Last Fundraiser

When KC and I started out on this journey, we obviously prayed about the financial aspect of it. After a lot of prayer, we decided to only have 3 main fundraisers that we knew would fit us (if that makes any sense). The first was a garage sale that we had last summer, the second was the date night we had in March, and the final one is our pancake breakfast coming up this Saturday, May 12th. (If God leads us to have another, we will. But we strongly feel like this is the last "big" one.) I'm so excited about it. Work has graciously allowed us to have it at the coffee shop inside the clinic in Benton County - Latte Da is the name of the coffee shop.

Bri, the manager of the coffee shop has also helped me order all the supplies through their supplier so that we get more food for less. We also got to order some delicious Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee that I L.O.V.E. They've just been so awesome and helpful. I'm blessed to work for such an amazing company. So, today's post is just a little reminder about it. If you can't come, please don't stress about it. Just say a prayer for us on Saturday. The breakfast is from 7:30 - 10:30. A nice time range for the early birds and those who like to sleep in on Saturdays.  ;-)

Latte Da (inside Highlands Oncology Group)
808 S. 52nd Street
Rogers, AR 72756

Take 540 and get off Exit 83 - Pinnacle Hills (the Cross Church exit with the 3 big white crosses). Turn North on 52nd Street. You'll pass Mellow Mushroom, Arvest Bank, Aloft Hotel, and Crabby's. Just up the hill on the left is Highlands Oncology Group. The entrance to Latte Da is in the front.

ALL THE DETAILS IN A BRIGHT COLORED FLYER

HIGHLANDS ONCOLOGY GROUP - YA CAN'T MISS IT

THE COFFEE SHOP SIGN

Dossier Compilation

Not a lot going on lately adoption related. We're working hard to get all of the necessary forms and letters gathered and notarized for our Dossier/BFF (big fat file). You'd think it'd be easy. But it's a lot of work tracking down paperwork. Haha! Amazingly, I sent the Medical Request Letter to my PCP to fill out today and they've already called and said it's finished. If any of you know anything about doctors' offices, you know their notorious for dragging their feet. Especially if they're a clinic that's been in business F-O-R-E-V-E-R. Now, when KC gives his to the VA, it'll probably be finished by oh, I don't know - August? Haha. Seriously though….

We have the Pancake Breakfast next Saturday the 12th and I'm stoked! I really think this one will have a good turnout. I mean, who doesn't love a cheap breakfast with delicious coffee? Ethiopian coffee to be exact. Mmmmm. It's delicious I promise. We're blessed to be able to have it at the coffee shop inside the clinic I work for. We searched everywhere for a place to hold it, when the gals in the coffee shop - Latte Da (how cool is that name? Makes me think of Brown Eyed Girl) - suggested we use it. Plus, Andy who works in the Fayetteville coffee shop and Don (our awesome courier) are going to be making the pancakes for us! Bri - the manager - is going to help check everyone out. Haha! How awesome is that?! They're all such great people.

We had a garage sale last weekend to get rid of a lot of clutter in our house. We ended up having tons of people donate stuff again! We made about $400 to go towards preparing Effie's room and the rest was to be put in our adoption account. The boys had a lemonade stand and made about 8 bucks - mostly from Pops. Lol. Caed kept yelling "Lemonade! Get yer lemonade! Hi ma'am, would you like lemonade?" Ollie just kept drinking it until Caed said "If you drink it all, there's none to sell. SO STOP!" We died laughing. These boys - never a dull moment. So you'll see pictures from the sale and of her room in a bit. Just remember, her room is in progress.

That's about all we have right now - sorry it's not more engaging. Haha. Oh! We did finally get the A/C fixed in Helga (our mini-van). Do you know how GOOD it feels to have the A/C in your car after not having it for almost one year? Ah-mazing. So blessed to find a great mechanic that didn't want to rip us off. We know, because the first place we took it was quoting us 2,000 higher than what we paid the 2nd place. I know. My jaw dropped too!

Anyway, here are a few pictures to get you by until we hear any more news. We're waiting on our home study to be approved so we can send off our immigration paperwork and get our fingerprint dates. Once we get those back, we can send our Dossier to Little Rock to be State Sealed then forward it on to Ethiopia! Praying everything goes smoothly. We'd love to be approved by Ethiopia in June.   ©

Our official packet!

It's all gotta be notarized

Our handy dandy .... Checklist!

My accordion file to keep me as organized as possible

The gya-rage sale! Thankful my Mother-in-law let us have it at her house. She's in the middle and my Mom is on the left.

The boys selling lemonade to unsuspecting customers

I think that was Ollie's 5th cup of lemonade. Haha!

Testing colors

Sorry for the bad lighting - the sun was pretty bright

Again, this picture doesn't do the color justice - but it shows the pretty curtains. They're actually shower curtains from Target, but I loved the pattern and colors!

There we go! Better picture of the color. Still a lot of work to do!

-Sandia

One-Third of the Way There

On Friday, April 20th, KC and I paid 1/3 of our adoption fees. Yes, you read that right. ONE-THIRD. When you start out seeing a number close to $19,000, you immediately begin to doubt; you wonder, how in the H-E-Double Hockeysticks are we going to do that?! (yes, I just said H-E-Double Hockeysticks - you may commence giggling. Haha) But seeing how we are now down about $6,000 you know we can do this. God has been blessing us tremendously throughout all of this. I know I say it time and time again, but it's the truth. We could never have hoped to have that much money sitting in an account before the adoption. I've never been so happy or excited to come close to depleting our account. Haha!

