Just wanted to update everyone and let you all know that we didnt hear anything about the meeting today. If we dont recieve a call tomm by 1 then I am going to call our caseworker Donna. So hopefully I will have an update tomm. Thank you all so much for all your prayers and comments. We are so lucky to have such amazing family and friends supporting us!
Love,
Alisha and Nick and the Pups
I just got off the phone with Mrs. Howell's ( Mariah's case worker) boss and she has let me know that they have everything they need from us for her placement meeting tomm. They will be doing the meeting tomm but due to the time of the meeting she wasnt sure if she would get back with us tomm or on friday. All I can ask for right now is prayers from everyone that we are the parents that will be a best fit for Mariah's needs and if we are not that they find a set of parents that will be a goof fit for her. As for today and tomm this has become my only quote......
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can;and wisdom to know the difference.
I will be sharing this with nick tonight when I talk to him, im sure he will be taking this quote also.
Love to you all,
Alisha and the pups
Just wanted to give everyone an update on whats going on with us. Nick is still at scholl down in Va. We have about one month left until he is back home with us :) I cant wait!!!! Everything here in Tn is going ok. I have about 5 days left on IV's. I feel about the same. But my numbers were not too low so Im not sure if I should feel a huge change. I really need to rest more, yes I admit it I do. So everyday that I am not working this week you will find me here at home on the couch, with at least one dog if not all 3 piled on top of me on the couch.
We still have no news on the adoption. I talked to Donna our caseworker this morning and she still has not heard from Mariah's case worker. There is nothing we can do, I dont understand why she wont return our calls. I am having her call about a little girl in Missouri today, maybe we can learn about this little girl some more. I dont really know what to do or say but we just have to believe. God has our child picked out for us and he knows how all this is supposed to work out so we just have to give it all to him.
Other then that life is pretty much normal, I spend my time with Shauna and Taylor trying to get as much as we can ready for Taylor's big entrance to the world :) And with my pups just waiting for daddy to come home to us!
Love to All,
Alisha
Hey Everyone,
Well yep its true. Our caseworker offically submitted our homestudy to Mariah's caseworker in OH this past week. I will add a link below to mariahs page. She is a 12 year old girl who is in Dayton , OH. She has been in foster care for about 4 years now, she has some health problems which is why she has been a hardplacement but for those are no big deal at all. Its normal life to us. So we are hoping that our medical life that we have will give us a hands up on the other applicants. From what I know her caseworker will look over our homestudy and let us know if we might be a good match, if so then our homestudy is taken to her placement meeting on Nov 6. That is where all the people concering her sit down and look at all the applications and see if they think any applicant would be a good match. So right now we are just waiting to hear if we have made it thru the pre screening for her. Please say some prayers for us. We know that God has his plan for us but we really are hoping that Mariah is it. We feel that we could help her so much.
Well all is well here in TN. Nick and I are both good, getting ready for him to leave for school next weekend :(. All the pups are doing good. They are knocked out at the foot of the couch right now, what a surprise. The last few weeks have been busy. Nick was able to go home for his brother Kevins wedding. I had to work but I was so thankful that we could get nick up to philly! So he enjoyed the golfing and beer drinking :) I stayed here, worked on sat and then shauna and I went baby shopping for taylor :) Heads up for all who are close and reading this we are planning on doing her baby shower the first weekend of Oct. Jared hopefully will be home by thanksgiving ( her husband) YEAAAAAA! So today we talked about what we are doing for thanksgiving since our holidays always iuculde each other :) Still no decision on that one yet. I know at christmas I am not able to go anywhere with work. It is the busiest time of year for me and time off isnt a option but thats ok with me I love what I do! Im hoping to maybe to a family christmas here this year :) Nick wont be home untill late nov so we will have to see what is up with his work schedule after he gets home from school.
Other then that not to much to tell, its just been work, babysitting, and resting that has been the main parts for us the past couple of weeks. So thats it for now :)
Love,
Alisha and Nick
Hey everyone,
Its been a busy month for us so I thought I would update you. Work has kept nick and I busy. It's kinda weird to have him waiting on me to get home sometimes, but I think its great :) All the pups are doing great. Jayden is growing like a weed, she still continues to jump over our 4 foot fence, any ideas to keep her in the yard would be more then welcomed! We have had some great weather latley and have been able to ride our bikes alot. Its really relaxing to just go for a nice ride after work. Dan ( our roomate ) is gone with work right now so its just the 5 of us and its knida nice having just us here.
