No More Numbers

To our family and dear friends,
We want to keep you as updated as possible about our adoption process, and we received some news from our agency that we think you should know.  The wait time for Ethiopia has increased significantly due to questionable ethical practices - NOT with our agency, but with other agencies.  Due to the increased wait times, effective immediately, our agency will no longer issue monthly waitlist numbers.  For us, the numbers were a blessing and a curse.  They were a great visual for us and others to watch our progress during the adoption process.  At the same time, they could be very disappointing and disheartening when we saw no movement or even moved up!  The numbers that we have received for the past year will definitely be a part of Safiya's adoption scrapbook, and we look forward to coming up with some creative ways to track our progress without numbers.  Additionally, because of the long wait times, our agency is allowing families to pursue concurrent adoptions, meaning that a family could commit to another child with another agency during the wait and still remain on AGCI's wait list.  We have not decided what our course of action will be regarding concurrent adoptions, but we are examining our options for domestic and international adoptions while we wait for Safiya.  We are disheartened by the news that questionable ethical practices (i.e. baby buying) are occurring in Ethiopia, but are thankful that our agency is operating in a morally upstanding manner and refuses to participate in such practices.  We know that God will bring our sweet girl to us in His time, but   the longing for another child is breaking our hearts right now.  If any changes to the adoption timeline happen, we will let everyone know as soon as possible.

- Natalie and Buck

Keeping Busy

If idle hands are the devil's playground, then he ought to be nowhere near our house. After we submitted our dossier, the excitement of paper chasing came to a grinding halt. We no longer had to make excursions around the tri-county area to get the signatures of doctors, notaries, social workers, employers, former employers, and the WV Secretary of State. We no longer waited with bated breath to jump the _____man (insert mail, UPS and/or FedEx here) when he pulled into the driveway.. And most disappointing, we no longer made exciting trips to the post office and forced the innocent employees to take embarrassing pictures with us. (See Exhibit A)

Exhibit A. Me and Jules with the. most. awkward. post employee ever.

Naturally, we wondered what the heck we were supposed to do with our spare time. Our case worker sent us a very helpful email suggesting that we "keep busy" during the wait. She still occasionally makes the same helpful suggestion in her monthly update emails.  As if I wasn't "keeping busy" enough chasing Miss Thing around (See Exhibit B)

Exhibit B. Miss Thing

But in all seriousness, there's a lot of empty hours between her bedtime and mine.  So I've been keeping busy with projects around the house (read: Pinterest ideas) First up: A new big girl quilt for Miss Thing - twin sized for her new bunk beds, which I single-handedly assembled, along with the matching pink ceiling fan.

Next, I thought it would be fun to build a chicken coop.

Look for pictures of its inhabitants during the 2nd week of May.  We are also open to suggestions for naming our 4 Golden Buffs - my only requests are no chicken anatomy or delicacy names, and that one is named Madea.

During said chicken coop building, in which I enlisted the carpentry expertise of my patient and understanding father-in-law, I learned how to use power tools, including this bad boy:

Once I learned the basics, I even used it by myself to build the bottom part of the chicken coop door.  Apparently, I wasn't ready for a solo plunge cut, though, so I made due with a screwdriver and a big hammer.

Next, I moved my ambitious self back inside and rearranged and enhanced our bedroom decor:

I about burned off my fingertips making this Pinterest idea come to life, which would have been unfortunate since we need to renew our FBI fingerprints next week.

This evening, I thought I would bring things down a notch and make the Pineapple Princess a dress.

And, of course, finish off the night with a little light reading and the original Karate Kid on Netflix.

Throw in a home study update and 10 hours of work. and that, friends, is how a waiting adoptive mama keeps busy...for a week. 

STUCK

"So you were adopting, right? How's that going?"

"Heard any adoption news lately?"

"What's your number?"

"Are you still waiting?"

"When will she be home?"

"Hasn't it been like a year?"

Yes, we ARE adopting. 

No.

89.

Yes.

