ALMOST through with the paperwork!!

  Well we have now finished our in-home home study visits and only have one more visit to complete our home study completely! We are quickly approaching the end of this approval phase :) We almost have our paperwork done too!!! Yay!!!!!!!! I mean YAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Talk about feeling accomplished. Before long we might actually have time to spend an evening relaxing in front of the TV :) We will be ending our t-shirt fundraiser soon so if anyone wants a shirt you better go ahead and order it. If anyone wants a large of the brown faith, hope, & love shirt I have a friend that ordered an extra one (or two) accidentally that I am sure would be glad to sell it to ya:) Just let me know and I'll get you in touch with her. Also, We really, really need to sell these Titans tickets for Sept 29th! It will be here before we know it and I don't want to hold on to them too long. We do not have any big fundraisers left, and this will probably be the last one. Several people have said they heard we had all our money, but that's not true yet. However, we are getting really close. If anyone still has change jars that they want to return you can give them to Mindy at the bank. Thank you all so much for your support whatever if may be! Please continue to pray for us as we enter the next phase, waiting. 

Still Truckin' Along

  I told you I was not good at this blog thing :) A lot has happened since my last post. We had a great yard sale! People said it was more like a flea market! We have sold all our big items. The only fundraiser we have now is some Titans tickets we are trying to sale. The game is Sept. 29th against the Jets. So if you know anyone interested send them my way. We have started our home study process and have our first in home visit next week! This will be our second of four visits. As far as paperwork goes we are coming along pretty good there too. A few more weeks and we should have it all done:) So hopefully sometime in September we will be eligible to be selected by a birth mother! Yay!! We may have to wait a while to be selected but we may not. It's pretty exciting! We won't know what to do with our time when all we have to do is wait. We hope everyone will continue to pray for us through this journey. It has been so wonderful this far. God has blessed us in all our efforts to raise money and through so many friends and family members. We have meet some great people who have been where we are now and it's great to see how things ended up for them. Both of our agencies (for placement and home study) have been absolutely great! They are so good at what they do and wonderful to work with! Well it may not sound like a lot but we have been some busy people. A few more weeks of this craziness and then things will start to slow down.

Yard Sale Extravaganza !!

  Well as many of you know we are back to work on our fundraisers! That Saturday afternoon off really was nice :) We have added another storage building to hold our yard sale goodies! So we currently have our garage and two storage buildings full of stuff (and I mean FULL). Not to mention several friends and family members are holding stuff for us at their houses. So please spread the word. It will be just off Manchester's square on August 3rd. We need shoppers! We have such a variety of stuff and items from probably over 40 families! All the way to the bathroom sink (no kitchen sink yet) Yeah I know that was corny, but hey :) Tons of things will be $2.00 or less! All sizes of clothes too. I will give you more info as it nears but start saving the date! 

It was a SUCCESS!

   Well we have had our first big fundraiser, and it was a big success. I was a little worried the rain and flooding might deter people from getting out but it didn't stop our sweet friends and family! Our little hometown of Woodbury really put it's arms around us in support of this breakfast/auction. We had over 90 items in our silent auction from local businesses, friends, and family (and family of friends). Not only did our little town make a big showing but our Manchester crew really rallied behind us too. It was so great to see friends we had not seen in such a long time. Our "workers" did an amazing job at cooking, serving, cleaning, collecting money, delivering take out orders, and a lot of other jobs that made this breakfast/auction flow. It was so hot in the kitchen and very busy at times but they never complained. Even when I asked them to get there at 5:30 on a Saturday morning! We were not able to keep up with the number of people that came because it got so busy, but it was well over 200. The silent auction also went great! We are so overwhelmed by everyone's generousity and support, and we want to say THANK YOU to everyone to participated in any way!!

Pancake Fundraiser Breakfast

Who loves pancakes!!!! We are having our Pancake fundraiser on Saturday July, 6th from 6 AM to 10 AM. The breakfast will be held at the Woodbury Church of Christ fellowship hall which is located at the back of the building in the basement. One of the most exciting parts of the breakfast is the silent auction consisting of over 85 entries donated from local craftsmen and businesses. There has been an amazing outpouring of support for this fundraiser and we hope for a great turn out. Thank you so much to those that have donated  items to help make this breakfast a success. All we need now is a big hungry crowd on the morning of the 6th so save room for pancakes and bring some friends. Also check out our Christian Homes and Family Services display at the breakfast, it may help answer some of the questions you may have about "open" adoption process. 

Just a little closer....

  

  
  We are slowly getting a little closer to bringing a child into our home. We have completed about 3/4 of the paperwork for our agency! Now we are down to the harder things like our autobiographies, financial records, and the letter & scrapbook that will be shown to our prospective birth mother. I think if we put our minds to it we can complete these things in the next two weeks. We have also been looking for a Tennessee agency to do our home study, and I think we have found the one we are going to use. So hopefully we will be starting our home study soon too. (Which means more paperwork:)) But I know it will be worth it in the end! 
   As far as fundraisers go, we are nearing our first one. The pancake breakfast and silent auction is about a week and a half away! We are going to end up having around 60 silent auction items! I never dreamed people would have donated this much when I set out to do this. It has been amazing to see! We are really planning for a large number of people to come so I cannot wait to see how it all turns out :) We have stopped accepting donations for our yard sale because our garage and storage building are at full capacity! We are a little overwhelmed by all the pricing that has to be done too. But we have some great friends who are willing to help us with this once the breakfast has passed.  Hope to see you all on July 6th at the breakfast and August 3rd at the yard sale!!

Pancake Breakfast and Silent Auction July 6th

  Two weeks from today on July 6th we will be having our pancake breakfast and silent auction! It will be at Woodbury Church of Christ in the Fellowship Hall from 6am till 10am. We hope many of you will stop by and have breakfast with us. Please tell everyone you know about it. We are hoping for a big crowd and have planned accordingly. We have donations from over forty businesses and individuals that will be in our silent auction. There are some really great items! Some of our auction items include: 31 thermal bags and purses, pet spay/neuter certificate, antiques, theater tickets, hair products and gift certificates, quilts, gas gift certificate, certificate to have custom bleach trays made for teeth whitening, scarves, gift certificate for pet grooming, free pizza, homemade desserts, stampin' up scrapbooking basket, car cleaning buckets, barbecue set, and more! We hope you will mark your calendars and show up to support us. 
Here are a few pics