Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world. James 1:27

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Adoption Update!

We have completed our homestudy with our social worker. Laura is wonderful!! She is so nice to work with! She has turned it over to Villa Hope now. We are waiting on them to approve it, which should be any day. We have been working on our I800a forms to send off when our homestudy is done. You have to send a copy of the homestudy with the I800a forms. When our homestudy is complete, we can also start working on our dossier. We already have much of the information needed for the dossier as well. So that is it.. nothing major. We are just waiting! I will admit- I do not do well with waiting! I am learning though! I find myself thinking about "her" all through the day, wondering what she is doing! A few days lately I have been down in the dumps thinking, how in the world are we going to come up with that much money is so little time!! We know that God lead us to her so he will provide. In his time, of course!! Galatians 6:9 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. We have many fundraisers going on! 1. We are doing mini sessions with Mary.
2. We have Aggie's Arts for sale!
3. We have Compelled Designs for sale!
4.We are going to start doing a fundraiser with Amy in November selling Thirty-one! https://www.facebook.com/groups/213620522061331/?ref=br_tf 5.We are doing a book fundraiser! The lady who is doing our fundraiser I have never met! She has offered to give us 100% of what she makes!!:) https://w3657.myubam.com/ 6.We are doing a Origami Owl Fundraiser too. A lady contacted us wanting to help us out!!:) https://www.facebook.com/lindseyboyerorigamiowl 7.If you just feel lead to make a donation, you can do so on paypal. Just go to https://www.paypal.com/. My email is frogger200017@gmail.com So there we go! I think that is it! We have lots of fundraisers going on! Christmas is coming up. Please consider buying from us for your gifts!!:) Thank you all so much for praying with us and following our journey!!:) I can not wait to hold that precious girl and for her to meet all of you, after all, you guys are helping get her here!!:) Brandi

Monday, October 14, 2013

Update

We had our yardsale on Saturday. We made $825.95 to go towards getting our sweet baby! Emma and her friend Kara Beth and Kara Beth's little sister did an awesome job with the lemonade and treat stand! They made at least $60 by themselves. The McClures let us use their yard since the Hamtpon Cove community sale was that day. They helped us set up and tear down. The Bongs came to help us with the yardsale too. Angela was a big help with Nate. My Mom kept Anna and Noah which was a big help too! We had our homecheck on Sunday afternoon. Since we have had a homestudy for fostercare adoption, she expects this homestudy to be done in three weeks or less. After our homestudy is approved we file our I800a. The I800a is what allows us to bring a child from another country into the U.S. This process can take a while. We also will start working on our dossier when the homestudy is approved. We already have most of what we need for that. We are still selling Aggie's Art and Compelled Designs. I have marked down the prices some on those too! Please continue to pray for us! Please also pray for the health of "Little One"! God Bless, Brandi Cantrell

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Just wanted to do a quick update: 
We are in the process of doing our international homestudy. That should be done in just a few weeks. When that is done, we have to file our USCIS forms, when our homestudy is complete we start working on our dossier. When we get approval from the U.S. saying we can bring a child from Peru here, we can mail our dossier to Peru. It has to be translated. Once Peru receives our dossier, they put her officially on hold for us. They only place children in Peru, once a month so we will have to wait on that as well. We orginally had planned to travel around Feb or March, we had to wait on some stuff to be done so now it is looking like April. Emma's birthday is in April so we are planning to celebrate her birthday in March. 

In April when we go, it will be Fall time there. They are on the same time as we are as well. That is be really nice. I was nervous about the kids adjusting but they are on the same time as us. We have been looking at apartments to stay at. We plan to get a two or three bedroom so we have bedrooms, more than one bathroom, a kitchen and washer and dryer. 


We have a lot of fundraisers going on. Right now we are selling Compelled Jewerly and Aggie's Art jewerly. Both are very beautiful and make great gifts!! 
Oct 12 we are having a yardsale. We have had lots of donations. We are overwhelmed by the love that has been shown to us!!! . Our sweet friends are letting us use their yard in Hampton Cove. The day of the 12th, Hampton Cove is having their community yardsale day.
October 17th at 6 pm at Southside Baptist we are having a painting party fundraiser. 
November 16 from 9-3 we are doing a photography fundraiser at Chase Railroad Museum. 

So this is just a little of what is going on! The biggest way that you can help is joining us in prayer!! 

We are so excited for this journey and can hardly wait to bring our little girl home. I can not wait to meet her and for her to meet all of you!!:)


Brandi

Friday, September 6, 2013

Hey guys! I am horrible at updating. So sorry! I will try to do better. 

Here goes!!:)


Ok so we have pretty much finished up with our foster care stuff. We are still planning to do foster care adoption at some point but right now God is leading us on a totally different path. We were not expecting this at all. We had said at some point decided we would do international adoption but we had planned to do that several years from now. 
I got an email from an adoption agency that I  had never heard of. In the email it asked me to join their private Facebook face that they post pictures of kids on the waiting children's list. I requested to join the page. Their are only 40 something people on the page. That same day I joined they posted a picture of a little girl from Peru that I totally fell in love with. I can't explain what happened but I felt this overwhelming feeling in my heart that I needed to inquire about her. I wish I could share her name and her medical condition but for now I can't. She will be 3 in November. I can say this, the sooner she gets to the U.S for medical care the better.

So here we are.. we are trying to raise enough money to go to Peru to get her in Febuary. We need to be there 3-5 weeks. Yes, we are crazy! I do know that if God leads you to it, he will bring you to it though. 

