Samuel's Room

So the past couple of weeks have been pretty busy getting ready to go get our little boy!  We are so excited the time is almost here to meet our son.  It's hard to believe we started this process around 3 years ago and now it's finally here!  We have everything ready for him and we hope he loves his new room I decorated for him.  I didn't paint a mural since we could possibly be moving next year, but I did enjoy painting a couple of paintings for him.  I like the one that says "When life throws you a curveball hit it out of the park", because I feel like that fits him (and his baseball room) considering he has overcome so much and he will have everything a little boy deserves:)  The puppy blanket was made for Samuel by my Aunt Susan and the transportation blanket was made by Sherri.  Samuel is very blessed to have two special blankets made just for him, what wonderful keepsakes too:)  The kids are also excited, a few weeks ago they set up one of Dalton's train sets for him, maybe I'll have them do it again so he can play with it when he gets home!  I bought some Gerber graduate snacks and Children' tylenol yesterday and it was like wow, time is so close I'm buying him snacks!  This is an exciting time for sure and we can not wait to meet Samuel and see the country he was born in.

Surprise baby shower!

 

(Click on pictures to view larger)

Last night some wonderful friends from church really surprised me with a baby shower to celebrate Samuel!  It was so nice and they did such a great job planning it.  My friends Amber, Jana and Elizabeth worked together planning it and had me believe we were going to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate Elizabeth's birthday that night, so I was not expecting a party!  Amber did such a nice job with the decorations:)  Elizabeth and Amber took pictures that I copied to put in his scrapbook that I will make when we get back home.  So many friends from church came and a few other friends; it was so exciting to see everyone.  Victoria and Lori who have experienced the wonderful blessing of International Adoption when they brought their daughters home years ago prayed for our family to have a safe trip and smooth journey.  I still can't believe all the wonderful clothes, books and toys everyone brought for Samuel.  Amelia and Dalton sure did enjoy opening them all!  We feel so very blessed that we have so many people that are excited for us and many have been excited during our whole journey that began almost three years ago!  Our time to go get our son in Monteria, Colombia is only a couple weeks away!

We got our travel date and it's November 5th!

We are so excited that in just three weeks we travel to Bogota, Colombia and then Monteria to see our son!  We have almost everything ready:)  We have been busy getting everything together, so we can go to the Colombian Consolate in Chicago to get our Visas.  The kids are very excited too, but it's going to be hard being away from them for 4-5 weeks while they stay here with my parents.  My parents are great with the kids and we will be able to skype, so I'm hoping that will help.  My brother is fluent in Spanish and he plans to go with us part of the time, so that will be nice since I am still learning it myself.

I think God planned this date perfectly considering it's the day after Orphan Sunday and our pastor already asked if we could come forward during church so he could pray for our trip (before we knew that we would be traveling the very next day)!  I'm so excited that I have had four different people these past couple of weeks ask me about adoption and what agency we are using!  We have had a wonderful couple from our church who adopted two daughters from China that have been very helpful for us during our journey and I love that God can use us in that way for other families interested in adopting!