Tuesday we made a trip downtown to the USCIS office in an attempt to get our fingerprints done early. I was a little nervous about whether they would let us do them almost a full week ahead of time, but luckily they could not have cared less when our appointment was for, so long as we had one sometime. Yay!! We had to bring both of the boys with us, but they thought it was pretty cool to get wanded with the metal detector and watch our fingerprints show up on the screen. I am fully expecting them to say that my prints are no good. They spray something on your fingers, then press them onto a panel hooked up to a computer. The computer tells them whether the print is clear enough on each finger, and if not, they need to redo it. Well, Chad had to have one finger redone. I think all told I had about 12 redos (and yes, I realize that's more than my number of fingers...some had to be redone several times)!! I'm thinking if I ever need to begin a life of crime, this lack of clear prints may serve me well :) Now we wait for that magic I-171H form that will allow us to bring our babe into the country, hopefully in the not super distant future.
As for our dossier, I *believe* that it is officially in Ethiopia!! We had to set up a Fed Ex account to pay for the shipping as it made its way around the country, and it's been fun to try to follow its path through the charges. On Dec. 21st, we had a charge for $154, which I am pretty darn sure is our big one to send it to Ethiopia...yay!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Fingerprint Appointments...Yay!
I was thrilled to open our mailbox on Saturday and see two envelopes from the Department of Homeland Security...we have our fingerprint appointments! If you remember from my previous post, we sent off our I-600A form, asking for permission to bring an orphan into the country. To do that, we need an I-171H form, and to get THAT, we have to get biometric fingerprints taken by the FBI.
We are scheduled for January 3rd at noon. That time is kind of tricky with Chad's work schedule, and I swear I have heard of people just walking in sometime once they have an appt. scheduled, so I am trying to find out if we can sneak in earlier when Chad is off (like maybe Wednesday?). If anyone knows of someone who has done this, would you let me know?
In dossier news, it is still making its way around the country, though I think it's on the last step and just about ready to head to Ethiopia!!! We are starting to think of the fun stuff now, like a name. We have a few top contenders, but can't decide for sure. Lucky for us we still have some time!
We are scheduled for January 3rd at noon. That time is kind of tricky with Chad's work schedule, and I swear I have heard of people just walking in sometime once they have an appt. scheduled, so I am trying to find out if we can sneak in earlier when Chad is off (like maybe Wednesday?). If anyone knows of someone who has done this, would you let me know?
In dossier news, it is still making its way around the country, though I think it's on the last step and just about ready to head to Ethiopia!!! We are starting to think of the fun stuff now, like a name. We have a few top contenders, but can't decide for sure. Lucky for us we still have some time!
Monday, December 6, 2010
Belated Update
I know it's been weeks since I've updated, and I apologize to anyone who is actually following along with us! Life has just been so busy lately! My husband Chad and my older son Griffin share a birthday, so mid-November was spent getting ready for Griffin's "friends" party at Chuck E. Cheese and our family party for both of them here at home. Then Thanksgiving (and Black Friday!) came right behind that, and as soon as that was over we started Christmas season preparations and festivities...life has been wonderfully, blessedly, full.
Can you guess what we were most thankful for this Thanksgiving? If you are friends with me on facebook, you already may have seen this, but if not...we submitted our dossier on November 23rd!!!! Here's the details: we were trying like crazy to get our homestudy done by Monday, November 22nd. In order to internationally adopt, you not only must go to court to adopt them, you must also get the approval of the US government to bring an orphaned child into the country. To do that, you submit an I-600a form, and to submit it, you need a completed homestudy. Prior to 11/23, this form cost $830 (yep, you read that right!) to submit. After 11/23, the price went up by $60. Now I realize $60 is just a drop in the very large, very deep adoption-cost bucket, but still, we were hoping to save it if we could! However, we had to wait on background checks to come back, as well as Griffin's physical, AND we were finishing up our required training. Odds were not good, but we lucked out (and had an awesome social worker who worked very diligently to help us) and got our homestudy done on time! Believe it or not, I picked it up at their office on Monday, November 22nd at 2 pm, took it straight to the post office, and got it postmarked on literally the LAST day before the fee increase! Whew!
And the best part was that the homestudy was the last thing we were waiting on to submit our dossier! So as soon as I dropped Cooper off at preschool Tuesday morning, I made a trip to my local FedEx/Kinko's and copied off the huge stack of papers (aka the last 3 months of my life) that comprised our dossier! I have seen so many people take awesome photos of them handing their dossier over to the clerk, but he was not really very nice and I was pretty sure he would have scoffed at having his picture taken by the crazy lady with a camera, so I resisted the urge! Our dossier was officially sent off to our agency on Tuesday, November 23rd, just two days before Thanksgiving. You better believe that was what I was feeling most blessed by on Thanksgiving day!
Our dossier is currently making its way around the country getting authentications and other stuff that I have no idea what they mean, but I know they get us closer to our baby girl...so I don't really care! We got our receipt letter from USCIS (where we sent that super expensive immigration form) and soon we will get appointments to get biometric fingerprints taken. Once those are done, we will get our official approval to bring an orphan into the country...this is called our I-171H. Some agencies make you wait for this form to submit your dossier, some don't. Ours did not-we just need it to get our babe into the country.
It's a weird, yet good, feeling to be at this point in the process. As a control freak, even though acquiring all the documents and paperwork for the dossier was often a pain, I liked having something to do. With every checkmark I made on our list, I knew we were a little closer. Now, we aren't in control at all. Our part is temporarily done. I'm thrilled to be a huge step closer to bringing her home, but I don't like not having any say in how the rest of this goes. We are enjoying our last months as a family of four-I am very hopeful that this will be our last Christmas without her here, and luckily the Christmas season keeps us plenty busy, so we aren't getting too impatient yet!
Thank you to all who were praying for us and keeping fingers crossed for us as we waited on things to come together over the past few weeks. We are so excited to say that now...we are officially waiting!!!
Can you guess what we were most thankful for this Thanksgiving? If you are friends with me on facebook, you already may have seen this, but if not...we submitted our dossier on November 23rd!!!! Here's the details: we were trying like crazy to get our homestudy done by Monday, November 22nd. In order to internationally adopt, you not only must go to court to adopt them, you must also get the approval of the US government to bring an orphaned child into the country. To do that, you submit an I-600a form, and to submit it, you need a completed homestudy. Prior to 11/23, this form cost $830 (yep, you read that right!) to submit. After 11/23, the price went up by $60. Now I realize $60 is just a drop in the very large, very deep adoption-cost bucket, but still, we were hoping to save it if we could! However, we had to wait on background checks to come back, as well as Griffin's physical, AND we were finishing up our required training. Odds were not good, but we lucked out (and had an awesome social worker who worked very diligently to help us) and got our homestudy done on time! Believe it or not, I picked it up at their office on Monday, November 22nd at 2 pm, took it straight to the post office, and got it postmarked on literally the LAST day before the fee increase! Whew!
