Auction is LIVE!

Happy Bidding!!
Please go

HERE

to check out our final attempt to raise the rest of the money we need to complete the adoption of our little one from U*ganda!! Would you consider passing this along?? Repost to your blog, tweet the deets, send out an email or just share via word of mouth!
We are so blessed by those who are willing to come together for the amazing task of bringing a child home thru the miracle of adoption!

Adoption Auction Fundraiser

Come Check out our newest (and hopefully last) Adoption Fundraiser! Like us on facebook to be informed as we up date and count down til the BIG DAY - 9/10/11 (when the adoption auction goes LIVE!)!!

It's coming!!!

Our Yard Sale will be THIS WEEK - 5/5-5/7!!!

5/5 Thu : 8am - 2pm
5/6 Fri : 8am - 2pm
5/7 Sat : 8am - noon

You will not want to miss this sale!!   Over 10 families have contributed to this yard sale - something for everyone.
Not only will you get some awesome deals, but every penny will go towards our adoption to bring our child home!!
Cash is preferred or Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover cards credit cards are also accepted.


SOME OF THE ITEMS FOR SALE
Furniture/Home Decor : dresser, huge mirror, rocking chair, glider, set of 2 chairs and a table, picture frames, fake trees, headboards and bedframe, vintage upholstered chairs, stools, fans
Kitchen Items : bread machine, pressure cooker, misc. pots & pans, George Foreman grill
Office Items : filing cabinets -4 drawer lateral and 4 drawer upright
Yard/Tools : socket set, bird bath, New in box tool set
Hiking/Camping/Fishing/Hunting Gear : rifle scope, inflatable mattress frame, golf clubs
Electronics/Computer items : keyboards, monitor, 27 inch TV, dvd player
Baby & Kids Items : toys, games, clothes, equipment
Men & Women clothing : lots of sizes, and styles, leather jacket - mens
Books, Movies, AND SO MUCH MORE......

COUPONING STOCKPILE
Personal Care items: toothpaste, lotions, body wash
Cleaning Supplies, Fabric Softner

Thoughts from a 4 y old - Part 2

Calling All Number Nerds

ok, you may not find this as exhilarating as my husband did... but none the less, very interesting.

Graphs, charts, and stats on domestic and international adoption :

here

Be sure to ck the "adoptions by year". 2010 was the lowest year of International adoptions since 1997.

Thoughts from a 4 yr old! Part 1

Here are some thoughts on adoption from one of my sweet 4 yr olds.  Do you think she's excited to have a new sister?? :)  Love her sweet heart and how she genuinely wants to help others!

Whooohoooo!

Yay, we got our DCFS approval today!  Which means next in line is waiting for our i171-h... maybe a month or two!?!  Then we send our paperwk (dossier) to U*ganda and wait to travel!
Such excitement with each completed step!

thoughts from a 2 yr old!

She makes me smile :)  Love hearing my kids' hearts and their thoughts..... i don't think growing up, i even knew what adoption was, let alone, what is was all about!

Stay tuned as we prepare to roll out our FIRST adoption fundraiser : ONE WEEK of giveaways - it's going to be FUN!!!

another plug :)

my sweet, sweet friend Sheli and her fam are in the process of adopting two boys from U*ganda - it has been such a blessing to journey on this path of adoption with her, thus far!
Soooooo, she is having a yard sale!  Wanna shop?? Here are the deets:

Adoption Fundraising Yard Sale


Friday, April 15 at 9:00am - April 16 at 3:00pm


2S665 White Oak Lane Batavia, IL 60510

We are having a yard sale to help bring our babies home from U*ganda!!! Come and visit, shop, eat some cupcakes....and shop some more~~~ These types of events are such great opportunities to support those who are following what they feel called to do! Please let me know if you have any more ?'s!!

fund raising

raising funds is such a big and exciting (yes, i said exciting!) part of adoption....

can i send you here for a sec?

go check it out!

http://artinstereo.bandcamp.com/album/hymns-spiritual-songs

Ok, so Katie (Russ, the artist's wife) and I met in Guat, while we were both fostering our babies!! Her Eliot and my girls are only few wks apart in age, and she was one of the 1st people i ran into (at the McDonalds) in Antigua when i started my fostering adventure! The Mohr family is preparing to bring home their second son via domestic adoption, and unlike pregnancy haven't even had 9 months to prepare! They have been wking hard on raising funds for the expenses involved in bringing their baby home!

