First, a little more of our roller coaster ride. I forgot to mention in my last post that on the Friday before Memorial Day (before going to the ER), lightening hit our house. It was very loud and bright, and I told Tim for quite a while that I still felt tingly all over. The next day we noticed a hole in the soffit just about 6 feet above my head where I had been sitting in the corner of my bedroom when it hit. Upon closer inspection, we determined that it was an entrance hole and found the exit hole on the far side of the garage door. We feel very blessed that the house didn't catch on fire. We lost several electronics and are still working to replace those.
Next, I didn't mention that as Tim left the ER on crutches on that Saturday, we were due to leave for vacation on Tuesday -- a two-week road trip through 15 states. I was afraid I was going to end up driving, but by the time we left, he wasn't really using the crutches anymore and had traded the stiff leg stablizer on his knee for a bendable brace. We traveled with the crutches and stablizer in the back, but never had to use them. (Thank you, Lord!)
I hope to do a separate post about vacation later when I get my pics on the computer, so for now I will move on to adoption news. As I mentioned last time, I was rejected again for my FBI prints. The additional problem was that this news came the 2nd day of our trip. It would be almost 2 weeks before I'd even be home to redo them. Our agency's director spoke with the officials in Bulgaria, and they said for us to go ahead and submit our dossier without the FBI clearance letter AND to go ahead and try the fingerprints again. While we are waiting for the FBI, they can be translating our documents.
We got home from vacation on Sunday about 4:30. We had 2 hours to unload, change clothes, grab a pizza, and get to church for the start of VBS week...not only for the kids, but Tim and I were working as well.
Monday's plan--finish the dossier and get it in the mail. Didn't happen. I got most of our papers notarized, but ran out of time before getting to our local agency for picking up the last few papers and having them notarized there. Rushed back home to get ready for VBS. (VBS didn't dismiss each night until 8:45. We usually didn't leave until after 9. Home and to bed. No time for anything.)
Tuesday's plan--get the dossier to Nashville to be apostilled. Didn't happen. Tim had a doctor's appointment in the AM for his knee. I got the rest of the papers from HSC (the local agency). With everything notarized, we went to the county clerk's office to have all of the notary stamps certified. Apparently, we are in one of only two states who require this step before apostilling. While there, they pulled my medical letter out of the stack and handed it back to me. Its notary was commissioned in Williamson County. Great. There went the trip to Nashville. We made the trip to Williamson County instead. When we arrived and gave them the paper, though, they pointed out that the notary's commision expired last week. (We've had the letter since April but couldn't get the other ducks in a row to get to this step in the process.) I wasn't angry about the delay, but I did feel stupid for not noticing the expiration date written right on the front of the letter. And I caused Tim to lose the entire afternoon from getting things done on his own to-do list.
Wednesday's plan--get a new doctor's letter with a new notarization and get it certified so we can go to Nashville tomorrow. It worked out that I already had a doctor's appointment scheduled for this afternoon, so I spent some time scanning the dossier before the apostille is applied. I took a new copy of the med letter to my doctor, but had to leave it to be completed. They called an hour after I got home and said it was ready, but I didn't have enough time to go get it, go to HSC to get it notarized, and get to the county clerk's office before they closed. I spent a few minutes trying to put away vacation stuff instead. Oh, I also noticed the night before that the medical letter stated that a copy of the doctor's license was attached. Neither of our doctors had done this. We asked both today, and they said their legal departments said no.
Thursday's plan--get to Nashville! Tim had an MRI this morning on his knee. Once he was home, I went to my doc's office and got my letter. Took letter to HSC to be notarized. Stephanie tried to pull up our doctors' licenses online, but the website was painfully slow. Took letter to county clerk. "Weren't you here just the other day?" "Yes. Yes, I was." Triple check stack of papers to be apostilled. In-laws weren't home, so we loaded the kids and papers up for a trip to the Secretary of State's office. We had been told to be at the door no later than 3:30 if we wanted to get in the building. I signed in at 3:17. Tim had to stay in the lobby with the guard because the kids were not allowed in the building. About 45 minutes later, I emerged with our precious stack of apostilled papers. Again, we barely made it to VBS. Finally got the doctors' licenses verified online and printed each.
