We are still alive!

Well, I figured that those two people that read my blog were deserving some attention. If you haven't noticed that the lag in time between my posts directly correlates with summer break from school. I have had my hands full with the three kids this summer and really have not even been on the internet much this summer. So we are now in our first official week of school, so maybe I can keep this updated better. Although we are just waiting so there will not be much to say about the adoption.

Max is in second grade this year. He is growing up right before my eyes! Here he is at the beach with a treasured clam.

On a very sad note, Emma will be starting kindergarten on Monday. What a day that will be. She recently lost her first tooth! I am still not mentally prepared. Something about the change of sending my second born to school is really hitting hard. The good thing

is

that she will be with our beloved Mrs. Moore. (couldn't do this without her) We went to build-a-bear yesterday to take advantage of their August special (bear/outfit/shoes= 29.99) which was a pretty good deal. We were celebrating here last days out of school.

Poor little Samuel, he is not going to know what to do with himself!! He is going to miss Emma so much, but this will give us some much needed mommy/samuel time. Life is full of changes, it just takes some adjusting. For everything there is a season! Samuel is just enjoying being two for the last month. I can hardly believe he will be three years old next month.

Alright, I know what this blog is about so I will get to it. Adoptions are slow processes. We heard from our agency this last week that we are #77 on the list. "The list" includes all of the waiting families, waiting on a boy, girl, both, older child, younger child, siblings, etc... So we are still on the same mind set that this is going to take around one year to hear of a referral. It also depends on how many referrals our agency receives. In May there were 20 something referrals. If every month were that good, we would be well on our way. So since we started at 108, I don't feel like it is moving too slow. The hardest part is trying to explain the wait to the children. Max said the other day, "mom, are we really going to adopt a baby?" Yes Max, we are, the problem is, that in all of our dossier preparation, home study, kid furniture swap/move around in our house, I left out explaining the time situation to a bunch of children who don't have a good concept of time. So that is the newest information in the McQuilkin household.