Update

Well, as far as Claire goes, our I-600A application is still sitting on someone's desk in Memphis. They are processing extremely slow, so it looks like we will not recieve our approval until May, possibly even June if their website is accurate. According to them, they just processed September applications, and ours was sent in December, but our fingerprints and homestudy didn't arrive until late January. Waiting on Memphis has been beyond frustrating. We have now had our I-600A in for 14 weeks on Thursday. It just seems ridiculous! Three and half months with another expected two months! Give me a break! We are completely ready with our agency, we're just waiting on Memphis, extremely slow Memphis.

Things here have been good. Greg had a great trip to Chicago with the boys and Connor and I spent some time with Nancy and the kids in Nashville. I have managed to come down with bronchitis (as far as I can tell from self-diagnosis, but I get it every Spring). I can barely talk and today one of my kids said, "You sound like a man." If you've ever heard my voice, you know that it's anything but masculine, so it's kind of funny having this deep, hoarse voice.

Connor is doing great! He is looking forward to the Easter Bunny. He's also looking forward to a visit from Mimi this weekend. Greg and I are going away for a few days to celebrate our eighth anniversary. Most people head somewhere warm for Spring Break and where are we heading.....to a ski resort. It seemed like a good idea at the time, to spend your anniversary all cuddled by the fire. Acutally, we're both really excited to get away and stay in a nice resort.

Connor and I have been looking for Easter outfits all week. On Sunday he said to me, "Okay Mom, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I really want a yellow shirt and a yellow tie." What boy thinks about these things? I guess the same child that frequently says to me now, "Is this stylish?" He did not get a yellow shirt and tie, but we compromised on an adorable little outfit. I can't wait to take pics on Easter morning.

While I'm talking about my little man, I have to say what an incredible eater he's been lately. He has been driving us crazy for a year now, only eating chicken, corn, and peas, and PB&J. He's gone to bed hungry, he's turned meal time into torture, but he has FINALLY turned the corner! He's eating broccoli, peaches, mashed potatoes, beans, mexican casserole, enchiladas, and basically anything I have given him in the past few weeks. I am so proud of him. His doctor told me not to give up, keep putting it in front of him, and though some nights I wanted to lock myself away, it looks like we have finally turned the corner!

Stay tuned for vacation and Easter pics.

Help a Needy Child Visit Washington D.C.!

Do you remember safety patrol when you were in fifth grade? Across the country, being a "safety" in fifth grade is a huge honor. The most exciting thing is the trip to Washington D.C. at the end of the school year. About six years ago, I got the opportunity to chaperone the annual trip, and it was so much fun. The kids got to see a lot of our nation's capital and they learned so much. It was the opportunity of a lifetime for students at my school, who due to finances might not have gotten the opportunity.

This year, the trip costs $399. This is a lot of money for any family, and especially a lot to students in my low-income school. They have had many fundraisers, but unfortunately this will not be much help to some of them. If you would be willing to donate money to this trip to help all of these students who have worked so hard this year, please e-mail me at adkinsj3@k12tn.net and I will get you the information you need to make a donation. Any amount will help, whether it be five dollars or even more! These students are considered the best of the best in our school and they deserve this opportunity, despite their economic disadvantage!

Jesus the Magician

Well, this morning Connor and I accidentally overslept. I don't remember turning off the alarm, but I guess I did. Usually Connor is up no later than 8 a.m., but he couldn't fall asleep last night until after 11. Must have had something to do with 8 boys downstairs yelling at the television!

Anyways, at 9:30, Connor woke me up saying he wanted waffles before church. I told him that we overslept and we wouldn't be able to make it in time. He was extremely upset and said, "I really wanted to see Mark and hear my Jesus story." I told him that I could tell him a Jesus story, and we'd just have church at home. So, I made waffles, turned on some Bible Songs and decided to read him the story about Jesus feeding the five thousand. We looked at the pictures of the boy with his basket of two fish and five loaves and the crowd of people. Connor definitely agreed that wasn't enough for all of those hungry people. We kept reading and Connor's eyes got really big when he realized that Jesus fed all of those people and had baskets left over! He turned to me and said and I quote, "Mom, I knew Jesus watched over people, but I didn't know he did magic tricks!" We had a good laugh and then I explained to him what a miracle was. We made some fish crafts, talked about Jonah and the Whale, sang some songs, and then ate some lunch. It was kind of fun to have church at home, but I'll be sure to set two clocks next Sunday!

