Garage Sale

Well, we had the garage sale today. It went really well. It was too cold in the morning so we thought we would get no business. Finally around 10:00 it starting warming up and people started showing up! We ended up getting over $300. So that is wonderful!

Thanks for all the people who donated stuff! We appreciate it.

There was some great stuff that we didn't want to sell for too cheap so we will be putting them on e-bay so we may make some more money off of those.

Well, I hope you all have a good weekend!

Christy

P.S. - Pray for our car situation - at the moment we don't have a working one! We have borrowed a car from Daniel's Dad - we will be looking at buying a car in the next couple of weeks - ours is not worth fixing.

Noah's Ark

Here is the picture I bought for the baby room. It is all Hebrew Letters. I tell people it is the story of Noah - but really I have no clue what it says. One day when Daniel has time maybe he will translate it for me. But for now let's just say it is the story of Noah.

Dear Birthmother

Well, we (I) have finished our scrapbook. I think it is good - but some of the pages probably have too many pictures. I tried to fit in a bunch of stuff - hopefully not too much. It consists of:
1. Cover - picture of me and Daniel (the one on this blog)
2. Inside - Bible verse - I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him - 1 Samuel 1:27
3. Dear Birthmother Letter (see below)
4. All about Daniel/All about Christy
5. All about us/Church/Most important things to us
6. Our Home
7. Job (the dog, not the book, and not our jobs)
8. Davis Family
9. Littleton Family
10. Nieces and Nephews
11. Other children - Joshua and Lucas, Maddie, Lauren, and Isaac
12. The end - With anxious hearts and open arms, we await our child, our gift from God, the answer to our prayers. And a picture of the picture I recently bought for the baby room. It is Noah's Ark made out of Hebrew Letters. It is really cool.

So now I just have to write the Dear Birthmother Letter. I just got a book in today called: Reaching Out: the guide to writing a terrific birthmother letter. By Nelson Handle. So hopefully this will give me some great ideas for writing.

After that I will take it to Staples - because they are still having their sale on color copies and make the 5 copies of it that I have to make. I will probably let them bind it too.

Many have asked where we are right now - well, we are still waiting to get our background checks back from KY - I mailed them Sept. 20 so they should come back soon! And then we are just waiting on a call from the agency to tell us when the next orientation will be. There has to be a few couples that have completed all of their paperwork before they will set up an orientation. She thought there would be one at the end of October or the first of November but we haven't heard anything so it might be later.

Well, that is it for now. I just wanted to update you. By the way the candle sales are going great!

Here it is:

Well, I warned you there was going to be a sales pitch so here it is:

Are you looking for the perfect Christmas present for your friends and family? Well, do I have a deal for you! Buy a Little Light of Mine candle! They are clean burning and long lasting (about 30% longer than paraffin candles). They are made from 100% soy wax, which is a renewable resource that supports American famers.

You may choose the 10oz or 16oz apothecary jar (they are both in jars I was wrong about the 10oz being in a tin!) You can choose from 12 scents (see list below).

The best part is that not only are you getting great candles but you are helping to support adoption. 10% of all proceeds is given to orphan relief and 40% is given to us for our adoption.
Payment must be received at time of order. The sale goes from today - Nov. 11. The order will be placed Nov. 12 and it will take approximately 3 weeks for the candles to come in - so if you order them today it would be about 6 weeks before you get your candles.

I have sample scents for you to smell - I will be bringing them to church this Sunday if you are interested just ask me. If you want to see a picture of the candles I have those too or you can go to the website for pictures. There is a link to the website under my links. You can also read more about the lady who makes the candles. In my conversations with her I have found out that she is a pastor's wife - her husband just graduated from Southwestern - they have 3 biological children and they just adopted a baby and a 10 year old from Kazakstan ( I believe that was the country).

If you do not live in Louisville or Nashville - you can still order candles if you want. I can just mail them to you. You will obviously not get to smell the scents but you can read the descriptions and I can recommend the good ones. Just mail me a check and tell me what you want. Checks are made out to me.

Prices: 10oz - $11.00
16oz - $16.00
I am willing to negotiate some on the prices like 2 for $20 (10oz) or 2 for
$30 (16oz) - I mean you save a whole $2.00 - what a deal!