Friday's plan--get fingerprinted for the 3rd time; get fingerprints and dossier in the mail. Each day this week, other things have come up in the morning (even besides trying to catch up on sleep from vacation and VBS), so that we usually don't get going until afternoon. I spent this morning scanning the apostilles. I now have the entire dossier in a single pdf file with bookmarks to each part. I also printed a copy of the entire thing to include when mailing it to our placing agency. In the afternoon, we dropped the kids off at the in-laws, grabbed the pull-behind trailer, and continued up the street to pick up a washing machine (donated for us to sell). We took the machine back to our house to unload and couldn't get to our driveway because of the fire trucks. Yes, fire trucks. It's a bad feeling when you turn onto your street and see fire trucks about as far up the street as your house. Turns out, it was the house across the street from us. It wasn't blazing, but there was a good bit of smoke. Apparently the fire dept got there very quickly. We four-wheeled the dolly with the machine across yards and put it in the garage. We left the trailer in a neighbor's yard and headed to the police department for fingerprints. We picked up the outside phone as always and told them why we were there. He said he would come and get us, but it would be a while because they were wrestling three guys. Okay. If only he had not said he would come and get us, we would have waited a bit and then left. I hated to interrupt them by calling again even to say "never mind." So we waited. And waited. And waited. After about 45 minutes, we called again. This time a lady answered and told us to come around to booking. We did. We called again from that phone, and she said she'd come get us. So we waited. And waited. Finally, she came. I told her that I had been rejected twice from the FBI. She called out asking for anyone who was really good with fingerprints. Another officer came forward and did the most thorough job of ink prints I've had done yet. By the time we left, an hour or more had passed. Post office was closed. Tim was late for picking recyclables for some folks (a tiny side business of his). Got that done, ran to pick up the kids, rushed to VBS for closing night.
Saturday's plan--drag myself to the post office place and mail the fingerprints and dossier. I spent the first part of the morning cleaning. We made a mess packing for vacation. Then we came back and dropped everything to rush to VBS. Every day we have concentrated more on the dossier and VBS and haven't made any noticable progress in cleaning. Today is the day to conquer the house!!! Besides, I wasn't sure when the post office place opened. : D So I cleaned until about 10, and then went in and actually mailed everything! YEA!! What a relief to have it finished. Yes, I understand that my agency may call Tuesday and say, "You forgot to..." I'm almost expecting it. But I checked everything 5 or 6 times, so I at least feel confident that I did my best.
And now...back to the House of Clutter.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Roller Coaster Ride
Any of you who have been on an adoption journey know that it is a roller coaster ride. However, the last few weeks have been especially crazy.
First, in my last entry, I mistakenly called it our second yard sale weekend. It was our third. How time flies when you're having fun! As I began to prepare for this one. A snake got in the garage. I got him out, but he wouldn't go far. Every time we opened the garage door, one of us had to watch him to make sure he didn't go in again. At the end of our sale on Saturday, as we were cleaning up, we looked and saw he had gotten caught in a glue trap (a triangular tunnel with a sticky floor for catching mice.) On a second look there was an awful lot of snake coming out both ends. I said, "I TOLD you I thought I saw two snakes that first time!" When Tim took them back into the woods to attempt to let them go, he opened the trap and found that there were FIVE snakes! Yikes! Oh, and this was our best yard sale so far this year. Yea!
On Memorial Day, we started the day by finding one more (but much bigger) snake caught in a new glue trap in the same corner of our garage. Yuck! By the end of the day I was in the emergency room. See, I had been feeling my heart skip a beat and was really tiring out by evening. After a nap in the afternoon, my left arm was kind of numb. I was scared enough to go to the ER. We spent the rest of the evening there. They found nothing at all wrong with my heart but did find that I had a touch of pneumonia! Go figure. That would explain my tiredness. So I went home with a prescription for that and followed up with my regular doc a couple of days later. She prescribed 8 hours of sleep a night for the heart skipping. With kids, that's difficult, but I'm working hard to sleep more. ; )
This was followed by a quick 2-night trip to my mom's. As we returned on Friday, Tim had to get things together for an RA campout at church. A little too much kickball with the boys, and he had re-injured his left knee (which he first hurt last year but never had it looked at so it's been hurting off and on ever since...MEN!). On Saturday, he came home and was putting things back into our storage shed and -- possibly because of his sore knee -- he fell out of the shed and hurt his foot. When a huge knot came up on top of his foot, we decided it was time for his trip to the ER fearing he had broken it. We've been to the ER once in 1997 and once in 2006. Now we had been twice in one week!! Turns out he had a sprained left knee and a sprained right foot. Even with crutches, that made for some interesting and slow walking. But, we were very thankful nothing was broken.