Life is Good Again....Back to Normal!!!!

Things are looking up again back in the Adkins' house. We've had a great past couple of weeks. I had a three day weekend last week and we had my niece's 4th birthday party. The kids had a blast at the Young Chef's Academy. They made pizzas and had a blast.


This week I worked a whole two days, I was off on Monday, worked Tuesday and Wednesday, and then they cancelled school Thursday and Friday due to illness. I was so excited. I had cleaned house all day on Monday, so I've had nothing to do this little break but to hang out with my two favorite guys. Yesterday we had family day. We went out to lunch and took Connor to Sprout Studio. We are kind of in love with that place! Today Connor and I spent the day together. We went out to lunch, cashed in his piggy bank, and he bought a stuffed kitty and a stuffed puppy that came with a little carrier. He has named his kitty "Sorry" and his puppy "Please". Who knows what goes through the mind of a four year old!

I will end in a funny story. I am prissy and all girl. I have been that way since birth, according to my parents. I love clothes and fashion. I can't wait for Claire to get here so I have a girl in the house to share all that girl stuff with. Well, I think I may have rubbed off on my four year old little man. Today, we were getting him dressed. He was putting on all new clothes and shoes. When he was done he turned to me and said (I swear), "Is this stylish?" I fell on the floor laughing. I said, "Where in the world did you hear that from?" He replied, "If you're stylish you're cool, Mom!" I immediately called Greg at work to tell him that I had ruined our little boy. Here's a picture of my little model after he asked me if he was stylish. Enjoy!

Valentine's Day!

After a terrible few weeks, the Adkins family had a GREAT Valentine's Day! Greg and I celebrated on Wednesday night, and then we made Connor our special Valentine on Thursday.

Wednesday started off a little rough. I fell and hurt my wrist really bad! I didn't think much of it, stopping off on the way to work to buy a wrap for it. When I finally got a chance to let the school nurse look at it at during lunch, it was swollen and had a knot in it. She felt like I needed to get an x-ray, so I had to leave work in the middle of the day. Thank God, it was just a damaged tendon, but I have to wear a stupid splint until next week. After that, the day got much better. When I got home from work, Greg told me to pack a bag. We spent the night downtown at the Crowne Plaza, ate an awesome dinner at La Costa, took a much needed nap, and then had dessert at the Melting Pot. We had a relaxing evening and I felt completely destressed.

Thursday was all about Connor! He absolutely loves Valentine's Day! We took him to play at Sprout Studio, took him to Toys-r-Us to spend his Valentine money from Nana and Granddaddy, picked out some new books and videos from McKay's, and ate yummy pizza at Gondolier. We had a great night as a family and all night long Connor kept saying, "Happy Valentine's Day!"

Well, my Valentine's present was a relaxing night away from home. Greg, too gets a night away from home! For Valentine's Day, the girls decided to fly their hubbies to Chicago for the weekend in a few weeks! We have dubbed it, "The Mancation." They always let us get away, so we're hoping they'll have a great time together. Check out their picture in the Windy City...awesome, huh? Nothing like a little cutting and pasting....I need to learn how to use Photoshop!

It Took Eight Years Of Marriage...

A trip to the ER for stitches, complete stress at work, both cars torn up, both of us puking our guts out and unable to get out of bed, a son with a double ear infection, storm damaging front porch, hard drive crashing erasing hours of hard work, more work stress, family issues.....no, that's not what's happened in eight years of marriage, that was just this week!

We have agreed in eight years of marriage, this has been the worst week we've EVER had! Mandy said, "God must be getting ready to do something and Satan is just really fighting with all his might to get you guys down." I don't know what this week was about, but I just know that we were both at the absolute end of our rope. But, we had a great night as a family last night and did a lot of laughing, had a good meal, ate some Krispy Kremes, took Connor to get a prize at Target, came home and played some toys, and now I feel some sense of normalcy has been regained. Connor is napping, I'm degerming the house, Greg and Daniel are fixing the porch. Greg's car is fixed and mine is getting fixed on Monday. Half of the hard drive was backed up somewhere else. Connor is feeling better, we're feeling better, and work.....well it will be over in May, so that's how I'm looking at that right now!

In all the tears of the week, I'm thankful that all the things that went wrong were temporary, so fixable. I thank God for protecting us from anything that we couldn't take care of. And if Mandy is right and Satan is trying to get us down, we're still bringing home a baby girl named Claire!

And So It Continues...

