Saturday Shopping for Orphans (Vol. 4)

This week I came across the sweet Etsy store, You Are Worth More, run by Corrina Wood.  She is selling adorable items for babies and children to raise funds needed to adopt her son from the same country as ours. 

The first thing that caught my eye was her ingenious marble maze toy/hand exerciser.  It's fun for anyone to play around with, but it is especially good for children who need to develop dexterity in their hands.  What a clever, unique idea!  She's selling them for $7.98 with just $2 for shipping.

Her marble mazes are available in several cute colors.

She also has doll clothes and accessories, knit baby hat and booties sets, blankets, and toys to name a few.  Really, go check out her store and do a little early Christmas shopping while you're there!  What's better than getting your Christmas shopping knocked off your to-do list while helping an orphan come home to his family?

Adorable doll dress for under $10!

Mug Cozy Winner

Yesterday was the deadline for our mug exchange participants to mail their mugs out, so it's about time I go ahead and draw for a winner.  We only had three ladies participate in this fundraiser, so instead of using a random number generator, I decided to arm one of the kids with a die to roll.  I assigned the participants numbers in the order in which they joined the event.

Oops, the die fell on the floor for the first roll!  And the second
roll too.  Joey said, "Double drat!"

 And so, without further ado, the mug cozy winner is....

The third roll landed squarely on the table

Number 3, Lynne!  A great big thank you to all three of you lovely ladies and your big hearts!  I hope you had fun with the exchange and know how much your support means to us.  God bless you!

Homestudy Approved!

This morning, our completed homestudy arrived in our hands via UPS.  This is a big adoption milestone, and reaching this point makes "Abraham's" addition to our family feel that much more real.  It's analogous to hearing a biological baby's heartbeat for the first time during pregnancy. 

The first trip to go meet him (hopefully this winter or early spring) will be like the 20 week ultrasound on steroids.  Instead of seeing his image for the first time and finding out if he's a boy or a girl, we will get to hold him for the first time and get a little glimpse of his personality.  Oh, I can't wait!  Even though at this point it looks like Sean will be traveling solo for that first trip while I stay home to care for Abraham's brothers and sister.  Sean will be equipped with his camera, and I know he will give me a very detailed account of each minute he spends with him!

I love adoption!  You get so happy and excited to receive an otherwise
long and boring report in the mail! :)

For all of our children so far, we have either visited ourselves or have had someone visit on our behalf, the Nombre de Dios Mission in St. Augustine, FL during each of my four pregnancies.  This time, to save money for our adoption, we are unable to visit St. Augustine ourselves.  So I put out a request to some prayer warriors to go and pray for our little guy there on our behalf.

On September 2, one of these special ladies arranged for a Mass to be offered for our little guy and us at the Rustic Altar at Nombre de Dios.  This is the site of the very first Mass in the Americas.  This is a very special place for us, and to know that a Mass was said on that very same spot for our adoption leaves me speechless with gratitude.

Last night, another prayer warrior sent me a picture of a votive candle featuring Our Lady of La Leche (La Leche League is named after her!), Mary nursing baby Jesus, which she lit for Abraham while praying for him there in that holy place.  The place where either we have or other people have prayed for our unborn babies in the past.  Now we're gestating Abraham in our hearts, and it is wonderful to know people are praying for him in the same way that was prayed for our other children.

She wrote his birth name and our last name with a heart. ♥ 
God willing, he will legally be a Bailey some day!
I removed his name from this picture for privacy reasons.