Thankful

Its been awhile so thought I'd try to write an update. Trying to get all my feelings to gather up in an organized fashion is more challenge than I have energy for, so prepare for spiderwebbing! (this is what my husband calls my scatterbrained musings)

First off, a huge huge HUGE thank you to all the amazing people who have helped with our yard sales the last two weekends. Whether it was via donating items to sell, baked goods, loaning tables, standing there selling stuff or however else, we are so beyond appreciative. In our first two weeks of fundraising, we have officially raised over $2200 towards our adoption cost. I am BLOWN AWAY! God is so good to us and the generosity of the people in our lives just leaves me speechless. So THANK YOU!

The yard sale was so much fun, even though it was exhausting. We got to meet so many great people who have been affected by adoption. They shared so many stories with us that gave us such encouragement that we are on the right path. We even had one gentleman stop by that said he came to our sale only because it was for adoption and shared his story with us about how his adoptive parents saved his life. Tears much?!

We received our approval on August 6th, and believe me we had butterflies in our stomachs! Shortly after that the emails started rolling in with all the paperwork we need to fill out. I feel like I'm in college, the University of Adoption perhaps! We have 3 books we have to read and write reports on, an all day seminar to attend and a 21 page mountain of personal info to compile. It is quite daunting, but totally worth it. Currently I am reading about the pro's and con's of an open adoption which is quite eye opening! Another post about that later though. Today we are headed to get our official fingerprinting completed then the paperwork goes in to begin our background checks.

Needless to say our emotions have been all over the place. Joy, fatigue, fear, courage, nerves and extreme anticipation don't even cover the half of it, but overall we have this feeling that all is right with our world. I've never been so confident in a decision (and terrified at the same time!) and I just know we are where God wants us to be. Its overwhelming yes, there are all sorts of unknowns and possible outcomes, but I know God is good and this will all be so worth it.

So what's next you may ask? Fundraising and paperwork!

We are gathering more items for our next yard sale, probably in September sometime. Starting next week we will be taking pre-orders for Cinnadopt (isn't my hubby clever?) My friends home made cinnamon rolls were such a huge hit we decided to do a once a month baking. If you are interested in ordering any please email me at adoptinglove@hotmail.com. We will be baking cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting as well as homemade regular bread and cinnamon chip bread. All proceeds go directly towards our adoption costs. I will deliver to the general Portland area.



Thanks again for taking time to keep up with us. We are so grateful to everyone who is involved with this process. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but in our case, it takes a village to adopt one!

Love,

Kristen