What a wonderful suprise

I keep adding up how much money we need to submit our dossier.  Every time I do it, I get a different number.  It has been driving me crazy for a while and I want to know how much money we are going to owe in two months.  I called the financial person at our adoption agency and asked for an exact number.  The number to submit our dossier is less than I was anticipating.  We are  only $4,700 short of what we need to submit our dossier!  How Exiting!

This does not mean, however, that the adoption journey is any cheaper.  Some of the fees that we thought would be due at the time of dossier submission are actually due when we accept our referral.  We will need $16,000 to accept our referral.  Only God can make it happen and I can't wait to see how he does it.  We will then need another $6,000-$10,000 for travel.  Whew!

Things to pray for
1. Pray that all of our immigration paperwork will process smoothly.
2. Pray for the adoption grant committees.  They have a lot of hard decisions to make as they try to decide who to give grants to.
3.  Pray for our family during this trying time.  We need God's peace and comfort constantly as we wait on His timing.

Guess what I'm doing tonight.....

I got home from our awful softball game a little bummed.  We lost so bad that they had to stop the game early....it was sad.  I got the mail and went home to my little girl. She is getting two teeth and is just in a terrible mood.  So a couple hours later, I finally got her to sleep and I actually looked at the mail.

There in a beautiful white envelope was four copies of our home study!  I know that we are still in the beginning stages of this adoption but I can not help but feel so incredibly exited that we are getting somewhere.  We have been working at this adoption for about 6 months now and it is soooooo nice to see that our hard work actually is paying off.

I am spending the night getting copies of the home study into our grant applications and getting our application to the USCIS ready to go.  I work better on the floor:) Gavin thinks I'm crazy.  I will be making a beautiful trip to the post office tomorrow to send them off.  God is blessing us in so many ways!  I am overwhelmed by his perfect plan!  In about two months we still need to raise $8,000.  We are exited to see how God brings the money.

Father's Day Fun

Father's day has come around again.  I can hardly believe a year has passed.  I can not even remember a time when we were not parents to our amazingly beautiful, sweet, strong willed little girl.  I feel so blessed to be able to watch my husband grow as a Godly father everyday.  He shows so much patience with our little Irelyn when she is throwing fits on the changing table(which she does every single time we change her).  He shows such wisdom when he disciplines her for hitting which she likes to do whenever she does not like what we are doing.  He shows such love when he sings her to sleep at night.  Gavin is the best father to our daughter that I could ever ask for.

Irelyn and daddy playing

We made him a sweet little fathers day poem and put her hand prints on it.  We then proceeded to make him chocolate chip cookies....which are his favorite.  Irelyn enjoyed shoving as many chocolate chips as she could fit in her mouth before I took them away.   Gavin had to work this Father's Day which was a bit of a bummer. We are so blessed to have work and we are finding joy in every season of life. 

We may or may no be waiting patiently for our home studies to arrive.  I have been going over our grant applications to make sure they are ready to send, putting together our immigration application, and praying a lot.  We are so exited but it is also starting to feel more real.  It is getting so close.  Next Father's Day, Gavin will be a father to three of God's children!

The Pehl are Certified to Adopt!

When Gavin got home tonight, I surprised him with a letter that came in the mail today from the courts.  It said that we are now certified to adopt!  This means that they have approved our home study and we will have the original copies in our hands by next week.

We are finally moving forward and it feels great.  I have been on cloud nine today just thinking about our future.  I just wanted to write this quick update before heading off to our softball game.  We are still about $8,000 short of what we need to submit our dossier.  You can donate on our blog page, buy some farm fresh eggs, or buy Heart for Adoption T-Shirts.

Keep posted for some fresh new fundraisers which are coming soon.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who has helped us out so far!  It takes a village to adopt a child!

Home Study Update

I got an e-mail this morning that our home study should be finished being processed in about two days!  It is so great to see God's perfect timing in this process.  We were told that getting the courts to process our home study could take close to two months.  It took a little over three weeks!