And the best part was that the homestudy was the last thing we were waiting on to submit our dossier! So as soon as I dropped Cooper off at preschool Tuesday morning, I made a trip to my local FedEx/Kinko's and copied off the huge stack of papers (aka the last 3 months of my life) that comprised our dossier! I have seen so many people take awesome photos of them handing their dossier over to the clerk, but he was not really very nice and I was pretty sure he would have scoffed at having his picture taken by the crazy lady with a camera, so I resisted the urge! Our dossier was officially sent off to our agency on Tuesday, November 23rd, just two days before Thanksgiving. You better believe that was what I was feeling most blessed by on Thanksgiving day!
Our dossier is currently making its way around the country getting authentications and other stuff that I have no idea what they mean, but I know they get us closer to our baby girl...so I don't really care! We got our receipt letter from USCIS (where we sent that super expensive immigration form) and soon we will get appointments to get biometric fingerprints taken. Once those are done, we will get our official approval to bring an orphan into the country...this is called our I-171H. Some agencies make you wait for this form to submit your dossier, some don't. Ours did not-we just need it to get our babe into the country.
It's a weird, yet good, feeling to be at this point in the process. As a control freak, even though acquiring all the documents and paperwork for the dossier was often a pain, I liked having something to do. With every checkmark I made on our list, I knew we were a little closer. Now, we aren't in control at all. Our part is temporarily done. I'm thrilled to be a huge step closer to bringing her home, but I don't like not having any say in how the rest of this goes. We are enjoying our last months as a family of four-I am very hopeful that this will be our last Christmas without her here, and luckily the Christmas season keeps us plenty busy, so we aren't getting too impatient yet!
Thank you to all who were praying for us and keeping fingers crossed for us as we waited on things to come together over the past few weeks. We are so excited to say that now...we are officially waiting!!!
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Here's the latest...
So, our big news is that we are ALL DONE meeting with our social worker for our homestudy. Woo Hoo!! Not that she's not a nice lady, and we haven't learned a lot from our talks, but we've spent 10 emotionally exhausting hours over the past month talking with her, and we are both glad to be done. We met with her three times, twice at our homestudy agency's office and then last night at our house.
I have read tons of blogs describing their home visit, and the one thing I got from all of them was that the family freaked out about the home tour, cleaning excessively, etc. only to find out it wasn't a big deal at all. You would think with that knowledge I would have learned something, but nope, I cleaned excessively and freaked out anyway! And of course, I also learned that it was totally not necessary. The boys took her on a speedy tour of the house, where she stepped into each room briefly. Deep cleaning not required, although on the upside, my house looks awesome today! We finished up all of the things she is required to talk to us about, and then we asked her some more questions. Mostly our questions relate to transracial adoption and how we can best raise an African-American daughter to have a strong identity and be proud of her race and culture, and our social worker has been a wonderful resource for these questions.
I wish I could say that we are all done with our home study, but we aren't quite there. Here's what we are waiting on:
1) Chad's CPS (Child Protective Services) check for Marion County. We needed these for everywhere we've lived from age 18 on. We've received them back from 5 other counties or states; only this one remains. It is the last document we are waiting on, other than
2) Griffin's physical. Because of where his birthday falls, we have to wait for his 6 year well child visit to use this physical, or the date from last year's will be too old. So this is scheduled for 11/18. If Marion County gets a move on and returns Chad's check, then we'll move this one up.
3) We are finishing up our education requirements. We each had to read 3 books about adoption. I'm 50 pages away from being done with my third, and Chad is almost done with his second, but still has one more to go. I'm trying to encourage some speed reading! :)
And then we will really be all done! We need our completed home study to send off a form asking for permission to bring an orphan into the country (we send off an I-600A, and get back an I-171H once we have gotten permission, in case you are keeping track). The fee for this form goes up on November 23rd, so we really hoped to get it submitted before that, but the odds aren't looking too great at this point. If you're reading this and are the praying type, we would love some prayers for documents to be returned quickly, and for us to get this done as quickly as possible. Once our home study is done, we have almost everything else ready for our dossier (this is the BIG packet of papers that gets sent to Ethiopia), and then once that's sent, we'll officially be WAITING!
I have read tons of blogs describing their home visit, and the one thing I got from all of them was that the family freaked out about the home tour, cleaning excessively, etc. only to find out it wasn't a big deal at all. You would think with that knowledge I would have learned something, but nope, I cleaned excessively and freaked out anyway! And of course, I also learned that it was totally not necessary. The boys took her on a speedy tour of the house, where she stepped into each room briefly. Deep cleaning not required, although on the upside, my house looks awesome today! We finished up all of the things she is required to talk to us about, and then we asked her some more questions. Mostly our questions relate to transracial adoption and how we can best raise an African-American daughter to have a strong identity and be proud of her race and culture, and our social worker has been a wonderful resource for these questions.
I wish I could say that we are all done with our home study, but we aren't quite there. Here's what we are waiting on:
1) Chad's CPS (Child Protective Services) check for Marion County. We needed these for everywhere we've lived from age 18 on. We've received them back from 5 other counties or states; only this one remains. It is the last document we are waiting on, other than
2) Griffin's physical. Because of where his birthday falls, we have to wait for his 6 year well child visit to use this physical, or the date from last year's will be too old. So this is scheduled for 11/18. If Marion County gets a move on and returns Chad's check, then we'll move this one up.
3) We are finishing up our education requirements. We each had to read 3 books about adoption. I'm 50 pages away from being done with my third, and Chad is almost done with his second, but still has one more to go. I'm trying to encourage some speed reading! :)
And then we will really be all done! We need our completed home study to send off a form asking for permission to bring an orphan into the country (we send off an I-600A, and get back an I-171H once we have gotten permission, in case you are keeping track). The fee for this form goes up on November 23rd, so we really hoped to get it submitted before that, but the odds aren't looking too great at this point. If you're reading this and are the praying type, we would love some prayers for documents to be returned quickly, and for us to get this done as quickly as possible. Once our home study is done, we have almost everything else ready for our dossier (this is the BIG packet of papers that gets sent to Ethiopia), and then once that's sent, we'll officially be WAITING!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Never miss a post again!!
Look, over there --------------->>>>
Yeah, I'm sure that's something that's been worrying you to death..."I want to go out tonight, but Jana might update their adoption blog and I won't know!" Fear not, loyal readers (all 3 or 4 of you). Now you can subscribe via e-mail to get notification when I update. I follow a few blogs that offer this, and I love it. Otherwise I obsessively check everyday. Yeah, I didn't say I'm proud to be a freak, I'm just acknowledging a fact.
So...go there and fill out the form. Then rest easy knowing you will be as up to date as can be. Whew, crisis averted!
Yeah, I'm sure that's something that's been worrying you to death..."I want to go out tonight, but Jana might update their adoption blog and I won't know!" Fear not, loyal readers (all 3 or 4 of you). Now you can subscribe via e-mail to get notification when I update. I follow a few blogs that offer this, and I love it. Otherwise I obsessively check everyday. Yeah, I didn't say I'm proud to be a freak, I'm just acknowledging a fact.
So...go there and fill out the form. Then rest easy knowing you will be as up to date as can be. Whew, crisis averted!
Monday, November 1, 2010
Getting Closer!