We spent the 4th with my family in ryland ky, first time nick had ever seen a turtle race :) Then we went up to cleveland to spend a week with Jason and Missy and the boys. Mom B came down to visit for a couple of days and it was great getting to see everyone. I cant believe how big the boys are getting, they are huge!!! All our photos are on nicks computer so I will put some of the boys up soon. They are so cute I just wanted to bring them home :) But I would fedex them back in a week or two, LOL. While we were in OH we took a night and went up to niagara falls and stayed in canada for the night. I can now say I have been to another country, one thing marked off on my bucket list. It was an amazing trip. We even had a room that you could a part of the falls from.
So we are back at home now, nick just went back to work offically today. I went back to work on tuesday to find out that yes us Goin Postal girls had started the working out like we had talked about. Cathy, rhonda and I are doing this thing called crossfit. OMG I am so freaking sore. Its an amazing thing, its all about working hard, working out right and doing it fast. you only do about 30 mins a day. 3 days on, 1 day off, 3 on, 1 off and so on. A customer of ours has made her whole 2 car garage and backyard and accredited crossfit gym, its amazing. So before work we 3 go work out. I am loving it, hurting alot but loving it. Here is the website, it even has our pic on it :)
www.crossfitclarksville.com
Its really cool and I am really excited about getting back into working it, its so great for my health and I have wanted to do it for a long time. Well thats it for now :)
Alisha and Nick
Well its been a little over 3 weeks with my new port so I thought I would give an update. Well Im alive :) For everyone who went thru the last ports last flushing you will understand that when I say that. Today was my first port flushing since deaccesing the port and finishin my iv meds on sat. I offically had the port with no flushing for 48 hours. My nurse came out today and we flushed it and it was great, she said it flushed like new, well heck it better, its is new :) So it all went great and I cant even begin to say what a relief it was to get the 2 day flush done, next we will try to wait 4 days and see how that goes. So I have attached some pics below of the port, ignore the discoloring of the shin around the port, we just didnt get all the bedidyne off from the sterlizing the port area this afternoon. So I put on a bathing suit top to take the pics, figured that would be the most approitate way to show the port and not be in a bra in pics that my brothers and brothers in law and step dad will see, lol.
Well nick is gone now in FL. Yep on the beach, butthead :) So its me and the pups right now. It finally happened. Jayden has offically started her first heat. So she is walking around the house in a demim diaper. Hopefully this will help protect her from any unplanned pregnancy's!! So thats a quick update here. Im heading to bed, I am babysitting tomm at 7:45 so after this treatment its off to bed for me. Hope everyone is doing well!!
CAN YOU FIND THE PORT??????????????????????????
Hey everyone,
As of right now we are still in the holding process of the adoption, no new news. On the other had with me there is. I havent been feeling well recently as most of you know. I called and asked when I go back on June 4th if Im not doing better are we going to do Iv's b/c if so then I want to look at a port again. I know it scares the poo outta me to think about a port again after what happened last time but I just have to have faith. So she said tell me what day and we will schedule it. Long story short I am having PFT's done on thur to see if I need IV's but I know I do I can feel it. Then we are scheduled for port surgery at 8 am on friday. I talked to my hemotologist at an appt last week and we decided to do this as outpaitent. No lovenox(blood thinner) shots and go on an asprin routine and see how my clots go day to day on how much to flush it a day. My last 2 piccs were placed my a intervenous radiloigy surgeon who told me each time that I need to get a port and he would place it for me. The nurses kept tellng me he was the best around here. So I made sure to have him as my surgeon. So I am as happy as I can be about everything. Mom is comming down thur to sat which will be amazing! Thanks so much mom, I only hope that I can be as good as a mom as you are to me. Nick will be off b/c it is a holiday for them at work and then mon he is off so that will be great to have someone with me. Last time I had the surgery the combined it with sinus surgey and I just remember being really really sore and not being able to move my sholder/ arm much for a week and then it was limited for about a month. So thats the latest with us. I will send out an updat thur afternoon before the formal and let you all know how my PFT's went.