We have no idea.

Actually, it's been 1 year, 7 months and 23 days since we submitted our application.

Shortly after we submitted our application, adoptions in Ethiopia slowed by 90%. That translates to 2-4 cases per day being processed through the court system for the entire country. That doesn't include the days that the judge has meetings elsewhere and can't review the cases; nor does it account for the rainy season in Ethiopia, during which the courts shut down from August until October.  Meanwhile, our future daughters and sons wait, stuck in orphanages because their case wasn't chosen to be reviewed that day, or a piece of paperwork was missing or signed incorrectly.  It's the ugliest form of bureaucracy - enacting laws, policies, and restrictions that hurt, rather than help, the children they're supposed to protect.  

And so we wait. We wait for testimonies from family members that our daughter was freely relinquished for adoption without coercion or bribery. Or we wait for confirmation from the police officer who found her abandoned on the street that every effort was made to locate her family. We wait for relatives to travel 2 days by car or bus to Addis Ababa to appear in court and testify for the relinquishment of their child. We wait for papers to be signed, translated, authenticated, notarized, stamped, sealed, and approved by the U.S., Ethiopia, and sometimes (just for fun), Kenya. And that, friends, is why these kids are stuck.  For months, for years...the current wait time for new families on our agency's wait list for a healthy baby girl is over 2 years. That's 2 years from being added to the waitlist until referral (matching of the child with a family). That doesn't include the months of paperwork that families completed just to get on the wait list.  For perspective, we started the adoption process when Juliana was 8 months old.  She is now 25 months old. 

The purpose of this post is simple: every child deserves a family. It is a basic human right.  No child, regardless of their age, ethnicity, or limitations should be denied a family.  A documentary called "Stuck" explores why international adoptions are declining and follows several families who have waited and fought for years to bring their children home.  It is excellent, intriguing, and heart-wrenching. If you have a spare hour during your week, please watch it.  If you aren't interested in purchasing the movie, please contact me.  I will provide the username and password.

http://buy.stuckdocumentary.com/ - to purchase the movie for $12.99 (All proceeds go toward Both Ends Burning, an organization that supports enacting changes in international adoptions to bring children home faster)

http://buy.stuckdocumentary.com/watch/stuck - to watch the movie (contact me at nbright327@gmail.com or via Facebook for the username and password)

Until the next number,

Natalie

A Year...In the Blink of an Eye

March 31, 2012.  That's when we were officially added to the wait list. It will be a year on Easter.  A year of praying. A year of hoping. A year of waiting. A year of anticipation.  A year of preparation.  A year of waiting. A year of change. A year of seeing through new eyes. A year of celebration, indecision, affirmation, doubting.  A year of waiting. It was an agonizingly long year, but at the same time, it passed in the blink of an eye.  The waiting has not become any easier - our girl is never far from our thoughts. But waiting is no longer synonymous with fretful anticipation.  It has become routine and now holds a treasured place in our hearts.  Because we know the wait will eventually end.  And when it does, it will be joyous. It will be redeeming. It will be beautiful.

Fundraiser Updates

We are so, so, excited to announce that...we have raised the $4,500 needed for our referral fees! I know, that was mean - you thought we got our referral, huh?  A good friend told me that she thinks Monday would be a good day for our referral...I happen to agree :)  So, our referral fees will be submitted when we are matched with our daughter.  They will pay for her medical visits and care at Hannah's Hope in Ethiopia, along with several other things.  The good news is that this is the last set of fees we need to submit to our agency.  The bad news is that we still need to raise funds to travel to Ethiopia...twice.  The first time will be to meet our daughter and to be present for our court date in Ethiopia, in which the Ethiopia government recognizes that we are legally our daughter's parents.  The second trip will occur 4-8 weeks later, in which we will attend our Embassy appointment, receive our daughter's legal and travel documents, and bring her home!

