Happy Birthday Jen

One of my most favorite people in the whole world turned 40 (yes I know she doesn't even look 30), so we went to Napa to celebrate. Keith  planned a wonderful weekend away including wine tasting, a beautiful hotel and a fun dinner. Couldn't think of a better way to honor such an amazing friend.

Cheers at Chimney Rock

Was very impressed with how many glasses of wine this guy could carry

We got treated like royalty

Stag's Leap 

Lunch at Rutherford Hill

They have a gorgeous picnic grounds that overlooks the valley

Always love getting away with this guy

Thank you Keith for all the planning. It was the best! 

Last stop Mumm

Dinner at Bottega

Jen...Happy Birthday my friend! I am so thankful for you in my life. You have been my rock and helped me so much thru the many trials these past years. Who would have thought all those years back at Pickett Advertising that our friendship would turn into this 10 years later. I have no doubt that we were brought into each others lives for a reason. I love you so much. Thank you for being such an amazing, supportive and loving friend. Cheers to a happy year ahead. 

Valentine's Day

Valentines Day was hard this year without my Mom here, but I tried my best to focus on the kids and it helped a lot. They really got into the holiday this year and were looking forward to passing out their Valentines at preschool. Love experiencing special days with these special kids. 

I wanted the kids to do something nice for our neighbors this year, so I let them paint and decorate some Valentine hearts. We then delivered them to our neighbors and I realized how this little act of kindness meant so much.

 Roman ready to open his bag of Valentines after school. 

 Paisley was so thrilled to have her own bag of Valentines this year. 

The kids made and mailed their Valentines from school to our home. Paisley thought it was magical how her card ended up in our mailbox.  

Roman had a field trip where they walked to the mailbox and mailed their own Valentines. He loved seeing it arrive 1 day later. 

Happy Valentines Day to my 2 little sweethearts! I love you so very much and am so thankful for you. 

Exciting Announcement for our Family

We have been waiting for months to make our official announcement, so we are so excited to finally let everyone know that our family of 4 will be welcoming a new baby into our lives. As many of you know, we have struggled with miscarriages and after our 5th pregnancy loss last year, I was certain that God had an amazing plan for us. After lots of reading, talking with friends and family, and research, we decided to begin the approval process of becoming adoptive parents. Adoption has always been on my heart before even having children and to see it all become a reality is such an awesome feeling.

We found a local non-profit adoption agency, Independent Adoption Center, that specializes in open adoption. We fell in love with the agency and just felt at home from the 1st orientation. We loved that this agency focuses on counseling and support for both the birthparents, the adoptive parents and also our adopted child. The agency also has no racial, ethnic, age, religion, marital status or sexual orientation restrictions for prospective adoptive parents, which is another thing we loved.  We were proud to be part of an organization that supports the right for everyone that can provide a loving home to become parents.

So we just became officially approved through our home study process and went into "circulation" as they call it. This means that we have an online profile that is available for birthmothers to learn more about our family posted on our adoption agency's website. Birthmothers choose from prospective adoptive parents and match with the adoptive parent that they feel works best for their baby. The most common question we are asked is how long will this take? Our pre-approval process took about 8 months and now that our profile is in circulation, the average wait is about 14 months. We are reminded that when the right match comes along, we will be ready, whether it is in 1 month or a couple years.

We are so excited for this new journey and thank you for all your support. We will be sure to keep you updated with all the latest.

All our love!
The Maddox Family

You can visit our online profile at:
http://www.iheartadoption.org/users/heatherandjason