Our [sweet] Adoption T-shirts...AND...A Fun Giveaway!

Hi Friends!  To the end of raising funds toward our final financial goal so that we'll be prepared to bring our baby home.... I designed this t-shirt at Teespring.com that we are selling (for the next 21 days only!):

(We will be holding a giveaway here on this blog in order to help us get the word out about these shirts.  2 winners will receive Amazon.com gift cards!  Scroll down for more info....)

Want to purchase a shirt?  Here's how it works:

1. Go to our personal page on teespring.com to see our campaign.
   (if you can't get the link above to work, try this:  http://teespring.com/stanaadoptionshirts)
  
2. Reserve your t-shirt using your credit card or your paypal account. 

     *****YOUR CARD WILL NOT BE CHARGED TILL WE REACH 65 SHIRTS.*****

3. 65 shirts is our "tipping point."  At this point, the shirts will definitely print and your card will be charged for the shirt(s) that you have reserved.  

     *****IF WE DON'T REACH 65, YOUR CARD WILL NOT BE CHARGED AND THE SHIRTS WILL NOT PRINT.*****

4. Your shirt(s) will ship (assuming we sell 65 or more) between July 25th and 29th.  You can choose to either pay shipping and have them shipped directly to you, or (if you live in the KC area) to NOT pay shipping and have the shirts shipped to me, and then pick them up from our house.

NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY RULES:

(drum roll please......)

When you enter the giveaway, you will receive a number(s) via email.  At the end of the 21 day campaign (on July 16th), we will use Random.org to choose 2 winners to receive $20 Amazon.com gift cards.

There are possible 4 ways to enter, and you can enter up to 4 times.  Help us promote our t-shirts by:

1. Tweeting the link to this blog post.
2. Posting the link in your Facebook status.
3. Blogging about our t-shirts (possibly including why adoption is meaningful to you?) and including the link.
4. Sending out an email to your friends about the t-shirts and including the link to this post.

**After you've done one or more of these things, leave me a comment on this blog post letting me know which thing(s) you've done, AS WELL AS YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS so I can send you your numbers.**

ANNNNNND, here's the link, free for your copying and pasting:  

http://kcbutlersatimetolaugh.blogspot.com/2012/06/our-sweet-adoption-t-shirtsanda-fun.html

Now... ready?  Let's........

GO GO GO GO GO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Let's blow that 65 shirt mark outa the water.  Boo-yah.

Thank you so much for your support of our adoption process.

Be blessed. [and leave me a comment if you have questions.] 

Trying to Get Our Heads Around Goal #3...

So the Lord has totally blown our minds with His extravagant, QUICK provision for our financial goals up to this point.  Check out the first and second fundraising thermometers to the right...Wow!  He is so committed to adoption and we've been blown away by how evident His hand on our process has been.

Now, as we are tying up all the final loose ends, preparing to go "live" or "active" within the next several weeks, (This means we will soon be "home study ready," and that birth moms will be able to view our profile to consider our family as a possible adoptive family for their babies), we are trying to get our heads around this final financial goal and are encountering difficulty in doing so.  The reason?  EVERYTHING from here on out, expense-wise, is completely unpredictable.  Will there be medical fees that we'll end up covering for birth mom and/or baby?  Will we adopt across state lines, requiring more fees and paperwork?  What will court costs be?  Attorney fees?  How many post-placement visits from our social worker will be required (this depends on which state we adopt from - KS or MO)?  

Anyway, as you can see, we have no way of knowing at this point what our financial goals should be from here on out.  At this point, my best guess is that we'll need another.....somewhere between 6 and 12 thousand.... in order to complete our process.  Could be more... or could (very miraculously) be less.

Soooo... just going to go ahead and create another $10,000 goal thermometer and we'll adjust that as more information becomes available to us down the road.

Onward!  Trusting you, Jesus, to continue to do what you do.  You are our abundant provider!  Above and beyond all that we can ask, think, or imagine!

