Adoption Day

I know many of you have been SO PATIENT to wait for this post, and here it is!

WOW! What an incredible day! From start to finish. Both good AND bad! However, I firmly believe your prayers for "no glitches" is what saved the lives of not only our family, me, Benjamin, Laine, Ezra & Chavalah, but also my dear sister, sister-in-law, and her kids! We had just gotten on the Casa Grande Highway and down right past the Ethinol plant when a woman driving her car headed TOWARDS Maricopa (opposite direction as us) lost control of her car and came into our lane HEAD ON and had it not been for Benjamin's instinct to take the chance and get over into the oncoming traffic lane, and AUBREY'S instinct of "following" what Benjamin did, we would both been completely destroyed! Closest I've ever been to that bad of an accident EVER! God was WATCHING OUT OVER US that day, WOW! After we had "avoided" the accident, we turned right around, went back to make sure the lady in the car was alright and called 911 to get help. Turns out, the lady actually ended up in the ditch and made it out OK! Unbelievable! Truly! Ben guessed she was going about 75-80 MPH as she passed us and then went onto the gravel, throwing rocks at a very high speed at our car and windshield. We will have to replace our windshield for sure as there are about 12 chips in the windshield, and one has already started to spread, but that's NOTHING in comparison to all of our lives. We are praising HIM for his protection over us that morning!

So, that didn't necessarily start my emotions out very well that day! I pretty much wept the rest of the way there! Basically in shock and my mind couldn't quit replaying the entire thing back over and over through my head and I was just so GRATEFUL that God didn't take all of us!

Got to the courthouse still on time. Spoke with our attorney and signed the needed documents and waited our turn. There were one or two other cases before us, so we waited just a tiny bit. We had a few special people come to the courthouse, my dear sister from Iowa, my grandparents from Iowa, mom and dad, Aubrey, Jack & Oscar, Jim & Deanna, Tricia and her two cuties Bella and John, wow are we loved and SO BLESSED! Hearing went great! Had some laughs, cries and lots of other little things! Took pictures with the judge after wards. Then we waited downstairs while our Adoption Decree was being officially "filed" and to get a copy for the name change and legal custody processes. VERY IMPORTANT DOCUMENT. There was another sweet boy getting adopted that day, his name was Michael, and of course, Laine made a new friend INSTANTLY! He was I think 11, and just this past April he met his new adoptive family! So he's only known them for about 6 months. It was just so sweet.

All the family went to a celebration lunch at Eva's Mexican in Casa Grande on the way home! Mmmm, mmm! It was yummy!

Yesterday was also extra special because it was my dad's birthday, and my grandma's birthday (the one that was at the hearing), so that made the day extra special!

Enjoy the video! :)

Odd!

So, it's 11:02 PM the EVE before Chavalah's final adoption hearing! I actually haven't been feeling the best these last few days, so at 8:00, I ATTEMPTED and gave it my best shot to be IN BED. Laid there for almost 2 hours, and I find myself now HERE blogging! It's been a bit since I've blogged, but all for good reasons! Just have been SUPER BUSY with everything all going on!

What's on my mind, you ask?

LOTS! Where do I even begin! I'm actually thinking of some dear friends going through some pretty tough things right now, about to have a baby tomorrow, a baby that's VERY SICK with a heart condition. My prayers are with them moment by moment. Also thinking of some other dear friends with a daughter in the hospital fighting for her life, right here in geographic area of Phoenix. Heart is heavy for those!

On TOP of all that, I'm getting ready to become "LEGAL GUARDIAN" over the baby girl we've had since July 2008, and my mind is just not sinking that in yet. Many of you may think, "aww, it's just paper is all that is. you've had her since birth and have really known no different," but can I clear something up? It's not just paper! This is a GOD CHOSEN BABY, perfectly MATCHED with our family of many mixtures! This also means the state of Arizona no longer has ANY say so in what we do or do not do with this baby girl. They can't mandate the shots we choose to immunize or NOT immunize her with anymore, we don't have to wait three weeks while a judge signs a document stating we can administer a certain medical procedure, we don't have to wait and wonder if this mother is going to up and show up again, still rightfully having the right to see her child that hasn't been terminated yet, the list goes on and on and on! WE, Benjamin and I now have SOLE CHOICE in what or what does not happen to Chavalah! THIS IS HUGE.