How much do two trips to Ethiopia cost, you ask?  About $2,500 per round trip ticket. Yikes! We are confident, though, that God will provide the funds we need to travel to our baby girl. With that said, we are excited to announce several upcoming fundraising opportunities:

1. We still have about 35 Simply Love t-shirts (mostly sizes L and XL, but a few Smalls and Mediums). They come in 3 fabulous designs and 4 different colors, and are so, so comfy! The shirts are $25 and you can order on our blog or contact me personally!

2. We want our little giraffe to know that so many people love her and helped to bring her home. So, we are doing a puzzle piece fundraiser.  You can buy a piece of this 350 piece puzzle for $10, and your name will be written on the back of the piece that you purchase.  When the puzzle is complete, we will display it in a double-sided frame so that Safiya can see who all was (and is!) a piece of her adoption story.  You can purchase a piece of Safiya's adoption puzzle under the "Puzzle" link of our blog!

3. I'm putting my creative skills to use for this one: I will be designing, painting and selling wooden letters and names for kids' rooms.  You pick your colors and patterns, and I'll do the rest! Letters are $7 apiece, and shipping is available.  You can order on my Etsy website: https://www.etsy.com/listing/108539752/hand-painted-letters .  Click on "Send a message to shop owner" to personalize your letters!

4. My cousin, Samantha, is hosting an online 31 fundraiser party for our adoption! 20% of all sales will benefit our adoption, and there are some awesome new products on their Fall line!  You can check out the party at: http://www.mythirtyone.com/shop/catalog.aspx?eventId=E2097456&from=DIRECTLINK&verify=true

Also, look for an announcement (soon!) about a 31 party that we will be hosting at my mom's house later this month!

Wading Through the Raisin Bran

Our article in the paper has prompted several emails, Facebook messages and personal encounters with family, friends, and even complete strangers.  The most common comment is something along the lines of "You'll be such a good mommy to this little girl" or "She is so lucky to have you as a mommy".  I know these words are meant to be encouraging, but they make me cringe.  Every time.  I'd like to hand out little business cards to these people with this blog post on them: http://alittlebitcountryethiopia.blogspot.com/2012/03/why-us.html.  And then maybe a post-assessment asking if they still think I'll be a good mommy after reading about our crazy, dysfunctional life.  And as for her being the lucky one?  No, no, no....we are the lucky ones.  We are being blessed beyond all explanation to be the parents of this precious child, whom we've never seen or met, but would still die for.  I know this post is uncharacteristically cynical today, but it's been a hard week.  I haven't felt like a good mommy.  I feel like I'm stuck in a tornado with a whirling dirvish named Juliana spinning around me.

With that said, I'm reading "House Rules" by Jodi Picoult.  It's about a mom raising a child with high-functioning autism.  And this part of the book spoke to me:

We are expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only cook with organic food, and are equally at ease with the CEO and PTA.  Here's the secret: Those mothers don't exist. Most of us - even if we'd never confess - are suffering through the raisin bran in the hopes of a glimpse of that magic ring. I look very good on paper.  I have a family, and I write a newspaper column. In real life, I have to pick superglue out of the carpet. rarely remember to defrost for dinner, and plan to have BECAUSE I SAID SO engraved on my tombstone.  

Real mothers wonder why experts who write for Parents and Good Housekeeping seem to have their acts together all the time when they themselves can barely keep their heads above the stormy seas of parenthood. Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum.  We take the child, dump him in the lady's cart, and say, "Great. Maybe you can do a better job." Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast. Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than succeed. 

If parenting is the box of raisin bran, then real mothers know the ratio of flakes to fun is severely imbalanced.  For every moment that your child confides in you, or tells you he loves you, or does something unprompted to protect his brother that you happen to witness, there are many more moments of chaos, error, and self-doubt.

Real mothers may not speak the heresy, but they sometimes secretly wish they'd chosen something for breakfast other than this endless cereal. Real mothers worry that other mothers will find that magic ring, whereas they'll be looking for ages.

Rest easy, real mothers. The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one. 