Love,
Alisha
I got ahold of donna today and talked to her about tabitha. She has the access to look at the real profile on the children not just the edited version they put on the website. Long story short she is a child that would need experienced parents and would need much more then we would be able to give her. She would also require to be the only child and if in the future we would like to adopt again we wouldnt be able to do that with her. I love donna so much she kept saying I dont want to scare you off but I want to be honest with you, we couldnt of asked for a greater case manager. So I gave her heathers case number this morning and hopefully I will hear back from her maybe tomm and see what the situation is with heather. She is listed under mild for all catorgires so maybe this will be a child that will work with us :) I will send out the next update as soon as I hear something. If you called today I am sorry that I didnt get back to you it was a long bad day, went to clinic at vandy and on the way got a ticket, unreal then my numbers were way down but she thinks its only asthma so steriods and more meds and a follow up in a month. So the whole day was spent their then nick had said he had a surprise tonight and he took me and maddie bowling it was really fun to have some us time of course with maddie too :)
YEEAAAHHHHHH the day is finally here. Donna came out to do her last homestudy today. She was literally here only 5 mins if that and did a quick run thru of the house, she didnt even walk into the kids room. She just sat down and checked everything off pretty much. I am guessing that she knows how we are and how on top of everything that we are, and she isnt worried :) So the visits are done with and now all there is to do is have her type her paper on us and send it up the line to her 2 bosses above her. We are hoping for a approval date of around June 1st. I asked her today if I gave her a case number if she could see what the status is of the child. She said yeah I can look it up but you cant do anything until we finsh the paperwork and I said of course. So I gave her the case number of the girl below and she took it and put it with our paperwork. She said we are all done and that if she needed anything she would call. She has recieved 2 of the 5 refrence sheets, she has nicks mom's and shauna's so far.
Well tonight maddie and I were out trimming the willow tree and nick came home from work and came out to help us. We didnt come in till around 6. I left my phone inside and when I came into check it I had 3 missed calls. All from Donna. She left a voicemail saying that she checked on the child I gave her and asked me to give her a call back so that we could have a little brief dicussion with me. So im thinking this must be a good thing b/c she already told me that we really cant do anything until after our paperwork. But when she looked at the case on the internet this afternoon with me she kept saying that child looks familiar. So who knows. I called her cell tonight but it was around 7:30 and im sure she was with her family. So tomm morning on my way home from taking maddie to school I am going to call her and see what is up. Who knows??
I will give you an update tomm :)
Here is the link to Tabitha................ scroll down the page until you see her name
http://www.adoptuskids.org/states/tn/browse.aspx
also just posted this afternoon was the little girl heather on page 10, we are going to ask about her too.
Well 2 down 1 to go :) Last night went fast and good. We are set for next thursday at 5:30 for the final one and she will go thru and check out our house. Dans family will be in town so it might be a little crazy but it will all work out. Well we know that she approves of us the first thing she said when she sat down was I have a question for you. She told us if we sid no it wouldnt hurt her feelings or us in any way we were just one of the few that met this criteria. She asked if we would be intrestered in adopting a sibling group of 4, yes I said 4. a 8,7,5,4 year old, two boys and two girls. So if she would have our homestudy done to be sumbitted by tomm if that was somethigng we wanted then I believe that we have no problems with her finding us fit, it just the 2 that need to sign off on it above her. Needless to say with dan we dont have room for 4 kids and 4 is alot to start off with :) We are hopefully looking to be totally approved and done by end of May begining of June. Of course it depends on the higer ups. So thats were we are at.
