A New Year, A New Family

It's about time for an update!  Since my last post...

Joey had a birthday!

I had a birthday!

Jesus had a birthday!

And Rosemary will have a birthday by week's end.  What a time of celebration it has been.  How wonderful to know this is the last Christmas that "Abraham" will be without a family!  We received a belated Christmas gift on Monday--news that we have been assigned a USCIS officer to approve our I-800A.  This is the form asking the US government for permission to adopt internationally  It takes several months to be processed and is a significant part of the waiting during an international adoption.  Our officer was very sweet on the phone and told me she expected to get to our application by the end of the day on Monday.  Another adoption milestone completed!

Also since my last post, we've embarked on a few more fundraising ventures.  A fellow homeschooling mom donated an Usborne Books consultant starter kit to me, and I'm now an Usborne consultant!  That means that our adoption savings account will get the commission for all books purchased through my Usborne link.  I can also do small book fairs, e-shows and home shows if I get the opportunity.  The Usborne books we've bought in the past through other families' adoption fundraisers are awesome, and I'm so excited to have this opportunity to help our family raise the funds needed to bring "Abraham" home!  Please take a look and order one (or more!) of the many wonderful kids' books, puzzles, and games they have to offer.

My Etsy store, Stitching Our Family Together, is fully operational too, and we're so grateful for each and every order placed there.  Please take a moment, if you haven't already, to see if there is something you'd like to order for yourself or someone special in your life.  If you've ordered something already, it would be such a help if you could stop by again and leave a review of your item.  I can also do custom orders, so if there is something you'd like to have crocheted that isn't listed, let me know!  Each order gets us closer to our son!

2014 is such an incredibly exciting year for our family.  We will undergo major, miraculous changes this year in our family and trust that God will be right there with us every step of the way.  How blessed we are to be adopted by Him!

7 Quick Takes - "Abraham's" Birthday Week

~ 1 ~

Abraham turned 4 this week! On his next birthday, God willing, he will be surrounded by his loving family. His big brothers and sister have already picked out a bright sparkly green "5" candle to put on his cake next year.

~ 2 ~

We went to Mass and lit 4 candles for our Birthday Boy half a world away.  His birthday "coincidentally" is the same day as my First Holy Communion anniversary!  My heart skipped a couple of beats when I first saw his birth date in the paperwork when we committed to him in June.  Another "coincidence," if I believed in coincidences, is that his birthday falls during National Adoption Month!

~ 3 ~

We started making him a blue, white, and brown Rosary that we will get blessed in his country and then again when he is baptized here. All of the big kids helped at least a little bit.  The centerpiece is a beautiful depiction of Mary holding Baby Jesus.  He won't be without a mother's loving arms for long.

~ 4 ~

We ended the day with a delicious banana birthday cake (decorated with help from his big siblings) and sang "Happy Birthday" to him.  Hope he had a happy day!  The Weather Channel said his village got up to 68 degrees and was sunny on his birthday, so I'm sure he got a chance to play outside.  That makes me happy!

We watched the little 3-minute video we have of him playing with some keys (the only video we have) before bed.  I had the most amazing dream that night that we went to the orphanage and met him for the first time.  What a gift!

~ 5 ~

To help us raise the money we need for the next big agency fee, we launched our Little House on the Prairie giveaway. Each donation of $15 gets you one of the 30 entries to win the entire Little House series on DVD. That includes all 9 seasons plus the pilot--170+ hours of family entertainment you can enjoy for years to come.  When all 30 spots are taken, we'll draw for the Little House grand prize as well as for a secondary prize of a $20 Amazon gift card.  Only 15 spots left!

~ 6 ~

We got our fingerprinting appointments for the I800-A (form asking USCIS for permission to adopt internationally) and plan to go next week. The USCIS office we are assigned to is in Charleston, 2 hours away. We're planning on making a day out of it, enjoying that beautiful city while we're there. So happy that things on this front are moving along. We've been told the turnaround for I800-A approval is 90 days. We filed last month and don't expect final approval until January. That way, if things move more quickly, we'll be pleasantly surprised!

~ 7 ~

Also to help on the fundraising front, I will be launching an Etsy store just as soon as I can get everything listed. Stay tuned...

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Birthday Week Giveaway

**Update: This giveaway has been completed!  Thank you so very much to all those kind and generous people who helped make this fundraiser a great success!!  Our grand prize winner is Chelsea C. and the runner-up is Hannah W.!**

This week we celebrate "Abraham's" 4th birthday!  I wish we could be with him and celebrate with him in person, but my heart feels such joy that God willing, this will be his very last birthday as an orphan.  Abraham will be surrounded by family, friends, and love on his birthdays from here on out.

BUT we need to do some serious fundraising to get our next big agency fee together so that we can bring our little one home as soon as possible.  In a couple of months we'll need to pay a fee of $5,500, and as of today, we've saved $2,122 towards it.  That leaves $3,378 to be raised.  Time for a giveaway to give our savings a little boost!

The grand prize of Abraham's Birthday Giveaway is our family's entire 9-season collection of Little House on the Prairie DVD boxed sets (individually boxed by season) plus the pilot movie.  This was an awesome gift to us from Abraham's grandparents-to-be.  It is in like-new condition because we only watched through everything once and have kept the discs where the kids can't get to them.  Each season is available for purchase on Amazon for around $20 per season and $10 for the pilot, so this is approximately a $190 value.

There will also be a second place prize of a $20 Amazon gift card, just in time for Christmas shopping!

How to enter:

Send $15 via PayPal to baileyak @ bellsouth.net or through the donation button at the bottom of this post for each entry you wish to have.  There will only be 30 chances/entries to win.  Once all 30 entries are taken, we will draw a winner for the DVD set and a runner-up for the Amazon gift card.  People can also earn one additional free bonus entry per person by sharing this giveaway.  Just let me know if you share so that I can enter you accordingly.

This running total of the paid entries still available will be kept up to date.

Total entries still available: 0

Quick Update

We've filed our I-800A form, the application for permission from the US government to adopt internationally.  This form cost $890 in total to file (not counting shipping costs), $720 for the application fee, and $85 each for Sean and me to get fingerprinted.  The check we sent with our application has been cashed and we received a receipt from USCIS in the mail.  Soon they will give us an appointment to come in for fingerprinting.  It is good to know that things are moving along in that regard!  We can't submit our dossier to "Abraham's" country until we get approval of our I-800A form.  Right now, people are being told it takes roughly 90 days to process the application.

But this unfortunate wait has its silver lining.  Right now we have $2,000 in savings.  When we submit our dossier, we need to pay a fee of $5,500.  Time is an asset when it comes to raising so much money.  We know that God is in control and that He will provide what is needed.  This money isn't ours, it's His!  As of today, we've either paid or saved almost $11,000 out of pocket.  Considering we're a single-income family of 6 on a modest salary and weathered 11 months of unemployment ending just less than a year ago, this is miraculous!  God has taken our loaves and fishes and multiplied them many times over.

If you would like to help us financially, take a look at our page of fundraising efforts, including our Amazon Affiliate link (a percentage of each item purchased through the Amazon link gets deposited into our adoption savings account).  Each dollar raised brings our boy closer!

Visiting Andrew Jackson's childhood home and enjoying the beautiful autumn weather last week. 
I am working on making more ponchos like these to help raise the rest of that big agency fee that we'll need to pay soon. 

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.