 

 

Updates to our Journey

It's been way too long since I've updated our awesome readers about our adoption journey, but....not a whole lot has happened!  We're still on the waitlist: #130 for girls and #54 for siblings.  A LOT of families have left AGCI in the past few months to pursue waiting children with other agencies and countries.  We are overjoyed that these waiting children have found their forever families, and were tempted to join those families, but feel like God wants us to stay with AGCI for a little while longer.

In more exciting news, our Simply Love shirts are here, and they're gorgeous!  We have men's (M-XL) and women's (S-XL) shirts in 3 different styles.  Check out our Simply Love page on our blog to order one or email me at nbright327@gmail.com to place an order.

We had a HUGE successful yard sale last weekend at Life UMC in Fairmont and raised nearly $2,000! We are so grateful for the help of our family and friends who helped make this fundraiser possible!  And finally, an article was published in the Times West Virginian today about our adoption journey.  We are so thankful to Mary Wade Burnside for the wonderfully written article and to Tammy Shriver for the beautiful photos. You can check out the article here:
From WV to Ethiopia p1 From WV to Ethiopia p2

We Had Food for Dinner

Last night, for a split second, I almost apologized to Buck as I was serving dinner.  I made this really awesome soup on Monday night (because soup goes with snow like white on rice - yes, we had 2.5 inches of snow...) anyway...by Tuesday night, I wasn't feeling very creative in the cooking department, and so we had soup and grilled cheese...again.  For a split second, I felt a little guilty.  Shouldn't I be feeding my family some awesome dinner?  Don't they deserve variety? And then, it hit me like a brick wall.  We are having soup and grilled cheese for dinner. Food.  My third meal today.  My daughter's third meal today.  While not the most glamorous meal in the world, it is still food.  And it's on our table.  And we will not go to bed hungry tonight or wonder where our next meal will come from.  I can't say the same for my daughter's birth family and thousands of orphans in Ethiopia who are eating mush...or nothing... for dinner tonight.

Lesson learned: Dinner doesn't have to be a glamorous affair. Yes, in my family, food = love, especially when you're talking the awesome Italian food my Mom whips up for special occassions.  But for a Tuesday night, soup and grilled cheese will do, even if it is the 2nd night in a row.  For me, it is enough to know that my husband and daughter are eating dinner, their 3rd meal of the day.  Period. 

No, I didn't apologize.  And Buck told me that dinner was awesome. <3

Give Us Your Junk, Please!

Alright y'all...it's time for this family to start fundraising for the next set of fees: the referral of our daughter. (Referral = our daughter is matched with us)  The $4,500 that is due with her referral covers the cost of her care while at Hannah's Hope (transition home) in Ethiopia.  This care includes formula, diapers, clothing, medical check-ups, and salaries for the Special Mothers and other staff.  The Special Mothers at Hannah's Hope are tirelessly dedicated to these children, and care for them as if they were their own. So...when will we get our referral?  We honestly have no idea.  The average wait time for a healthy baby girl is approximately 18 months; however, we have several parameters that could allow us to be matched sooner.  We know that God's timing is perfect and that He is preparing the way for baby girl to be placed in our arms, whether it is tomorrow or 18 months from now.

Whatever the timing, we want to be prepared.  So...we're having a GIGANTIC yard sale! I'm not talking about a dinky little "porch" or "garage" sale, I'm talking about one that will have to be held in a school gym (or possibly the Armory?).  Complete with bake sale and lemonade, of course.  So, I know a lot of y'all are Spring Cleaning right now.  At our house, we are actually Spring Purging....would you consider giving us your junk, please?  We'll take anything.  Seriously.  And we'll come pick it up and store it in our basement until said yard sale. Or if you'd like to help organize this beast, bake something, or help in any other way, please get ahold of me!  (nbright327@gmail.com or Facebook)

We haven't had great success with our fundraisers so far (we still haven't placed our t-shirt order), and we'd love to have your all's support for this one.  Your junk may mean nothing to you, but it means a lot for our daughter and our family.  So go clean out your closet or basement or garage (or all 3!), and we will gladly come pick up your junk!