I knew going into the adoption process that there was a ton of paperwork, red tape, and hoops to jump through just to get to the really hard part...waiting for our referral. And there really has been! I love to research and love to make a checklist and cross things off (sometimes if I do something that should have been on my list but wasn't, I'll add it on just so I can cross it off. Is that sick?), so luckily it hasn't been too bad.
We are working on our dossier. This is a huge stack of all kinds of documents which gets sent to Ethiopia. It includes our birth certificates, marriage certificate, employment letter, proof of health and life insurance, a letter from our bank, criminal background checks, a financial statement, physicals, and a whole bunch more. Part of what goes into our dossier is our homestudy. Our homestudy consists of meeting with a social worker/adoption specialist 3 times (once at our house where they check it out), doing a bunch of education, and gathering yet more paperwork (most of the stuff listed above, only slightly different, so you have to get it twice!). We are currently super close to being done with our homestudy...yay!!
We've met with our social worker twice so far. The first meeting was 3 hours long, and our second meeting was 4 hours. Wow, we were wiped out after those! This Monday she comes to our house. She'll meet the boys, walk through the house, see where the baby will sleep, and check to make sure things are safe. Then we'll meet for a couple more hours and wrap up all of our talking. These meetings have been really good at getting us to think about things we might not have otherwise, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to be happy to be done. We each have to read 3 books about adoption as well, and so far I've read 2 1/2 and Chad's read 1 1/2. And, just today, we finished the 8 hour online training our homestudy agency requires. We were so happy to cross that off the list!!!
I think our homestudy will be done right around Thanksgiving. We're waiting on a few background checks to come back from other states, and Griffin needs a physical done so we're doing that at his 6 year well check. As soon as our homestudy is done, we should be about ready to send off our dossier! We're getting closer, baby girl, we're getting closer!
We are working on our dossier. This is a huge stack of all kinds of documents which gets sent to Ethiopia. It includes our birth certificates, marriage certificate, employment letter, proof of health and life insurance, a letter from our bank, criminal background checks, a financial statement, physicals, and a whole bunch more. Part of what goes into our dossier is our homestudy. Our homestudy consists of meeting with a social worker/adoption specialist 3 times (once at our house where they check it out), doing a bunch of education, and gathering yet more paperwork (most of the stuff listed above, only slightly different, so you have to get it twice!). We are currently super close to being done with our homestudy...yay!!
We've met with our social worker twice so far. The first meeting was 3 hours long, and our second meeting was 4 hours. Wow, we were wiped out after those! This Monday she comes to our house. She'll meet the boys, walk through the house, see where the baby will sleep, and check to make sure things are safe. Then we'll meet for a couple more hours and wrap up all of our talking. These meetings have been really good at getting us to think about things we might not have otherwise, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to be happy to be done. We each have to read 3 books about adoption as well, and so far I've read 2 1/2 and Chad's read 1 1/2. And, just today, we finished the 8 hour online training our homestudy agency requires. We were so happy to cross that off the list!!!
I think our homestudy will be done right around Thanksgiving. We're waiting on a few background checks to come back from other states, and Griffin needs a physical done so we're doing that at his 6 year well check. As soon as our homestudy is done, we should be about ready to send off our dossier! We're getting closer, baby girl, we're getting closer!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
One last time!
We were so amazed by the results of our fundraiser sale. I'd estimate that we sold at least half of what we started with, but we still had tons of stuff left. So we decided to do a sale one more day, this time at our house.
We picked Thursday, the 21st. Luckily Chad was off in the morning and Chad's mom Sue was willing to watch both boys in the afternoone while he was working. We took a few hours the night before to get some of the big things out and put up our signs, and then got up bright and early Thursday morning to set up the rest. Honestly, we had a hard time getting motivated this time. Even when dealing with one household's "stuff," garage sales are hard work! Try having a sale with 40 households' "stuff"! (Not that we weren't extremely grateful for everyone's donations, of course!!!)
We had decided to get rid of the big items anyway we could, so we put low price stickers on them and told people to make us offers. This worked, and we sold almost every large piece of furniture left. We also sold quite a bit of the odds and ends left. All told, we made another $470 in just that one day!!
A wonderfully sweet woman at our church baked us some cranberry oat scones (she told us they were for us to eat or sell, whatever was easier on us...how sweet is that?), so Griffin manned a table to sell those for us.
When you add that to our big sale, and the Children's Sale check I finally got (remember the sale I needed all the hangers for?), and some other items I sold on Craigslist, we've made over $4,100 for our adoption fund!!! We could not be happier! (and we got our garage back!)
We picked Thursday, the 21st. Luckily Chad was off in the morning and Chad's mom Sue was willing to watch both boys in the afternoone while he was working. We took a few hours the night before to get some of the big things out and put up our signs, and then got up bright and early Thursday morning to set up the rest. Honestly, we had a hard time getting motivated this time. Even when dealing with one household's "stuff," garage sales are hard work! Try having a sale with 40 households' "stuff"! (Not that we weren't extremely grateful for everyone's donations, of course!!!)
We had decided to get rid of the big items anyway we could, so we put low price stickers on them and told people to make us offers. This worked, and we sold almost every large piece of furniture left. We also sold quite a bit of the odds and ends left. All told, we made another $470 in just that one day!!
A wonderfully sweet woman at our church baked us some cranberry oat scones (she told us they were for us to eat or sell, whatever was easier on us...how sweet is that?), so Griffin manned a table to sell those for us.
When you add that to our big sale, and the Children's Sale check I finally got (remember the sale I needed all the hangers for?), and some other items I sold on Craigslist, we've made over $4,100 for our adoption fund!!! We could not be happier! (and we got our garage back!)
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Sale Results!
First, let me say a huge thank you to everyone who supported us and our adoption by stopping by, telling their friends, and donating items. We absolutely could not have done it without all of you, and we are so grateful for the support! I have more specific thank you's, but I'll get to those in a little bit.
First of all, the total amount made! We made...
over $2,500!! We were so thrilled with that, and it felt like all of our hard work was totally worth it.
We have been sorting, pricing, and organizing the items for over a month now. Poor Chad made roughly 1,238 trips to pick things up, and I spent about that many hours going through everything once it got to our house. We were blessed with donations from friends, our parents, neighbors, church family, and complete and total strangers-definitely what amazed me the most. One couple, whom we had never met before in our lives, gave us all of the leftovers from a sale they had, including a complete darkroom set-up and several pieces of furniture. We made several hundred dollars just from their items.
We received SO many donations. Two weeks before the sale, our 3 car garage was completely full, so we started bringing it all inside the house. Pretty soon, our entryway, dining room, and family room were stuffed to the gills with clothing, furniture, and electronics. I took video...it's pretty funny! Our house totally looked like an episode of "Hoarders!" We started separating out things we thought might just need to go to Goodwill, and stuck all of that on our front porch...I'm sure our neighbors just loved us. Super classy!