Scents (please note I did not make up these descriptions!) (my comments in black)
Madagascar Vanilla - a strong, true vanilla scent
Citrus and Pine - a pine and orange blend - perfect if you don't have a real tree
China Tea- a wonderful green tea blend (this was one that I liked - not too strong and nice scent)
Spiced Apple - fresh baked apples topped with cinnamon and spice (another I really liked)
Lavendar Fields - fresh lavendar blended with a touch of rose and jasmine
Butter Cookie - Yum! This one is mouth- watering - a warm buttery sugar cookie with a hint of berry filling
Roasted Chestnuts - the name says it all - it may make you hungry!
Christmas Cheer- a very festive blend of oranges, apples, cloves, and spices
Rosemary Citrus - a clean and refreshing blend of rosemary, grapefruit, and orange (surprisingly this is a scent I smell at the mall all the time and I love it - however daniel hates it. It smells like candy to me - like smarties (if you know what those are) )
Banana Brulee - a strong, sweek baked banana treat
Apple and Clover - a fresh green apple and clover blend
Harvest Thyme - a wonderful spicy scent - cinnamon, cloves, and pumpkin with a hint of thyme.

Please let me know if you have any questions!
Thanks!

Christy

Paperwork!

Well, it is mid-October and it looks like we will meet our goal for getting our paperwork in by the end of the month. Daniel finished his survey today - it had a bunch of questions such as - describe your personality, describe your spouses personality, what do you like about yourself, what do you dislike about yourself, what surprised you about your spouse, what do you like about your spouse, what do you dislike about your spouse, describe your childhood, describe your high school years, how were you disciplined as a child and teenager, how will that affect the way you discipline your children, etc., ect., ect.

Most of those questions were just pretty annoying - what surprised you about your spouse? What is that suppossed to mean? And both of us absolutely hate questions that say list your strengths and weaknesses! But anyway it is done and they will be in the mail tomorrow along with background checks from TN, Daniel's birth certificate, tax returns, and I think that is about all in the package I will send tomorrow.

Basically everything is in that we have control over. We are still waiting for Kentucky Background checks, a letter from Tennessee, letters from financial institutions stating that our accounts are in good standing (we have one we are waiting on two more), and our personal reference letters (I gave them envelopes addressed to adoptions of kentucky so they won't come to us - I'm hoping most of them are turned in but I only know of one for sure).

But all of this to say I think we will get everything in by the end of October and hopefully they will be able to have an orientation by the first of November.

Candle Scents

Well, I looked at the results of my survey and it was pretty much even between 16oz and 10oz. So I spoke to the lady who makes the candles and she said that she would let me sell both sizes! So that way everyone is pleased!

You guys all pretty much agreed on which scents you liked - I had to narrow it down to 12 - here are the 12 I chose

- Apple and Clover
- Banana Brulee
- Butter Cookie
- Buttercream Crunch
- Lavender Fields
- Madagascar Vanilla
- Rosemary Citrus
- Christmas Cheer
- Citrus and Pine
- Harvest Thyme
- Roasted Chestnuts
- Spiced Apples

I think everyone can find a scent they like from those. As soon as I get order forms I will post information about the candles, the lady selling them, and how everything will work. I will even give you the website so you can check it out if you want to.

Child Abuse Registry

Well, we have found a new lead on getting a letter stating we are not on the child abuse registry. My Dad called the TBI (Tennessee Buerua of Investigation) to see if they could help. I have the name and address of a lady. I just need to send her a letter with our SSN and where we lived in TN and hopefully she can get a letter to us! I hope this works.

We go to the doctor today. As I said before we will just go to the doctor here on campus - it is much easier and much cheaper! So all he has to do is sign that we are healthy. They have to write our blood pressure and stuff like that down. I had to write my medications down. No big deal. He shouldn't have a problem signing.

I guess that is it. Don't forget to take the candles survey!

Just a note...

Please fill out my survey...you are under no obligation to buy a candle if you fill out the survey. You could even take the survey as an anonymous person. I just need to know preferences.

Thanks,

Christy

Quick Survey

Hey Everyone,

I know there are more than just a couple of people who read this. Most of you just don't comment. Well, today is the day I need ALL of you to comment.