And Now A Happier Post...

We're officially on the wait list! Our numbers for April are.....

In case you can't find the numbers, they are #140 for the girls list and #55 for the siblings list.  And...now we wait!

Waiting

Serene, I fold my hands and wait,

Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;

I rave no more ’gainst time or fate,

For lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,

For what avails this eager pace?

I stand amid the eternal ways,

And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,

The friends I seek are seeking me;

No wind can drive my bark astray,

Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?

I wait with joy the coming years;

My heart shall reap where it hath sown,

And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw

The brook that springs in yonder height;

So flows the good with equal law

Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;

The tidal wave unto the sea;

Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,

Can keep my own away from me.

—John Burroughs

The Private Face of Adoption

When you think of the word "adoption", what are some words that come to mind?  Many people would say, "blessing", "miracle", "gift", "love", or "family".  The reality is that these words describe the public face of adoption - you know, the happy, multicultural family you see at a restaurant or the mall or the movies. The reality is that the words that describe the private face of adoption are not always so happy.  Here's the truth: in order for our family to adopt an orphan, she has to be just that: an orphan.  Orphan.  Process that word for a minute, and now think about the words you'd use to describe adoption.  "Grief", "loss", "relinquishment", "death", "abandonment", "anguish"....not such a happy picture now, is it?

While we are overjoyed that God has placed this little girl on our hearts and eventually in our home, we grieve for the losses she will face: her family, culture, country, identity, and language.  Adoption would not be possible without loss.  Whether our daughter's situation involves abandonment or relinquishment, we have the utmost respect for her birth family, who made the most difficult decision a parent could ever make: to let their child be loved and cared for by complete strangers halfway around the world.  Can you imagine the decisions that these families must make?  To keep your child and watch her starve, or give her up and never see her again?  To watch your baby die from AIDS or to relinquish her to a family who can provide treatment?  To be a mother dying from AIDS and wondering who will care for your baby when you're gone?  One of these situations is what our daughter's birth mother is facing right this moment, or will be facing in the near future.  Yes, God is a father to the fatherless and places the lonely in families, but until now, have you really considered what it means to be "fatherless" and "lonely"?

Adoption does not come without an enormous emotional cost.  The emotions we are experiencing as our daughter's adoptive family are nothing compared to those of her and her birth family.  Yes, we can empathize with their grief, but we can't sympathize.  We can never know the anguish they are feeling.  We can only imagine...

Updates!

This week, we had to make some updates to our dossier - basically getting some documents re-notarized, updating information, etc...we finally got the last document notarized today and everything sent to Portland, so we should get a call on Monday with our official waitlist numbers for April! We also got our FDL (Favorable Determination Letter) today from USCIS/ Department of Homeland Security.  It basically says that our fingerprints all checked out and they approve us to move forward with the adoption! Now to get the FDL notarized...another trip to Fairmont on Monday! :)

And The Winner Is...

...Alison Schmelzer from Madison, MS.  The Schmelzers are #12 on All God's Children's wait list for their beautiful baby girl. Congratulations and thank you all for entering the giveaway!

Dossier = Fancy Name for Lots of Papers

So, in the past few months, many of you have heard me ramble, complain, or celebrate our adoption dossier.  And many of you probably wondered what the heck I was talking about...and may have even secretly scowled at me for using such a fancy word....it really does sound silly.  So what the heck is a dossier?  According to dictionary.com:


dos·si·er/ˈdôsēˌā/

Noun:

A collection of documents about a particular person, event, or subject

In our case, our dossier was a collection of adoption documents, including:

