I just found this blog post (http://thecheerfulgiver.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/a-new-paradigm) and thought she did a wonderful job of explaining how and why people like us are adopting, and why we ask for help.
This is my favorite part: "...I would say, you are under no pressure to pay for someone else’s child. But if you stop to think about it, wouldn’t you like to help pay for Jesus’ child? For his children? Wouldn’t you like to join the behind-the-scenes army that, while not necessarily equipped to bring orphans into their own homes, have been equipped to help bring them into a permanent home, with a permanent family, where they will be raised with love and dignity, in the knowledge of the Lord? Because in reality, that’s the bottom line of what the adoption movement is all about."
We have been so thankful for the support of our friends and family!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Children's Sale Done!
Woo hoo, the Children's Sale is done!!!! Getting everything ready for the sale pretty much consumed every free minute over the past three weeks or so, and I am SO glad to be done with it. I ended up tagging well over 700 items!
This is what I ended up with (in case you can't tell, there are 12 tubs, 10 boxes, plus a huge pile of bigger items!):
I came home with 6 tubs full, along with the bath tub, Diaper Genie, and Kick and Crawl toy. Everything else sold, which I estimate to be about two-thirds of what I started with!! I won't find out the total made for a couple more weeks, but I am keeping my fingers crossed!
Boy, do I have some thank you's to hand out! First of all, I need to thank my fabulous, wonderful, unbelievably awesome friends Sarah and Shari. I was so worried about how I was going to unload and hang up/put away all of those items before the sale. I needn't have worried-I literally turned around and they had put almost all of it away. They also forced me to stop and eat dinner, lol! AND, as if that wasn't enough, they then helped me carry the leftovers out the next day. Thank you!! My best friend Jen listened to daily questions about how much I should price this or that item, and always gave great answers...thanks! I also need to thank everyone who scrounged up hangers to help me. This includes John and Kim Crawford, Kathie Solomon, Annie Siler, Amber Pio, Bonnie Parker, Shannon Dougherty, Sue Hennessy, Amanda Hennessy, Julie Shaver, and Jennifer Ochoada...I think I got everyone, but if I forgot you, please know how grateful I am! I am trying to keep a list of everyone who has helped us in any capacity on our journey, so that someday our baby girl will know just how loved she was before she ever got here! We are truly blessed with wonderful friends and family.
Next up for us is our garage sale. Our awesome church is allowing us to use their outdoor covered shelter, so we will hopefully be a go rain or shine. The date is set for October 9th, starting at 8 am. It will be located at Mt. Auburn United Methodist Church, which is at the intersection of SR 135 and Stones Crossing Road in Greenwood. So far the two car part of our garage is literally stuffed to the gills, and much more is coming in. If you have anything you would like to donate, please let me know and we will be more than happy to come get it! We would love to see all of you there!
This is what I ended up with (in case you can't tell, there are 12 tubs, 10 boxes, plus a huge pile of bigger items!):
I came home with 6 tubs full, along with the bath tub, Diaper Genie, and Kick and Crawl toy. Everything else sold, which I estimate to be about two-thirds of what I started with!! I won't find out the total made for a couple more weeks, but I am keeping my fingers crossed!
Boy, do I have some thank you's to hand out! First of all, I need to thank my fabulous, wonderful, unbelievably awesome friends Sarah and Shari. I was so worried about how I was going to unload and hang up/put away all of those items before the sale. I needn't have worried-I literally turned around and they had put almost all of it away. They also forced me to stop and eat dinner, lol! AND, as if that wasn't enough, they then helped me carry the leftovers out the next day. Thank you!! My best friend Jen listened to daily questions about how much I should price this or that item, and always gave great answers...thanks! I also need to thank everyone who scrounged up hangers to help me. This includes John and Kim Crawford, Kathie Solomon, Annie Siler, Amber Pio, Bonnie Parker, Shannon Dougherty, Sue Hennessy, Amanda Hennessy, Julie Shaver, and Jennifer Ochoada...I think I got everyone, but if I forgot you, please know how grateful I am! I am trying to keep a list of everyone who has helped us in any capacity on our journey, so that someday our baby girl will know just how loved she was before she ever got here! We are truly blessed with wonderful friends and family.
