Done with our Homestudy!!!

Today our FBI fingerprints came in and we are now officially done with our home study. For those of you who do not know a home study is what a social worker does to determine if you are qualified to be a parent. It looks at all aspects of your life, how you were raised, your marriage, your parenting techniques etc.... then the social worker determines what type of child you should have and if you are even capable of having more. It was a ton of paperwork, but I am happy it is done. I am going to pick up the home study on Friday morning and then all we have to do is wait for the big day......Sophia's Birthday! Please keep praying for our birth mother and that she takes care of herself.

The Raffray Family Farm

For those of you who do not know we have our own little farm here in Clermont. We have a horse named Dotty May. We rescued her in May from a family who could not take care of her. We have a dog named Deacon, he is a handful, he thinks he is a lap dog. We also have a bunny rabbit named Snow, he is Caleb's pride and joy. We got Snow at a farm auction a couple of weeks ago. Caleb knew exactly what he wanted at the auction, he pointed at the rabbits and said "I want a rabbit that looks like snow". It was really cool to see how proud he was of his rabbit. I have wanted chickens for a while now and I finally got them. We have a rooster named Bruster, he has a harem of hens. The oldest hen is Henrietta, and the three younger ones are Mary, Sarah and Winnifred (named after the three witches from Hocas Pocas). We get eggs on a daily basis, it is alot of fun to go out to the hen house and see what is there. This spring we planted a huge garden, we got squash and zucchini for 10 weeks and we are still getting tons of tomatoes. We are getting ready to pick corn, and green beans just came in as well. I have canned tons of banana peppers and hopefully we will get some watermelons and pumpkins soon. We love our little place her in Clermont.

Great Friends

We received a letter today from wonderful friends of ours, it said " because we have four we want you to have one more"... inside the card was a check for $1000.00. WOW.... God just continues to bless our family with amazing friends. We are so amazed by how so many people have just stepped up to help us. Thank you so much......your friendship has been my rock when things were unsteady ( you know who you are, oh you can have visitation rights with Caleb...how does that sound?)Thank you, thank you to all of our wonderful friends and family!

Fun with Aubrey and Jackson

Today our friends, Aubrey, Jackson, Laney and Mrs. Stephanie, came over to play. We had so much fun, we played in the pool on the back porch and then the kids took and bubble bath. We love Aubrey and Jackson and love our play days.

More Adoption News!

I talked with the lawyer's assistant this morning and she told us that the birth father had been served with his notice of adoption papers. The great part is they found him on the first attempt to serve him, he was in jail. We were going to have to pay for every attempt to locate this man. God is so good. The birth father has 30 days from last friday to register with the state of Flordia. Please keep your prayers going for us as we travel down this new and exicting road and for our sweet baby Sophia.

Fun at a Birthday Party!

On Sunday we went to a friends birthday party at the lake. We had a great time. Caleb swam so well, he was jumping off the dock and and playing with a kick board. Brad did not swim, but he did find something fun to do!!!!

More great news

God is so amazing, today at a birthday party my friend Corie told me that here Sunday School class took up a collection for us. I honestly forgot about it, so on the way home I decided to open the envelope and see what was in it. OH MY.... it was almost 900. dollars. I almost screamed!!!! God just continues to provide for this adoption. Someone told me that God would not start something and then not finish it. I am just in total AWE of how great HE is. This whole road to adoption has been amazing. We wanted to adopt from Ethiopia but every time I thought about sending the papers in I would decide to wait a little longer. Then we prayed about adopting domestically and I looked into tons of adoptions agency's but just could not make a decision. Then one Sunday evening when I least expect it my sister Katie told me that my mom had talked with someone who wanted to tell us about a baby that needed a home. I made a few phone calls, and here it is 2 weeks later and we have been blessed with 8000.00, our home study is done and now all we have to so is just wait for B-Day. I am speechless by His great works.

Fundraiser

Today we had a Garage Sale to help raise money for the Adoption. My mom and Katie made the whole thing happen with the help of lots of our Friends. We made $703.00!!!!! We are so excited. These past two weeks we needed $6500.00 for the lawyer and the social worker and we raised $7000.00. We only need $4800.00 more. Thanks so much to everyone who helped. Hopefully we will be bringing baby Sophie home soon.

Fun things you have missed!

So, i was doing some thinking about all the fun things going on this summer that everyone has missed. I decided to add some pictures of all the funny things going on this summer. Hope you enjoy.

Recently Brad was working outside, and was very dirty and he smelled terrible. When he came inside for the evening we had a storm and lost power, so Brad decided to take a shower on the back porch and save water. We are over achievers when it comes to water conservation!!!!

Big Surprise!!!!

We just got the call with the ultrasound information. Everything looks good but as it would be we have started preparing for a boy and to our surprise, it's a gril!

Exciting News

Hello, We have some exciting news for those who don,t know. We were contacted about 2 weeks ago from a family in FL, they have a baby that is due to be born in 6 weeks. They would like us to adopt him when he is born. We are so excited and are very busy with paperwork and other legal issues. The birth mother had an ultrasound today and we are waiting the news of how the baby is doing. So look for ultrasound pictures to come. Please pray for the birth mother who has struggled for years with addiction, and for the health of the baby. Today we signed the

contract with the lawyer.

Welcome to our Blogspot

Hello Friends and Family, We are so excited to finally have a blogspot to share with our loved ones.We want everyone to get to see our family and the exciting changes taking place. We also want you to be able to see Caleb and everything he has going on. We hope you enjoy and look forward to hearing back from everyone