1. Notarized and State Certified Power of Attorney Form

2. Statement of Reason to Adopt (application letter)

3. Photocopy of USCIS Fingerprint Appointment Letter

4. Photocopies of US Passport 

5. Official passport photos

6. Photographs of the family

7. Photographs of the family's home

8. Home Study

9. Letters of Employment 

10. Financial Statement

11. Birth Certificates 

12. Marriage Certificate

13. Medical letters 

14. Police clearances

15. Two letters of reference

16. $5,500

Every single document had to be signed by at least 2 different people and notarized, and one had to be sent to the Secretary of State to be certified. This is what all of this paperwork looks like:

And this is what a bewildered postal worker looks like when you ask him to take a picture with you and a box that has your dossier in it:

To us, dossier means 4 months of stressful, grueling paper chasing with a 12, 13, 14, and 15 month old attached to you hip; a heart-wrenching letter to the Ethiopian government explaining why you would make good parents to one of their children; trying to capture the inside and outside of your house in 6-8 photos; and having a ton of faith that God will provide the $5,500 you need to submit said dossier.  

So, the reason you see me and Juliana posing with the bewildered postal worker is because our God is amazingly faithful and truly does provide in HIS own time.  On March 14, we had every single document necessary to submit our dossier and get on the waitlist for our daughter....minus $3,000 of the $5,500 fee.  Yesterday, we were $1,500 short.  Today, we received a grant for $2,200 and mailed our dossier to Portland, OR.  We are officially on the waitlist and will know our waitlist numbers on Monday!!

Dossier....big, fancy word for lots of papers and lots of love.

Why Us?

"God doesn't give us more than we can handle....but sometimes, I wish He didn't trust me so much."  Heard that one before?  That pretty much sums up my feelings right about now.  Why did God choose US, of all people, to adopt and love a grieving, scared, emotionally traumatized child?  Doesn't this child deserve a normal family?  A family where Dad goes to work in the morning and comes home at night and Mom cooks wholesome, nutritious meals, bakes fresh chocolate chip cookies, does 12 loads of laundry before noon, and cleans the house, all while bouncing a baby on her hip?  A family who lives in a nice, new 2-story house in a subdivision where kids ride their bikes up and down the street and actually have neighbors?  We're not that normal family....we live in a 100-year old house halfway up a mountain in the rural outskirts of our city.  Our neighbors live "up the hill" from us, and riding bikes on our road would be a death wish.  These days, Daddy goes to work at 5pm and comes home around 5am.  On any given day of the week, you may walk in to find me making Hamburger Helper for our "dinner", which is actually Buck's breakfast, while Jules runs madly through the house yelling "DOGGIE!!" and trying to put a sock on one of our 3 (yes, 3) dogs.  It would be just as likely for you to walk in and find diapers (clean ones!) and a sippy in the dog's kennel and Juliana sitting inside our dishwasher (which is not attached to the wall, by the way), trying to put her baby doll and bink to bed.  (Note: binks do not survive dishwashing).  We. are. not. normal.  Normal people tell each other "I love you" to show their love.  Buck and I show our love by hiding a toy dinosaur (affectionately known as "Little T") in random places throughout the house for each other to find.  (The best one so far was finding Little T perched on the shower head, looking down at me.  Yes, I screamed.)  Buck keeps fuzzy socks in his nightstand to put on my frigid feet in the middle of the night.  I make him donkey-shaped pancakes and leave him notes in the shower, constructed solely from Juliana's 26 foam bath letters.  (No, they're not always nice words, but we're working with 5 vowels here)  Why our social worker approved and recommended us to be adoptive parents is beyond me.  She has access to our medical reports, our psychological evaluations and our financial statement, and she still approved us??  I mean, we actually showed her Little T!  She should have run out of here and never looked back!