Friday we started at 9 am, loading up vehicles to haul it all over to the church shelter. We were so lucky that several wonderful people volunteered to help us move it over. Ben, Mel, Sarah, and Marilyn...THANK YOU!! I think it took 15-16 truck/carloads to get it over there (next time we would rent a truck!). Most of our helpers left, but Sarah stayed the entire day and helped me set up. This was an enormous task, and I could not have done it without her. My mom and dad also helped by entertaining Cooper most of the day. Once Chad's mom took Cooper and got Griffin from the bus (they took them for the whole weekend...thanks Mike and Sue!), my mom headed straight to the sale and helped there. Again, could not have done it without her! We were pretty much set up by 5 pm, which was good timing since we had opened the sale up from 5-8 pm that night.
People started showing up a little before 5, and we stayed very busy right until 8. At the end of the night we had made $750, and I started having hope that maybe the sale would be worth all the time and effort! Chad stayed overnight since everything was sitting outside-poor thing, he did NOT get much sleep!
The next morning we were set to open at 8, and by 8:30 only one or two people had come. I started to get very panicky that the night before had been the majority of people coming, and just as I was about to throw up, people began to arrive in droves! Whew! From 9 until 4, there were almost always 5-10 people shopping at any given moment. This is what things looked like around 10 am...
Chad tried to convince me that setting up the XBox and TV we were trying to sell would prove to everyone that they worked. I'm pretty sure he just wanted to play video games!
We decided to hold a bake sale, and three wonderful friends baked delicious treats for us. Annie, Jen, and Sarah (yes, the same Sarah who also helped set up for the entire day before)...you guys rock!! We made $50-60 just from the bake sale. One of my favorite moments from the whole day was a gruff, burly man who picked 6-7 baked goods (they were $.50 each), handed me a $10 bill, and told me to keep it. I thanked him and asked if he was going to eat them all now (jokingly). He replied, "Oh, I'm diabetic, so I can't, but my aunt's in town so I'm going to bring her some treats." What a nice man! Another lady bought two kids' coats, and told me she was donating them to a coat drive...what a great way to help two causes at once!
By 4 pm we were ready to be done! We began to pack things up and transport them back our house. My wonderful mother (who had been there all day, again!) helped me, and Chad and my awesome dad made trips to the house. We sold at least half of what we started with, but still had tons of trips back. At least this time everything fit back in the garage, and I finally got my house back-yay! We were done at 10 pm, and not a moment too soon...I think Chad and I were ready to fall asleep standing up!
I was just so blown away by everything about the sale. I kept reading in other blogs, when they were describing fundraisers, how God "blessed their socks off," and that is exactly how I felt.
First of all, the total amount made! We made...
over $2,500!! We were so thrilled with that, and it felt like all of our hard work was totally worth it.
We have been sorting, pricing, and organizing the items for over a month now. Poor Chad made roughly 1,238 trips to pick things up, and I spent about that many hours going through everything once it got to our house. We were blessed with donations from friends, our parents, neighbors, church family, and complete and total strangers-definitely what amazed me the most. One couple, whom we had never met before in our lives, gave us all of the leftovers from a sale they had, including a complete darkroom set-up and several pieces of furniture. We made several hundred dollars just from their items.
We received SO many donations. Two weeks before the sale, our 3 car garage was completely full, so we started bringing it all inside the house. Pretty soon, our entryway, dining room, and family room were stuffed to the gills with clothing, furniture, and electronics. I took video...it's pretty funny! Our house totally looked like an episode of "Hoarders!" We started separating out things we thought might just need to go to Goodwill, and stuck all of that on our front porch...I'm sure our neighbors just loved us. Super classy!
Friday we started at 9 am, loading up vehicles to haul it all over to the church shelter. We were so lucky that several wonderful people volunteered to help us move it over. Ben, Mel, Sarah, and Marilyn...THANK YOU!! I think it took 15-16 truck/carloads to get it over there (next time we would rent a truck!). Most of our helpers left, but Sarah stayed the entire day and helped me set up. This was an enormous task, and I could not have done it without her. My mom and dad also helped by entertaining Cooper most of the day. Once Chad's mom took Cooper and got Griffin from the bus (they took them for the whole weekend...thanks Mike and Sue!), my mom headed straight to the sale and helped there. Again, could not have done it without her! We were pretty much set up by 5 pm, which was good timing since we had opened the sale up from 5-8 pm that night.
People started showing up a little before 5, and we stayed very busy right until 8. At the end of the night we had made $750, and I started having hope that maybe the sale would be worth all the time and effort! Chad stayed overnight since everything was sitting outside-poor thing, he did NOT get much sleep!
The next morning we were set to open at 8, and by 8:30 only one or two people had come. I started to get very panicky that the night before had been the majority of people coming, and just as I was about to throw up, people began to arrive in droves! Whew! From 9 until 4, there were almost always 5-10 people shopping at any given moment. This is what things looked like around 10 am...
Chad tried to convince me that setting up the XBox and TV we were trying to sell would prove to everyone that they worked. I'm pretty sure he just wanted to play video games!
We decided to hold a bake sale, and three wonderful friends baked delicious treats for us. Annie, Jen, and Sarah (yes, the same Sarah who also helped set up for the entire day before)...you guys rock!! We made $50-60 just from the bake sale. One of my favorite moments from the whole day was a gruff, burly man who picked 6-7 baked goods (they were $.50 each), handed me a $10 bill, and told me to keep it. I thanked him and asked if he was going to eat them all now (jokingly). He replied, "Oh, I'm diabetic, so I can't, but my aunt's in town so I'm going to bring her some treats." What a nice man! Another lady bought two kids' coats, and told me she was donating them to a coat drive...what a great way to help two causes at once!
By 4 pm we were ready to be done! We began to pack things up and transport them back our house. My wonderful mother (who had been there all day, again!) helped me, and Chad and my awesome dad made trips to the house. We sold at least half of what we started with, but still had tons of trips back. At least this time everything fit back in the garage, and I finally got my house back-yay! We were done at 10 pm, and not a moment too soon...I think Chad and I were ready to fall asleep standing up!
I was just so blown away by everything about the sale. I kept reading in other blogs, when they were describing fundraisers, how God "blessed their socks off," and that is exactly how I felt.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
I love this song!!!
Much to come on the garage sale, maybe later today, but first I MUST share this song with you. I found it this morning on another adoption blog I read(http://flipflopsandlipgloss.blogspot.com/) and completely fell in love with it. If I could tell my daughter anything right now, it would be what these lyrics say:
"I’ll find a way to get you here
If it takes my fleeting breath
Another sunrise hits the ground
And it’s a dark lonely sight
Lightyears away I hope you know
There is somebody searching
For the way to get you here
I will get you here"
We are trying, baby girl...we are coming, I promise!!
The song is called "Amos Story" by Aaron Ivey, who has four children, three of whom are adopted. This was written for his newest child, whom they struggled to get home from Haiti after the earthquake earlier this year. Check it out-it is beautiful!
"I’ll find a way to get you here
If it takes my fleeting breath
Another sunrise hits the ground
And it’s a dark lonely sight
Lightyears away I hope you know
There is somebody searching
For the way to get you here
I will get you here"
We are trying, baby girl...we are coming, I promise!!