Please answer the following questions in your comment:

1. If you were going to buy a candle for yourself or for a christmas present would you rather buy an 11oz candle (in a cute little tin) for $11 dollars or a 16oz candle (in a jar) for $16.00? (Keeping in mind that 40% of the purchase goes to my adoption and 10% goes to an orphan fund). (Also keeping in mind Yankee Candle is a bit more expensive)

2. What type of scent would you more likely buy (you can be general or more specific on this one)
a. Seasonal (Christmas Cheer, Spiced Apple, Citrus and Pine, Harvest Thyme, Roasted Chestnuts)
b. Flowery (English garden, Lavender Fields, Sweet Petals, Black Currant Rose etc.)
c. Fruity (Lemon tart, Orange Blossom Honey, Rosemary Citrus, Sundance (apricot), etc.)
d. Home Baked (Apple and CLover, Butter Cookie, Buttercream Crunch, Madagascar Vanilla)
e. Other (China Tea, Cocoa, Indian Sandalwood, Thai Breeze, etc.


Thanks, that is all for today. I will come back with a sales pitch later on. Be forwarned!

Guardian ad litem

So I spelled it wrong in my previous post but here is what Guardian ad litem means:


Guardian ad litem
A guardian appointed to assist an infant or other mentally incapable defendant or plaintiff, or any such incapacitated person that may be a party in a legal action.


GUARDIAN AD LITEM - Lat. "guardian at law." The person appointed by the court to look out for the best interests of the child during the course of legal proceedings.

TB and Lawyers

Well, you should be happy to know that we do not have TB. I know you were VERY concerned!

Some rescent things I have been doing are:

1. Trying to get SOMEONE, ANYONE, in Tennessee to send us a letter stating that we are not on the child abuse registry. But apparently that information is confidential and they can't even give me the information. I wrote the lady and told her that I know I'm not on the list but could you please just look and then write a letter stating I'm not on it. But, that would be too simple.

So if you are a child abuser and you want to adopt in Tennessee you probably could because they won't let anyone look to see if you are on the list! The only people who can get access to this information is Child Protective Services. So if you use an agency other than them to adopt then no one will be able to find out if you are on the list.

If anyone reading this works for CPS in Nashville it would be great if you could get a letter for me!

I hate it that you can't read tone in blogs - the tone of the above is more of a sarcastic, mocking tone than an angry tone.


2. I have called a couple of attorneys to see what they charge. I really liked one of them, Susan Crull. She was very nice and she knew what she was talking about. She knew all about what our agency required and everything. She went into detail about each cost and why it was that way. She is probably the one we will use. She will have to sign a risk letter for us at the end of October and she said we can just fax that to her. The first to get that signed and faxed to the agency is the first to be able to schedule their homestudy. She said we would not contact her again until we have a match with a birthmother. Some of the fees include - her flat fee, filing fees, registered mail fees, guardian ad lidum fee (I'll get back to you on this), and if we need to go to probate court to get guardianship of the baby for insurance purposes we will pay the court costs but she said she would not charge us additional fees.

3. I think I have gathered all the pictures I can or that I'm going to. So tonight I will start my scrapbook (actually I started it last week but got stuck because I didn't know which pictures I would be using. ) I will definately finish it by Nov. 12 so that I can get the $0.36 copies!


Well, that is all for now - have a GREAT weekend!

Christy

How Exciting!

Well, i am very excited because my friend, Jason, has shown me how to do more things on my blog. I have been quite disappointed that I could not add color to my posts but he has shown me how to do this! So from now on my blog will be colorful! I can even change the font!

He also showed me how to add a tag to my blog. A Tag is so you can find all the other blogs about the subject you are writing about. So hopefully, if I did it correctly...there will be a tag at the bottom of this blog.

Goodbye for now! No longer will you have to look at a dull blog!


Technorati tags:adoption

TB

Well, we just got back from getting our TB tests. Daniel survived the needle - he did really well, he didn't even have to lie down afterwards! It was just a small prick.

Hopefully that will come back negative (although I have had this annoying cough for some time now!)



HAHAHAHA...Just kidding!

We go back Thursday for the results and then next Tuesday we will get the doctor to sign our medical forms.

That will be another check off on our things to do list!