Update Long Overdue

September 25, 2010 was the last time I updated our blog.  All I can say is WOW!!!  So much has changed since then.  I would like to report that we have adopted a sweet little baby, but we haven't.  We have taken a different road since then though.  We are now in the process of adopting through DCFS.  It is much cheaper, and I'm happy to report we should be having our final walk through soon.  Once that is done we will be open, and awaiting a foster child.  Although we aren't guaranteed that the child we first get will be the one we are able to adopt, we pray that God will give us the strength to deal with the loss if the child gets to return home.  Without experiencing it firsthand I don't think I can say how I will feel if that time ever does come.  But knowing that we are helping children in desperate need of safety and shelter will hopefully outweigh the loss.  Please continue to praying that we will be strong while we wait! :)

Hairbows

I'm selling hairbows! Here's a couple pictures of them! They are super cute! Not sure what to charge yet. I'm thinking $5 a piece. Tell me what you think and what a good price would be.

I am also making bandana dresses with matching bows.

Benefit Fashion Show/Pageant

Thanks to all who participated in the the fashion show/pageant! One of my bestest friends' Melanie thought this one up and orchestrated the whole thing. She did a great job and it was a success. We raised approximately $750. Thanks again Melanie!!

I also am making girls hairbows to sell. I hear they are all the rage....right next to the silly bands! (Wish I woulda been the genius who came up the idea to make rubber bands into weird shapes to wear as bracelets, which can't be even seen while wearing. Who knew?) Sold a few at the fashion show, but most are so cute I don't wanna part with them. I'll post some pics later.

Well, that's the lastest update. Enjoy the pics below of the fashion show!

This is my sister Emily. We made her compete in the 18+ category. I think she let that cardboard crown go to her head!

This is my neice hamming it up for the camera. Don't let her innocent face fool you!

This is Abbi trying on one of the tu-tu's I made. Wrong end Abbi!!

This is a pic of all the contestants. It's not the best quality.....never let a man handle the camera!

My Cookbook Needs A Name

Ok, so fundraiser #....wait! What # are we on now? I forget! Any who! I'm having a cookbook published as the next one, and I need a catchy name. I'm stumped! Got a great one for a church cookbook but nothing I can think of for a cookbook to benefit an adoption. So I want to know what your ideas are. Come up with a good one and I'll recognize you in the personal pages of the book. Also, I'm looking for great recipes! If you have any you want to submit let me know. You can type them in online as soon as I receive the password to the website.

Can wait to hear all your ideas!!!!!

I'm Thinking Fireworks!

Well, I wish I had a great update but I don't. :( We've applied for a grant or 2, and got turned down for one. Please pray that one will come through. In the mean time we are busy trying to raise funds. We have a yard sale a couple weeks ago and raised approximately $130. We have a benefit pageant coming up (being put on by one of my favoritest people) to raise money, and hopefully can think of some other good ideas. Once we have our $15,000 secured we can get the ball rolling again.

Speaking of good ideas.......someone else mentioned maybe a fireworks tent. Still thinking on that one. Would love to do it but I think it takes more manpower than we have. Anyone know anything about the fireworks fundraising business?

Baby's Room Revised

Just wanted to share some pics of our newly changed baby's room. I'm glad that the painting and sanding is over! Now we can finish our scrapbooks!

It's Been A While

It's been almost 2 months since we posted anything, so I thought we should update:

I've been working on our scrapbooks for some time now. I never knew it could be so time consuming. I decided that since I considered myself a crafty person that I would handmake them rather than use Snapfish or anything. Boy am I wishing I would've used an online program!!! After approximately 12 lengthy visits to Hobby Lobby and a large chunk of change, I am almost done with the first one..................................only 2 more to go! Thankfully, they can all be the same so I'm gonna copy the first one word for word.

We've also sent off for several grants and loans to help cover the major chunk of the adoption that we will have to pay once a baby is placed with us. We hope to hear back on those within the next month or so.

In my spare time (what spare time with 3 scrapbooks to complete?) I have managed to redo the whole nursery. It was polka dots until we went to Babies R Us and I found the most adorable bedding set with farm animals on it. So we painted over my hours of polka dots, added chair rail, painted a fence around the entire room, and added farm animals. James painted little canvases to hang on the wall........a pig, horse, barn, and tree. And I bought chipboard letters and painted them that spelled E-I-E-I-O. Our baby bed is white and I didn't like it so today we hand sanded it and are going to paint it red. After all this the child better like farm animals for the first 5 years of its life!