The song is called "Amos Story" by Aaron Ivey, who has four children, three of whom are adopted. This was written for his newest child, whom they struggled to get home from Haiti after the earthquake earlier this year. Check it out-it is beautiful!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
It's almost here!
Tomorrow is the big day, as we get set for the garage sale and have a few hours of preview shopping. This is the text of the post I have written for Craigslist (but I'm not posting it there until tomorrow morning). Tell me you don't want to shop!
We can’t even begin to tell you how big this sale is!! We’re adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia, and every penny raised will help with adoption expenses. Over 40 families have donated items, and we have thousands of really great things…no junk!!!
Tonight from 5 pm-8 pm, and tomorrow from 8 am-4 pm
Come find us at Mt. Auburn United Methodist Church’s outdoor shelter, 3100 Stones Crossing Road. The church is just west of SR 135. See map below for more detail!
Specifics:
Kid stuff…boy and girl clothes from newborn-size 14/16-lots of great brands like Gap, Gymboree, Justice, etc.-most items are $1. Also several winter coats/boots/snowpants, and Halloween costumes. Tons of toys and other gear as well!
Baby stuff…two cribs, two high chairs, two single strollers and one double stroller, tons of baby gates, infant car seat and convertible car seat, blankets, baby toys, and much, much more!
Adult clothes…we weeded through and got rid of everything outdated-what‘s left is awesome! Tons of great brands like Gap, Columbia, DressBarn, Dockers, Carhartt, Harley Davidson…every item is either $1 or $2...great deals!!!
Furniture…computer desk, end tables, coffee tables, console table, desk, kitchen table, nightstand, bar stools, and more
Electronics…TVs, including a Sony Trinitron, shelf stereo, all in one printers, nice phone systems, and more
Scrapbooking/Stamping…tons of Stampin Up sets (many brand new), plus other stamps, scrapping storage, embellishments, paper, and idea books
Kitchen…cookware, tons of pots and pans, utensils, two brand new china sets, dishes, new toaster oven, Cuisinart ice cream maker, KitchenAid, Pampered Chef, etc.
Home décor…candles, picture frames, vases, wall art, mirrors, sheets, rugs, storage, quilts…again, we weeded out the older things, and everything left is in great shape and very current
Holiday…three full-sized Christmas trees, tons of other Christmas décor, Halloween and fall décor
For the guys…lots of small tools, camping equipment, sports equipment, grill, XBox and games, and much more!
Books…tons of adult and kids book, most $.50
Miscellaneous…a clothes press, vintage sewing machine, Boyds Bears, antique ironing board, Depression glass, and SOOOOO much more!
There is literally something for everyone! You will not go home empty-handed J
We will also have cookies, cupcakes, Rice Krispie treats, and yummy breads/muffins for sale as well!
Please come out and support our adoption by finding some treasures! Look for the huge signs with green writing and pink posterboard. See you there!
We can’t even begin to tell you how big this sale is!! We’re adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia, and every penny raised will help with adoption expenses. Over 40 families have donated items, and we have thousands of really great things…no junk!!!
Tonight from 5 pm-8 pm, and tomorrow from 8 am-4 pm
Come find us at Mt. Auburn United Methodist Church’s outdoor shelter, 3100 Stones Crossing Road. The church is just west of SR 135. See map below for more detail!
Specifics:
Kid stuff…boy and girl clothes from newborn-size 14/16-lots of great brands like Gap, Gymboree, Justice, etc.-most items are $1. Also several winter coats/boots/snowpants, and Halloween costumes. Tons of toys and other gear as well!
Baby stuff…two cribs, two high chairs, two single strollers and one double stroller, tons of baby gates, infant car seat and convertible car seat, blankets, baby toys, and much, much more!
Adult clothes…we weeded through and got rid of everything outdated-what‘s left is awesome! Tons of great brands like Gap, Columbia, DressBarn, Dockers, Carhartt, Harley Davidson…every item is either $1 or $2...great deals!!!
Furniture…computer desk, end tables, coffee tables, console table, desk, kitchen table, nightstand, bar stools, and more
Electronics…TVs, including a Sony Trinitron, shelf stereo, all in one printers, nice phone systems, and more
Scrapbooking/Stamping…tons of Stampin Up sets (many brand new), plus other stamps, scrapping storage, embellishments, paper, and idea books
Kitchen…cookware, tons of pots and pans, utensils, two brand new china sets, dishes, new toaster oven, Cuisinart ice cream maker, KitchenAid, Pampered Chef, etc.
Home décor…candles, picture frames, vases, wall art, mirrors, sheets, rugs, storage, quilts…again, we weeded out the older things, and everything left is in great shape and very current
Holiday…three full-sized Christmas trees, tons of other Christmas décor, Halloween and fall décor
For the guys…lots of small tools, camping equipment, sports equipment, grill, XBox and games, and much more!
Books…tons of adult and kids book, most $.50
Miscellaneous…a clothes press, vintage sewing machine, Boyds Bears, antique ironing board, Depression glass, and SOOOOO much more!
There is literally something for everyone! You will not go home empty-handed J
We will also have cookies, cupcakes, Rice Krispie treats, and yummy breads/muffins for sale as well!
Please come out and support our adoption by finding some treasures! Look for the huge signs with green writing and pink posterboard. See you there!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Where We're At...
I know I haven't posted in awhile, and quite frankly it's because I am up to my EARS in garage sale details! We have been absolutely inundated with donations to sell, but every item requires pricing and sorting, so I have been working on that every spare minute. I promise that in the next day or so I will post pictures of our house and garage, just so you can see the sheer madness I am trying to describe. Suffice it to say, our house currently looks like we need to be sent in to the show "Hoarders"!
In adoption news, we finally had our first meeting for our homestudy last night! YAY! We met with our very nice adoption specialist for three full hours, and talked about all kinds of things...adoption in general, why we decided to adopt, why we chose Ethiopia, our thoughts on transracial adoption...we packed a ton into the time. We meet two more times, and then we'll get our completed homestudy after that. This is a super big deal because we need the homestudy to send our immigration paperwork in and be allowed to bring a child into the country. One step at a time, but I am very excited to really be underway in the homestudy process! We have to each read 3 adoption-related books (so far I've read one), and take an 8 hour online class as well, before the homestudy is complete. I'll bet you can guess what our top priority is as soon as the sale is over!
In adoption news, we finally had our first meeting for our homestudy last night! YAY! We met with our very nice adoption specialist for three full hours, and talked about all kinds of things...adoption in general, why we decided to adopt, why we chose Ethiopia, our thoughts on transracial adoption...we packed a ton into the time. We meet two more times, and then we'll get our completed homestudy after that. This is a super big deal because we need the homestudy to send our immigration paperwork in and be allowed to bring a child into the country. One step at a time, but I am very excited to really be underway in the homestudy process! We have to each read 3 adoption-related books (so far I've read one), and take an 8 hour online class as well, before the homestudy is complete. I'll bet you can guess what our top priority is as soon as the sale is over!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Way Better Than I Could Have Put It
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!
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!
