As 2011 winds down...

I can't help but be excited for 2012 & all that God has for us!

And we still have 2012 CALENDARS!!!

I have been asked what the inside looks like, so I took some pics to post for everyone. Please remember these are 8.5 x 11 spiral bound, nice quality, full color wall calendars. Each month highlights a different family & their beautiful adoptive children.

Plenty of space to write appointments on...

January - June

July - Decemeber

Thick & sturdy enough to stand. These are nice calendars!

So please don't miss your chance to get one. Only $12, plus S/H $3.50 for one & $1 ea additional. Orders yours today via our Chip-In button or Paypal to adventure4eli@gmail.com.

Thank you all & Happy New Year!

Decisions & Blessings

Well I am still researching social workers, so we can decide who we are going to hire to do our home study. Today I finally got to talk to a couple of them. I really liked this one lady that has been doing home studies for adoptive families of chinese children for over 11 yrs. Please be in prayer that we choose the right SW.

Then while talking to our agency coordinator this afternoon about our paperwork and home study, I was informed of a New Years blessing... We have been awarded a Brittany's Hope Grant of $2,000!!! Praise God! Now Brittany's Hope is a 'Pay It Forward' grant foundation and what that means, I have been told, is that they will set up an account in our name for people to donate into. When we have $1,000 in donations, Brittanys Hope will grant us $2,000 towards our travel expenses or orphanage fee. And Brittany's Hope is a non-profit, so anyone wanting to make a donation as a tax deduction can do so thru this opportunity. Yay!

God is so good! Every time I might have the hint of discouragement or not even, just concern, He provides some type of blessing to remind us this is His plan & He will bring it to completion. I am so grateful!

And for those who haven't gotten their 2012 calendar, we still have some left.

Or if you want a chance at a FREE Kindle Fire... we are still accepting Donations for that Give Away too.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and support. God bless everyone as they ring in the New Year. We are off to a bonfire with friends. Catch ya in 2012!

Merry Christmas!

We are so blessed to celebrate Christ's birth as fellow heirs to the kingdom of God. And we are so blessed to have celebrated Christmas this year together with four kids at home in our new resident state of Texas, and one kid waiting across the ocean in China.  :) 

Can't wait to hear that Eli hopefully received his Christmas Care Pkg & the news of us becoming his forever family. As a family tradition we opened gifts to one another on Christmas Eve. But in the spirit of St. Nicholas's Giving our entire family gets stockings on Christmas morning at our house, and today was no exception... the kids found Eli's stocking under our "Advent Tree" where dad put it because Eli is family and we are preparing & awaiting his arrival, just as we have been preparing & awaiting for Christ this season.

Zoe & Levi enjoyed exploring Eli's stocking and we are putting his things up for his travel backpack home...

And if we didn't have enough things to praise God for, I must share a wonderful blessing we just received... When I opened our blog to write this post, I noticed it looked like our Chip In fund was bigger. So I hurried to log into Eli's paypal account and found that we received a $100 Donation TODAY, on Christmas day!!! Thank you so much to the GIVER of this Gift. May God bless you tenfold! That is the second $100 Donation we have received this week... Christmas week. God bless tenfold the Corsicana family, who blessed us earlier this week too. Praise the Lord of all things, praise His Holy name! As we are trying to finish selling the calendars and raise the rest of our first agency payment of $3,000 these Donations are a huge blessing and encouragement.

Merry Christmas to all & God bless us, everyone!

Do you drink coffee?

I know I am a coffee junkie! Starbucks could become my middle name. But if you are like me, may I ask you to consider this... Just Love Coffee is a company owned & operated by an adoptive family that supports other adoptive families. We have registered with them to receive a portion of proceeds from sales through our adoption store front https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/adventure4eli/ going towards bringing Eli home. So please, if you buy coffee check this out, try some & help bring Eli home while we still drink coffee. It's that easy! We're gonna buy the coffee anyway, and this way it blesses lots of people at the same time. Oh, and BTW, for my non-coffee drinkers... they have cocoa too! And a neat gift shop...

Our first gifts to Eli

We are so excited about being able to give him these Christmas gifts & especially to tell him we are his forever family in a letter & with pictures too (in the photo album).

And Angela found the perfect gift, since he loves music & likes to sing, she found him a keyboard w/ microphone. We can't wait to hear his response & hope for return letter from him...

And of course it wouldn't be Christmas without a nice new outfit. Angela has nice taste!  :)

Angela & Kelly from Ladybugs 'N Love www.ladybugsnlove.com are awesome!