Well, now I'm sick. This stomach bug is terrible! I was sick all night last night. I thought I had avoided it, but I guess I was wrong. I haven't been out of bed all day, and I'm not sure if I can make it back to work tomorrow or not. I really hate missing, but I guess I will just play it by ear. When I did get out of bed earlier to try to get something to drink, I blacked out, so things are going to have to start getting a lot better for me to be able to go back tomorrow.

Connor went to the doctor yesterday and has an ear infection. Greg is also still sick. He went back to work today, but had to come home after an hour because he is still so sick.

We're really praying things start looking up here soon!

Aaaaaahhhhhhh!!! HELP!!!!!

Good news first...wait a second...I'm thinking....there has to be something good to say....oh yeah, we got our passports Saturday. They made it in a week! Now we can send our Homestudy to the Taiwan Economic office to be authenticated, and they can send it to Washington D.C. for its final authentication.

Okay, that's about the ONLY good news here in Knoxville. When I returned from Nashville late Saturday night, I came home to find Greg and Connor sick. Mind you, I barely made it home because my stupid car, is once again, torn up! If you EVER think of buying a stupid Saab.....think again! Well, unless you enjoy taking your car to get serviced one a month and you have loads of money to spend fixing it. Ugghhh! So, I was up all night with Greg on Saturday while he was puking his guts out. He said at about 6 a.m. he really wanted to go to the ER, but decided not to because I had just posted on the blog about him being next to go to the ER! He has never missed a Sunday service due to illness in all his years of ministry, and he had to miss on Sunday. He is so sick! Connor ran about a 104 fever all night last night, so I was up and down with him, trying to force Tylenol and juice in him, completely against his will. I couldn't miss more work, so I left the two pitiful boys at home today to take care of themselves. There have been many other little things here and there that are just getting us down. I keep thinking that since we are so close to finishing up our adoption paperwork, maybe Satan is just really attacking us, trying to pull us down.

I had a good trip to Nashville. I always love staying at the Opryland Hotel. It is so beautiful and relaxing! I did A LOT of laughing, which was much needed. I ate at my very favorite restaurant, saw a great movie, and had some much needed girl time. Dolly got the stomach bug that's going around, so she was sick in her hotel room and the doctor wouldn't let her come down to speak. I was so disppointed! I did hear Governor Bredesen speak and I was very impressed. I learned a lot about helping kids in poverty learn, and even saw a real human brain that had been plasticized....gross! And to end my trip, I got to do a little shopping, a great way to end any weekend.

If you think of it, say a little prayer for our family. I know there's nothing huge going on, but sometimes a million little things going wrong can just get you down! I know we have so much to be thankful for, so I'm REALLY trying to remember all of those things today!

I'm So Outta Here!

This has been a week from HE(insert double hockey sticks here)! By a miracle from God, I have managed to avoid a migraine!

Everything, and I mean everything that I have done this week has ended in some stupid or frustrating way. For example...try to make an exchange at Old Navy and end up in the ER until midnight. A friend told us that we were the most hospital prone family that he knew. Since September, I have been to the ER twice, and now Connor has been once. Let's hope Greg won't have to make any visits to the ER!

Work has been UNBEARABLE and unusually frustrating this week. Today, I swear if my job was just some hourly wage job and I didn't have a family, I promise you, I would've walked out the door! And.....I only worked until 11:00, because I had to go to a lunch meeting with the superintendent. I was supposed to talk about things that our school and other inner city schools wanted to voice their concerns about, but everything just comes back to the federal NCLB mandates or lack of funding, so nothing can really be done. I'm beginning to feel like working in education is always going to leave you with this frustrating feeling that you will never be able to do everything that you're expected to do, so maybe I should just give it up and get used to it. It is a terrible feeling, going in each day to work and knowing you will NEVER be able to do everything that is expected of you. I have the type of personality that this just doesn't mix well with! I am a perfectionist and if I'm going to do something I am going to do it right, so it is driving me up the wall! We'll see what happens with NCLB once Bush is out of office, see if anything changes with these federal mandates. If not, I just might have to turn to my Bachelor's degree and try to do some technical writing/editing from home!