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.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Asking for Help
This is a hard post. Anyone who knows Chad and I knows that we don't like to ask for help. We also don't feel comfortable talking about money. But some things are so important, they force you out of your comfort zone. Bringing our baby girl home is one of them.
We are estimating that this adoption is going to cost between $23,000 and $25,000. Lest you think we are independently wealthy, I am going to just state upfront that we do not have this money. We have some of it, and we are spending every penny, but it still will not be enough. As I mentioned earlier, we are still working on our faith. We chose to take a leap, step out in faith, and trust that the rest will come. I have read a million adoption blogs, and what I have found is that almost all of those families also did not have the money when they started, yet all of them were able to bring their babies home. So we choose to believe, as well.
A part of me feels that asking for help from friends and family is unfair. This is not your problem. But a bigger part of me feels that the plight of the orphans is everyone's problem ("Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed." Psalm 82:3), and that we are blessed with supportive and loving friends and family who may want to help us.
We are working on a few different fundraisers for later, but we wanted to start by asking for some easy things (no cash involved!)...
1) We are planning to have a huge garage sale on October 9th. We are asking for donations to be sold. We'll take anything...clothes, household items, kids stuff, furniture. We will happily come to pick things up. If you have anything to donate, please let me know on here, on facebook, or by phone or e-mail. As the date gets closer, we will also be asking if anyone would like to bake items for a bake sale, or can help the day of with set-up or selling.
2) I am selling all of the boys clothes, up to size 2T. I have every size and season. There is a ton! I am also selling all of my maternity clothes. If you know of someone who has a little boy or is pregnant, please send them my way! I am planning to sell as much of this as possible at the Children's Sale in a few weeks, but I don't have enough hangers. I would love more hangers-any kind or size!
3) We are planning to make and sell a cookbook as one of our main fundraisers. But we need recipes! If you have a recipe that always gets rave reviews, please send it to me! We are hoping to have this ready to sell by mid-November, just in time to make wonderful Christmas gifts for everyone on your lists :)
4) At some point down the road, we hope to be able to raffle a big-ticket item off, like an iPad or Kindle. Obviously the cost of the item will diminish our profits. Have you heard of Swagbucks? You use the Swagbucks search engine instead of Google or Yahoo, and earn "bucks" as you search. Then you trade your bucks in for prizes like Amazon gift cards. Since January, I've earned $180 in Amazon giftcards. You also earn bucks for people who sign up under you. If everyone reading this signed up under me, I could earn enough giftcards to reduce, or possibly even eliminate, our cost to purchase the raffle item. Plus, you would be earning giftcards as well! You could actually earn money as you help us! To sign up, just go to http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/jana616. If you have questions on how Swagbucks works, or need help signing up, please let me know.
5) Do you have a daughter? Niece? Granddaughter? My super crafty mom has agreed to help us fundraise by making adorable dolls to sell. They are 10 inch soft dolls with handstamped faces, and come complete with two outfits, a cloth diaper, hat, and hooded blanket. Pictures and prices will be coming soon, but be thinking of all the people you know who may just have to have one of these dolls! We are going to try selling some other craft items as well, so be on the lookout. If you know a great venue to set up a booth to sell handmade items, please let me know!
6) Please share the link for this blog with anyone you think might be interested in our story. As we've shared our news with everyone, many people have told us they know someone who adopted, or have thought about it themselves. As I began researching adoption, other blogs have been a huge inspiration and source of information. One of the main reasons for this blog is to try offer that as well. So share away!
Again, thank you for considering how you can assist us in this journey. We will have details in the coming months on other fundraisers as well, but thought we'd start small. And above all, we would love your thoughts and prayers!
We are estimating that this adoption is going to cost between $23,000 and $25,000. Lest you think we are independently wealthy, I am going to just state upfront that we do not have this money. We have some of it, and we are spending every penny, but it still will not be enough. As I mentioned earlier, we are still working on our faith. We chose to take a leap, step out in faith, and trust that the rest will come. I have read a million adoption blogs, and what I have found is that almost all of those families also did not have the money when they started, yet all of them were able to bring their babies home. So we choose to believe, as well.
A part of me feels that asking for help from friends and family is unfair. This is not your problem. But a bigger part of me feels that the plight of the orphans is everyone's problem ("Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed." Psalm 82:3), and that we are blessed with supportive and loving friends and family who may want to help us.
We are working on a few different fundraisers for later, but we wanted to start by asking for some easy things (no cash involved!)...
1) We are planning to have a huge garage sale on October 9th. We are asking for donations to be sold. We'll take anything...clothes, household items, kids stuff, furniture. We will happily come to pick things up. If you have anything to donate, please let me know on here, on facebook, or by phone or e-mail. As the date gets closer, we will also be asking if anyone would like to bake items for a bake sale, or can help the day of with set-up or selling.
2) I am selling all of the boys clothes, up to size 2T. I have every size and season. There is a ton! I am also selling all of my maternity clothes. If you know of someone who has a little boy or is pregnant, please send them my way! I am planning to sell as much of this as possible at the Children's Sale in a few weeks, but I don't have enough hangers. I would love more hangers-any kind or size!
3) We are planning to make and sell a cookbook as one of our main fundraisers. But we need recipes! If you have a recipe that always gets rave reviews, please send it to me! We are hoping to have this ready to sell by mid-November, just in time to make wonderful Christmas gifts for everyone on your lists :)
4) At some point down the road, we hope to be able to raffle a big-ticket item off, like an iPad or Kindle. Obviously the cost of the item will diminish our profits. Have you heard of Swagbucks? You use the Swagbucks search engine instead of Google or Yahoo, and earn "bucks" as you search. Then you trade your bucks in for prizes like Amazon gift cards. Since January, I've earned $180 in Amazon giftcards. You also earn bucks for people who sign up under you. If everyone reading this signed up under me, I could earn enough giftcards to reduce, or possibly even eliminate, our cost to purchase the raffle item. Plus, you would be earning giftcards as well! You could actually earn money as you help us! To sign up, just go to http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/jana616. If you have questions on how Swagbucks works, or need help signing up, please let me know.
5) Do you have a daughter? Niece? Granddaughter? My super crafty mom has agreed to help us fundraise by making adorable dolls to sell. They are 10 inch soft dolls with handstamped faces, and come complete with two outfits, a cloth diaper, hat, and hooded blanket. Pictures and prices will be coming soon, but be thinking of all the people you know who may just have to have one of these dolls! We are going to try selling some other craft items as well, so be on the lookout. If you know a great venue to set up a booth to sell handmade items, please let me know!
6) Please share the link for this blog with anyone you think might be interested in our story. As we've shared our news with everyone, many people have told us they know someone who adopted, or have thought about it themselves. As I began researching adoption, other blogs have been a huge inspiration and source of information. One of the main reasons for this blog is to try offer that as well. So share away!
Again, thank you for considering how you can assist us in this journey. We will have details in the coming months on other fundraisers as well, but thought we'd start small. And above all, we would love your thoughts and prayers!
Monday, August 30, 2010
The Numbers and a Video
First, I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has commented, either on facebook, on here, or in person as we have announced our news. It's funny, I had been so anxious and excited to tell everyone, but just before sharing it on facebook, I got really nervous. Would everyone be as okay with this idea as we are? I needn't have worried...you all have been wonderfully supportive, just as I thought you would be. So thank you. Your support and love has been amazing!
