The life of a 1 year old:)

Our little football player. "ootball" in the words of Kade:)

One of his first big kid rides at Arnolds park

The water bottle kept him entertained during his first haircut:)

"Wow mom my curls are long"

Kade 1st Birthday party! He loved the cupcakes!!

He thought he was pretty big stuff!

We went to he Zoo with Gma, Gpa De Jong and Davis. Kade found some new friends while we were there.

Finalization Day May 4 2009

A lot has happened since i wrote last, it was April i guess:) This past summer went way to fast,but i guess it usually does. We celebrated Kade's first birthday in July. It is so hard to believe that it has been a year already. Time goes to fast and we need to enjoy every minute we have with each other.

Kade is running everywhere he started walking about 1 week after his birthday! He knows how to keep me going. He tries to copy everything that we do and he actually is very good at it:) So now i guess we better watch what we do. His favorite thing to do is chase Maggie. He just loves her but we are not sure she feels the same way about him. :) Kade and Maggies are always playing fetch which is fun to see,but now Kade thinks he has to throw everything. He has a pretty good arm, which is all fun until he throws a fork across the table and about takes some one out. (it has happened) He keeps our lives interesting and we love every minute of it.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures of Kade and a breif update on what has been going on in our house.

Kade's 9 Month Pictures

It has been a long time again since we wrote last. Hopefully i will start getting better at updating this:) Last night we had Kade's 9 month pictures taken so i wanted to share the website with all of you.
http://nikikruid.instaproofs.com/collection.php?event=117095
We can not believe Kade is 9 months already time goes so fast. But we are enjoying every minute we get to spend with him! It is so fun to watch him explore new things. He has us running now cause he started crawling last monday and he only gets faster. But it is good someone has to keep us on our toes.
Once we get settled i will post pictures of our new house. This is going to be a crazy week we are ready to be done with the whole moving thing. But we are excited to see what God has instore for us in this new phase of our lives.
Well i better get back to work.
Dustin, Ashley and Kade

We are very sorry for not updating very often. Time goes so fast we can't believe that we are already in February! Christmas was very busy we had 7 differant parties which was fun this year since it was Kade's first Christmas. He definantly got alittle spoiled:)

A couple weeks ago we had our final post placement visit with Heidi so now we can finalize our adoption! Other then that we really do not have anything else new in our lives at the moment.

We are just enjoying every minute we get to spend with Kade. He is growing up so fast it is hard to believe he is 6 1/2 months already.

We will try to update more often:)

Sorry it has been awhile since we have updated the pictures. I am going to try to get better about this:) Anyways Kade is growing like crazy as you can prolly tell by the pictures he is now 4 months which is so hard for us to believe. He is always jabbering he has big stories for such a little guy. He has also started giggling which is so fun to hear! Kade also loves to watch Maggie (our dog) everytime she comes in the room he just starts smiling and gets so excited. That is all the updates on Kade for now hope you all enjoy the pictures.

Kade has been doing very well. Today we had his 2 month old checkup and 3 shots. Founds out shots are his new least favorite thing. He was 10 pounds and 21 inches long. He has been sleeping good between feedings but still eats every 3 hours. Aug. 31 Kade was baptized at Carmel church. He is a very happy baby for the most part. Every now and then he has his crabby times but don't we all? We thank God every day for such a perfect little boy.

Great to be Home!

Our trip home went very well Kade traveled great! He was alittle fussy when we went through the mountains but other then that he slept most of the time! We were so thankful that he traveled well b/c we were very concerned about how he would do. It is a very long trip for such a little guy:) We got home on Sunday night at about 8:00.
Well we would like to thank all of you again for all the prayers and support during this process.
Kade is very anxious to meet everyone!
God has truly blessed us!
Dustin, Ashley and Kade

Traveling home

We got the ok from the state of Iowa to come home with Kade. We plan on leaving today (Fri. July 25) after his doctor apt. at 1:30. We plan on driving during the day and finding a hotel for the nights. Hope to be home by Sun Evening. So please pray for us on our journey.

Today was our 3rd day as a family. Everything is going great. Kade is a really good baby and loves to be held and wrapped up in blankets. He does not like diaper changes at all. We took a little drive today to the Babies R' Us store and decided that's kind of a dangerous store. We could spend a lot of $ there in a very short time:) We have mostly just been hanging out in our hotel room getting to know one another. Hear are a few pictures of Kade.

