We were given this nice little graphic by someone from our agency and have been using it to track our overall progress. We also have it written on our chalkboard in our kitchen. It's super nice to see what next "big step" is coming/what's left. I showed it to a friend the other day and she said, "What? Only four checkmarks? I feel like y'all have done so much!" It's true. We have done a lot, but each of these check marks comes with LOTS of stuff to get them checked. I'm going to break down each step that we have completed or started and what it means and what we had to do to get there. It's a lot of info for one post, so I'll try to do a "part 2" later to break down the steps we have left. HOME STUDY -    The home study is the first step in starting any adoption process. It consists of paperwork about our marriage, our families, our jobs, our finances, our house, our pet, several back ground checks, and pretty much everyt