When we began looking at Africa for adoption, we had no idea the sheer, staggering number of orphans there. Even after seeing the numbers, they are almost too great to comprehend. But I wanted to share with you some specific numbers and facts regarding Ethiopia and the orphan crisis there...
There are over 5 million orphans in Ethiopia alone
Last year 1,724 of these children were adopted to the US. That's only .0003 percent.
1 in 10 children there die before their 1st birthday
1 in 6 children there die before their 5th birthday
Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school
60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition
1/3 of the population survive on less than $1 a day
If you take all of the kids under the age of 18 in New York, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia and remove their parents...then you would have the number of children who are orphans in Ethiopia.
And lastly, a video...We first began to see this popping up on blogs right as we reached a critical junction in our decision-making. I saw this, and knew. It is not easy to watch. It is sad. Conditions for these people are terrible. But look at the joy on their faces. See how they find happiness even in the midst of misery. These are the people my daughter will be descended from. I could not ask for more.
(And as an FYI...the group in this video is doing absolutely amazing things in Ethiopia. If you are interested in learning more about their work, visit http://www.ordinaryhero.org/Home.html)
When we began looking at Africa for adoption, we had no idea the sheer, staggering number of orphans there. Even after seeing the numbers, they are almost too great to comprehend. But I wanted to share with you some specific numbers and facts regarding Ethiopia and the orphan crisis there...
There are over 5 million orphans in Ethiopia alone
Last year 1,724 of these children were adopted to the US. That's only .0003 percent.
1 in 10 children there die before their 1st birthday
1 in 6 children there die before their 5th birthday
Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school
60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition
1/3 of the population survive on less than $1 a day
If you take all of the kids under the age of 18 in New York, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia and remove their parents...then you would have the number of children who are orphans in Ethiopia.
And lastly, a video...We first began to see this popping up on blogs right as we reached a critical junction in our decision-making. I saw this, and knew. It is not easy to watch. It is sad. Conditions for these people are terrible. But look at the joy on their faces. See how they find happiness even in the midst of misery. These are the people my daughter will be descended from. I could not ask for more.
Ordinary Hero~ A day in the trash dump in Ethiopia from Kelly Putty on Vimeo.
(And as an FYI...the group in this video is doing absolutely amazing things in Ethiopia. If you are interested in learning more about their work, visit http://www.ordinaryhero.org/Home.html)
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Big News!!
Well, as you may have gathered by the title of this blog, we have some exciting news! We have decided to adopt a baby girl from Ethiopia. We have spent much of the last year thinking about this and researching all of our options, and in the end, we know our family is not yet complete. We are very excited and very nervous (in a good way!).
I'm sure you might have questions, so please feel free to ask away. In the meantime, I will try to answer some things that I'm sure people might be wondering about.
Why adopt? There are a few reasons that we have decided to adopt-some of them more selfish than others. We wanted to make a change in the world. We realize that adopting a child from Africa will not change the world, but as the saying goes, it will change the world for that child. Chad and I have always felt called to do something with foster care or adoption, we just weren't sure what. We'd always planned that we would become foster parents when our kids are a little older. But then some wonderful friends of ours, the Taylors, stepped out in faith and adopted the most beautiful little girl from Ethiopia last year. Seeing their family has been such an inspiration, and a real sign to us that we should do this now. We also really feel that our family is missing a daughter (Jana especially), and with this addition, our family will be complete!
Why Africa? We didn't necessarily start out with the intent to adopt from Africa. We were open. We looked into domestic private adoption, but didn't feel like that was a good fit since we wanted a girl and already have kids and are able to have more. We also feel like there is not a huge need for domestic adoptive parents, like there is internationally. We looked into foster-adopting, which is foster parenting a child with the intent/hope of adopting them. We didn't feel like that was a good fit because there is a strong possibility of the child being reunited with their birth family or relatives. I didn't want to have that kind of uncertainty for the boys, wondering if the baby would really be their sibling. And finally, we looked into adopting from literally every country that is open to international adoption (no exaggeration!). However, once we started to hear of the orphan crisis in Africa, we knew that is where we were being called to go. There are roughly 147 million orphans worldwide, and close to 50 million of them are in Africa alone. When we watched videos and saw pictures of the orphans there, we felt convicted. The need there is staggering.
Why Ethiopia? We didn't start out with the intent to adopt from Ethiopia. In fact, it is one of the countries we eliminated from contention right away due to some new travel requirements. Once we narrowed things down to Africa, we looked at the Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda. We also had a brief dalliance with Thailand. Initially, we were very excited about doing an independent (cheaper) adoption in Rwanda. There were a great many things we liked about that idea. Then we learned that the country's adoptions are at a standstill, so we ruled them out (and just this week they actually stopped accepting new dossiers, so we definitely had God looking out for us and leading us the way we are supposed to be going). We looked at the Congo, and very seriously considered it. It is a very new country to international adoption, though, and still pretty unstable due to a long and violent civil war. I think the need there may be greater than almost anywhere else, but we didn't feel up to the risks there. Uganda posed similar problems. Thailand was appealing because we've been there and absolutely fell in love with the country, people, and culture. But the need there is not great. It is a more prosperous country, so there are some domestic adoptions there, and the timeline there was 2-3 years to complete an adoption. We are hoping not to have our adoption take that long, of course, and the kids there are typically 2 or older by the time they come home, while we are hoping for an infant.
So, as we ruled country after country out for one reason or another, I was getting a little (read: lot) worried that none of them would ever feel right. And just as that happened, I found an agency completely by accident, that only works in Ethiopia. I fell in love with them, and the things they are trying to do there, so we began to rethink things. We had briefly considered Ethiopia, but they just changed their requirements and you must take two trips there now, which adds expense. I had ruled them out due to that, but over the months we researched, I kept noticing how stable adoptions there seemed compared to other African countries. The children also seem extremely well-cared for and loved while they wait, relatively healthy, and there is a huge need there (more to come on that in a future post). After much analysis, several pros and cons lists, and some serious prayer, we decided our daughter is in Ethiopia!
What's the process like? We are by no means experts, seeing as we just started, but here it is roughly...