Next up for us is our garage sale. Our awesome church is allowing us to use their outdoor covered shelter, so we will hopefully be a go rain or shine. The date is set for October 9th, starting at 8 am. It will be located at Mt. Auburn United Methodist Church, which is at the intersection of SR 135 and Stones Crossing Road in Greenwood. So far the two car part of our garage is literally stuffed to the gills, and much more is coming in. If you have anything you would like to donate, please let me know and we will be more than happy to come get it! We would love to see all of you there!
Monday, September 13, 2010
Progress!
A quick update to say that there has been some progress around here in a few different areas...YAY!
First of all, Chad, Cooper, and I took a (not at all) fun-filled trip downtown on Friday while Griffin was at school. We got Chad's birth certificate, and both of us got fingerprinted and applied for criminal background checks. We traveled to 3 different government buildings, went through metal detectors 5 times, and Cooper got 2 lollipops from nice receptionists. Success all around! We also came home that day to find my birth certificate AND our marriage certificate in the mail-Woo Hoo! Several things I can check off of the humungous dossier checklist! Still so many left to do, but I'll take what I can get.
We also officially started our homestudy paperwork as well. First up is figuring out what states we've lived in since we were 18. This is trickier than it sounds! Chad had a college summer internship for 3 months in California-does that count? My parents moved to Texas while I was in college, and I never lived there, but my driver's license was from there for 2 years since that was my home residence-does that count? Confusing!! We are also working on the huge list of questions we each have to answer for our autobiography...sigh...
A different, but also important, type of progress has been made in getting ready for fundraisers. First of all, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who brought me hangers.
I was overwhelmed by the response, and I am happy to report that I got enough to hang everything! I even have some left over to get a headstart hanging some of the summer stuff I will try to sell in the spring. I've hung over 500 items of clothing (and this was just fall/winter stuff). This is what progress looks like around here:
Every item must be hung, and then a tag is written out and safety pinned on. This takes as long as it sounds. My back is permanently hunched over from doing tags for 3-4 hours a night, but it will all be worth it, I'm sure.
I know it sounds silly to be so excited over hangers, but I am so grateful to everyone who contributed. I am hoping to make a decent amount of money for the adoption from selling the boys' old clothes, and your hangers make this possible. Now keep your fingers crossed that people actually want to buy the clothes!
We are also starting to work on gathering things for the garage sale, and I hope to be able to announce very soon exactly where and when that will be, but we are still hammering out a few details.
Coming even sooner (maybe tomorrow!) are pictures of the dolls my mom is making to help raise some funds. I know I'm biased, but I think they came out super cute!
Have a wonderful night!!
First of all, Chad, Cooper, and I took a (not at all) fun-filled trip downtown on Friday while Griffin was at school. We got Chad's birth certificate, and both of us got fingerprinted and applied for criminal background checks. We traveled to 3 different government buildings, went through metal detectors 5 times, and Cooper got 2 lollipops from nice receptionists. Success all around! We also came home that day to find my birth certificate AND our marriage certificate in the mail-Woo Hoo! Several things I can check off of the humungous dossier checklist! Still so many left to do, but I'll take what I can get.
We also officially started our homestudy paperwork as well. First up is figuring out what states we've lived in since we were 18. This is trickier than it sounds! Chad had a college summer internship for 3 months in California-does that count? My parents moved to Texas while I was in college, and I never lived there, but my driver's license was from there for 2 years since that was my home residence-does that count? Confusing!! We are also working on the huge list of questions we each have to answer for our autobiography...sigh...