A few days later, I found out that my granny (last living grandparent I have) was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Please say a prayer for her as she is facing surgery.
Next, a good thing. We got our I-800A approved. Yea! That left only my FBI clearance letter before our dossier would be ready to "officialize" and send in. Remember how that was rejected after 8 weeks of waiting? Well, 9 weeks after submitting my fingerprints again, I was rejected AGAIN! Makes me wonder how they can ever use fingerprints to catch a criminal.
If I do my prints a third time (and btw they want more money for the third time...how convenient), then by the time we hear from them again, Tim's letter will have expired! This is where I need another prayer from you. Our agency is going to talk with the Bulgarian officials, explain the problem, and see if we can prove my lack of criminal history another way. After all, I had to be FBI cleared for our home study and again for our I-800A. Pray that they will let us resolve this now so we can get our dossier sent in.
First, in my last entry, I mistakenly called it our second yard sale weekend. It was our third. How time flies when you're having fun! As I began to prepare for this one. A snake got in the garage. I got him out, but he wouldn't go far. Every time we opened the garage door, one of us had to watch him to make sure he didn't go in again. At the end of our sale on Saturday, as we were cleaning up, we looked and saw he had gotten caught in a glue trap (a triangular tunnel with a sticky floor for catching mice.) On a second look there was an awful lot of snake coming out both ends. I said, "I TOLD you I thought I saw two snakes that first time!" When Tim took them back into the woods to attempt to let them go, he opened the trap and found that there were FIVE snakes! Yikes! Oh, and this was our best yard sale so far this year. Yea!
On Memorial Day, we started the day by finding one more (but much bigger) snake caught in a new glue trap in the same corner of our garage. Yuck! By the end of the day I was in the emergency room. See, I had been feeling my heart skip a beat and was really tiring out by evening. After a nap in the afternoon, my left arm was kind of numb. I was scared enough to go to the ER. We spent the rest of the evening there. They found nothing at all wrong with my heart but did find that I had a touch of pneumonia! Go figure. That would explain my tiredness. So I went home with a prescription for that and followed up with my regular doc a couple of days later. She prescribed 8 hours of sleep a night for the heart skipping. With kids, that's difficult, but I'm working hard to sleep more. ; )
This was followed by a quick 2-night trip to my mom's. As we returned on Friday, Tim had to get things together for an RA campout at church. A little too much kickball with the boys, and he had re-injured his left knee (which he first hurt last year but never had it looked at so it's been hurting off and on ever since...MEN!). On Saturday, he came home and was putting things back into our storage shed and -- possibly because of his sore knee -- he fell out of the shed and hurt his foot. When a huge knot came up on top of his foot, we decided it was time for his trip to the ER fearing he had broken it. We've been to the ER once in 1997 and once in 2006. Now we had been twice in one week!! Turns out he had a sprained left knee and a sprained right foot. Even with crutches, that made for some interesting and slow walking. But, we were very thankful nothing was broken.
A few days later, I found out that my granny (last living grandparent I have) was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Please say a prayer for her as she is facing surgery.
Next, a good thing. We got our I-800A approved. Yea! That left only my FBI clearance letter before our dossier would be ready to "officialize" and send in. Remember how that was rejected after 8 weeks of waiting? Well, 9 weeks after submitting my fingerprints again, I was rejected AGAIN! Makes me wonder how they can ever use fingerprints to catch a criminal.
