A beautiful thing.

This is a beautiful thing:

Our first agency payment has officially been mailed!

Next up? Our home study. Right now we're having to do a little education on adopting out of birth order and will write a letter requesting that a certain home study agency will work with us regardless of adopting a child older than our youngest daughters (and older than Lincoln, too). We plan to do this over the weekend so that we will have plenty of time to watch the educational videos and read the articles that were recommended to us. Once our letter has been written, the director over the home study services will present it to her committee and ask for permission to work with us.


They, like many agencies, do not like for families to adopt out of birth order. This means that they do not like to place children into families that are older than the youngest child in the home. They have their reasons and some of them are valid, however the problem is that this is not a one-size-fits-all kind of issue. Each family and each adoptive child has to be taken into consideration on a case by case basis.


Having said that, we believe everything is going to turn out beneficially.


And on a brighter note, I received this jewel in the mail yesterday from my friend Anna!

Y'all have no idea why this book is so incredibly special to me... but you will! I'm putting it back for Lene and it will be a precious, priceless keepsake. Anna has been my main confidant during this process, right from the start. I am grateful that God has brought us together and I know that she will be a very significant and valuable piece of Lene's life. She's one of those rare people that is automatically much more like family than a friend. The soul ties simply run deep.


There are more great things in the works and I look forward to being able to share them here soon! I'm so excited!