So, why am I questioning God for choosing us to adopt one of His precious children? I should feel honored, humbled, blessed...instead I'm hesitant, unsure and scared.  Sure, we have 2 years to read every book on Amazon about adoptive parenting, bonding, and attachment.  We can take as many adoptive learning courses as we want and read adoptive parents' blogs and forums until our eyes are crossed. But will any of that preparation matter in the middle of the night when our baby girl has night terrors or realizes that her "special mother" who cared for her so tenderly at the orphanage has been replaced by strange, white people who don't know how to comfort her?  Will those books really help us help her grieve for the loss of her birth family, country, and culture?  Will a seminar help us one day when she tells me that I'm not her real mother?  When you strip away the excitement of the wait, the journey to bring her home, the airport celebration and the happy family photo, you find the raw, exhausted emotions of a family trying to show unconditional love to a child who is emotionally traumatized.  Can we do this?  Will we be ready? And most importantly, why does God trust us so much?

Eat Mor Chikin...For Our Adoption!

Alright, y'all...who likes Chick Fil-A?  We're pretty big fans in the Bright house, and we're even bigger fans now that the Bridgeport Chick Fil-A has agreed to partner with us for an Adoption Spirit Night on Monday, March 26.

How it works: You come to the Bridgeport Chick-Fil-A (on Emily Drive) on March 26 between 4-7pm, place your order, and present the fundraiser card that I'll be handing out prior to the event.  At the end of the night, we'll receive 15% of the profits from people who place an order on our behalf.  So....mark your calendars for March 26 from 4-7pm and come eat some chicken for a good cause!

Easy Fundraising Opportunity!

We came across a GREAT fundraising opportunity that will cost you NOTHING!  The Morgantown Armory is hosting a Spring Consignment Sale March 22-24.  As a consignor who is also volunteering at the sale, I will get 90% of the profits from the clothes that I consign.

Here's how you can help:  if you have any gently worn baby clothes, baby items, or kid's clothes that you would like to donate, we will receive 90% of the profits from our sales.  I can pick up the clothes/items any time and you can decide if you want any unsold clothes returned to you or donated at the end of the sale.  This is a great opportunity and could potentially bring in a few hundred dollars!  If you'd like to help out, please email (nbright327@gmail.com), Facebook me, leave a comment, or call me (304-203-1501).  I need to collect the clothes, tag them, and drop them off at the Armory on March 19, so I'd like to have everything done and ready to go by St. Patrick's Day!  Thanks for your help!

Cosignment Sale Brochure

A Little Bit...of Awesome Timing

God's timing is perfect, but often, we don't realize it until what we're waiting for comes to fruition.  I had that revelation today, as I crunched numbers to figure out when our dossier submission fees would be due and how much we need to raise before then.  A random check of our bank account revealed that our tax refund had posted (insert singing and much jubilation)!  We were responsible and paid off some bills (more singing and jubilation!), but the remainder went to our Adoption Fund. 

So...out of the $7,000 we need for dossier submission (official documents that go to the U.S. Embassy and Ethiopian courts), we are now down to $2,860!  We are so thankful and grateful to our families and friends (and the U.S. Treasury) for their t-shirt orders and monetary gifts over the past few weeks - you all have made a life-changing difference for a little girl halfway around the world, even if it's not obvious to you right this second.  Perfect timing...brought to you by God....

Tickle, Tickle, Tickle!

What are the two best Valentine's Day gifts a mama could get from her kiddos? Here are mine:

1. Juliana tickling my neck as we snuggled for bedtime and saying, "ki-ckle, ki-ckle, ki-ckle!"
2. Getting an email from All God's Children that our home study was APPROVED today! (I know that gift was from baby girl in Ethiopia <3)

This mama doesn't need roses or chocolate; just a reminder of what true love really looks like!  Happy Valentine's Day!

Baby Be Blessed Dolls Giveaway

My friend sent me the link to these adorable dolls a few days ago, and I would love to get 2 for my girls!  They're customizable to look like your little girl (or boy!) and have a bible verse sewn onto their bellies.  This is an awesome ministry that supports orphan care and adoption awareness. 

And.... they're having a giveaway today!  Check out their blog: http://babybeblessed.blogspot.com/2012/02/yay.html to find out how you can win one of these adorable dolls.  Or...you can mention my name on their blog (not the FB page) to help us win one for our adopted little girl! (Don't worry, I'll buy Jules one, too!)