Please keep in your prayers Kade's birth mother because she is in a time of grieving. This little boy brings us such great joy and we feel very blessed! At the same time it is hard to know that someone else has to hurt.

Our papers are in Iowa so know we are just waiting for someone from the adoption agency to call us and let us know we can go home. We are very excited for all of you to meet Kade.

Thanks for all your prayers, Dustin, Ashley, and Kade

Kade Malachi De Jong

We would like to introduce the newest member of our family Kade Malachi De Jong! We were able to pick him up at 2:00 today! So far he seems to be a very good baby.
We can't wait for all of you to meet him.
God is amazing and he has blessed us so much!
We will keep you all updated with pictures while we are down here in North Carolina.
Thanks so much for all the prayers!
Dustin, Ashley and Kade

Exciting News

We are very excited to say that we have a baby boy in North Carolina. He was born on July 14th and weighed 6 pounds 13 oz and was 18 in long. We are able to pick him up Mon. July 21 right away in the morning. We will be posting pics and let you know what his name is when we get there and get a chance to update. Please pray for safe travel and for our son. Please also pray for his birthparents.
Thank you very much for the prayers and support through our adoption process.
Dustin and Ashley

Grants

We have a little bit of exciting news today. This weekend we got our printed home study so we were able to send off our grant applications. We were glad to get them sent off. So now we just patiently wait to hear something from all of those places as well as our adoption agency:).
We ask for your continued prayers as we wait, some days it is tough to wait. But we try to remind ourselves daily that God has a child for us and it will all happen in his time.
We also ask for prayers for the birth moms so that they can find peace in their decisions. And most importantly for the child that God has chosen for us.
We would like to thank all of you for your prayers and support through this process. We can't wait to see the plan God has for our family.
Dustin and Ashley

Waiting

It has been awhile since we have written anything. So i just wanted to let all of you know where we are now. On Monday Heidi got all the papers needed to finish our home study. She was going to send that up to Blue Earth where it needs to get signed and then mailed back to us. From there we can mail out all our grant applications.
For now all we do is wait and put it in God's hands. We are realizing that this is defiantly the toughest part of the process. Just the fact that there is nothing more we can do to move it along more quickly. So for know we just ask for your continued prayers for patients for us as we wait. And more importantly for the birth mom's out there as they have some very difficult decisions to make. Also please pray for the child that God has planned for us!
Some of you have been asking how our process is going and we really appreciate that. Even though lately nothing is really changing but thanks for all the support you have all shown through this process. When days get tough we have to remind ourselves that in the end when we have that baby in our arms it will all be worth it.

We have one more prayer request.. Davis (Dustin's brother) is deployed overseas so please just keep him in your prayers as well.
I hope everyone is having a great week.
Dustin and Ashley

Good News

We have more good news! My fingerprints came back yesterday! I talked to Heidi today and she let me know that they have started showing our book. So we are very excited about that. We feel very fortunate that our adoption process has gone so fast! So now we wait and see what God has planned for us. For now we ask that you pray for the baby that God has planned for us, and also for patience as we wait.
God Bless,
Dustin and Ashley

One Step At a Time

Our adoption process is coming together one step at a time. We received an e-mail from Heidi today to tell us that Dustin's Adam Welsh is back! So that is the good news ! Mine (Ashley's) on the other hand are not back yet, and Heidi said that if it does not come back in the next week they will call to see where it is. So i guess now we just pray that the fingerprint are clear enough to read. So that I do not have to do them again. We were just glad to hear that Dustin's are back so that is the exciting part of our day!
This weekend we will be working on getting some pictures together to email to CAS (Christian Adoption Services). They are located in NC and are partnered with New Horizons. They have a website in which they put up pictures of the families looking to adopt for the birth parents to look at if they choose.
We would like to thank all of you for your continued prayers and support.
Dustin and Ashley

I hope all of you are getting a chance to enjoy the beautiful day!
Last night we had our last homestudy meeting. Our homestudy has went very quickly and we are so happy about that. Heidi our socail worker has been great we have really enjoyed working with her and we feel very blessed to have her as our social worker! Our last homestudy got moved up b/c next week Heidi and Ryan are going to North Carolina to get their baby if all continues to go well. So we would just like for everyone to keep them in your prayers!
Our homestudy went well we thought, and now all we are waiting for is our Adam Walsh (which is our finger prints). Which we knew that we would prolly be waiting on that b/c they say it usually takes along time!
We have almost completed everything that we need to do. So all we can really do now is put it in God's hands.
We just ask for your prayers as we wait!
Thanks for all your support!
Dustin and Ashley

One Step Closer!