So, wanna new cd, and some awesome new (and not so new) worship tunes?? Consider downloading this cd and helping a great, loving and hilarious family out!!

Fellow AP's : Mel and Katie in Antigua, 2006

Swimming!

ok, so this is just more about our everyday life.... but hey, figure it's better than nothin', right :)The other night our bible study was cancelled, last minute, much to everyone's dismay... our kids had especially been looking fwd to playing with all their friends all day long!

So, Matt and I had wanted to do something special as a family, but were trying to figure out what to do, without spending a lot of money - as we are majorly in "saving mode" right now!!

So, even tho it was really more than we wanted to spend we decided to go to the Adventure

Island (a small and local indoor pool with slides, etc). I called to verify admission prices and

our youngest was free, and I decided I wouldn't swim, so we'd only have to pay for the twins and Matt. When we got there (@715) the lady informed us it was closing at 8 (online had said 9), so we only had 45 mins... (truthfully that was fine, since we really didn't think we would have stayed too much later than that anyway) but she said she'd go ahead and let us in with out charging us!!!!! We were so, so thankful - it was so cool to see how God really honored and blessed our desire to do something fun, but still be good stewards and save $$!! So we got to swim for FREE for 45 mins and the girls were elated - oh to be so easily pleased! you would have thought we took them to Disney World!! On the way over, as we were driving in silence and just listening to our cd, little sister suddenly just exclaimed out loud "I am SOO excited" - she really didn't even know what we were doing (just that she was in her swimming suit :0 but anyway, it ended up being a sweet night with my family!!

In other news our Homestudy is DONE!!!! Now we just wait (1-2 wks, hopefully) for the signatures it needs and we can start on the next step!!!

Check back too, as we have a SUPER exciting WEEK of giveaways to be coming soon!!!

Tick, tock, tick, tock

"So, what's going on?" you ask. "Not much" is my response (hence the lack of posts :) Adoption is so much about WAITING... which i admit i'm really not very good at. Waiting for others, waiting for government entities that say "yes" or "no", waiting for paperwork, waiting for money (haha, more like hoping, but you know what i mean), waiting for information, waiting for YOUR CHILD! Lots and lots of waiting...

In the meantime, we are working on our 1st (and biggest) fund-raiser:

YARD SALE!!!!!

We are going BIG this time and I have high expectations.... if you have anything, anything at all you are planning on donating in the near future, throwing out or wanting to just give away - SAVE it!! We'll be HAPPY to take it off your hands!! I will be posting more about this in future posts!

Here are the girls with our some of our final paperwork - now we just continue to WAIT!

check

make sure all outlets have outlet covers √

install child-proof locks on any cabinets w. anything that could be dangerous/hazardousness √

make sure our water temperature is 115 degrees or lower √

make sure all smoke detectors are working √

make sure carbon monoxide alarm is working √

put up all candles/matches, so they are out of reach √

clean the house from top to bottom √

make sure our firearms are safely stored (easy if you don't have any :) √

make sure window drape cords are not hanging within reach √

prepare to explain our marriage relationship, how we parent and lots of other personal ?'s √

make sure our fire extinguisher is in working order √

baby gates in place √

prep my children to try not to say anything too embarrassing or awkward ;) √

SOOOOOO.... looks like we're ready for our HOMESTUDY this upcoming week! YAY!

U*ganda

I could really go on and on and on about how the Lord has brought us on this newest journey to our child in U*ganda - and if you'd like, just ask me next time we're together... but for the sake of time and wanting to be sure people read this post, I'll try to condense the awesome way God's been leading us!