We are also sending money to the orphanage for a cake for his Birthday because it is in 2 weeks. Don't want to overwhelm him, but don't want his birthday forgotten either. Just want him to know he is loved!

Thank you to everyone praying for our Eli and for our adoption process. We appreciate & need all of them!

Merry Christmas,

Sherry

 

And the winner is...

Woohoo! Congratulations Karen Rubenstein of Alexandria, LA for winning the $75 Gift Basket!

Thank you everyone for your support in helping us raise $153.53 towards bringing Eli home!

Onto our next Give Away... a brand new KINDLE FIRE!!!

20 MIN UNTIL GIVE AWAY!!!

Just wanted to announce that there is only 20 mins left untill we draw a name for the $75 Gift Basket Give Away of Starbucks, Specialty Chocolates, earrings, incense burner, gift card, snowman decor, cookies...

 

Please Donate $5 to get your name in drawing or $10 for three chances before 10pm CST & help us bring Eli home!!!

And if you Donate & x-post to your fb wall or blog & send me link, I will put your name in again for FREE...

Donate using easy Chip-In button on right side of blog or Paypal to adventure4eli@gmail.com

Thank you all for your support & prayers!

We got the call!

My phone rang at 10:28pm... We got PA!!!!!!

 

Thank you for all your prayers and support!

 

We are so excited!!! Since we have never adopted before, this is a new feeling of elation and emotions... I have been told I am "Paper-Pregnant"... lol  That would explain why I am so excited I can hardly type I guess... lol

 

The real work starts tomorrow, but at least for tonight we can celebrate CCCWA pre-approving us to adopt our son. Woohoo!

 

Please check out our fundraisers, as we need funds ASAP.

Calendars Here & shipping, while awaiting PA

I think today is business day 7 and we are anxiously awaiting PA for our son...

I have been reading all the good news posts about acronyms I don't understand yet on all the yahoo adoption groups, and I am happy for everyone, but hoping we get the call soon too. I so want to hurry and order a care pkg for him for Christmas. I want to make his Christmas with finding out he is loved from a far & give him the hope of the future... sigh

Trying to keep busy and not think about it... But it's hard!

ALL the 150 calendars we had printed have now arrived. And we just mailed 49 calendars & have 21 pkg'd & waiting to go out. If you haven't got your 2012 calendar yet, please order one from us! They are only $12, plus S/H ($3.50).

We have two other fundraisers going on too. Anything to keep busy and raise support & funds...

Our newest one is a KINDLE FIRE GIVE AWAY - $10 Donation gets your name in drawing & $20 Donation gets your name in 4 x's. I will also put your name in an additional time with a donation and x-post on yoru blog or fb page. (Send me link)

And only 4 days left until we are drawing for the big $75 Gift Basket of Starbucks, Chocolate & more at 10pm Sun Dec 18th. So be sure to get your name in that drawing for a $5 Donation, or $10 gets your name in 3 x's, before it's too late. Again, I will also put your name in an additional time with a donation and x-post on your blog or fb page. (Send me link)

I have seen so many neat items for fundraisers and been Christmas shopping myself thru all your blogs. Love it!

We also opened the adoption bank account today! Yay! Our bank even let us put a sub-title on the account... "Adventure 4 Eli". It's not on checks or anything, just there for the bank & us to see and keep seperate from out personal account. But still was very neat.

So while we still wait for out PA call... we are trying to keep moving forward. Thank you everyone for your support already. We appreciate all of it! And keep watch for news soon... 

Patiently waiting,

Sherry

The Calendars are done!!!

Woohoo!!! The 2012 Adoption Success Stories Calendar are finished, uploaded to printer & now on their way!

I will have some in 2-3 days, the rest will be here by next week. Either way, plenty of time for Christmas. Everyone please be sure to order yours today for delivery before Christmas. Offer & price while supplies last... 

2012 Adoption Success Stories Calendar are $12 each, plus S/H ($3.50 for one, plus $1 per additional calendar).  You can place order via the Chip-in button on right side of our blog www.adventure4eli.blogspot.com or Paypal to adventure4eli@gmail.com (Please specify “Calendar” & quantity ordering). All proceeds go towards bringing Eli home, specifically to the first agency fee of $3,000.

Great gift idea too! What a neat way to share the wonderful joys of beautiful children & adoption 12 months a year, with a different family’s success story every month.

I would like to thank my friend Jennifer LaHaye Kurts, who is a very talented professional photographer & graphic artist http://www.kurtslahaye.com/ for designing all the months in the calendar. I am telling you they are gorgeous!

