New Pictures of Brandon (7 months old)

I got a surprise in my inbox today...7 new pictures of Brandon! These were taken on his 7 month birthday or the day after, look how big he is getting. Isn't he cute?

Here he is in a little furry suit:





And here are some pictures of his left arm (the one that had been broken and in a cast).

What a great early birthday present to me! I am SO in love with this little boy!

Last trip home before Brandon arrives!

Today is Brandon's 7 month birthday! Happy birthday little man, I hope you had a great day! We got donuts tonight and sang happy birthday to you.

Patrick and I arrived in PA to visit friends and family for 2 weeks. Well, I will be here for 2 weeks but Patrick has to go back in just 1. On the way here I was thinking about how different it will be the next time we fly here, with our little man!

Tuesday morning I mailed off all the acceptance paperwork to Holt so they will hopefully get it tomorrow or Friday. I'm not sure of the next steps but I know that they will let us know. Mary with Holt is just awesome. She is so quick at responding to email and gets into the office so early! She called me last week at 8:30am my time which is only 6:30 in Oregon! Yikes!

We had to fill out the official adoption form, I864 and I864A forms, provides copies of our tax returns from 2007 and 2008, fill out duplicate and triplicate copies of various other forms. Some of these documents had to be notarized so it's a good thing that I work with a notary!

Serious Life Magazine and Paperwork

I am knee deep in paper work to accept Brandon's referral. We are still waiting for the paperwork that will be mailed to us from Holt, hopefully tomorrow. My goal is to get everything filled in, copied and notarized before the weekend. If I could mail things out on Friday that would be amazing!

I also wanted you to know about this publication I am a part of called Serious Life Magazine. I blogged about it in February and they just published the March issue today, and I am in their Featured Blog Directory. It is a very high quality magazine… you’ll really like it.

The magazine includes a lot of great content from bloggers you’ll appreciate, as well as great features, photos and other content. The magazine is owned and published by a family who have seven kids, three adopted and one who has Leukemia (http://www.riggsfamilyblog.com/). The magazine gives away a bunch of ads to charities and ministries. Besides great articles on interesting people, there is a lot about family, adoption, personal finance, spiritual life, humor… all sorts of “life” topics.

Please take a couple minutes and check it out,www.seriouslifemagazine.com !

Thanks!

Introducing Brandon Hye-seong Marshall

I just got word that we are OFFICIALLY matched with our little man. It is my pleasure to introduce you to my son, Brandon Hye-seong!

He was born August 18, 2008 so he is almost 7 months old (I love his birth date 08-18-08 but then again I am a dorky numbers person)! We are still in shock as we weren't expecting a referral until the fall of this year. The reason we got matched so early is because we were open to babies with minor medical conditions, Holt calls this the Waiting Child Program. He was exposed to tobacco use in the womb and, at some point, got a broken left arm. The arm is the only remaining issue for him as he still has some range of motion limitations as well as weakness in that arm since his cast has been taken off.

Our doctor, Dr. Kolb at Boys Town, says that he may need physical therapy to regain full use of his arm. He also said that, if the growth plate is involved, Brandon may have some permanent weakness in his arm and possible differences in length between his left and right arm.

So, now we start the long wait for our travel call. We will not be traveling so Brandon will be escorted to the USA, hopefully to the Omaha airport! We don't know exactly when this will be but it should be 3-6 months from now, we are hoping it will be before his 1st birthday. That would mean he would come home sometime between June and September. We weren't even expecting our referral until October so that is just amazing!

God is awesome!

Thank you all for supporting us on the journey, we appreciate all your prayers and comments!

It's a boy!!!

It isn't completely final yet but we have a baby boy from Korea! We are still in shock! :-). He was a Waiting Child but he is perfectly healthy!

God is awesome!!

More details later!