I just never felt our family was complete with our three girls, so as Matt and I bickered discussed ;) the size of our family we went back and forth and both just decided to keep praying about it! Always a nice way in marriage to see how hearts might or might not change :)
In October 2010 we were so blessed to be able to serve with Show Hope (Steven Curtis Chapmans organization) in helping people who attended SCC's concert to sponsor special needs orphans in China. Wow, we were truly blown away that night and both admitted to it being one of the best serving experiences we had ever had! During our Guatemalan adoption Show Hope's grant to us was almost the final amount we needed to pay for our adoption expenses, allowing me to then be able to go to Guat to foster the girls!!! So, needless to say we were beyond blessed and thankful to them! We definitely left that night changed and convinced we were not done adopting!

I remember praying literally "anything Lord, anywhere, whatever you have, just show us" and He was faithful to do so! We read Proverbs 24:12, which lead us to Psalm 82:3-4... and as followers of Christ we knew could not be ok with not doing anything.

Our 1st adoption was in so many ways about us wanting to be parents, this adoption is much more about meeting a need! I started making a list of countries open for adoption and slowly started crossing some off - we're too young (cross off Madagascar, China, Taiwan), process too long or travel requirements not do-able for our family (cross off Columbia, Haiti, Malawi)

and on and on. The list was shorter but I still had no idea where in the world we were being called.

In early December I attended the memorial service for a dear, dear family friend. After the service I found myself in conversation with a friend about her Ethiopian adoption and she encouraged me to look further into the Ethiopian program.

So I decided to use an online adoption search site to contact any and all agencies that work in Ethiopia and then waited.....

December 14 I answered the phone to hear "I'm sure since you used (previously mentioned) site to find me, you've been bombarded with phone calls and emails BUT....." and the best part; this agency was the ONLY one that I had heard from. As as the days passed any and all other agencies came with roadblocks: we weren't eligible to adopt w. this agency, they didn't have any adoption programs that met our desires, or we just plain never heard back from them and on and on. As I spoke w. this 1st agency I expressed our desires for this adoption, and what we could and couldn't do adoption wise, to which the program coordinator suggested U*GANDA! I had already crossed U*ganda off my list having seen the requirement of living in country for 3 years, but what I hadn't learned is that that is only ONE of the ways that a family can adopt from U*ganda!

There are children waiting. just waiting. for a family in U*ganda..... no referral waiting list, no long lines of people requesting such and such, just children who need moms and dads, WAITING.

U*ganda's national language is English, hello not needing to learn another language to get around! U*ganda's median age is FIFTEEN (yes, you read that right, the lowest in the world), FIFTEEN! U*ganda has 2.5 million orphans. U*ganda's dossier is simple (huge sign of relief after Guat and PGN)! If you're interested read more about U*ganda.

Our hearts were sold and still are, on U*ganda!

I'm baaaack!!!

it's about time, right?!? (sigh) where has the time gone?? I'll have to be better about making this blog a priority, but I'm not thinking that will be as hard now. that. I. have.....

NEWS!!!!

ok, ok, I'll stop being mean. But before our big news (which, btw, shouldn't be too hard for you to figure out) I should really do a post on what we've been up to the past, oh, TWO years :)

Well, my girls have gotten BIGGER...and cuter, for sure (is that possible?)

We went on a family vaca to Cancun - ummm, it rocked!!!

Did some remodeling on our new home (soooo fun!)

Turned another year older (3 and 1)!

Celebrated our 5 year anniversary (left our kiddos overnight, for the 1st time!)


Learned how to walk...


Got to be flower girls in their aunt and uncle's wedding!!
Went on another family vaca to FL!


Took gymnastics (too fun!)


Went to OH for the girls' uncle's graduation!
Turned another year older (4 and 2)!
Had our first dentist visit - no cavities!

Ohhhh, and got a HUGE binder in the mail titled......
We are growing our family again through the amazingness of adoption :) The girls cannot wait to be big sisters and welcome our sweet child home in God's perfect timing!!!

So, hey not bad for two years, right!?!
More to come... promise!