Please help bring this baby home!!

So many people have asked what they can do to help us on this journey...well, here is yourchance!

*The first thing we ask you to do is pray! We can't do this alone, and appreciate so much the prayers of others for this journey.

*The second thing you can do is clean out out house and give to us instead of Goodwill! We are having a garage sale this spring and would love to take things off your hands and sell them. We will be doing the garage sale with Jason and Megan Thompson, and will be splitting the profits 50/50 to help with both of our adoption costs. We are happy to take things now so they don't have to sit in your house in a pile, it can sit at our house! If you have stuff for us, email me at sarawhitfield@bellsouth.net and I will arrange a time to get it from you.

*The third thing you can do to help us is buy a t-shirt!! We have just ordered shirts and they will be here early February. The cost is $20 a shirt and we have mens(unisex), womens, and kids. The mens shirts are charcoal, the women's are black, and the youth is baby blue. They are great looking and you will look super cool wearing them around town! By buying a shirt from us, you will be taking part in bringing "baby brother" home and we will be forever grateful for your support. If you would like to buy shirts, please email me at sarawhitfield@bellsouth.net with the sizes you would like. The sizes are...

Womens S/M/L/XL

Mens(unisex) S/M/L/XL

Youth XS(2-4) or S(6-8)

Get your order in quick, I have a limited number of shirts and sizes and I sure don't want you to miss out!!!

**some of you have asked what the verse is on the shirt since it is a little hard to read as it flips to the other side...it is Matthew 25:40

"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

can she really be 5!?!?

I think that is what I kept saying all weekend long. Is it really possible??? My baby, 5??? David and I decided quite a while ago that we were going to do something really special for Taylor's 5th birthday. We found cheap flights with Southwest and David had free hotel points, so we decided we took her to Chicago to go get an American Girl doll. She was beyond extatic. We told to her about it several months ago, and she has talked about it constantly since then. She didn't care that she would not get a party, she was getting to ride on a plane (she has been on them before, but none that she remembers) and go get an American Girl doll! The weekend finally arrived and it did not disappoint!

David and Taylor walking to get her doll! I think she bounced all the way there...

Meet the new member of the Whitfield family, Casey!

Group shot in the store. She asked me if she could stay as long as she wanted in the store and I told her we could stay until she had seen everything that she wanted to see. We were there for 41/2 hours! The store was HUGE and we had reservations to eat lunch there as well. It was really cute, they had special chairs for the dolls and they got their own cup and plate!

Here she is with all her loot. Family members gave her money for her birthday present and she bought several outfits for Casey with it.

1. 

On Saturday, we went to Shed aquarium and spent the day there. The entire aquarium was great, but this face painting was amazing!! The lady spent maybe 2 minutes on it, and it was unbelievable. she was soooo talented. David and I just stood there in awe!

This was on her actual birthday, I had to take her to do something special. She got her first pedicure and thought it was pretty great...

wooohoooo!

Drumroll please.....I sent the dossier to Washington DC today! Yay!!!

We were out of town this weekend for Taylor's birthday (more on that later) and I hit the ground running when we got back! I picked up the completed home study tuesday and went immediately to get the Williamson county seal on my dossier. Tennessee requires an extra step compared to most other states in that we have to get a county seal, then a state seal, and then the Great Seal in Washington DC. After getting the county seal, I dashed off to church to make 5 copies of the entire document, which was a whole lot of pages! then I went to Kinkos to mail off the I-600A. The I-600A approval is the I171 (confusing, right?) and basically says that we are fit to immigrate a child into the country. This process can take several weeks and includes us going to get fingerprinted when they tell us to.

So today, Callie and I started on our adventure to get the state seal and then get that dossier to DC! I was really nervous because I didn't want to mess anything up (and am still nervous because they won't get it until tomorrow to tell me if I messed it up), but we did it! Callie was a trooper and kept telling people that we were "sending a note to baby brother"...close enough.

I am so grateful to be at this point! We would covet your prayers as we now wait to get a call that they have placed us with a baby boy. It should be several months before that happens, but we are praying that our baby is being cared for by loving people until we can have him...

the next chapter....

for the Whitfield's is to add another to our family by adoption! I feel like it is really old news at this point, but i need to start talking about it on this blog...so here it goes!

We had felt like there was another Whitfield for our family, but just didn't have the picture of what it was going to look like. After much prayer and consideration (and overanalyzing like we do best), we decided this was where we were called and could not be more thrilled about it. We are in the process of adopting a baby boy from Ethiopia! This is a completely new experience for us and we are learning every step of the way. The process is very tedious and requires much more patience than I will ever have, but we are getting through it.

So where are we in the process, you ask??? We have completed our home study and are currently waiting (not patiently) for it to be finalized, and then we will send the dossier in! I have every piece of paper collected, typed, signed, and notarized to be sent to Ethiopia. The dossier is the huge collection of papers that tells everything about us. It will go to Ethiopia and then we will get a referral, which is where we are placed with a child. After that, we will travel to Ethiopia two times and then come home with our precious baby!

It feels so great to be doing exactly what God wants us doing, and really confirms all of our thoughts. The girls are beyond thrilled and pray for "baby brother" every night. We would love prayers as this process continues, because it is far from over. The cost of an adoption is between $26,000-29,000 and that is a really scary amount. We continue to pray for God's wisdom as we try to fundraise for our baby. David (the one in charge of ALL the finances in this house) feels such a peace that God is going to provide the needed funds, which is comforting...but its still a little scary.

I won't make any promises because I am bound to fail, but I will try to update the blog often with steps of the journey so everyone can keep updated. But most of all, we would covet prayers as our baby boy is in a far away country. I keep praying that precious people are loving and caring for him until he is home with us...

Fall 2010

Several things have been happening this fall, but here is a very quick recap....

The girls started school....

Taylor played soccer! It was sooo much fun to watch, although she does not seem to have a competative bone in her body...

We went to the beach....

Taylor scored her first round of stitches. She fell while on the playground at school, but was so a champ while getting the stitches.

We had our annual Sciortino/ Whitfield pumpkin carving. the kids are way cuter than the pumpkins, so that's why you are seeing this picture!

We had a great halloween. Taylor was a flower and Callie was a butterfly. Here they are with some of their best buddies...

that's enough for now, more to come (hopefully in a more timely manner)!!!