The greatest experience, the one which shakes a soul with hopes and fears, the results of which are never ending, and incidentally, the one which pays the biggest dividends, is to be found in the adoption of children.
--Anonymous

Lilypie Waiting to Adopt tickers

Sunday, March 22, 2009

My Favorite Five Year Old

It still sounds unbelievable to hear myself say, Maria's five......... When did five years go by?.......... Was I sleepin'?......... Anyway, I finally took her to get her pictures taken for her big fifth birthday. Of course I spent too much money on prints, but I was really pleased with how they turned out. The final prints were actually cropped, but this was the best I could do with my computer.

What a little sweetheart!







Now on the adoption front, Thursday marked 6 months since Nola was taken from her foster mother. Six months since we have had any kind of update on her. We still have no idea where she is. Our lawyer has finally admitted, he doesn't know where she is either. I didn't hire the agency who offered to find her yet because our agency asked us to wait. Well, we've waited...........four weeks to be exact. It's been almost two weeks since our lawyer filed a petition with the judge asking for information on where Nola has been placed and asking for visitation rights. I have no idea how long it will take to get a response from the judge.
I sent an e-mail to PGN and surprisingly got a response pretty quickly. Here is a portion of the message they sent:

Dear Mr & Mrs Lane regarding the file **************** the file is at Minors unit, and they are waiting for the last resolution that the Judge of the 1st Court has to send to Minors, but is better if you contact your lawyer, they can ask the Judge for the resolution and bring it to PGN or send it by fax. Regards Elisa Soto PGN Information Center.

Well, I'm not sure what that means exactly. It could mean that they finally have their report done and they are waiting for the judge to rule. That would be great! It could also mean that she doesn't really know about the report the judge asked for and is actually in the dark like the rest of us about why this seems to be taking so long. We learned a long time ago that the information from PGN was not always reliable, but I had to do something. It actually gave me some comfort knowing someone in PGN could find our file and at least try to give us some sort of update on it.

Please continue to pray. There are so, so many children who are caught in this mess. There are still over one thousand children and families who need to be united and for that to happen, the political tug-of-war has to stop!

We're praying for you Nola!

Monday, March 9, 2009

BIRTHDAY TIME!!!!!!

This past week saw two birthdays in our family. Maria turned 5 on the 2nd and my sweet hubby turned "50" on the 7th. (I remember when I thought 50 was old;-) We celebrated their birthdays together on Sunday. Our kids were here and Dad and his friend Rosemary and of course Mark's mom too (she didn't remember it was Mark's birthday, so the fact that it was his big 5-0 just flew right past her) but she had a good time anyway. We all enjoyed ourselves. During church, the kids pulled our van under the front entry awning at church and decorated it so everyone would see that it was Mark's "special day" when they left church. Mark was really thrilled with that.
I made homemade pizza for lunch, which was Mark's request, and we all pigged out. Maria was so proud of her birthday cake. Since she is the farm girl, I made her cake like a barn (a pink one of course), and she just loved it! I don't know how many times she said afterward, "I had the best birthday party didn't I mom!" It was just a wonderful family day!

View this montage created at One True Media
Happy Birthday Mark and Maria

Gordon Mote - Don't Miss the Glory