We are so exited to see this whole adventure moving forward.  We should have our original home study documents in our hands by next week.  We will then send our I-600A to immigration and start sending out grant applications.

I can already imagine their litter faces.  I can smell the sweet scent of baby.  I can feel their curly hair on my fingertips.  I can hear their little hearts beating.  Were coming babies!

Sometimes, I think I'm CRAZY

Well Gavin and I just got back from out little weekend getaway.  What a blessing it was to our marriage! When we decided to adopt, we knew that we would not be taking any vacations because all of our extra money is going into the adoption.  God blessed us with a FREE night at a beautiful resort in Phoenix.  We spent my birthday weekend down there sitting in the son, playing in the pool, and eating great food.

Dropping Irelyn off at my sisters house.

Our view!

Not too shabby for Rachel

Ready for a night out.(my camera software is having some issues)

This is a little grass Island we found on the property.  It was in the middle of a big river.  So romantic!

We ate at Melting Pot...in a private room...with roses.  My hubby knows how to do it up right!

 When we got back, we had $225 worth of new donations hanging out in our bank account.  What an awesome surprise!  The money just keeps trickling in.

Okay so here is the part where I think I am a little crazy.  While we were sitting poolside in Phoenix, I starting thinking about what it would be like to have three kids under two years old.  How would I cuddle all of them? How would I give them all baths and put them to bed at night?  I can not possibly rock three babies to sleep at the same time.  How would I give them all the right amount of attention?  Especially when two of them will need a lot of attention in order to bond correctly.  How will I take them all to the grocery store?  Should I get a double stroller and put one in the ergo carrier, or should we get a triple stroller?  How am I going to feed them if they are all hungry at once?  How am I going to afford to buy three of everything?

My mind can really get going and sometimes I think to myself, who does this?  I must be crazy!  Then I imagine their sweet little faces and tiny little hands.  I think about the fact that they have no mommy or daddy.  I remind myself that people have triplets all the time and they survive.

I am not stupid and I this is going to be very hard.  Sometimes when I tell people are plans they tell me that we should really just adopt one.  They way that child can feel loved and have time with us by itself before bringing for babies into the mix.  What I and everyone else needs to remember is that this IS what God told us to do.  We have prayed, and prayed and prayed.  It is not common for an adoption agency to make such strict parameters about the ages of the children.  We prayed like crazy while the adoption agency was making this decision and this IS what God decided to do with it.

In the end, it does not matter how crazy we seem.  We are being crazy to glorify God and to love two of his most precious children.  I can not imagine a more perfect gift than children.

Is adoption a fad?

The definition of fad:  a temporary fashion, notion, manner of conduct, etc., especially one followed enthusiastically by a group.


While talking to someone a few weeks ago, she pointed out that adopting is a fad or a trend.  I could not help but be a little bit offended at how flippently she threw that word around.  Adoption is something that is so close to my heart and something that I take very seriously.  Gavin and I are working so hard to help make this happen.  I stay up at night aching over my children who I know are not being loved by a mom and a dad.  The fact that I can not take them all in breaks my heart.


It just knocks me off my feet when someone says that what we are doing is a fad, like wearing pencil skirts or bell bottoms. There are so many people adopting around the world who have a heart for what breaks God's heart.  They are working so hard and diligently, crying over lost referral, and slaving over paperwork.  They are having to leave their current children in the states while they travel to a foreign land to adopt their new family members.  They then have to leave their children in the foreign land until the country gives them the go ahead to come get them.  They are waiting months or even years to see their children faces for the first time.  This is a very exiting process but also very painful.  I really doubt they are just doing it to be a part of the trendy group. I for one hope it is not just a fad.  I hope that the passion for adoption never dies out.  I hope that peoples eyes are opened to the need of the orphan, widow, and stranger and that God moves them to do miraculous things.

Anyways, we are still moving along slowly but surely.  We are currently waiting for our home study to come back from the courts.  When we get that back we will be able to file to our I-600a with immigration and then send our dossier!  It all seems so close yet so far away!