:)

Process Update...and a moment of irony. :)

Hi friends!  It has been forever since I've posted on this blog!  No bueno!  Between Isaac's and my trip to NC to visit family, then Stan's parents coming to visit us, and my health being not the greatest for the last 6 weeks or so, I have just not had much time to write!  We have had great times with both sides of our family though - so fun! :)

So... to catch you up on where things are at with our adoption process...

-About 2 and a half weeks ago we finally FINISHED the big chunk of paperwork that we had to complete before we could start our home study, along with all of the online adoption education training hours that we had to complete.  BIG accomplishment.  Almost 2 months of virtually ALL of our spare time being devoted to that stuff are finished! :)

-In the last couple of weeks, our parents and several of our close friends have received communication from our agency asking for reference letters for us...so those are in the process of being written and sent in.  Thanks guys! :)

-We have continued to receive monetary gifts for our adoption from family and friends who have partnered with us to bring our baby home.  Thanks to all of you who have given!  God has been incredibly faithful.  Check out the thermometer to the right to see where we're at.  After all of our placement fee is in, we will still need to raise our attorney fees, court costs, etc.... But we have no doubt that God will do this. :) He is very big and highly committed to adoption!

-Our garage sale is coming up FAST (starts a week from tomorrow!) and I have been working my booty off to get ready for it.  We have received lots of donations and will be picking up lots more between now and next weekend.  Thanks to all who have donated items to sell and to those who are volunteering during the sale!

-BIG news:  We finally start our home study interviews the week after the garage sale!  Totally stoked about this!  Feels like our process is finally really getting rolling.

A quick ironic moment in the life of Dana:
You probably remember that we all have to have physicals done (Stan, Isaac, and I, and Jerusha too!) to determine that there are no serious contagious diseases in our home and that Stan and I are healthy enough that we'll likely be around for a while to raise our adopted baby. :)  My physical was today.  Irony: I went in to my dr.'s office to ask him to fill out paperwork that says I'm healthy enough to adopt, and I am sicker than I've been in almost 3 years!  Argh... I got the flu about 6 weeks ago and my lungs never quite recovered completely....and THEN I got a cold, which turned into a sinus infection, got bronchitis....and NOW, this morning, my doc diagnosed me with pneumonia!  HA!  "Oh, please fill out this paperwork that says I'm healthy!"  Lol... Thankfully, my doctor is awesome and super laid back, asked me a few questions about my health PRIOR to all of this (like during the 3 years that my asthma was TOTALLY under control with ZERO major issues), and filled out the paperwork for me to be mailed in to the agency.  AND.... he prescribed me a seriously awesome antibiotic (I know, I'm not a fan of them either, but ya do what ya gotta do) that, in 12 HOURS, has made an INCREDIBLE difference in the way my lungs feel, my ability to breathe normally etc.  WOW!  Thank you Lord!  And thank you Dr. Brooks. :)  I am finally getting better, I think! :)  Which is a good thing, considering that our garage sale is coming up soon, we have a wedding this weekend to participate in, I have a dear friend in town from Colorado for a few days starting tomorrow, etc, etc.  Life is busy and GOOD. :)  (Side note: Stan took most of the day off work today to be with Isaac so that I could rest and get better.  Thank you, amazing husband!  He took Isaac to the zoo. :) )

And that..... is that.  I am now going to take NyQuil and hopefully go to SLEEP with minimal coughing. :)  Good night all..... Thanks for reading. :)

Catching Up....

Wellllll it's been an incredibly long time since I've posted here.  Most of my blogging juice has been focused here, on our adoption blog.  That's right, we're adopting...and we are SO excited.  We JUST finally got all our initial paperwork in (71 pages of it!) and are beginning our home study process.

In other news, spring came a month early around here (after what was by FAR the mildest winter of the 10 or so winters that I've spent here) and we have been enjoying it!  Our raised bed gardens are looking great and we actually had our first official salad from our OWN garden the other day. :)

One of our raised beds - we have 3 total.  Spinach, lettuce, swiss chard,  onions, garlic, and tomatoes. :)

My bulbs that I planted last fall were quite a success....for a short 2 weeks or so.  But they looked amazing while they lasted!  Unfortunately for me, most of the time that they were blooming was during my trip to North Carolina!  But I did get to grab this pic of them when I got home.  Speaking of my NC trip, there will be another blog post SOON with pics from that time.  Isaac and I had a blast spending time with family.