We applied with our agency, Arise for Children, on Monday, August 23rd. Thanks to some wonderful friends and family willing to write reference letters quickly, we were officially approved on Friday, August 27th!! Our next step is to have a homestudy done (a social worker will meet with us a few times, visit our house, learn all about us, and make sure we are fit to adopt), and put together our dossier (a bunch of papers like birth certificates, medical checks, background checks, proof of life insurance and health insurance, even pictures of us and our house). We also have to send in a very expensive form to the US government, asking for permission to bring an orphan into the country. Then it gets sent to Ethiopia. That part will take 3-4 months, hopefully. We are hoping to have our dossier there by the end of the year, but much of that will be out of our control as we wait for forms and documents. Once our dossier is done, we will be on the waiting list for a baby! Then the hard part...waiting. Our agency is very small and has a short waitlist, so they have given us an estimate of 2-6 months for a referral (that's when we are given the details of a baby available and asked if we accept her). So far they haven't had a family take longer than 4 months to get a referral, but I am telling myself 6 so I don't go crazy earlier than that ;) A few months after we get our referral, we will take our first trip to Ethiopia for our court date. When we pass court, the baby will officially be ours! We will then have to go home for 6-8 weeks without her, while we wait for the US Embassy there to get her paperwork in order. When it's ready, we (probably just Jana) will go back and bring her home forever! We are thinking that realistically, we could be a family of five by Christmas 2011, maybe sooner if we are extremely lucky. Whenever it is and however long it takes, we know it will all be worth it. Whew...I'm exhausted after writing that down! Of course, neither international adoption nor Africa work exactly as we are used to here. There is a 2 month court closure there for the rainy season, so that could delay our court date. Tons of different things can, and probably will, derail us at some point in this journey.
We are not typically "step out in faith" kind of people. We are planners, and some people might claim that I (Jana) am a control freak (shocking, I know!). Probably the biggest concern for us is how we are going to pay for this. If you know anything about international adoption, you know it's not inexpensive. We have some fundraisers planned, which I will go into more detail about soon. But in the meantime, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Also, if you don't mind, would you follow this blog by clicking on the "Follow" button to the right? I will be much more likely to update regularly if I feel like people are actually reading! We are so excited to share this journey with you!
I'm sure you might have questions, so please feel free to ask away. In the meantime, I will try to answer some things that I'm sure people might be wondering about.
Why adopt? There are a few reasons that we have decided to adopt-some of them more selfish than others. We wanted to make a change in the world. We realize that adopting a child from Africa will not change the world, but as the saying goes, it will change the world for that child. Chad and I have always felt called to do something with foster care or adoption, we just weren't sure what. We'd always planned that we would become foster parents when our kids are a little older. But then some wonderful friends of ours, the Taylors, stepped out in faith and adopted the most beautiful little girl from Ethiopia last year. Seeing their family has been such an inspiration, and a real sign to us that we should do this now. We also really feel that our family is missing a daughter (Jana especially), and with this addition, our family will be complete!
Why Africa? We didn't necessarily start out with the intent to adopt from Africa. We were open. We looked into domestic private adoption, but didn't feel like that was a good fit since we wanted a girl and already have kids and are able to have more. We also feel like there is not a huge need for domestic adoptive parents, like there is internationally. We looked into foster-adopting, which is foster parenting a child with the intent/hope of adopting them. We didn't feel like that was a good fit because there is a strong possibility of the child being reunited with their birth family or relatives. I didn't want to have that kind of uncertainty for the boys, wondering if the baby would really be their sibling. And finally, we looked into adopting from literally every country that is open to international adoption (no exaggeration!). However, once we started to hear of the orphan crisis in Africa, we knew that is where we were being called to go. There are roughly 147 million orphans worldwide, and close to 50 million of them are in Africa alone. When we watched videos and saw pictures of the orphans there, we felt convicted. The need there is staggering.
Why Ethiopia? We didn't start out with the intent to adopt from Ethiopia. In fact, it is one of the countries we eliminated from contention right away due to some new travel requirements. Once we narrowed things down to Africa, we looked at the Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda. We also had a brief dalliance with Thailand. Initially, we were very excited about doing an independent (cheaper) adoption in Rwanda. There were a great many things we liked about that idea. Then we learned that the country's adoptions are at a standstill, so we ruled them out (and just this week they actually stopped accepting new dossiers, so we definitely had God looking out for us and leading us the way we are supposed to be going). We looked at the Congo, and very seriously considered it. It is a very new country to international adoption, though, and still pretty unstable due to a long and violent civil war. I think the need there may be greater than almost anywhere else, but we didn't feel up to the risks there. Uganda posed similar problems. Thailand was appealing because we've been there and absolutely fell in love with the country, people, and culture. But the need there is not great. It is a more prosperous country, so there are some domestic adoptions there, and the timeline there was 2-3 years to complete an adoption. We are hoping not to have our adoption take that long, of course, and the kids there are typically 2 or older by the time they come home, while we are hoping for an infant.
So, as we ruled country after country out for one reason or another, I was getting a little (read: lot) worried that none of them would ever feel right. And just as that happened, I found an agency completely by accident, that only works in Ethiopia. I fell in love with them, and the things they are trying to do there, so we began to rethink things. We had briefly considered Ethiopia, but they just changed their requirements and you must take two trips there now, which adds expense. I had ruled them out due to that, but over the months we researched, I kept noticing how stable adoptions there seemed compared to other African countries. The children also seem extremely well-cared for and loved while they wait, relatively healthy, and there is a huge need there (more to come on that in a future post). After much analysis, several pros and cons lists, and some serious prayer, we decided our daughter is in Ethiopia!
What's the process like? We are by no means experts, seeing as we just started, but here it is roughly...
We applied with our agency, Arise for Children, on Monday, August 23rd. Thanks to some wonderful friends and family willing to write reference letters quickly, we were officially approved on Friday, August 27th!! Our next step is to have a homestudy done (a social worker will meet with us a few times, visit our house, learn all about us, and make sure we are fit to adopt), and put together our dossier (a bunch of papers like birth certificates, medical checks, background checks, proof of life insurance and health insurance, even pictures of us and our house). We also have to send in a very expensive form to the US government, asking for permission to bring an orphan into the country. Then it gets sent to Ethiopia. That part will take 3-4 months, hopefully. We are hoping to have our dossier there by the end of the year, but much of that will be out of our control as we wait for forms and documents. Once our dossier is done, we will be on the waiting list for a baby! Then the hard part...waiting. Our agency is very small and has a short waitlist, so they have given us an estimate of 2-6 months for a referral (that's when we are given the details of a baby available and asked if we accept her). So far they haven't had a family take longer than 4 months to get a referral, but I am telling myself 6 so I don't go crazy earlier than that ;) A few months after we get our referral, we will take our first trip to Ethiopia for our court date. When we pass court, the baby will officially be ours! We will then have to go home for 6-8 weeks without her, while we wait for the US Embassy there to get her paperwork in order. When it's ready, we (probably just Jana) will go back and bring her home forever! We are thinking that realistically, we could be a family of five by Christmas 2011, maybe sooner if we are extremely lucky. Whenever it is and however long it takes, we know it will all be worth it. Whew...I'm exhausted after writing that down! Of course, neither international adoption nor Africa work exactly as we are used to here. There is a 2 month court closure there for the rainy season, so that could delay our court date. Tons of different things can, and probably will, derail us at some point in this journey.
We are not typically "step out in faith" kind of people. We are planners, and some people might claim that I (Jana) am a control freak (shocking, I know!). Probably the biggest concern for us is how we are going to pay for this. If you know anything about international adoption, you know it's not inexpensive. We have some fundraisers planned, which I will go into more detail about soon. But in the meantime, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Also, if you don't mind, would you follow this blog by clicking on the "Follow" button to the right? I will be much more likely to update regularly if I feel like people are actually reading! We are so excited to share this journey with you!
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