Oh I also included some new pics of my new hair :) Leave me some comments on what you think. * Just a side note this was after the salon and it will of course never look this good again*
Well it finally happened, we had our first homestudy tonight. It was set for 5:30. I got out of work arond 5:07 to pull into my driveway at 5:10 and see a car in my drive way. Man if you havent seen me run you should of seen me running up our drive way. I walk in and say am I late it was 5:30 wasnt it. Donna was sitting at our kitchen table and said oh no your not im early, im usally late but got here early, Whew im thinking, what a bad start that would have been! So we all sat down and for about an hour and a half we talked. She went over some questions about the quesionaire that we had filled out that she had for us. Over all we think it went really great. She said that we will do only 3 visits not 4, yeah thats a good sign. She is really upfront and honest and I really like that about her. So we have our next appt next wed night at 5:30. So things are looking good, everyone kwwp your fingers crossed :)
I talked to Donna today and she just called to double check that wed at 5:30 was still good for us. I was like darn right it is :) WHEEEE WHOOOO. She was so thankful for me bringing her down those papers to her, she said it was a huge help. She said that we will start on the interviews on wed so im not sure how many more meetings we will have but she did tell me last week that she wants to puch us thru this b/c they want to get us done with the paperwork fast and they know we want to also. So we have another date and are running with this one.
Well we know that everything happens for a reason and this one we dont understand fully but I know God knows why. Donna didnt come for the visit tonight b/c we already had the paperwork that she was going to give us and go over with us. So I am dropping it off at her office tomm morning and we will read it and call me tomm afternoon. Looks like we may set the next date for next wed. Kinda a good thing, I got all my jitters out and stress about worring about it and am feeling alot better about it. We were disapointed that it didnt start tonight but after some roast and choclate cake it felt better ;)
Yep its true we got the call this morning for our first homestudy visit :) This thursday at 5:30 p.m. We are so excited but nervous at the same time. We are finshing up that last to do's around the house and I have the cleaning lady comming on wed :) So fingers crossed everyone!!
So Its getting closer and closer to summer, yea!!!! As the days get longer and the sun shines more I feel better and better. Life in Tn has of course been a constant up and down like always. If it wasnt then life would be dull! Im still working at Goin Postal and LOVING it. Cathy and Rhonda are my girls :) Nick is of course still doin the army thing :) As of right now he is home, he was due to go to school for awhile but as always with the army plans change. Life seems to be going by in a whirlwind latley. We have finshed our adoption classes and now waiting to hear this week from our case worker about an appt for our first homestudy visit. We have everything we need done excpet we both need to finish our autobiographys. We are both kinda nervous about this, its so scary, is our house good enough, is all the stuff out of reach that they need, is all my meds locked up right ( hahahaha now how easy do you think it is to lock up our pharmacy??). Just all these crazy thoughts running thru our heads. We offically have the kids room ready, complete with a chalkboard wall, stars hanging from the ceiling, glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and a lava lamp for starters. The computer room doesnt even look the same. Its like oh wow its really for real. Take a look at the pics below and tell us what you think. The only thing that isnt in the pics is the dresser and nightstand that we got yesterday I will update with those pics.
Well its almost been a year since we wrote a post so I figured that we needed to get back into it! Humm lets see things that have been going on here. Well first off I got a job, omg I cant believe it too. My dream for the past 4 years has come true. I talked with Social Security and we found a way that I can work. I am so exicted. I work at a place called Goin Postal ( very approiate ) and it is a packing and shipping store. There are only 3 of us and one is the owner. These ladies are the sweetest, I would go mail nicks packages and talk to them for like an hour. I love, love ,love it!! As far as nick he is going to be sticking around here for awhile it looks like. Which is something new to us :) So seeing as he is here we signed up and have started our adoption PATH classes thru the state. We meet every thur night from 6-9 for 10 weeks. We have been to 2 classes and tomm night will make our 3rd. If you could lonly see the binder of stuff that we have to do its crazy!! But we are super excited, after the classes are done then they will start our homestudy :) So we are offically on our way. Below is a picture of us on our first night of our adoption classes :) The beggining night :)
All our babies had a great christmas! Jayden is getting so big. She is much smarter then neiko we all agree on that one! But we still love our bighead. We painted an accent wall in the living room 2 weeks ago. I will have to get a picture to put it up. I love it, its a maroon color and I really think it adds warmth to the room. Nick and I have an ongoing list of things we want to do to the house come summer, seems like it gets longer everyday! Well thats a small update for now :)
Love,
Alisha and Nick