And a HUGE THANK YOU to all 12 families that sponsored months in the calendar & shared yoru beautiful children and families with us. Because without you, there would be no calendar.

So THANK YOU: Bargeron, Beth; Clark, Tiffany; Cole, Bridget; Coleman, Trish; Fischer, Jennifer; LaComb, Amanda; Mallette, Nancy; Mallory, Brenda; Moore, Sharee; Rutherford, Kim; and Sisemore, Tami

Don't miss you chance, cuz I know I can NOT wait to get my hands on these!!!

*Permission to cross post & advertise on blogs. I'd love to share these stories with the world…

Locked & Waiting, plus new pics!

I've been teary eyed all morning after receiving an email from Angela (Ladybugs 'N Love) with new pics!!!

Although he is absolutely beautiful & the first pic is wonderful, this next pic means more to us...

 Look at his face! He loves holding this dog. Because we love & show dogs as a family hobby, and have 8 dogs in our home, we really wanted to know that our son liked dogs. But we were told many of the orphans in China are not exposed to dogs & so many are afraid of them when they first come home. Well we wanted to ask if he liked dogs in our 10 Questions, but decided not to... But God knows all & is in total control!!! His plans are exceedingly & abundantly better than we could ever ask for. Out of the three pics we received, one is of him holding a dog. Thank you Jesus!!!

It warms our heart to know that he is loved and cared for by a foster family. I can't help but cry when I think about the lovely lady who is acting as a mother to him... I already appreciate so much all that she has done for our son.

The other email I received this am was from our agency coordinator stating "Your file has been locked to him and the CCCWA is assessing now- cross your fingers and toes and keep praying."

It can take 5-7 business days to get PA, but I was told we should hear back by end of the week...

So I am asking everyone to please pray!!!

Last night we decorated the family room and Christmas tree. And we all kept mentioning "Next year when Eli is here..." or "Hope Eli ..." or "We have to get a stocking for Eli", etc, etc, etc.

Praying this is his last Christmas without a family of HIS OWN to celebrate with...

Well I have to get back to these two kiddos here- Zoe is studying biology & Levi is doing his math lesson on the computer. I love homeschooling my kids. I am also working on raising the $3,000 agency payment we need when we do hear back about our PA. We are still taking orders for Calendars & donations for the $75 Give Away Gift Basket. But I am supposed to be working on Steve's idea for the next fundraiser. Watch for it.

I encourage everyone to Christmas shop from the many great products our fellow adopting families and their fundraising efforts. http://www.fundraisingfamilies.blogspot.com/

God bless you all,
Sherry

Our first attempt at a Give Away Fundraiser

$75 Gift Basket includes:
1 lb Starbucks Christmas Blend Coffee
$10 Starbucks Gift Card
Ceramic Coffee Mug 17 oz
Frappuccino Earrings
Ferrero Chocolate Collection 5.5 oz
Ferrara Chocolate Orange 6.17 oz
Russell Stover Chocolate 2 oz
Royal Dansk Wafers 3.5 oz
Ceramic Incense Burner
Snowman Kitchen Towel
Snowman Christmas Ornament

Please Donate & Help bring Eli home!
$5 Donation will get your name in drawing
$10 will get your name in 3 times
*Donate w/ Chip-In Button or Paypal to adventure4eli@gmail.com
Advertise on your fb or blog & get name in extra time (send me link)

We will be drawing to Give Away the Gift Basket Sun Dec 18th 10pm CST
We WILL SHIP!

I have been so excited all day...

We got the orphanage call update we have been waiting 19 days for... Thank you Angela & Kelly from Ladybugs 'N Love From Above!!! http://ladybugsnlove.com/

AND our adoption agency is LOCKING in our son right now & submitting to China for PA (Pre-Approval) for us to adopt him!!!  OMGoodness! The flood of emotions...

They have 48 hrs to translate & get all our docs to China. Then we wait 5-7 business days for PA. So we need lots of prayers!

Meanwhile, we need the first agency payment of $3,000 when PA comes back.

Who wants 2012 calendars???

And for those interested: He is in a foster home, which is why the update took so long. He is a very happy outgoing boy, loved by everyone. He even goes to school. He's good at math, but needs extra help with words... sounds like a Patton to me. (lol) He loves music and to sing, again must be a Patton. His favorite colors are red, green and yellow. He turns 10 yrs old next month and we can't wait to get more pics of him!