I'm rambling. Would you please pray for my dear friends that I mentioned above after you read this!? Will you also pray that our hearing goes well tomorrow and that we won't have any glitches before the end. Would you also pray that this mother doesn't come looking for her children and use the social security number she has record on Chavalah to "look for her whereabouts" before we have a chance to actually CHANGE her SSN! This is what happened to us with Ezra. And by the GRACE OF GOD, we saved ourselves a HUGE misfortune when we were within either HOURS or mere days of this birth mother finding out ALL of our information, including, addresses, SSN, names, birth dates, etc. We have to have in hand the new birth certificate where it has Chavalah's new name on it with US listed as "mom" and "dad" before we can go in and apply for a NEW SSN. So our information starting tomorrow through the time that changes is FREE REIGN if she just so happens to walk in that office and request the information. Birth certificates can take a minimum of 2 weeks to even up to 6 weeks to receive in the mail! That means we wait, and when that is received we then to the SS office to have it changed, then it's another 10-12 days! So, please pray for our "safety" in that time period!

I'll post pictures tomorrow of our big day! Be on the look out! :)

Thanks again, everyone who is reading this and praying for us! Comment if you feel so led! :)

Our Meteorologist!

Putting our anemometer together.

Finished product. It measures the SPEED of wind.

CALM day in Arizona today! :) It didn't move meaning there was no wind.

Our "wind vane." Measures the DIRECTION of the wind! :)

We are in a WEATHER unit in Science right now and I just thought I'd share a few things that Laine and I both are learning about WIND! Today we made two separate tools meteorologists use to measure the speed of the wind, an anemometer, and the second tool is the tool they use to measure wind direction, called a weather "vane." Pretty neat stuff!

Benjamin and I are so grateful for this amazing opportunity to school Laine at home! It has made HUGE DIFFERENCES in our family life, and we are so grateful!

Chavalah's ADOPTION becoming FINAL!

Where has the time GONE!?!?!? SOOOOO sorry for no posts lately!

Things are just SOOO super busy!

Chavalah's FINAL ADOPTION HEARING will be Tuesday, November 17, 2009 @ 9:00AM!!!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!? I'm SOOO excited, I can hardly stand it! This is the news we've been waiting for since APRIL! Well, alright, since she was born! :) I won't lie!

If anyone that lives around here is interested in attending the actual hearing, YOU ARE WELCOME to do so! You just need to contact me directly and I'll give you the info on where, etc.

Also, if you haven't received an evite from me PERSONALLY, I do apologize, I contacted those in my e-mail contact list, and that's all I could! You are CORDIALLY invited to Chavalah's Adoption Party gathering at our home on Sunday, November 22, 2009 from 4:30-7:30PM! We will be serving dinner and dessert, so please RSVP to me directly via e-mail or on the evite! This will help me make sure we have enough food! :)

Thanks again for all of your unceasing prayers lifted up for US! We covet each and every one of your prayers!

Hug and love!

Neurology/Adoption

We went in for our follow up appointment to get the results of Chavalah's MRI!

Pretty much what we've all heard originally! There IS microscopic damage to the right side of her brain, just hard to visibly see. This will cause the weakness on her left side and need for more therapies as I had mentioned in my earlier post. Only other thing that did come back "concerning" in the doctors words, was that her brain is definitely not at the age developmentally as she! It was almost 4 months behind in development. Again, not much we can do about that at this point, but it just is an indicator of future delays that CAN BE HELPED with continued therapies, patience and more exams. We will need to watch the continued growth of her head circumfrance as well as her development to make sure it doesn't get SO FAR behind that it will be difficult to "catch up." These were just things she noted and will document, and we follow up again in 4 months, then go from there. She definitely wants to follow her for several more years though to make sure we are headed in the right direction!

I know many have been continuously praying for us in this regard! We can feel your prayers! THANK YOU! I have to admit, my anxieties about these types of appointments are more than I will probably every want to admit, but just knowing people are praying takes so much of that away! THANK YOU!

On an adoption note! We have signed our verification of the "draft" of our Petition that our attorney is going to be filing for us. We had to mail it today, and when she gets that in the mail, their office will notarize the signature page and print the FINAL "to file" copy and get it filed with the court in Pinal County! Once filed, we should be getting a date for the actual court hearing when we finally get FULL LEGAL CUSTODY and are named MOM & DAD, and her name officially becomes CHAVALAH LYN BALTZLY!!!!!!!!!!!!! YIPPEEE! I'll keep you posted on the date!

Pumpkin Patch Day

APPLES!!!!!!!!

Brothers! Sweetest thing!

