that is the plan that I have for you, and your family. Do not worry about anything, I am bigger than you can even imagine. Continue to move forward in Faith and I will provide for you.' And He has! Out of (what seemed to be) nowhere, we are presented this amazing opportunity, to team up to start flipping homes. I mean, who does that happen to? It happens to US, a couple with a dream in our hearts, but not enough money to make it a reality....at least not until July 19th! :) Needless to say, we have been SO incredibly blessed by Andy & Candy's invitation to us to partner up with them in this exciting venture! Since that day, we found, and closed on the purchase of our first 'flip home.' Check out some of the before and after pics. So fun! Our prayer is that the sale of this home will pay for our adoption costs to our daughter!! :) August 17th we closed on this home and for the last month and a half we have been working on our updates. Today we listed the home! Good Luck to us!!

Colombian Coffee at Dunn Brothers

Tonight Chris gave me the green light to take our Home Study packet to Dunn Brothers... Ohhh what could be better than quiet, coffee & making progress to bring our baby home??!!! So, as I was grabbing my Latte, I looked over and what to my wondering eyes would appear but Colombian Beans! And so it is, our baby is our Colombian Bean now!

Videos of Julieth

Seriously, who gets this??? In reading Julieth's preliminary medical reports, there were a couple items that triggered questions for us. When we spoke with Patti, our friend that works closely with FANA, Julieth's orphanage, we shared our questions with her. Within about a week, Patti was able to share 4 small video clips of Julieth with us! What? Who gets that when they are adopting internationally?? Blessed!! We got to see our daughter in action and it melted our hearts! Julieth was playing with a noodle, rocking on a horse & eating a cookie. The videos not only helped answer our questions but it really connected us all the more to Julieth. Such a sweet little peanut! We even got a glimpse of a smile, which was so nice to see!! Such an amazing treasure to have as Julieth grows older!