And now we start again! And I. Can't. Wait! God has been faithful to us. I'm trusting in Him and the promise He has given us. Trust me, it's not been easy saving that money up. Lots of unexpected things come up and happen - dryer issues, a non-functioning A/C in the van, and a spare car that's leaking oil, car problems for my mom, more trouble with my dad - and you do as best as you can without. As much as I can't wait to have ice cold air blowing on my face while driving home from work, at least one of the windows works (the other only works half the time lol), and we're getting that much closer to bringing Effie home.

I know some people don't understand this - how we can call her by her name and save money and go through all this paperwork and red tape when we don't even know her. But I do. I know her. She is my daughter. She is being taken care of for us by God and others He has put in her life. We pray protection over her every night when we pray for the boys. We've added her name to our little prayer we pray with the boys each night too. I know her. I may not know what she looks like, how old she is, what her hair is like - but I know her. And I'm working fiercely to bring her home.

I get a lot of people telling me they think it's ridiculous that it takes so long, costs so much, involves so much work, etc.; and I can see your point. I've had those thoughts before too. Many many times if I'm honest. But when I look at the flip-side of it, I realize that there are a lot of dirty, dishonest, scumy people out there. People who would take advantage of the opportunity to adopt for "profit". So, all of this "red tape" is in place to prevent that from happening. To make sure that these children are truly going to a home where they will be loved and taken care of. So please - if you're reading this - don't tell us you think it's ridiculous. Or that we're crazy. Well, maybe we are a bit crazy. We have a crazy love for a God who has asked us to do this. And now we have a crazy love for a little girl whose face we've never seen.

You'll see. It's ALL going to be worth it. When she's home, you'll forget all those thoughts you had. Because she's just a little girl who was waiting for someone to come and bring her home. I know when I'm holding her in my arms, I won't care about how much time it took, about the fees or the paperwork. All I'll know is that I'm holding a two-fold promise I've had in my heart that my God fulfilled; an adoption and a daughter.  ©

Throwing rocks

Oliver scaring the turtles by throwing rocks

Caedmon watching the turtles

AND!! Drumroll please: Worthy of the Prize has reached 530 followers! That means that whatever money is raised in the month of April (the Chosen Necklaces or Adoption Bands) will be doubled!! Thank you all SO SO much for all your help in making this happen! You all are truly amazing! You are a part of this - a part of her life. You're helping us bring her home.  J It's also pretty cool that KC was follower number 530. You'll see Hidden Bars - that's KC. 

-Sandia

DOSSIER APPROVAL!!

I am beyond thrilled to report that we received our agency's approval to begin working on our Dossier!! A.K.A our BFF: big fat file. Lol. This is awesome news. It happened WAY sooner than we had anticipated.

We just had our final home study interview on Friday, and then at 3:40 on Monday we received approval. Per our social worker A., it could have taken 1-2 weeks to get approval. Not sure how it happened so quickly, but I do not care. haha! The more I keep thinking about this, the more I think of what someone spoke to KC about the adoption back on September of  2011:

        A woman told KC while praying over him - "This is going

to happen much faster than you think it is".

This being the adoption. J

           

Well this part is definitely going by faster than we thought. Those initial 6 months of waiting for the home study were well worth it. I can't barely contain my joy. I know we still have a lot of work ahead of us - paperwork, preparing the funds needed to complete these next steps, getting our home ready, etc. - but I'm ready to jump in! This is just so real now. We pay the final portion of our first chunk of the adoption fees on Friday. While I'm a little nervous about that, I know God is taking care of us. It's crazy to think that after Friday, we will have 1/3 of the adoption paid for. We'll still have travel fees, but that's a HUGE deal! When you look at something costing upwards of $20,000 it seems impossible. But looking at how we've already knocked so much of it down, it's doesn't look so daunting anymore.

We're praying that everything goes smoothly with our home study approval, our Pre-Immigration paperwork, and our Dossier. If we have no snags or hiccups, we could have everything approved and submitted in June. What does that mean? It means, we could officially be on the "wait-list/in-line" for a referral for a child from Ethiopia in June. HUGE HUGE HUGE STEP! So unbelievably blessed by God. (I wish you could see the big, cheesy grin on my face right now! J)

Other than our fun adoption updates, things at home have been pretty relaxed. We had absolutely no plans for the weekend (after our previous ones were cancelled). So, we enjoyed the muggy and rainy weather and just…. lounged. Saturday we played games and watched movies. The Tale of Despereaux was new on Netflix and they loved it. I made homemade blueberry muffins. Healthy, blueberry muffins. While I thought they were good, they weren't as sweet as I had hoped. Hello Sandra - HEALTHY remember? Lol. But, amazingly, the boys LOVED them and devoured 4 each. Lol. So, I made another batch but accidentally turned the oven to broil instead of bake. Luckily I caught the error pretty fast, so they still turned out good; not pretty, but still yummy.

We had a few tornado warnings on Sunday after we got home from church. The boys were worried in the car since KLRC wasn't playing music, only weather updates. But that all changed once we got home and prepared my closet just in case. The boys were running around with flashlights and their blankets screaming 'Oh no! The tornado is coming! To the closet!'. They were just excited to each have their own flashlight. Haha. Our area was fortunate enough not to be hit with much more than severe thunderstorms. The boys soon forgot about it as we ate lunch and watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at Ollie's request. Caedmon normally "veto's" any movie suggestion made by Oliver, but he agreed that Oliver made a "great idea!". Haha. So, that's how our Sunday ended. Movies. Perfect rainy weekend if you ask me.  J 

Caed intrigued by The Tale of Despereaux 

Ollie informing me that he wants his muffins to look like this 

 KC bringing me wildflowers. hehe!

 My flowers

(Sorry that the pictures are flipped, they aren't like that in my files)