What's new...

Well it's been about a month since we got approved for our adoption. We have been buying baby things here and there and I've been working on the puzzle a little bit at a time. I've definitely got a ways to go. It is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Mainly its just finding the time to sit down and do it. But I am making progress.
In January, we were able to do a fun Instagram challenge called Instagram 60 days All About Us. Each day we put up a picture that let you all know a little more about us, in hopes to spread the word about our interest to adopt. It was fun to do on our end because I was learning new things about Dallas and Gabe too. It took a while to do but I am glad we did it.
We are in the "waiting" stages of our adoption process. I thought getting to this point would be the easiest but I was wrong. I hate the waiting stage because there is nothing I can do at this point. As impatient as I am right now, I know that our baby IS coming. That is the comfort that makes all the waiting endurable. I just need to tell myself that only 15 times a day... "OUR BABY IS COMING!!!" I'll just do a lot of gardening in the mean time.
Our puzzle fundraiser is still going strong and there are no words to express how grateful we feel for the generosity that has been shown to us. We are so humbled!!! 

Another exciting thing we have decided to do is race in the Chosen Marathon this September 26th. The purpose of Chosen Marathon is to support families in raising funds for their adoption, orphan care projects, and raise awareness of the orphan crisis locally, nationally, and globally. The race consits of a half marathon, 5k, and kids fun run. We are excited about running this race and invite anyone to run it with us!! Our team name is Baby Lundquist! I guess it is time to start training.

Here are a few pictures of the progress of the puzzle, as promised. Hopefully there will be even more progress by my next blog post.

 

This is when we got the puzzle in the mail.

 

 

This is the current progress of the puzzle. The easy parts are done, now to just fill in everything.

We are APPROVED!

We had our home study back at the beginning of December and one of the things our Social Worker said to us was that it could possibly take a month or two to get approved from our home study date or from when we sent in all of our paperwork. Being the month of December, I knew it was going to be crazy trying to get ready for Christmas and all the craziness the Holidays bring. I set a realistic date of December 31st to have all our paperwork sent in. I sent everything in on January 2nd and I was pretty proud of myself just getting through that month! As the weeks went on, I wondered when I would get that amazing email saying we were approved and ready to present our profile to birth moms. Well we got that email last Thursday (Feb. 12th). I immediately called Dallas and told him the good news. It's such a good feeling knowing that all our ducks are lining up and that we are getting so close!
We had an interesting/ eye opening experience this week that surprised us. We realized that now that we are approved, we could get our baby at any time. My sister in law asked me if I had diapers, formula, bottles... I don't have any of that yet! So off to Target I went and started browsing the baby isles. It is crazy that I'm buying binkies and onesies and diapers for ME and not for a friends baby shower. I had to pinch myself! I am so out of the baby game and I need major help on what to buy!
The puzzle is coming along. Well, right now I am writing the names of our amazing donors on the backs of the pieces and then I am going to start putting it together. I am almost there! I am super excited to get started because of my love for puzzles. I will post pictures when I start piecing it all together.
We are so grateful for all of our friends and family that have donated puzzle pieces for our baby! It is very humbling to think of all the love we have been shown as we are going through this process. We are excited for what is to come and we will keep you posted with our process.

The Puzzle

When my sister in law April told me she wanted to do a puzzle fundraiser for the adoption, we were so grateful. The next step was finding a cute gender neutral puzzle that we loved and wanted to hang in our future child's nursery. I started my search and I was able to find some decent puzzles but none that I fell in love with. Maybe I was putting to much thought into it. But the more I thought about it, I realized that this puzzle represents so much for us. It represents our journey in finding our future child. How much we love him or her already. How much our friends and family love our future child as well and want to help him or her join our family. Our child will grow up seeing this puzzle hang in their room and know how much they are loved. So, I knew it needed to be beautiful. I got onto Etsy and searched "Nursery Art." I was hoping to find someone that would be willing to create my masterpiece and then I could send it off to be made into a puzzle. There were a lot of darling ideas but I knew I hadn't found the one I wanted.
I was sitting at a table with some ladies in my neighborhood and we were talking about the adoption and how I was having trouble finding a puzzle for the fundraiser. One of those ladies happens to be A) the only Illustrator I know and B) one of the most talented Illustrators I have ever seen. When I say talented, I mean serious business talented. Anyone who knows her can agree with me on this. As I was venting my frustrations on my puzzle search, my sweet friend Holly Jones offered to design our gender neutral puzzle. To say I was excited is an understatement. This is exactly what I had been waiting for. I knew that this puzzle was going to be amazing. My worrying could stop.
We spoke about some ideas I had, as well as some colors I wanted to incorporate in it and then I left it all up to her. So, here it is and I am obsessed with it!!!!

Illustrated by Holly Jones
society6
Holly Brooke Jones


Isn't it Obsessive?! I am so in love. It is going to look perfect on the wall of the nursery. Now I just need to get it ordered and start putting it together as we receive donations. We are so grateful for Holly and the time she spent creating this beautiful picture. It means so much to us.
One step closer to meeting our cutie!!!