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