We just finished up with a tshirt sell and raised almost $400 in a week. I am about to start selling beads for Visiting Orphans. They are beautiful.  In October we are planning to do a yard sale. If anyone has anything they would like to donate, please let me know. Then in November I am planning to do an Aggie's Art fundraiser. They have some amazing jewerly and would be great Christmas gifts. So those are our plans. Obviously the biggest help right now for us is prayer. Lots of prayer. Would you please join us in prayer as we pray our little girl home!!:)


God Bless,

Brandi

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Adoption Update!

Hello everyone,

I am so bad at updating but some of you have asked so here it is!:)

 

We had our physicals yesterday. We go back on Friday for tb skin test results and blood work. 

 

We went car shopping yesterday as well. We are now in the "big van" club!! We were very tight on space in my car and grocery shopping trips were a disaster and we know we are adding kid or kids to our family so we needed something bigger. We have been looking for about six months but have never done anything with it. 

 

We have our next meeting and home check on August 13th. We should have the results of all of our test and everything by then. After that meeting we should be homestudy ready by September 1. I am so excited! I know God already has the child or children already picked out for us. I have to remember to be patient. I have a hard time with that. I am getting better and better though.

Emma and Noah are very excited to welcome more kids into our home. Of course Emma wants it to be a girl and Noah wants it to be a boy. Who knows. Maybe it will be both!!;) We will have to wait and see what God has planned for us. 

Thank you so much for everyone who has been praying for us and asking for updates. 

 

God Bless,


Brandi 

Monday, July 8, 2013

Update!

The last few weeks we have been working away on our adoption stuff. 
We have done our finger prints. We did them about two weeks ago. We have to wait on those. They can be completed fast or it could take a few months. 
We completed our last adoption training. Our house is ready.  We have scheduled our cpr/first aid class. We have completed all of our paper work, profiles, and letters to birthparents and child. We still have to do a scrapbook. I plan to do that this week.We have to do our medical forms.(we are waiting to the last min.-they are only good for 6 months).  Our last meeting we have with our social worker we will turn in our last paper work, letters, scrapbook, sign a few forms, and have our home check. When that is complete, our social worker will write our homestudy. When that is complete we will register with the state of Alabama and start searching for kids. 
So worst case is three months before it is complete. 
We are also trying to get my CDIB card.(certified degree of Indian blood) In order to adopt a native american child, the family must be able to prove native heritage by one parent. The parent has to have a cdib card or be a member of a federally recognized tribe. I always knew that I had some indian blood but did not realize I had as much as I do. I also found out, I am a member of a tribe. Who knew??!! lol. I am trying to contact them to get more information.

The babies have birthdays this week. It is bittersweet. Anna turns 1 and Nate turns 2. We are planning a day trip to celebrate on Saturday!:)

Brandi

Monday, June 17, 2013

Adoption Process Update

Hi everyone! Several of you have asked for updates. I haven't been updating as things happen so I will try to update everything!:)


We have had two more Deciding Together classes at Lifeline in Birmingham. We have met with our social worker at our house for our first homestudy meeting. We have been working like crazy on our Deciding Together homework and all of our paperwork for our homestudy. We have sent off our CAN papers( child abuse and neglect). We are going this week to have our finger prints done( this can take a while to get back). We are meeting with our social worker on Friday for separate interviews at the Lifeline office here in Huntsville. We have been working the last few days on our autobiographies. I never realized that writing about your life could be so hard, lol!:)
We have another Deciding Together class scheduled for early July. That will be our last class. We have been working on getting our house ready for our safety tour. After Fridays meeting with our social worker, we will set up another meeting at our house for our home check up tour.  After we have completed all of this stuff, which hopefully will be mid July, we will do our medical forms and lab work with our doctors.
So I would say we are looking at the end of July to early August when our homestudy is complete. After that is completed we send our profile to places that handle Safe Haven babies and look for babies that are available on adoption waiting list through Foster Care. Then we wait!! That is the hard part! I know God has the right child or children already picked out for us. 
The child we will be getting will be a child whose parent's rights have already been terminated, so there is not a chance that the child can be taken back. We have both agreed maybe later we will be lead to do foster care but right now we do not think our hearts could handle it.

I think that is all. Sorry for the long book. I will try to update more often.

Hope everyone has a blessed week!!:)


Brandi

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Tommorrow Ben and I go for our 2nd meeting for our Deciding Together Classes. Most people do not know about these type classes. I did a lot of research and calling to get to be able to do these:) The typical classes are once a week for 3 hours a night for 10 weeks. The Deciding Together Classes you do alone with a counselor. We have some homework and can meet on our own schedule. 

We have our very first meeting next Wednesday at our house for our homestudy as well.

Lots of exciting things coming up.

I am very anxious so I am remembering this verse often:

Philippians 4:6-7 ESV 

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.



Brandi

Monday, May 13, 2013

I am converting my blog that I never post on anymore into our adoption journey blog!:)
 

Adoption has been something that I have thought about for years. I always knew that I wanted to adopt. After we had Noah, we started talking about adoption and never did anything with it. Soon I got pregnant with Nate so we stopped talking about it. After Nate was born, we started talking about it again. Once again, I got pregnant so we stopped talking about it. After I had Anna, I was convicted! I knew in my heart that it was time to stop running even if it seemed like a crazy idea. Ben and I started talking about it again and soon realized we were both on the same page. After much, much research. We decided that we wanted to do a foster care adoption or a safe haven baby adoption. We really do not care what the sex or race of the baby is. 

We have started our training classes and submitted all of our paper work to start our homestudy. We should be hearing from them the next day or two for our social worker to start our homestudy. We are working with Lifeline for our classes and our homestudy.


We are very excited and anxious to see where our journey takes us!!:)