Moving!

I have decided to move my blog over to Wordpress. I won't be updating here anymore. I hope you will join me...

http://myprettyones.wordpress.com

Progress!

We had our first home study visit yesterday.

We cleaned and cleaned on Sunday to prepare, knowing that they aren't going to do the white glove test, but I just couldn't relax with the house not in order. So, we did some organizing, dusting and cleaning. It looked great!

The visit went really well. We both liked the adoption social worker, and I felt that she liked us too (yay!). And that is really good, because she is the one that helps match us with a child. We spent about 2 hours with her on this visit. She went over the process from here on out, asked us some very personal questions about past relationships, why we want an infant (instead of an older child) and how we would feel about parenting an adopted child vs. biological child.

There will be 3 more visits in the next 3-4 weeks, and then we'll be licensed! It's looking like we'll be done around the middle to end of October.

Home again, home again...

Still trying to catch up with everything! It's weird being offline for a week. Our vacation was just what we needed.

We headed up to Victoria the first day. Took the ferry over and got there in time to check in at our hotel and head out for dinner. We ate at the BEST italian restaurant. They had the freshest pasta I've ever had. YUM. The next day we walked all over downtown. Checked out Chinatown and all the shops. They had an open market where we found some cute things and had some organic fudge. YUM again.

Then we drove North to Qualicum Beach. We stayed there for two nights. Looked around town, ate at one of my favorite breakfast places (Lefty's) and rented Kayaks. WE LOVE KAYAKING. It's something we've been meaning to try, but never got around to it. We're hooked now! SO FUN. After a couple days there we took the ferry from Nanaimo to Tsawwassen and drove up to Vancouver.

We had the most fabulous hotel in Vancouver with a kitchen, dining, living room and bedroom. On the 16th floor one street off of Robson (the shopping district). We walked an entire day in Vancouver, all the way from our hotel, over the bridge into Granville Island area. I'm not sure if it's actually an island - I need to look at a map. But they have the COOLEST public market ever. It's a 1000 times better than Pike's Place Market in Seattle. If we had a cooler, I'd have brought back a ton of fresh food. DOUBLE YUM. We also stumbled on a TV show filming on our way to the market. We watched for a little while, but I have to say, TV filming is REALLY BORING. They stand around 99% of the time waiting for everything to be ready.

Then we had 4 days at home and got a ton of little projects done! DH got a couple new light fixtures up, one in the "baby room". And I am almost done painting some trees and owls on the wall in there. It's looking really cute!!! I'll have to get some pictures up on Flickr soon.

Crib is up!

We went to IKEA on Sunday and purchased our crib. It's our first real baby purchase! It's already set up. I just need to wash the sheets.

I've compiled a list, mostly in my head, of things that we are going to need. I thought I'd share it here. What do you think?

Crib & crib sheets
Baby blankets
Changing pad (we are putting it on top of a dresser)
Diapers (we are going with cloth)
Wipes (also cloth)
Diaper bin w/liner
Moby wrap
Bottles & formula
Car seat - I can't decide what to get. Still researching.
Baby wash cloths
Baby towel
Kiddopotamus
Variety of clothes up to 2 years (not sure what ages we will have)
ETA: Swing!

I might have to add to this list, but this is what I could think of right now.

Getting ready

We turned our paperwork into DSHS a few weeks ago to get our foster parent license. Thanks to the speedy responses from all of our references (THANK YOU!) we are now waiting to get the call from our licensor to begin the homestudy process! Eeek!

Our intent is to foster infants and possibly toddlers that may become available for adoption. We are prepared for a rollercoaster ride as many of the little ones are (rightfully) reunited with their birthparent(s). But until then, we will be caring for the little sweet peas.

So, right now we are frantically trying to get ready for the homestudy, which means get ready to have a baby in the house. Not an easy task when you only have a couple weeks! We'll be doing some garage sales and shopping at 2nd hand stores. But...I'm trying to put together a list of must-have items for children under a year old.

For those of you that have/had little ones, do you have any suggestions, or things you couldn't live without?

It's hot.

My goodness. Yesterday was 104. I know in some parts of the world, it gets hotter than that, but not here. That's really, really hot. Most people don't have a/c in this area. Mostly because it never. gets. that. hot. here.

We've been trying various ways to stay cool. Cold showers, dips in the kiddie pool, sleeping in the tent, squirt bottles, shade, fans, etc. It's fun I tell ya! Fortuntely both of us have a/c at work, but then we come home and spend the entire evening trying to cool off. And the poor dogs! We toss them in the kiddie pool a couple times a day. They hate it, but it works.

It's supposed to start cooling down over the next week, I guess. I think today should be around 98. Still hot, but better than 104!

Ducky update

Poor Bebe had a little accident the night before last and scraped off the top layer of her beak on one side! Poor girl. We've been putting her in her "igloo" at night to keep her safe from raccoons and such, but apparently that won't work since she got her beak stuck underneath it! The only other option left is for her to sleep outside exposed.

So, we've decided to find her a better home with other ducks so that she can snuggle up with them to keep warm. Fortunately, a friend of ours knows someone that has a farm and often takes in injured animals and she was more than happy to take our Bebe. We'll be taking her out there on Friday. I'm really sad to see her go and will greatly miss her adorable quacking, but I'll be relieved for her to be in a safe place with other ducks & animals. I think it will be a great place for her.

She's still not walking, but is making slow progess. We're hoping she'll make a full recovery and have a good life in her new home.