Progress, Curve Balls, Creativity - Oh My!

Such is the life of a foster/adoptive parent in waiting! My blog title doesn't make sense, and sometimes this process doesn't make sense. You just have to roll with it!

The Lord is moving, friends! There is still a lot up in the air right now, but progress has been made. We found out on Friday afternoon that of the many homestudies submitted on one of the cases I mentioned on Wednesday, our report is one of four that has been selected for final consideration. Holy crap!! We are cautiously excited at this point. And more than anything we are so humbled. The agency was very encouraging - they told us that we should feel really good about being selected for this case because there were a lot of families being considered. We are just a little overwhelmed. Who the heck are we?

The next step is a placement meeting scheduled for 3pm on Thursday. At the meeting each of the final four families will be represented by a worker from their respective agency. Gregory from Arrow will be going to represent Mr. Wonderful and me. At the meeting Gregory will do his best to "sell" us, for lack of a better word, to the CPS caseworker assigned to this particular case.

Now here's where the curve ball comes in. Arrow asked me Friday if they already had our life book. A life book? I had no idea what they were talking about. Turns out that at these placement meetings it is normal for the agency worker to bring a life book (a family scrapbook) for their family to show the CPS caseworker. Arrow told me these are very important and those books that are done well will carry a lot of weight with the caseworker.

So my friends, perfectionist Erica has to get a family life book completed and turned into Arrow no later than Thursday morning.

Problem 1 - I've never scrapbooked before in my life. The closest thing I've done is make cards.

Problem 2 - Those nice new digital scrapbooks/photobooks require 3-5 business days for production time and therefore are not an option with our short timeline. Dern!

Solution - Take a deep breath, step out of my comfort zone, run to Hobby Lobby, allow my generous creative friends to bless me with their help, and trust that it will get done.

Praise God that this weekend is Superbowl Sunday. I was quite ticked that this year I would once again share my birthday with the Superbowl, but now I realize that God knew all along that this timing would be perfect. On Sunday evening, at a friend's party, I will have several girlfriends to help me work on our book while our husbands watch the game. Isn't our God great?! What a wonderful birthday present!!

Thank you for your continued prayers. We'd appreciate your prayers this week over this particular case/opportunity. Please pray for all the parties involved, that God would guide our thoughts and our hearts as we evaluate this and that He will make His will clear to us all. We trust that the Lord has gone before us and is orchestrating all the moving parts here.

Thanks again for your continued support on this journey. I will keep you posted as I learn more. Our family could be growing very soon!!