Anyways, I am off to Nashville very early in the morning for a conference for low-income schools across the nation. Dolly Parton is the keynote speaker, and I'm excited! We all know I love Dolly! The governor will be speaking also, so it should be interesting. I'm scheduled to go to a couple of workshops tomorrow, but I should be done by 3ish. I'm going to check into the hotel and take the BIGGEST NAP EVER! I will be in workshops most of Friday, and a couple on Saturday. Mandy is coming up tomorrow to have some quiet time and get some sleep while I'm working. Nancy is coming over on Friday. Hopefully in between the workshops I can have some much needed girl time with my best friends. I am so, so, so looking forward to talking and laughing and eating at the Bound'ry!

I feel bad leaving Greg here with Connor. His week hasn't been the best either and Connor has been pretty difficult at night lately refusing to go to bed. All you boys need to plan a weekend!!! I know Greg needs it!

I'm sure Greg will post some adventure he and Connor go on this week while I'm gone, so stay tuned......Mommy is out of town...AGAIN!

A Brave Little Boy

This is Greg writing (yes, I'm allowed to write on this too!) and I wanted to tell you how brave our little boy Connor is.

Last night Connor and his mommy were at Old Navy looking at some shirts. If you've been in Old Navy before, you know that their signage is all made of metal and is shaped like squares... that means sharp corners. Poor little Connor leaned over to look at a shirt and his head grazed that sign and it gashed his head open right above his eye. I was in Bristol at the time and got a call from Jessica who was as you would expect, freaking out. I would have been too... she said there was a lot of blood.




After almost 3 hours of waiting in the emergency room, they finally took us back to get Connor his stitches. He was so brave... I can't hardly believe that he didn't even cry when they were putting them in. They told him they were going to put magic string in his head. After they did the first one (I was about to pass out watching that needle go in) Connor sat up and said "Hey... that wasn't that bad!!!". He's such a trooper and so sweet even in the worst situations. Here he is pointing to his new stitches:





We finally got home sometime after midnight and we let Connor sleep with us. This morning I took him to McDonald's for breakfast and then we came to school... he was pretty excited to tell everyone "I got a boo boo on my head at Old Baby and got 3 stitches and a cool hot wheels band-aid!"

Connor's 4th Birthday!

I'm four! Connor on his fourth birthday on Tuesday!



Mommy let me go to Toys-R-Us and pick out any toy that I wanted. All I wanted was this $10 bouncy ball...she tried to talk me into something else, but I told her that it was all I wanted!



Connor's birthday party at Sprout Studio on Saturday. He's one popular kid! Seventeen kids showed up! We had quite the crowd!



Blow out those candles!



Daddy and Mommy love their birthday boy!




We had a lot of fun with Connor's fourth birthday this year. In all the chaos of adoption stuff this week, we made sure he had the best birthday ever. His big day was on Tuesday and Greg stayed at home with him until I got home. I took a half a day and took him to Toys-R-Us, out to lunch, got our annual birthday pictures, and spent the evening at Chuck E. Cheese. He had a great time and got way too much stuff!

Today was his birthday party at Sprout Studio. It was so much fun. We will definitely be making frequent trips to play there. He had seventeen little guests and they all seemed to have a great time. He told me tonight that he was so sad he had to leave there. He thought it was his most fun party yet. He asked me several times tonight when we could go back.

He got TONS of cool presents. We've never let him have presents at his parties, because he really doesn't need a thing, but we decided to make an exception this year.

It's been a LONG week here in Knoxville, but seeing Connor so happy today made it worth it. We have another long week ahead. Connor and I are headed to visit my grandmother in North Carolina tomorrow, Greg is out of town Monday, and I'll be in Nashville for work Thursday through Saturday or Sunday. I guess I need to go get some rest while I can!

Not so done......a few surprises to end the week!

So, we're not as done as we thought!

Our program is a brand new to our agency, so we're kind of figuring things out as we go. They have been great about helping us and are so quick at getting back to our questions. I continue to be impressed!

Anyways, we didn't know we needed a passport immediately. One of our forms asked for a passport number, and Greg and I have always traveled in the Caribbean or Mexico and used our birth certificates for customs, so we don't have passports. Well $300 later after a trip to the post office today, they're being expedited to us. We thought we could just leave that blank and get back to it, but not so much!

Also, the I-600A must be back before we can proceed. We thought there was going to be a process of Taiwan preapproving our application, but apparently that is not the case with this program. So, we can't get in line until Memphis gets the form processed. Right now, they are running at an average of 4 months to process the these petitions. So, if they keep on the pace that they've posted on their site, we won't have our approval until April.......which totally, completely, and utterly stinks!