If I do my prints a third time (and btw they want more money for the third time...how convenient), then by the time we hear from them again, Tim's letter will have expired! This is where I need another prayer from you. Our agency is going to talk with the Bulgarian officials, explain the problem, and see if we can prove my lack of criminal history another way. After all, I had to be FBI cleared for our home study and again for our I-800A. Pray that they will let us resolve this now so we can get our dossier sent in.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
USCIS, Yard Sales, End of School
First, USCIS. I received a notice from USCIS saying there was a problem with our I-800A. The first problem was that I did not send an original copy of our home study. I do have an excuse for this. The instructions on their website said in bold print DO NOT SEND ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS UNLESS INSTRUCTED TO DO SO. Below these instructions in section 7, they give instructions for the home study. Nowhere in this section do they tell you to send original documents! !#@!$#@!# The second problem I don't understand. Page 9 of our 10-page home study was simply missing. I checked the scanned version on my computer, and sure enough, page 9 was missing. I'm sure I fed it through automatically, so page 9 must have simply stuck to page 10. The third and final problem I have absolutely no excuse for. Since our home study agency is not Hague accredited, we were supposed to submit a letter from our placing agency (Hague accredited) saying that they had reviewed the home study. Okay, I just totally missed that part. Nevertheless, I got a letter from our placing agency and SEVERAL original "copies" of our home study from our local agency and got the required items in the mail yesterday.
Today we took care of our USCIS fingerprinting appointment. These were the computerized fingerprints like we did the first time for the home study except we had to go to Nashville to have these done. At first I thought we were doing very well, but the lady did have a lot of difficulty with a couple of my fingers. She just couldn't get good prints from them. She finally had to report it to her supervisor who graciously gave us both permission to call it quits. (In case you have forgotten, my first set of ink prints sent in for my FBI clearance letter was rejected after 8 weeks of waiting. I'm now on week 7 after sending in the second set.) It was kind of freaky though to watch the computer screen after a scan and see red letters come up saying "Warning: Match Found". It did that a lot. Upon leaving, I told Tim that I guess there is a criminal out there who also has lousy prints. Without prints, though, they can't prove it's me!
Next topic: Yard Sales. We're having Yd Sale 2 this weekend. Our goal is to do two per month this summer. I'm completely pooped just typing that! One big blessing, though, is that our garage is absolutely full of donations. I don't think we will even put out anything that was in our sale a couple of weeks ago. I'm even scheduled tomorrow to pick-up the leftovers from a yard sale that took place last weekend.
Finally, we are wrapping up our school year tomorrow. I can't believe Colton will be in 3rd grade next year. Worse yet, Eli will be in kindergarten! Where did the time go! Just think, Colton was going into kindergarten when we decided to adopt. I am so ready for this process to be over!! Okay, just having one of those "impatient moments" there. Back to our school year...Overall, I think we had a really good year. Eli is doing great with his reading, and we'll be continuing his lessons some over the summer. Colton changed math books part way through the year, so we will be doing some math all (or most) of the summer just to make sure he is on track to start third grade. Of course, we are most excited to see Tim come home for the summer. The boys just love having their daddy home all summer. I must say I enjoy it, too.
Today we took care of our USCIS fingerprinting appointment. These were the computerized fingerprints like we did the first time for the home study except we had to go to Nashville to have these done. At first I thought we were doing very well, but the lady did have a lot of difficulty with a couple of my fingers. She just couldn't get good prints from them. She finally had to report it to her supervisor who graciously gave us both permission to call it quits. (In case you have forgotten, my first set of ink prints sent in for my FBI clearance letter was rejected after 8 weeks of waiting. I'm now on week 7 after sending in the second set.) It was kind of freaky though to watch the computer screen after a scan and see red letters come up saying "Warning: Match Found". It did that a lot. Upon leaving, I told Tim that I guess there is a criminal out there who also has lousy prints. Without prints, though, they can't prove it's me!
Next topic: Yard Sales. We're having Yd Sale 2 this weekend. Our goal is to do two per month this summer. I'm completely pooped just typing that! One big blessing, though, is that our garage is absolutely full of donations. I don't think we will even put out anything that was in our sale a couple of weeks ago. I'm even scheduled tomorrow to pick-up the leftovers from a yard sale that took place last weekend.