A different, but also important, type of progress has been made in getting ready for fundraisers. First of all, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who brought me hangers.
I was overwhelmed by the response, and I am happy to report that I got enough to hang everything! I even have some left over to get a headstart hanging some of the summer stuff I will try to sell in the spring. I've hung over 500 items of clothing (and this was just fall/winter stuff). This is what progress looks like around here:
Every item must be hung, and then a tag is written out and safety pinned on. This takes as long as it sounds. My back is permanently hunched over from doing tags for 3-4 hours a night, but it will all be worth it, I'm sure.
I know it sounds silly to be so excited over hangers, but I am so grateful to everyone who contributed. I am hoping to make a decent amount of money for the adoption from selling the boys' old clothes, and your hangers make this possible. Now keep your fingers crossed that people actually want to buy the clothes!
We are also starting to work on gathering things for the garage sale, and I hope to be able to announce very soon exactly where and when that will be, but we are still hammering out a few details.
Coming even sooner (maybe tomorrow!) are pictures of the dolls my mom is making to help raise some funds. I know I'm biased, but I think they came out super cute!
Have a wonderful night!!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Random...
I thought I would take a break from begging for hangers, garage sale donations, and recipes to mention some random things.
Today is my birthday!! I am 33, and let me tell you, for whatever reason, 33 feels a lot older than 32. I have a hunch I'm going to say this every year from now on, huh? This weekend my best friend Jen and I had a girls day out to celebrate. We had gotten gift certificates for a spa for Mother's Day, so we finally used those. We also went window shopping, and I just walked around oohing and ahhing over all the adorable girl clothes and accessories. So much fun! We celebrated yesterday at the lake with cake and family. This year I asked for cash toward our adoption fund, which isn't a whole lot of fun to open, but very necessary. Why so necessary, you ask? Well...
We sent in our signed and notarized adoption contract on Friday! Woo Hoo! This also means we sent in our first part of our agency fee, which was $2,100. Ouch. We would pay a million times that to get our baby girl home, but it's still not fun writing the check. We also decided on the agency who will do our homestudy (a huge bunch of papers documenting our life, and a social worker meets with us to make sure we're not too weird), and formally applied with them.
Next up is getting all the info on what we need for our dossier (a huge, huge bunch of papers documenting our life, and including our homestudy) and starting the actual homestudy process. The homestudy agency sent us a list of questions to fill out for autobiographies we will write about ourselves, and we've actually had a lot of fun discussing our answers over the last few days. There are well over 50 questions on everything from childhood, family relations and our current kids to adoption and our future child. Whew!
And lastly, I thought I would post a couple of pictures of my sweet baby boys on here. Since this blog is focused a little more on the baby girl still to come, I have not talked about them as much, but we are having a blast getting into the swing of things as the school year really gets underway. Here they both are on their first days of school, respectively:
Today is my birthday!! I am 33, and let me tell you, for whatever reason, 33 feels a lot older than 32. I have a hunch I'm going to say this every year from now on, huh? This weekend my best friend Jen and I had a girls day out to celebrate. We had gotten gift certificates for a spa for Mother's Day, so we finally used those. We also went window shopping, and I just walked around oohing and ahhing over all the adorable girl clothes and accessories. So much fun! We celebrated yesterday at the lake with cake and family. This year I asked for cash toward our adoption fund, which isn't a whole lot of fun to open, but very necessary. Why so necessary, you ask? Well...
We sent in our signed and notarized adoption contract on Friday! Woo Hoo! This also means we sent in our first part of our agency fee, which was $2,100. Ouch. We would pay a million times that to get our baby girl home, but it's still not fun writing the check. We also decided on the agency who will do our homestudy (a huge bunch of papers documenting our life, and a social worker meets with us to make sure we're not too weird), and formally applied with them.