We know everything will work out in God's perfect timing, but we want to be in line! We just want to be done so badly! Please pray that Memphis will process more quickly than expected and pray for a lot of patience....especially for me. Greg seems to be handling this all well, but I am not a very patient person sometimes. I have quite a bit of patience in my profession, working with inner city kids, you have to have patience or you'll end up having a mental breakdown. But, I absolutely have no patience when it comes to waiting on other people to do something. I need to work on that!

We're getting there!

It's done...really done!

We just got back from our brief overnight trip to Nashville where we visited with the Haneys and got the last of the paperwork finished up.

It has been a rollercoaster of emotions the past two days to say the least. When switching to Taiwan, we called many agencies, but they all were very backed up or temporarily not accepting new applications. Greg just googled "Taiwan adoptions" to get some more leads and ended up calling our agency, Shiloh. When talking to the agency, the woman told him that they were only taking applications for special needs. Greg was about to hang up, when she asked him to wait because she wanted to look over an e-mail she had received earlier regarding the Taiwan program. She went on to explain to Greg that it was a complete God thing that he called at that moment, because it appeared that they were going to begin to take applications for healthy children. That was back in November, and we really never had gotten a definite that Taiwan was going to approve our agency for a healthy children's program. We have never really worried about it, we just felt like everything would work out. Yesterday, as we drove to Nashville to finish everything, I felt a little worried, a lot sick to my stomach, and shed a few tears. We called our wonderful program director, and she explained that she had no news, but she planned to call Taiwan that evening. We really prayed hard last night, and today, while we were getting our fingerprints, we found out that our agency is approved to send applications for the healthy children program, and we will be #1 with our agency! I shed a lot of tears of relief! We then headed to the Secretary of State's office to have all of our paperwork state certified, and even managed to squeeze in some time with some of our other friends who also live in Nashville. We are so relieved to have all of this finished! Everything will go in the mail tomorrow. Part of me feels so helpless that there's nothing left to do but wait, everything that I could control is now done. Now all I can do is pray for A LOT of patience as we get into line and begin the wait for a referral. We don't really know a timeline, when exactly we'll be officialy "in line," but we'll keep you posted!

An emotional day...getting all the paperwork finished, finding out there REALLY is a program to be in, and the last day of Connor's threes! This fourth birthday is hitting me VERY hard. I'll post some pics of his big day tomorrow. I'm taking a half-day from work, so I can spend it with him and make sure he has a great day (well, we're on two hour weather delay, so I think I'm going to end up working for like an hour). I can't believe he's four...in an hour!

End of the Week Update

We had a very busy week. We got our fingerprinting appointments (as mentioned previously) and our homestudy was finally completed and looked over by all the necessary people. It has been notarized and county certified, and we will get it state certified Tuesday while we are in Nashville getting our fingerprints done. So, on Wednesday, it will be on its way to Kansas....finally. From there they'll get one last certification and then hopefully soon after it will be ready to go.

We have had a very busy, but great week. Last night Greg and I had a great time taking a cooking class from Williams-Sonoma. We highly recommend it. It was very good food and very entertaining. Tonight, as most Friday nights was our "Family Night." A movie and greasy pizza was a great way to end a busy week! This weekend, we're doing boring things like haircuts,cleaning, and maybe, just maybe actually relaxing. Monday afternoon we're headed to Nashville to visit with our good friends, the Haneys and take care of all of our adoption "business" on Tuesday. Wednesday is going to be a GREAT DAY and a TERRIBLE DAY all in one. GREAT....all the papework will finally be out of this house.....TERRIBLE.....my baby boy is going to be FOUR!!!!

Tonight, I'll end in a random thought from my almost four-year old "Mom, "t" is a letter and "tea" is a drink.....that's weird!"

Short Notice on Fingerprinting!!!

We received our fingerprinting appointments yesterday in the mail. I was relieved that it finally came, and completely annoyed that they gave us exactly one week's notice. I have an Inservice Day with tons of meetings on that day, so I am praying that I can work it out with work. We are highly encouraged not to miss Inservice Days, so I am a little stressed about asking for special treatment. I am truly a person who plays by the rules, and if you know me, you know I HATE asking for favors!!!

So, we're one step closer! Our homestudy is finished! It was faxed to Kansas and they're looking over it to make sure it meets all of their requirements. We should know if we are cleared to get it notarized soon. After that, our agency will forward our official copy on to Taiwan for pre-approval. We are so ready to get in line! Baby steps....it feels like VERY TINY baby steps!