Finally, we are wrapping up our school year tomorrow. I can't believe Colton will be in 3rd grade next year. Worse yet, Eli will be in kindergarten! Where did the time go! Just think, Colton was going into kindergarten when we decided to adopt. I am so ready for this process to be over!! Okay, just having one of those "impatient moments" there. Back to our school year...Overall, I think we had a really good year. Eli is doing great with his reading, and we'll be continuing his lessons some over the summer. Colton changed math books part way through the year, so we will be doing some math all (or most) of the summer just to make sure he is on track to start third grade. Of course, we are most excited to see Tim come home for the summer. The boys just love having their daddy home all summer. I must say I enjoy it, too.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
More Fingerprints
Have you other adopters ever wondered how expensive it would be to just BUY your own fingerprinting equipment? I'm thinking it would be so much easier if I could just do this myself and have the fingerprints notarized or something.
In my last post, I told you that my fingerprints for the FBI clearance letter had been rejected. I went and had those redone. The very day I put them back in the mail to the FBI, Tim's clearance letter arrived. It took 8 weeks and 3 days for his letter to come. As of today, I have waited 12 weeks and 3 days. Keep in mind that these letters apparently self-destruct every 6 months. I'm beginning to wonder how far in advance I need to begin the process again.
We did have a note of progress today, though. We received our notice from USCIS of our appointment to be fingerprinted for them. We have to go to Nashville for these. For those of you living outside of TN, you may not have heard about Nashville's 500-yr flood last weekend. Our appointment isn't until the end of the month, but I'm thinking that I might need to be calling someone to see if the building is still there, still open, etc. Click here to see the flood. We don't actually live in Nashville, but we are only about 30 minutes away. I could not believe the devestation was so nearby while we sat so unaffected in our dry home.
Gotta give praises here...friends received their referral since my last post. So happy for them and can't wait for them to travel.
In my last post, I told you that my fingerprints for the FBI clearance letter had been rejected. I went and had those redone. The very day I put them back in the mail to the FBI, Tim's clearance letter arrived. It took 8 weeks and 3 days for his letter to come. As of today, I have waited 12 weeks and 3 days. Keep in mind that these letters apparently self-destruct every 6 months. I'm beginning to wonder how far in advance I need to begin the process again.
We did have a note of progress today, though. We received our notice from USCIS of our appointment to be fingerprinted for them. We have to go to Nashville for these. For those of you living outside of TN, you may not have heard about Nashville's 500-yr flood last weekend. Our appointment isn't until the end of the month, but I'm thinking that I might need to be calling someone to see if the building is still there, still open, etc. Click here to see the flood. We don't actually live in Nashville, but we are only about 30 minutes away. I could not believe the devestation was so nearby while we sat so unaffected in our dry home.
Gotta give praises here...friends received their referral since my last post. So happy for them and can't wait for them to travel.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Yard Sales and EASTER
Yard Sale Season is officially underway for 2010. We had our first yard sale this past Friday and Saturday. Sometimes when people donate large items, we put those on Craigslist instead of in the sale. So, our total for the sale and the Craigslist stuff that has sold came to $480. Yea!
It was funny how God worked it. We can usually average about $500 for a weekend. Friday we were so excited to raise almost $350. Then Saturday morning we realized why we had a big day on Friday...we were rained out all morning. The rain did finally pass, and we hurried out to set up about 11:30. Not the time of day to start a sale! But it was like a bad spoof on "Field of Dreams" -- "If you raise the garage doors, they will come." We didn't have the first table out before cars were stopping. The abbreviated day didn't yield a lot, but it was about $90 we didn't have before. (If you're doing the math, the rest was from Craigslist.)
We completed our home study a few weeks ago, but are just now poised to get the official, notarized copy in our hands. As soon as we do, we will be ready to send in our I-800A to USCIS. This is our request to immigration for permission to bring the girls into the US. Once we get another fingerprinting appointment from them, we will wait for their approval letter. When that is received, we will be ready to send in our dossier. I can't wait to get those stacks of papers off of the girls bed. They've been sitting there since our home study was finished in mid-February.
