Lookin' for "lotssa kids"

Some of you know that if Carter had been a girl, his name would have been Molly.
We still really love it for a girl's name. Maybe our next little one will be a girl.
I was excited when we found that license plate for the collection on Carter's bedroom wall.
When I saw this picture that Shane took of CJ with the binoculars, I MELTED. {And not just because of the AZ heat.} First of all, it's cute. Carter had a blast playing (under close supervision of course) with his Daddy's binoculars.

But this is one of those pictures that speaks much more than those proverbial 1,000 words to me.

Ever since our failed adoption situation at the beginning of the year, Carter has been asking where the baby is. He talks about baby brother or baby sister often. He loves babies right now and it's kind of hard on us sometimes to keep telling him we are doing everything we can to find our baby brother or sister and that Heavenly Father will help us find them. He has learned to pray for Jesse (his birth mother), birth mommas, and baby brother/sister every day, and we'll even find him on his own, kneeling, arms folded, eyes squinted closed tight, praying "bless Momma, bless Daddy, bless Jesus, bless Jesse, fine-a baby..."

Recently, he has been telling me that "we need lotssa kids, Momma." We seem to literally be doing EVERYTHING we can do to find our child(ren) right now (short of approaching the many young pregnant women we see) and are really going through a trial of our faith.

We are telling everyone we know and meet about our desires and efforts to adopt.

We are involved in the local adoption community and online, and enjoy sharing finding ideas.

We have created an adoption website.

We have set-up a toll-free number (888.279.9920).

We have done adoption outreach presentations at a local high school with the Amazing Tamra.

We are reminding all of our friends and family often that we are still searching (you might even feel too often) -- and we are telling you all how you can help us find the children that are meant to be in our family.

We have inquired (via e-mail and phone) about waiting children in different states.
We have been told Jaelyn, Skyler and Derail are no longer available for adoption/found their families.
Right now we are waiting to hear about Francine and Derricka.

We attend the temple as often as we can.

We FAST & PRAY and have even asked you to join us in doing so.

We created a facebook group.

We have given and loaned out copies of For the Love of a Child to anyone who will take them! My book club even read it and we had an amazing discussion about it. I have had at least 6 of the people tell me later that they had an experience soon afterward where they were able to share what they had learned with a friend or family member struggling with the unplanned pregnancy of a child.

Last Saturday, we held an adoption yard sale/fundraiser.
A huge thank you to those who donated things to sell. Your generosity is so humbling.

We are advertising our adoption website in several places online (see left sidebar)
and are grateful to those who have added our button to their blogs or sites (left sidebar again).

We signed up for Parent Profiles, a service that advertises heavily online to help match birth mothers with adoptive couples.

We just received our order of 500 new pass-along cards from Spaces for Faces because our first pass along cards (designed by sweet Cynthia) are long gone. We sent them out in our Christmas cards the day before we were "chosen" last December, so it seems everyone threw them away after they heard the good news!

Please let us know if we can send you some!

The point is, we aren't just trying to bug you about adoption. We just know that it might be one of you who makes the connection and helps us build our family!

You can help us look for and find the children that belong in our family!