What now you ask???

Now that we are out of PGN Kolby has our last name, YIPPEE he's a Warner!!! Kolby's Birthmom has signed off on the final paperwork.
1. A new birth certificate is ordered from his birth town showing us as his parents. That can take anywhere from a couple days to a couple weeks to get back to our attorney.
2. A passport is ordered for his travel home
3. Our file is given to the US embassy in Guatemala City. They order the second DNA test done. Kolbys fostermom will bring him in. They test his DNA with the original DNA taken. This process can take a week and a half to two weeks. Once they have the results back they will send us our embassy appointment. Known as "Pink" ( I believe it once was a physical pink paper you recieved now its a email) But "Pink" is the magic word that all of us adopting from Guatemala can't wait to hear.
4. Our "Pink" will have our embassy date and time appointment. It generally is given 2-3 weeks in advance of your appointment. Once we have our appointment we can make our travel reservations.
As you can see there are a LOT of time variables, we could travel in as little as 4 weeks or out 8 weeks. The average has been running about 6 weeks.
We will keep everyone updated as we get word of each step. We are THRILLED to be on the homeward stretch. Luke loves looking at Kolby's pictures and says "Kolby Home" thats right baby we are bringing Kolby home.

WE GOT THE CALL!!!!

We are out of PGN!!!

That's right after 5 LONG months we have PGN approval. Kolby is coming home!!!

We LOVE Cookies!!

Is there anything better then sugar cookies with thick frosting on top?? Sugar cookies are my favorites but I'm a little picky in my cookies. I don't like the flat hard kind or the not a LOT of frosting kind. In talking to my Aunt she said we have a family recipe that makes yummy thick cookies and equally yummy frosting. And even better for Christmas she gave me two gourmet cookie pans and lots of fun cookie cutters for Luke. Thank you thank you Aunt Becca!! We made then on Sunday and as you can see Luke had a great time. The recipe made so many we had enough for Luke to share with his Daycare the next day. And plenty left over for all of us to enjoy.

Snowman??

So.... its been at least 25 years since I have built a snowman. But as I remember it you put some snow in a ball and roll it along the snow until the ball is the size you want. Times that by 3 and you have a snowman. How hard can it be, Luke and I dressed in our snow stuff and headed to the front yard to make our snowman. The hard crusty top on the snow should have given me a clue that maybe this was not the right type of snow to use. After getting a shovel and packing the snow as best we could, there you have it... our snowman. I'm hoping since its Luke's first snowman he will assume that's how they are made and look. He was happy as can be with him. When my loving hubby saw it he said "was it hard to make it look like its already melted?". Enough said....

This kid cracks me up!!!

Luke makes me laugh out loud every day. His favorite movie right now is Lion King. If it was up to him he would watch it every waking minute. The face he is making in these pictures is his "Lion king" face. He just started it yesterday. It involves him closing his eyes opening his mouth and growling. He moves his head back a forth (think Stevie Wonder). He thinks by doing this that he is very scary. Its a little hard to act scared when you are laughing. But he takes it very seriously. If you ask him who he is he will tell you "Lion King". And tell you that Scar is bad.

I just love that kids are so funny without even trying!!!

Lukes 3rd Birthday

Jan, 6Th is Luke's Birthday. We had his party on Sat the 5Th. It was such a fun day for him. As you can tell by the last picture he pretty much fell asleep where he was standing once the whole thing was over. One of his favorite things right now is Horses, So that's the theme we used. Grandma came over early and was a huge help. Jennie, Kim and Sam all brought their kids. Even though Luke is the youngest he still had a blast playing, running and laughing with them. The kids decorated horseshoes, played pin the tail on the "horse", and horse memory. Luke's birthday cake was shaped in the shape of a horseshoe. This was his first Birthday party, so he was a little unsure of the whole thing. The look on his face when we brought the cake out and sang Happy Birthday to him was priceless. A wonderful day!!!

Our Visit Trip

Our trip was much to short. It was so hard to be away from Luke but we knew he was in very good hands with Grandma and Grandpa. We feel very blessed to have been able to meet Kolby's Foster family. They are beautiful wonderful people who obviously love Kolby very much. He is so healthy and happy he is being taken care of very well. We also were lucky enough to meet and use Victor and his services. Its so NICE when arriving in a foreign country to have someone waiting with a sign. He was so helpful and polite to us. We will definitely use his services. on our pick up trip.
It was very very hard to leave Kolby. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried for hours. Dewey was strong and wonderful and my rock. I can't explain what it is like to meet your child and then have to give him back. (even temporarily) I do feel good knowing he is loved and being cared for until we bring him home. We pray that we get news soon that we are out of PGN. That's the last step on the Guatemala side. From then the "normal" time frame is four to six weeks to travel.

Our son Kolby

Dewey and I left on December 27Th and flew to Guatemala. We met our son Kolby on Fri the 28Th. He is AMAZING!!! He is happy all the time. He is sweet and loves to snuggle. He likes to fall asleep laying on our chest. He was just starting to try and walk while we were there. He can stand and walk if you hold his arms. We stayed at the Grand Tikal Futura in Guatemala City. It's a beautiful hotel, the employees treated us so well, they were all very kind. Guatemala City has a population of four and a half million people. There is a mall connected to the Grand Tikal with most everything that we would find at a mall here in the states. Food was no problem on this trip. From what we saw Guatemala is very green and beautiful. We are very much looking forward to our trip to go back and pick up Kolby.

Our Little Cowboy

Luke received Wranglers a Cowboy hat, and tractors for Christmas, he could not have been happier.

Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning!! The first picture is Luke's face when he came into the family room and saw what Santa had left him. He was so excited! He was so funny, once he saw his Santa presents he could care a less about unwrapping his presents. Aunt Liz gave him his horse, which he LOVES. Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Jason came over to open presents and have breakfast. It was a wonderful Christmas morning.

The Christmas parade

This blog is new so I'm catching up a bit. But the holidays are less then a month ago I think its ok. Cassidi came up one weekend before Christmas. We had a great day wandering down Cedar City's Main street. We shopped and had lunch. And Lukes favorite part the Children's Christmas parade. He LOVED it!! He laughed and waved and blew kisses to all the characters. We had fun just watching him.