On a frustrating note, I received an envelope from the FBI saying that they had rejected my fingerprints. We sent that in 8 weeks ago tomorrow and have been waiting for our FBI clearance letter. Now I have to be re-fingerprinted and send it in again. Does that mean my 10-week wait starts all over? These letters are only good for 6 months. Does that mean that Tim's will expire 2 months before mine. It would have been a lot easier to keep all those expiration dates together. I also have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and was going to get my med form signed. (It's also only good for 6 months.) That was supposed to coincide with the FBI clearance letter. Now I think my dates are all messed up. Not to mention that the delay really stinks.
Okay, moving on to a family update. Eli turned 5 in February with a big party at Bounce-U. He is starting to seem so big! He is eating MUCH better, but he is still only about 36 pounds. He was sick just after his birthday with a stomach bug, and his appetite took off as he got better. He's gone from the 18-month-old who might eat 1/2 a grape for lunch to the 5-yr-old who had 4 fried eggs and a pop-tart for lunch last week. He is crazy about fruit, raw spinach, and mashed potatoes. Eli is also doing a great job with his reading lessons. He is starting to find words in the "real world" that he knows. Love that stage!
Colton took Eli's stomach bug about a week later. It took his appetite away for a while. He will be turning 8 next week and wants a quiet birthday supper at home with family. He's doing great with his school work. His favorite subject is history, although he really likes science and Spanish also. Colton and Eli have both started taking martial arts. I think they are really enjoying it.
Finally, onto Easter! I wish we celebrated Easter every Sunday. Today's service was awesome. I even dusted off my trumpet to play for the offertory. Nerve-wracking! I haven't really played in at least 20 years. (Oh my! Did I just admit that in writing!) Maybe I'm committed now to keeping it up since folks know I can play. I do want to polish it up a bit -- the playing, not the actual trumpet. On the way home, Eli said, "When are Keely and Mattie going to be here?" ...which brings me full circle back to the adoption. It warms my heart, though, to know that the boys are thinking about them.
Happy Easter, Everyone! Christ the Lord is Risen Today!!!
It was funny how God worked it. We can usually average about $500 for a weekend. Friday we were so excited to raise almost $350. Then Saturday morning we realized why we had a big day on Friday...we were rained out all morning. The rain did finally pass, and we hurried out to set up about 11:30. Not the time of day to start a sale! But it was like a bad spoof on "Field of Dreams" -- "If you raise the garage doors, they will come." We didn't have the first table out before cars were stopping. The abbreviated day didn't yield a lot, but it was about $90 we didn't have before. (If you're doing the math, the rest was from Craigslist.)
We completed our home study a few weeks ago, but are just now poised to get the official, notarized copy in our hands. As soon as we do, we will be ready to send in our I-800A to USCIS. This is our request to immigration for permission to bring the girls into the US. Once we get another fingerprinting appointment from them, we will wait for their approval letter. When that is received, we will be ready to send in our dossier. I can't wait to get those stacks of papers off of the girls bed. They've been sitting there since our home study was finished in mid-February.
On a frustrating note, I received an envelope from the FBI saying that they had rejected my fingerprints. We sent that in 8 weeks ago tomorrow and have been waiting for our FBI clearance letter. Now I have to be re-fingerprinted and send it in again. Does that mean my 10-week wait starts all over? These letters are only good for 6 months. Does that mean that Tim's will expire 2 months before mine. It would have been a lot easier to keep all those expiration dates together. I also have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and was going to get my med form signed. (It's also only good for 6 months.) That was supposed to coincide with the FBI clearance letter. Now I think my dates are all messed up. Not to mention that the delay really stinks.
Okay, moving on to a family update. Eli turned 5 in February with a big party at Bounce-U. He is starting to seem so big! He is eating MUCH better, but he is still only about 36 pounds. He was sick just after his birthday with a stomach bug, and his appetite took off as he got better. He's gone from the 18-month-old who might eat 1/2 a grape for lunch to the 5-yr-old who had 4 fried eggs and a pop-tart for lunch last week. He is crazy about fruit, raw spinach, and mashed potatoes. Eli is also doing a great job with his reading lessons. He is starting to find words in the "real world" that he knows. Love that stage!