And now THIS weekend we have been enjoying time with Nana and Grandpa (a.k.a. "Ba-pa") - Stan's parents, from Colorado Springs.  Here are some pics from their visit:

Nana and Isaac checkin' out the dinos

Isaac loves Uncle Steve!

Grandpa, Daddy, Nana, Mommy, Aunt Jane, Andrea, Michael, Uncle Steve, and Isaac :)

Super-Nana did all kinds of climbing and sliding with Isaac .   I think they were both in Heaven. :)

Isaac loooved hanging with "Ba-pa" :)

Nana and Ba-pa are so much fun! :)

Coming Soon: Garage/Bake Sale

Hellooooooo dear friends!  

Hope this post finds you well and enjoying these first days of SPRING (which are starting to feel more like early summer)!!  This post is mostly directed to our KANSAS CITY AREA FRIENDS.  Everyone else, you're welcome to read too! :)

If you've followed our blog at all, you know that God has already MIRACULOUSLY provided about HALF of what we foresee needing to complete our adoption!!  Check out our fundraising thermometers to the right to get a feel for our progress.  Sometimes I almost can't wrap my mind around it...  He is so faithful and we have just been in awe of His provision.  We currently have just over 10 grand of the 20 GRAND (ish - possibly more) that we need to raise.

One of the things that we are planning to do to help us raise the rest of our funds is a Spring garage sale/bake sale!  Other adopting families have used garage sales to raise funds and have made up to $5,000 in a weekend in sales!  I love garage sales and haven't done one in YEARS, so I'm super excited about this.  Our good friends Paul and Arden Czaszewicz have graciously offered to lend their garage to us for 2 days: FRIDAY MAY 4TH AND SATURDAY MAY 5TH for our garage sale.  They are located in South KC (near the International House of Prayer).

Sooooo.... If you're interested in partnering with us a bit in raising funds for our adoption process....

Here's how you can help:

1. Spring cleaning!  Go through your basements, closets, the backs of your kitchen cupboards, etc, and find items that you no longer need, that are reusable, and that you think might be worth a few bucks to someone.  Start a "Butler Garage Sale" pile. :)

2. If you have space in your basement or garage, volunteer to be a collection point for our garage sale stuff.  Since we don't have a garage here at our place, we could use 2 or 3 locations where people are willing to just let the items being donated take up space in the next 6 weeks or so before the garage sale.

3. Volunteer to contribute homemade BAKED GOODS!  A batch or two of cookies, muffins, banana bread, etc.... The possibilities are endless.  We will sell baked goods during the garage sale.

4. Volunteer to help on Thursday, March 3rd as we round up everything from our collection points and transport to Paul and Arden's house.  We will probably need a couple of pickup trucks to run a few loads.

5. Volunteer to help on one or both days of the sale: Friday May 4 and/or Saturday May 5th.  We will need approximately 10 people to help us set up (bright and early!) and coordinate various things on those days.

6. Volunteer to help us transport any items that aren't purchased during the sale to Goodwill/Salvation Army.

OKAY!  If you're still reading this post, THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME!  I know this is a lot, but I'm super excited to see a team come together to pull it off.  Stan and I are so thankful for you guys - for your friendship and support as we are on this journey toward adoption. 

We love y'all!

Here are some more ideas of items that could be donated for the sale:

-Baby/kid items!  Clothes and toys that are in decent shape, high chairs, bouncers, etc, etc.

-Kitchen items - extra pots, pans, appliances you don't use, etc.

-Home decor items

-Furniture (call or email us if you have furniture you'd like to donate so we can figure out whether we can take it, how to transport it, etc.)

-Clothes:  Kid clothes especially, but adult clothes are great also if they're in pretty good shape.

-"MAN" stuff:  tools, etc.

-Books, if you feel that they might sell.

-CD's or DVD's

-Yard furniture

-Sports/fitness equipment

Any other ideas, anyone??