"Soup"er Bowl Luncheon

Well, Friday was the "Soup"er Bowl Benefit Lucheon at James' work. We had a great turn out. We raised approximately $460. We had some awesome chili. Thanks to all of those who help out. We appreciate everything.

With the money we got back from taxes, we have almost enough to pay for the next phase of our adoption!!!! Woo hoo! We are still working on our profile books.......well, at least I've bought the scrapbooks and paper. That's a start right? Still not sure what to put in them. Been looking through pics and pics and pics. Hopefully it will come together soon!! Can't wait to get to the waiting stage!

So Much Happening

Things are looking up, and several things are going down. We are raising the money we need for the next stage of adoption!

1. James' work organized a benefit company luncheon for Friday to help us. It's a "Soup'er Bowl" lunch.
2. We are still selling candy bars. So far James has sold several at work. Even sold a few for $10 a piece!! My cousin, Courtney, is selling too. She sold almost her whole box already!
3. I rented a booth at a new flea market in town, and got several donations to help fill my booth. Hope to get it set up and going tomorrow.
4. A few of our friends have donated to our cause, and had a few anonymous donations as well.
5. We are in the process of applying for grants and covenant loans.

Thanks to James' work for doing all they can to help us out! All of them have been so generous! Thanks to Courtney for selling candy bars even when she was snowed in! And a BIG thanks to all our friends and family who have helped our cause! You know who you are and how much you mean to us!

Home Study Complete

Well, today was the day. I basically stressed myself out to the point that I now have a huge fever blister on my lip and sores in my mouth. I cleaned all day Saturday, Sunday night, and then woke up at 4:30 this morning worried about it, so I cleaned some more.

She got here at about 9:45 and started James' individual interview. She asked all about his family, his childhood, his relationship with his siblings, and his faith in God. After that there were several questions about us as a couple, like how we met, what we like to do together, what our strengths and weaknesses were, and about our finances. James left at that point and she asked me the same questions she had asked him about his family life and childhood years. The thought of that was very intimidating but it actually went very smooth. Sarah, our social worker, was very nice and we seem to have a lot in common.

Then came the walk through. I was expecting the white glove test, or at least an inspection of the living conditions in every room. That is not what happened in the least bit. (I really should be thankful, I guess, but I was so prepared!) What really happened is she wanted to see that the fire extinguisher was 10 feet from every bedroom. That's it!

All in all, it was a good meeting. She should have our home study wrote up in a couple weeks. In the meantime, we will be making profile books. This is the part I have been waiting for! We will write a "Letter to the Birthmother", and make a book all about us. We have about a month to get that all done, and then we have another $3,000 to pay.

We are not sure at this point where that money is going to come from, but as I was reading this morning I came across a verse that says: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." That reminds me that God has it all worked out, if we just trust in Him. So for now we will be selling candy bars..........A LOT of candy bars!! LOL

New Fundraiser

For the past several days I have been researching good fundraising ideas. I've found a few that I thought were interesting and that might work, so I sent off for more information on a couple.

One that caught my attention was for lip balm. Not just any old lip balm but s lip balm that was customized for our adoption. The one they showed online was called "Baby Kisses" and said "Lip balm benefiting and celebrating the Jones Family Adoption." Now how cute is that? Cute right? Maybe I'm a cheapskate, but will anyone really pay $3.00 for a tube of chapstick? I hope so.

In the meantime, I went to Sam's and bought a box of fundraiser candy bars for us to sell. I brought them home and printed out little labels thanking those who buy them for donating to our cause. I put one on each bar, so that everyone know how thankful we are for their support.

Here's a few pics of the candy:

I took them to James' work midday and he's already sold $20 worth! Although, one candy bar went for $10, I think this might just work! Thanks to that person for their donation! With that kind of response maybe someone will buy lipbalm for $3!

The Date Is Set

The date is set! Our final interviews and home inspection will be done on Monday, and we will be done with this phase of the process! The next step is to make a profile book which they will give out to the birthmothers that are making adoption plans. The birthmother looks through several and picks a family for her unborn child from those. Since I heard about this at our initial meeting I have been dreaming of the day when we would get to this point! But now I am pretty nervous. I was so excited to be able to make a scrapbook about us, but I'm thinking what if they don't like us after they read it? We're not extravagant people, just normal (or at least I like to think we are). What if we forget some major thing that the birthmother thinks is the deciding factor? From the beginning we felt this was God's will for our lives, so I am resigned to the fact that He will see it through, but I just can't shake these doubts. Will we ever get picked?

