Lots of text to read...but there are pictures at the end, I promise! :)
Adoption process is going well. We had our social worker come for a visit last week and we are done with our home study!!! Our social worker is working on her report and when it is completed, the home study will be officially done. Yay!
The next stage is getting our profile (the set of papers that birth parents look at) built, printed and turned in. We have ours built and it is going through its second review already. Hopefully it won't need as many revisions as it did after the first review. :) Once we get two thumbs up from the social workers that are looking at it, we have print it several times, put it into plastic sleeves, and send it off. It will go into the profile book and on their website to be seen on July 1st! (When it goes up on the website, I'll put a link here so you can check it out!)
Our next chunk of money for the adoption is due before our profile can be shown to perspective birth parents. To help us get there, we have some of our fundraisers setup and ready to go! So far, we have turned in 3 of our 6 payments to LSS and are about 1/3 of the way through the actual costs. Once payment #4 is paid (by July 1st), we will be over the halfway point!
If you are curious, payment #5 is due when we receive a child and it is by the far the biggest chunk of money and could come at any point (as early as this summer if we are matched right away!). Payment #6 is pretty small comparatively and due 6 months after we have the baby, when our adoption will be finalized in court (that is the South Dakota law timeline). We have most of what we need already saved to get payment #4 paid, but with #5 coming at any time, we want to do our fundraising now.
1. The amazon.com advertisement (over there on the right) has earned us $20 so far towards the adoption. Woohoo! :) We don't expect the ad to pay for the adoption by itself, but every little bit helps, right?!?! And I think $20 is pretty good for the month that we have had it up and running! My goal is to get to $100 by the end of the summer. So remember, if you are going to order from amazon, come here first and click on that box over there to the right to get to their website. We get 4-6% of your purchase (the percentage is based on how many items are bought in the month) by directing your purchasing traffic through our ad. Thank you!
2. The adoption fund is setup at our bank (BankWest in Gregory) so we can keep ourselves organized. Thank you to those of you who have contributed to it directly! It is fun to log into our account and see a bigger number than you were expecting. :)
3. It is time to have a purse party! I am hosting a Thirty-One catalog party that starts today! You can go here: http://www.mythirtyone.com/shop/catalog.aspx?eventId=E3214091&from=DIRECTLINK if you want to buy yourself a cute purse, tote, or thermal tote. I know that I will. :) We will earn 15% of the total sales, plus hostess gifts that I plan on using for a coffee can raffle at a future-not-planned-yet dinner. :) Spread the word for us please, it is only open for a couple of weeks! If you want to see a hard copy of the catalog, let me know...I can get you one. The specials for May are thermal totes!
4. I will be doing a Pampered Chef party in June and then we are hoping to do a dinner here in town too. More information will come as soon as I have it for these two events. This will be the extent of our fundraising efforts, besides a craft show or two in the fall, because asking for money is the least favorite part of the process for us. (although I love planning parties) :)
5. We are applying for a couple of grants through adoption organizations. We were told that most of the grants go for international adoptions, so we will see. You have to try, right?!?! This means that we are doing lots of additional paperwork and essaying to be considered for these grants. Due dates for the next rounds (most organizations look at applications quarterly) are the beginning of July and we won't know for several months if we will be a recipient. Pray for the judges that have to look through all of the applications...I am thinking it would be so tough to decide who gets help and who doesn't!
I don't know the weather conditions where you are, but it is BEAUTIFUL here. We have been busy bees in our yard, getting garden seeds in, weeding (I can't believe there are weeds ALREADY), planting some new perennials in the front yard (pics coming soon), and reseeding large chunks of our lawn (last summer was hot and dry and we were doing minimal work in the yard because, frankly, we were burned out emotionally). We will get some posts up about the yard next week, when the chunks of lawn that have been seeded will be green again. :)
Here are some pictures of my two men on their way home from a little stroll...so cute! Have a great weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment