11 months old

It's hard to believe that Kenna is 11 months old now! We are in the beginning stages of planning a first birthday party! She is such a joy! She is trying to stand on her own, she talks up a storm and is just a calm, happy little girl.

Kayla is 7 now and loving her role as big sister still! Once Kenna starts walking, this may change! She's doing well in school, but prefers to be home with mommy! I love that she is my girl still!

Clarity

So today we had a conference call with Jay and Dorothy. Here is where things stand -

1. Diana Montgomery will now be handling the remainder of our adoption.
2. She will file with Gila County the petition to terminate the birthfather's rights.
3. Once the paperwork is submitted it will take at least 20 days possibly(probably) longer for it to be signed and official.
4. When the rights are terminated, Diana will file for our adoption to be finalized. This is an unknown area - we don't know what the judge will want from us. We were told that he would probably want an updated homestudy (more money for us to spend) and possibly more. It is all unknown, so we will just play it by hear and pray that it isn't costly for us to finalize.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

1. Diana Montgomery's wisdom as she prepares paperwork and works with the State Court and Tribal Court.
2. For her to be able to process our petition's quickly
3. The judge would not want to notify the Northern Cheyenne Tribe
   
4. We will only need to travel to Phoenix on one occassion
5. For our finances.

We are so thankful for all of your prayers! We are getting closer!

Frustration

Yesterday we had a conference call with our prayerfully final attorney, Diana Montgomery. She has all the paperwork ready to have the birth father's rights terminated, yet the agency has not sent her the retainer fee. This was supposed to have been done almost 3 months ago! The agency has not returned any of my phone calls, so we continue to sit and wait.

Merry Christmas

We had an unexpected Christmas this year. Tuesday, Dec. 23rd Kenna decided to come down with the flu. So all of momma's excitement about "firsts" went to madness. Why did she have to get sick 2 days before Christmas! I had dreams of Christmas Eve pictures at Nana and Poppa's, reading the Christmas Story and then going to the Christmas Eve service in their prettiest dresses! Showing off my beautiful girls...I mean hearing the singing and remembering Jesus' birth and oh the candles - hoping no children burn the church down - especially not mine! Both are what I love I must admit:) And then Christmas morning - Kayla and Kenna all under the tree and then heading to Chattanooga to see the Walker family.

All that changed with one doctor saying its the flu! But we did have AN INCREDIBLE time! Christmas Eve Sean and Kayla were able to go celebrate with Nana and Poppa. They came home and we snuggled, played, made a fort in the living room (that momma let stay up much longer than I normally would)! Kayla put out the cookies and milk for Santa and off to bed the girls went. Kayla woke up so excited - she couldn't wait to see if Santa ate his cookies! Even before looking under the tree! Kenna looked much better today - she loved her new toys and especially loved waving at her nana and poppa who came by to see what the girls received. Staying on the porch of course - trying to avoid those flu germs:) Later that night, we took the girls to look at some Christmas lights and then when we got home we watched Home Alone! Kayla said it helped make things better, but she still missed going to Chattanooga! Then Kenna came down with a rash and found out on Sat. that she had Roseola - yuck! Finally on Monday, Dec. 29th we made it to TN. We are VERY blessed this year with our family and even though we were thrown a curve ball, we made the best of it and we have another Christmas full of cherrished memories!

Still Nothing!

Kenna is almost 10 months old now!! She is still our little peanut weiging in at just 15.6lbs. She and Kayla have the BEST relationship! They both light up whenever they see each other! Of course Kayla thinks she is her very own real "LIVE" baby doll! We have to be careful with her at times:)

From what we were told today, the 5th attorney will now be handling the termination of the fathers rights. Jay (attny # 3) has sent a draft to #5 for her to complete and then submit to the State Court in Globe, AZ. We hope to hear from #5 as to what the next steps are after that. From what we understand, it will be to get a date to finalize Kenna's adoption!

Thanks again for all of your prayers! Looking forward to the day when we can announce that she is OURS!!

Here's what we know

We had a conference call with Dianna this afternoon. So here's what we know:
1. Jay is close to getting the birth fathers rights terminated.
2. After this is done, Dianna will file a petition with Tribal Court. She says that typically she can get a date within a month, but she is missing some of the Tribes adoption law, so she's not certain if there are any time constrictions, prayerfully not.
3. She feels we will only have one final court date in which the 3 of us will have to fly out there. We will probably not take Kayla, but Kenna has to come!

Dianna knows the judge and he was a state court judge before moving to tribal court! He is also favorable for adoption!!! Yeah!!!

Longer than we hoped

The 5th attorney has finally agreed to represent us. We will have a conference call tomorrow afternoon in order to get more information and see if we want her to represent us.

We were told that our chances of finalizing before the years end is not likely! Jay feels the hardest part is over - but we still have to be realistic that Kenna could be taken away from us. We will be going back to Arizona for the final Tribal Court at some point!

We hope to have more information after tomorrow's conference call - this is when Sean and I will get a chance to see if we want to continue with Dianna or search for another. Please pray for our discernment as we seek to finalize Kenna's adoption ASAP.
Thanks for your prayers!