As of today we are completely finished with our profile books! Which we are very excited about, we just feel like we are one step closer to seeing what God has in store for us!
Our third home study also moved up a little so now we are having that this Friday the 16th. It will be our final meeting, all we have to wait for then is our finger prints. It is hard to say how long that will take. I guess Iowa usually takes along time to get them processed.
That is all the news we have for now. We have been amazed as to how fast our process has gone so far. We just pray that things continue to move along smoothly b/c we know that the adoption process can be a real emotional roller coaster.
Thanks for all your prayers!
Dustin and Ashley

2nd Homestudy:)

Hello again! We had our 2nd home study last night, we thought it went very well. The questions were mostly about our marriage and how we will raise and discipline our kids. Which were kinda tough to answer just because we do not have any kids. But we got them all answered and it was kinda nice i guess to think about.
We feel very fortunate to have such a great social worker. We seem to get along with her very well and she is very helpful and honest when making certain decisions. God has truly been blessing us in every part of our adoption process. We are so excited to see where God will lead us we really feel that He has blessed us so far!! All we can do is trust him in all our decisions.
Our next home study is May 22 then we will be finished with this part. The one thing that may hold us up is our fingerprints, they are not back yet and they usually take a long time. So once they are back and our home study is done our book can go out!!
We want to thank everyone for all the prayers and support the last couple months it has been awesome!! We feel very blessed to have such great family and friends!!

Hello to all, i hope everyone had a chance to enjoy the beautiful weather! It looks like spring is here today and that is very exciting.
Yesterday Dustin and I went to the adoption orientation in Blue Earth, MN. It was really nice to meet some of the ladies that work up there. We really enjoyed the class and it was great to hear that the ladies there rely on God completely and it is a very Faith based agency.
There was a panel of couples that came to talk to us about their experiences which is always great to hear. They of coarse brought there children along which makes us even more excited! But they also stress that we need patience. God has a baby chosen for us and it will work out in His time. So as always we need prayers for patience:) Once our home study is over all we can do is wait and most importantly pray for the birth mom's out there who have very hard and important decisions to make.
That is what is happening in our adoption process we thank you for taking the time to read our blog!
This morning in my devotions I had a great bible verse I just wanted to share it with all of you.

Then he took a child, had him stand among them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, "Whoever welcomes one little child such as this in My name welcomes Me. And whoever welcomes Me does not welcome Me, but Him who sent Me." Mark 9:36-37

I hope all of you have a great week

Dustin and Ashley

Homestudy

Last night we had our first home study it was so exciting to get to the next step! We thought it went very well. Basically all it consisted of was a ton of questions. Heidi our social worker wanted to know what has happened in our lives from the time we were born until today. Which was alot harder then i thought it would be, just because it is hard to remeber things that happend in our lives when we were younger. That is what last night consisted of.
Our next homestudy is on Wednesday May 7th so that is also exciting it is only 1 week away. We are excited to get the homestudy finished because that is when our profile book can go out to the birthmom's. We are almost finished with the profile book. We just have to write a letter to the birthmom's which we feel will take alittle time and alot of thought so we havn't done that yet.
Tommorrow we have a meeting in Blue Earth, MN. It is an all day orientation from 9-5 which explains the differant options in adoption. Also they have some parents there who have recently adopted to share their stories. We are really looking forward to the meeting!
Well that is all the news we have for now i hope you all have a great weekend!

Dustin and Ashley

The Next Step:)

Today we got a call from our social worker, Heidi to let us know we can start our home study! All i know about the home study right now, is that it consists of 3 meetings about 3hours long. Our first meeting is on Thursday May 1st.
We want to thank everyone for the prayers and support we truly feel that God is blessing us!