Next up is getting all the info on what we need for our dossier (a huge, huge bunch of papers documenting our life, and including our homestudy) and starting the actual homestudy process. The homestudy agency sent us a list of questions to fill out for autobiographies we will write about ourselves, and we've actually had a lot of fun discussing our answers over the last few days. There are well over 50 questions on everything from childhood, family relations and our current kids to adoption and our future child. Whew!
And lastly, I thought I would post a couple of pictures of my sweet baby boys on here. Since this blog is focused a little more on the baby girl still to come, I have not talked about them as much, but we are having a blast getting into the swing of things as the school year really gets underway. Here they both are on their first days of school, respectively:
Sunday, September 5, 2010
I Need Recipes (and hangers)!
The response to my previous post asking for help has been overwhelming to me. I knew we had supportive friends and family, but the way so many of you have jumped to offer donations of items for the garage sale and recipes for the cookbook has been wonderful. And what has amazed me more than anything are the people I barely know who have offered to help. Thank you!
I need recipes. I am hoping to have around 175 yummy recipes for the cookbook, and although I like to cook and eat, I don't know that I've got quite that many! I am looking for all kinds (and let me know if there is a category I am missing):
*appetizers
*entrees
*side dishes
*desserts
*breakfast items
*breads and rolls
*holiday items
*kid favorites
*and I would like to do a small section of Ethiopian recipes to tie the book into our cause, so if anyone (other adoptive moms?) has some of these, that'd be great!
If you have recipes you would be willing to share, please e-mail them to me at janasolomon@hotmail.com sometime soon. I am realizing that this is going to take longer than I was thinking to put together, so I'd like to get started soon. I am hoping to have them put together and ready to sell by mid-November, at which point I will start discussing how to pre-order your very own copy (perhaps complete with your own recipe! Who doesn't want to be famous?).
And finally, this is my last desperate plea for hangers. The Children's Sale is September 18th, and I have hundreds and hundreds of items to sell-this is a major way I am hoping to raise some money quickly. They all must be on hangers (any kind-kids, adult, plastic, wire, ANY kind will work), and I just do not have even a fraction of what I need. So if you have any, even 5-10, I would be so grateful to get them. I need them ASAP, as I have to sort, hang, and price every item, and it is very time-consuming with that many items. I will be happy to come and get them. If you know of any places that typically toss hangers, please let me know that too!
Thank you, everyone, for wanting to help us. In the next couple of days, I will have official details about our garage sale (we are thinking early October), as well as pictures and prices for dolls.
I need recipes. I am hoping to have around 175 yummy recipes for the cookbook, and although I like to cook and eat, I don't know that I've got quite that many! I am looking for all kinds (and let me know if there is a category I am missing):
*appetizers
*entrees
*side dishes
*desserts
*breakfast items
*breads and rolls
*holiday items
*kid favorites
*and I would like to do a small section of Ethiopian recipes to tie the book into our cause, so if anyone (other adoptive moms?) has some of these, that'd be great!
If you have recipes you would be willing to share, please e-mail them to me at janasolomon@hotmail.com sometime soon. I am realizing that this is going to take longer than I was thinking to put together, so I'd like to get started soon. I am hoping to have them put together and ready to sell by mid-November, at which point I will start discussing how to pre-order your very own copy (perhaps complete with your own recipe! Who doesn't want to be famous?).
And finally, this is my last desperate plea for hangers. The Children's Sale is September 18th, and I have hundreds and hundreds of items to sell-this is a major way I am hoping to raise some money quickly. They all must be on hangers (any kind-kids, adult, plastic, wire, ANY kind will work), and I just do not have even a fraction of what I need. So if you have any, even 5-10, I would be so grateful to get them. I need them ASAP, as I have to sort, hang, and price every item, and it is very time-consuming with that many items. I will be happy to come and get them. If you know of any places that typically toss hangers, please let me know that too!
Thank you, everyone, for wanting to help us. In the next couple of days, I will have official details about our garage sale (we are thinking early October), as well as pictures and prices for dolls.
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