Keeping up with the Lacocks

Why? you might ask, because I got a tetanus shot yesterday and I am amazed at how sore arm has been all day. No wonder little babies have such a hard time after shots....poor little things!!! We had our second homestudy visit today. Our social worker got to meet our kids, see our home, and interview Tom and I as individuals! Tom must have stuck to the script I gave him because it went really well! LOL! Keelan was asked if she was excited to be adopting a little sister and she replied, "As long as she isn't annoying like that one" (Pointing to Ireland) Oh my word, I didn't even know what to say! She then proceeded to tell her that Ireland annoys her sometimes because she always gets into her stuff while she is at school. Ok, well that's understandable. Our social worker just laughed. I'm glad she saw the humor in it. I was mortified!!! Ha ha! Hope to have everything finished and our dossier on its way by the end of April....we'll see!

Well, I must say that I didn't know what to expect when I walked into the agency for our first homestudy meeting. And I really hadn't been concerned about the first meeting until the morning arrived. I felt myself getting anxious and had to keep quoting to myself Phil 4:6: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." Thank you to all of you who prayed. The first meeting went SO well. I love our social worker. We clicked with her right away. It ended up being so much fun and laid back. Our social worker was adopted and is also an adoptive parent, so she has so much insight and we are going to learn so much from her. Praise the Lord for giving us the perfect social worker for our family!! God is so good....always!

You all should see my dining room table right now! It is absolutely covered by homestudy and dossier paperwork! I am trying to fill out all I can so that Tom just needs to "sign on the dotted line" for most things. I feel like my head is spinning with so much happening right now. I just pray that I don't forget something that slows down the process. I also am trying to get everything that needs to be notarized together so we can take it to our notary all at once. Plus filing passport applications, CA and SC background checks, and setting Dr appts for all of us so they can verify our mental (seems kindof funny right now) and physical health!! We also got assigned our case worker. Our first homestudy appointment is next Wednesday! I am so excited to get going on it! I am not, however, excited about the 12 hours of adoption training and 3 books I have to read in the next month....I know it will be good and insightful, but where do you find the time?! LOL! Loving ev...

This past week has been draining....As we have been trying to patiently wait to see if our adoptive country is going to close it's program for this year.....we have been waiting and praying. Our agency has been great in trying to find out more information so that we can make an informed decision. We feel strongly that God has placed the desire for the country in our hearts. Although it seems easier to not go down a road of unknowns and to just switch countries, we believe that that isn't giving God much credit for being able to work things out for us in His timing and in His plan. So we will just continue to walk down this path until all our options have been exhausted. God wasn't shocked that this happened. He knew the timing for our adoption and for this countries shut-down would be the same. Although, I don't think that this will affect special-needs adoptions, which we are open to as well.....so we wait and see! Pray that God would give us peace and lead ...

I just finished my autobiography for our homestudy. Wow! I think the homestudy agency is going to know more about me then I know about myself!! LOL! It did really make me think about questions in regards to parenting an adopted child. Tom cracked me up because he called me after reading the first question on the questionnaire and said he was stumped already!! Guess that's the difference between men and women....women can talk (or type) about anything for hours! My autobiography ended up being 7 pages long...and I had to cut out some words to make it nicely fit onto 7 pages. Tom will probably summarize his life in 2 pages!! After he completes his autobiography then we will start the interviews and home visits with our homestudy agency....fun fun!

A lot has happened since Tom's last post. He was laid off for 2 months and we got to see the Lord work, first hand in our lives, in miraculous ways! Through that time, one thing in our hearts did not change, our desire to adopt. If anything it grew stronger with each passing week. James 1:27 says this " Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." We are continually convicted that God says everyone falls into one of two categories, in regards to adoption....those called to adopt and those called to help others adopt. We are excited that God has placed the call to adopt in our family and look forward to the time when we can aid others to carry out His call in their own families! So here we are today. Tom has a job, praise the Lord!...and we are starting our adoption journey. First destination.....Asia! (For privacy and agency reasons we aren...

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. It only feels like that. But I think I have a pretty good reason for being out of the loop. A couple weeks back we moved into our own house. After having rented for 4 years in California, and then living with Steph's parents for the last year, it's a big change to be a homeowner once again. We decided to do our part in stimulating the economy and built our home, so the plan of living with in-laws stretched from 6 months to a full year. But all that is behind us now, and we have spent pretty much every spare moment of the past few weeks hangings lights and ceiling fans, painting walls, assembling furniture, and pretty much everything else related to setting up a new house except for unpacking boxes. That can always come later right? :-) Steph has done an amazing job of getting things organized. My hat is off to her for all her hard work!! So what happened to the adoption plans? This whole house thing was actually step one in the p...