Our family (almost completely official)!

Eating an apple from the orchard! For those of you that don't really know Ezra, he eats an apple EVERY DAY, the entire apple, not cut up, literally to the core! LOVES apples!
His little Hershey kiss eyes were as happy as could be when he saw all the apples on the trees and on the ground! You should have seen his face! :)

Playing in the orchard!

Mama's girl! KISSES!

Our picnic!

GOD IS SO GOOD! Look at these miracles!
I just can't say it enough! One proud mama!

Hard to see, but this was what the field looked like.

Precious boy! LOVE him!

This one accidentally got out of order, but it's the ice cream maker!

Daddy and Laine at the "Challenge Maze" entrance!

Sunflower field! I managed this picture with out ONE bee sting!

Cutting the pumpkin from the vine! Neat!

Ezra trying to pick up his pumpkin!

Chavalah having a HAY DAY in the corn bin!

My three little cuties (miracles)!

And................again!

Last year, we found a really neat Orchard/Pumpkin Farm (Apple Annie's Orchard) down south about 3 hours. We had a ton of fun last year with our dear friends J, D & D. This year, they weren't able to join us, but we still made the trip and had a BLAST! SO MUCH FUN! We left around 8:30, got to the Orchard around 11:30, smooth trip with the kids, then walked through orchard upon orchard upon orchard! It was GREAT! UNBELIEVEABLE weather! We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day! It was about 75 all day. Sunny! GORGEOUS! Nice break from the 90's we had been having! and are continuing this week actually! :( After walking, we took a hayrack ride around the orchard. Kids LOVED that! Then we found a picnic table to eat our picnic lunch at! I had packed our lunch! Cheaper in the end! :) It was yummy! Kids all agreed! :) Once we were done eating our lunch, we spoiled ourselves with fresh out of the oven and creamery desserts! WOW! Worth EVERY penny! Benjamin chose pie, and I chose Apple Crisp Ice Cream. Yumm-O!

We then left and drove a few miles to the other part of this business, the pumpkin farm. Our first item of business there was the corn maze! FUN, FUN! Benjamin, of course, wanted to take the "challenge" route, which I was alright with! It gave us something to do! Everyone that goes through the maze gets a "passport" that helps you as you find "number" signs. If you answer the questions correctly, then turn in the direction your answer says. We chose a "spritual" passport and oh my goodness, we had SO MUCH FUN! Laine knew absolutely EVERY single answer to every single question! Was SOO proud of that boy! AWANA is amazing for more than one thing! :)

Anways, we finished the maze in about 45 minutes! What a blast! Then we walked through a big HUGE sunflower field! AMAZING! Gorgeous! Then we took a hayride again out to the pumpkin patch to cut and pick our pumpkins! Then hitched a ride back. Walked back to the "produce barn" and just looked around a bit at all the fun and yummy stuff. Didn't buy anything, but it was fun to look at nonetheless! Headed lastly over to the big barrels of corn that the kids can dig, throw, bury themselves in, etc. They all three played for a good 30 minutes, then it was time to go! :( We are still finding kernels of corn around the house and in the car! :) Long drive home, however, we stopped in Tuscon, about halfway for a bite to eat and a break from the car. Got gas, then got home about 9:15! GREAT AND FUN DAY HAD BY ALL! As you can see from our pictures! :)

Laine's 6th Birthday

Daddy and Laine waiting patiently for the go karts!

Daddy & Ezra

Opa & Laine go-karting!

My sweet nephew, Oscar! LOVE HIM!

His cake!

About our 30th attempt at a family picture! :) LOL!

#1 tuckered baby - my sweet nephew Oscar

#2 tuckered baby!

Can you tell if he's having fun or not!? :) Bumper Cars!

Laine being tender with his cousin Jack!

The whole group! Thanks family for coming!

Birthday boy! Isn't he handsome and sweet!?

Proud mama and the birthday boy!

Went bowling!

PURE SWEETNESS!

Daddy finally did it! Only his 2nd attempt! YAY DADDY!

Our family got together on Labor Day to celebrate Laine's 6th birthday and went to a place in town that was SO COOL! It was called Amazing Jake's, and it is an indoor amusement park, and an all you can eat buffet. We got there when it opened, and left when it closed! LONG DAY, but we had so much fun! Laine asked for a dinosaur cake, and I was stumped! Truly stumped. Good 'ol "google" saved the day! Turned out darling! I was pleased! :) And I think he was too!