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!

Attorneys...love them or hate them...

We are still waiting on this 5th attorney to be hired. She has had over 3 weeks to decide...from what we were told today, she is a bit under the weather?? So being sick is keeping her from making a decision???

We contacted our agency who is trying to get more information for us. Our questions right now are: why do we need to finalize in tribal court - could we do a state court since ICWA has been satisfied? do we have to go to tribal court, or can the attorney represent us without us going there? what are the chances that Kenna will be taken from us? She believes that the finalization is just a technicality, so we pray she is right. We are so ready to officially call Kenna ours!!

Right now our attorney fees have totaled over $20,000!!! Praise God that Sean and I choose to go with our agency's one time legal fee. Our agency is out quite a bit of money, but thankfully it's not us!!

Frustrated

Apparently being willing to represent us and actually representing us are 2 different things. Since it had been over a week since the 2 attorneys were meeting, we decided to email Jay to find out what was going on.

Ms. Montgomery told Jay last week she has to think it over and will get back to him. If she agrees, then we will need to have conference call to discuss the case, after which Sean and I will need to decide if we want her to be our attorney.

As always...thanks for your continued prayers!

More Info Coming Soon

Here is another email we received today from Jay:

I had a conf call earlier today with John Perlman and Dianna (sp?) Montgomery ,who is an attorney who is lic. to practice in the San Carlos Apache tribal court. Ms Montgomery stated she is willing to represent Sean and Katrina to finalize the adoption. Before she has a phone call with Sean and Katrina, she is going to review the legal memorandum I drafted on the ICWA and she and I will have a follow up phone call on Sept 19th or 22nd.

So sometime after the 22nd we will know what our next step is! Thanks again for your prayers!!