Neylan has a room!

Finally, I am in nesting mode and Neylan's room has begun to take shape. We had to give up our guest room and the guests will now be lodged in the basement. We found a crib last fall and loved it, but had no other pieces to match. We bought it anyway and decided to mix and match everything later. My mom was in town all week last week to help out with all that needs to be done before we travel. We started with the painting, because any mom knows, flat paint and little boys do not mix!

We think we have all the furniture in here that the room will hold. So finishing touches will need to be done for sure, but we are closer and more ready for him to check out his new room. Grayson approves!

A HUGE Step Closer!

We just found out that Neylan's EP (emigration permit) was submitted for on April 6th!!! This is amazing news. It's not a passport, but a permit to let him out of the country. It's just a one time deal. Once he is here we will have to get him an official passport. The good news is that it was submitted for over 2 weeks ago!! And without us knowing, it's less time we have to wait for it to be approved. The last batch was approved in 3 weeks. The previous two batches took 5 weeks. So we should be approved in the next 3 weeks for sure. The bad news is that now we just sit and wait some more. Well, there will not be much time for sitting. There's too much to get done.

And the AWESOME news?!! It looks like I will get to see my baby by his first birthday. Likely we will be there on his birthday. How cool is that!!

Another great consignment find!

My mom and I have been shopping around all weekend for stuff for Neylan's room and as we were walking out the door of a consignment store, this caught my eye. I have never seen one of these before, but I think it might just be a lifesaver on our 15 hour flight to Korea. I know it won't provide that many hours (or minutes) of fun, but if it buys us some quiet, non-fussy time on the flight, it was worth every bit of the $6.50 I paid for it.  

And the OT in me just loves all the fine motor activities. I think it will be great for both boys as some of the activities are easier and some are more challenging.

Wasting No Time!

That's right- we aren't wasting any time in moving right into our next, and probably last, fundraiser before we travel. This is exciting for me, at least, becuase frankly, I am fundraisered out. Everything we have done has been great and a huge blessing, but it has been a lot of work. This project was a ton of work. We knew today was the day there would be a delivery, so when Grayson and I came home this morning, our front porch was full of boxes.

What's inside? Cookbooks!! 330 of them. All for you and your friends. We worked for several weeks to create this book of recipes to share. We had many friends and family contribute, so I know it's got some delicious things inside. We decided to name the book, Food for our Seoul, as it is a collection of yummy recipes to benefit our little piece of Seoul, Korea.

We will be selling these for $15. We are also thinking about issuing a little challenge. Anyone up for it? Whoever buys or sells the most books will win a gift card to a fun restaurant. So, think of people you know who might like a book, who might need a book (to learn how to cook), or who might be interested  in our story and want to simply support our effort. We are pleased with how they turned out and want to share them with you.

Who? Ideas:

• Teachers (the end of the school year is coming)
• Wedding or baby shower gifts
• Co-workers or employees
• Family
• Friends
• Anyone who shares a passion for adoption



Another fundraiser down

Well, another fundraiser is complete and boy was it a good one. Garage sales are always a TON of work, but we were tremendously blessed this time for our efforts. We started bright and early on Friday morning and had a steady stream of shoppers until 8:00 pm. We had a beautiful day and great weather. We made over $1400 on Friday alone!!! Unheard of. We sold so much on Friday, we called friends who had offered us more stuff that we couldn't take earlier in the week and asked if they could bring their stuff for Saturday becuase we were looking slightly empty.

We had great help both days as this was such a massive undertaking that we couldn't do it alone. Our great friends Gayle and Shannon came down to help Adam while I worked Friday morning. They were such a big help getting everything out of boxes and displayed nicely. They gave it a nice woman's touch. And then when I picked up Grayson from daycare, they took him home with them to spend the night so he wouldn't be in the way on Saturday. This was such a big help. Grayson really would not have enjoyed watching some of his new toy finds being sold out from under him.

Saturday was predicted to be really hot (high of 90 deg), so we asked one of Grayson's babysitters to run a lemonade stand. She agreed and then took it to the next level. She showed up Saturday morning with muffins, cookies, brownies, lemonade, and bottled water. She was such a saleswoman and eagerly talked to every customer that came by. I think she had fun and raised $65 for us. She is quite eager for Neylan to come home too! Thanks Sami, you did a great job.

We give God all the glory and praise for this weekend. We are so excited to bring Neylan home and will gladly share with him one day about all the amazing things God did and the many ways He provided for us to bring him into our family. Our total sales for the weekend was just over $2000, which is such a testament that when you truly step out in faith, the Lord blesses in abundance!

Gearing Up. .

For our second (and maybe last- EVER) garage sale! We found out less than 2 weeks ago that our neighborhood spring sale was this weekend, so we immediately sent out the plea for donations. And boy have they been rolling in- by the truck load!!

We have had an amazing turnout from friends who are so willing to get rid of their junk unnecessary items to help us raise money to bring Neylan home. We have so many big items this time. So much so that we had to ask our neighbor to use his garage yesterday. He was kind enough to let us do so, so we piled even more furniture in there last night. As crazy as the picture above looks, that is somewhat organized. We are just at a point now that we can barely move until Friday morning when we begin to pull stuff out. At that point we can finish organizing a little more.

The transformation of Neylan's room was started this week! We moved the furniture out and turned his room into our clothing headquarters! Once the sale is over, it will start to shape up like a little boy's room.

We have high hopes for this sale to go well. The weather is supposed to be perfect and we have made our giant signs again. On Tuesday night we went out for Chinese and got these three fortunes. Adam's was the top one, mine was the middle one, and Grayson's was the bottom one. They sound perfect for this week!

We would appreciate your prayers for the weekend. We are hoping for great weather, lots of shoppers, and lots of energy to endure for two long days. If you are in the area, please come by and shop. We have a ton of great stuff.