In the meantime, I have been cleaning up a storm, and, thankfully, I have finished the painting in our future Baby's Room. We don't have furniture for it really yet, but I did set up what we do have to make a makeshift nursery. Now all we need is the main ingredient!

During all of this commotion, my friend Nancee had her first baby. Welcome BIG baby Brayden! 10 lbs 5 oz!

Ideas Needed

Ok, so I'm looking for fundraising ideas, so help me out. I wanna make something and sell it. I thought about making soaps and putting a label on it about our adoption, but I just don't know how well that would go over. Anyone got any good ideas?

Interview #1 done!

So today was our first interview. It was pretty intense at times. Well, for me anyways, but Sarah the social worker was very nice. It helps using a Christian agency that has the same values that we have. She talked about having an open adoption and how the birthparents feel making an adoption plan and following through with it. She asked lots of questions about adopting about what our dream adoption would be like and what kind of child we are looking for. We, of course, told her that whatever God sends us we will love. Within the next couple weeks she will be coming to our house to finish up our individual interviews and inspect our home. Once that is done we move on to the next phase, which is making our profiles. This part of the adoption will require an additional $3,000 which we don't currently have so please keep us in your prayers as we try to raise the needed funds for this phase.

Home Study

So it's been a while since any updates. Ok, it's been FOREVER!!! But FINALLY, we received word that all of our paperwork is now complete and we are on to the home study. Our first interview is December 29th. This is our "couples" interview, and then we will both have individual ones. Once that is done they will inspect our home. We can't wait!!!! Please keep us in your prayers!

No New News

We don't have any new news really. We have heard from a few people that said they received reference letters to fill out, so I guess that's a good thing. Just wanted to write and let everyone know about our current fundraiser.

We are selling Celebrating Home candles. (It's really Home Interiors and Home & Garden Party all in one!) They are $10.00 a piece. There are several scents available. I tried to attach a copy of the flyer, but it wouldn't work. It was in the wrong format. Anywho, if anyone would like to purchase some, let us know. I can send you the flyer.

Also, if anyone would like to help sell candles, I will be giving all my free merchandise, that I earn from Celebrating Home, to the person who sells the most! Our next goal is $3,000, and one step closer to a baby!!!

Another Application

Just when I thought the paperwork was done, we get more! Not really paperwork, but an online application that basically asked the same thing that most of the paperwork did. We filled that out and sent it in yesterday, so I guess now we just wait. The next step will be our home study, and after that our profile books. (Scrapbooking....YAY!!!! As soon as we found that out at the first meeting I was pumped. And I didn't even have to tell James that that was my favorite part. He guessed it right off! LOL)

Anywho, this last online application had a place for references. So if you get a call, email, or letter from Bethany Christian Services respond promptly! And make us sound good!!! :)


This is totally off the subject, but I would just like to announce that I am now the proud Aunt of #9. Colt Thomas was born on Tuesday. He was 2 months early, but he's doing good. He was 4lbs. 50z. and 17 1/2" long!!! Love you COLT!

It Finally Arrived!

Although I planned on getting the paperwork all done in record time, it didn't happen. Finally, after what seemed to be a decade, or two, or three, my birth certificate arrived on Wednesday!!!! So first thing Thursday morning I mailed off our paperwork. WOO HOO!! Bring on the baby!

Here is a picture James being really corny with the precious package.

Spaghetti dinner

Thanks to everyone who came and supported us on Saturday. The spaghetti dinner/singing went great! Although, I do not want to see spaghetti for a long while. :) We raised $1500 that night, which brings the total raised so far to $1700!!! Thank God for all our friends and family for helping us get a little closer to our goal of $5,000! Next mini goal is a total of $3,000 raised.

As far as everything else, we are still waiting on my birth certificate and we can mail all our stuff in! Hurry!!! We are excited and can't wait to get this ball rolling!

Also, thank you to Donna for letting me go with her to a sale! I got ALOT of stuff that we will be needing.

And most importantly, thank you God for always supplying our needs! <3

Paperwork, Paperwork, Paperwork

We're finally done! NOT!!!! No seriously, James went to the doctor yesterday for the rest of his physical, and has to go back Monday to have his TB test read. He also had to have a Tetanus shot, of which I was extremely happy since I had to have one.

We also received our drug test results in the mail, and found out we are drug free! DUH! Glad we don't have to worry about passing that anymore! LOL They also emailed this morning and said they received the background check back already which I mailed on Tuesday or Wednesday this week, but still not birth certificate that I mailed off for 3 weeks ago. Snail mail! You never know what's gonna get where when. :)