Colton took Eli's stomach bug about a week later. It took his appetite away for a while. He will be turning 8 next week and wants a quiet birthday supper at home with family. He's doing great with his school work. His favorite subject is history, although he really likes science and Spanish also. Colton and Eli have both started taking martial arts. I think they are really enjoying it.
Finally, onto Easter! I wish we celebrated Easter every Sunday. Today's service was awesome. I even dusted off my trumpet to play for the offertory. Nerve-wracking! I haven't really played in at least 20 years. (Oh my! Did I just admit that in writing!) Maybe I'm committed now to keeping it up since folks know I can play. I do want to polish it up a bit -- the playing, not the actual trumpet. On the way home, Eli said, "When are Keely and Mattie going to be here?" ...which brings me full circle back to the adoption. It warms my heart, though, to know that the boys are thinking about them.
Happy Easter, Everyone! Christ the Lord is Risen Today!!!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Correction
For those of you who subscribe to my blog or have it emailed to you, I wanted to let you know that I had to make a few changes to my last entry. The pricing for the puzzle pieces has changed. It is now $3 for each piece, but if you purchase 10 or more they are $2.50 each. I was having too many complications working out a way for online ordering, and purchasing and odd number of pieces (greater than 1) was getting weird.
Sorry for the confusion, but I think I have it worked out now.
Sorry for the confusion, but I think I have it worked out now.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Puzzle Sale
Okay, I stole this fundraiser idea from another adoptive family, but I think it is just precious. I have purchased two 1000-piece puzzles. Here they are...
To raise funds for our adoption, we are "selling" the puzzle pieces. For each piece you purchase, we will write your name (or any name you choose) on the back of the puzzle. When the puzzles are complete, I will frame them to hang in the girls' room, and one day they will each have a puzzle as a keepsake. The names on the back will be visible to show them all the people who helped to bring them home.
*Purchase a piece with your name on the back
*Purchase a piece for each member of your family
*Purchase pieces equally from Keely's and Mattie's puzzles (but you don't HAVE to specify whose puzzle if you don't want)
*Purchase pieces "in honor" or "in memory" of someone
*Purchase a section of pieces as a group (extended family, club, Sunday School class, etc.)
Each piece costs $3. If you purchase 10 or more, they are $2.50 each. Here's how to participate...
1. Click the DONATE button on the right to go to PayPal.
2. Enter the amount you wish to donate.
3. In the special instructions box, tell me how many pieces you are "purchasing" and whose name(s) should appear on the puzzle.
4. Tell your friends, family, coworkers, or church how they can also help us. We still have A LOT of funds to raise before our daughters can come home
If you don't want to donate online, we can take your donations in person (if you live in our area), or you can email me for our mailing address. LDeMoss@comcast.net
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
To raise funds for our adoption, we are "selling" the puzzle pieces. For each piece you purchase, we will write your name (or any name you choose) on the back of the puzzle. When the puzzles are complete, I will frame them to hang in the girls' room, and one day they will each have a puzzle as a keepsake. The names on the back will be visible to show them all the people who helped to bring them home.
*Purchase a piece with your name on the back
*Purchase a piece for each member of your family
*Purchase pieces equally from Keely's and Mattie's puzzles (but you don't HAVE to specify whose puzzle if you don't want)
*Purchase pieces "in honor" or "in memory" of someone
*Purchase a section of pieces as a group (extended family, club, Sunday School class, etc.)
Each piece costs $3. If you purchase 10 or more, they are $2.50 each. Here's how to participate...
1. Click the DONATE button on the right to go to PayPal.
2. Enter the amount you wish to donate.
3. In the special instructions box, tell me how many pieces you are "purchasing" and whose name(s) should appear on the puzzle.
4. Tell your friends, family, coworkers, or church how they can also help us. We still have A LOT of funds to raise before our daughters can come home
If you don't want to donate online, we can take your donations in person (if you live in our area), or you can email me for our mailing address. LDeMoss@comcast.net
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
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