September Update and Fund Raising

We held our 2nd yard sale yesterday at the home of Steve and Jan Hunter. They were so gracious to offer their yard and their help in many ways.  Many people donated items for our yard sale. Thank you to everyone who donated something, whether a little or a lot. It all helped! We made a little over $1400 dollars. This will make a big difference as we will have to pay Homeland Security in the next week or so and our next payment to our adoption agency will soon be due as well.

After 2 sets of fingerprints, my suitability letter finally came back.  If I remember correctly, we had to do two sets of fingerprints last time, too. We also received a financial gift of $1500 which went straight into the adoption savings account. It was a very special blessing! I was able to have my physical completed, and Jeff's physical will be completed in the next 2 weeks.  So, we just continue to check the boxes and get paperwork that is needed for the dossier completed.

We have identified a baby girl who is in foster care in China that we are inquiring about adopting. I can't tell you much about her due to privacy issues, but she is about 4 months old at this time and has basically the same eye problem as Kayleigh. Please pray that God will direct and either open or close doors if she is "the one." Unfortunately, it will probably not speed up our process any to be matched with this particular baby.  On our current time table, we would travel to China about this time next year, although that is only an estimate. It could be sooner (please!!) or later......:(


Several folks have asked about helping financially.  We will be setting up an account with AdoptTogether soon. This is an organization that helps families with fund raising. Through AdoptTogether, donations made to our adoption fund are tax deductible. We cannot set up this account until our home study is complete, and we can send a copy of it to them.  This will probably not happen for several weeks.  So, if you are one of those people who has asked us how you can help financially, please check back here periodically for the information on how to donate.

I (Cheri) will be participating in a vendor night at FBC, Huntsville on October 23 from 6-9.  I will be selling Ugandan Magazine necklaces and earrings and Haitian earrings. Half of the money goes to the artisans of Uganda and Haiti and the other half helps us fund our adoption. This would be a great time to start Christmas shopping! 

Over the last 2 months, my job situation became a little tenuous.  Things have finally worked out and it was all God's timing; however, we were really forced to evaluate our financial situation.  We have determined that in order to never have to worry about whether I have a job or not, we are going to sell our house. It was a heartbreaking decision at first because this is our dream house. We spent countless hours working on this house night after night, day after day, but it is just a house and having to worry about whether we can afford it if I did lose my job is not worth it. We expect a sign to go in the yard this week. Please pray that it will sell quickly! We know it is not the best time to sell a house, and it is not a seller's market right now, BUT we know God has a plan and that He is a big God, and He can sell this house in a matter of days.

Thank you all for your love and prayers and keep watching for updates.

A Kayleigh Moment

Friday was a long day. It wasn't a bad day, just long. The kids went to friends' houses to spend the night instead of coming here  Jeff was at work all day, then came home for about 30 minutes before heading out for a balloon flight. So, it was Kayleigh and me, all day. I was already pretty tired and hormonal on top of that before we ever got to bedtime!!  So, once I FINALLY got to bed about midnight, I was ready for sleep. Didn't happen. Kayleigh started crying at 12:30.  I went up to her room and rocked her to sleep, lay her in the bed, she woke up and cried. I rocked her, lay her down, she cried. Rocked her, lay her down, she stared back at me as I sat by the crib. I sat there wondering, "What was I thinking when I started a second adoption? I am barely managing this one right now. How am I going to manage a second one if she doesn't sleep either?"  Then I rocked Kayleigh some more, lay her down, she stared. Somewhere in there I gave her a dose of Melatonin.  At 1:30 a.m., I gave up. If it had been 4:30, 5:00, 5:30, I would have just put her in the bed with Jeff and me, but it's just 1:30. So, what am I going to do? I decided Kayleigh and I would get in Marissa's bed since she was not at home. I scooped Kayleigh up out of bed, stomped downstairs to get my pillow and stomped back upstairs to Marissa's bed. By the time I got us both settled in the bed, I was tired, frustrated, working on a little bit of anger and I had added guilt in there for being a bad momma and not having more compassion for my child, who, for whatever reason, cannot go to sleep. I turned over on my side with my back to Kayleigh because the tears were coming.  I lay there and cried and let the frustration, anger, and guilt wash away.  And while I'm lying there crying, my 2 year old Chinese blessing scooted a little closer to me and started patting me on the shoulder....

So, how does the story end? I rolled over, scooped her up in my arms and cuddled her next to me, cried a little more, and she eventually fell asleep.  Somewhere along the way, I fell asleep, too. When we woke up this morning, we started a new day, and this momma can only hope that tonight is a better night.

Two Interviews in One

We had two wonderful things happen today, basically both at the same time.  First, we had our 12 month post placement interview for Kayleigh's adoption.  At the same time, we had our 1st of 4 interviews for our home study for the 2nd adoption.  I had hoped this would be possible, but I was thinking it would happen at the second interview. Our social worker contacted us and asked if we could do it today. Of course! We have also learned we will not have to do the online Hague Training (21 hours of online reading of articles and watching of videos) This saves us $195.  We do not have to do the adoption discussion questions, the adopting trans-racially/internationally questions, or the complete autobiographies.  This is literally HOURS of writing and answering questions.  I handed over a stack of papers to our social worker; we have already been fingerprinted and filled out Child Abuse and Neglect Forms. We are still a long way from going to China to bring home Kayleigh's sister, but we are moving right along. Gotta love it!

Our first fund raiser will be June 23. So many people have been so generous in bringing us their stuff, we are going to have our first yard sale on that day.  We already have a couch, loveseat, 2 entertainment centers, books, lots of children's books, board games, purses and bags, kitchen items, home decor items, lots of queen sheet sets (in very good condition, I might add), some teacher things that I have cleaned out and too many other things to mention. I am still pricing and sorting items. If you have items you would like to donate, we will continue to accept items for this yard sale until June 15.  That will give me time to sort and price. If you have other things you would like to donate later, we plan to have another yard sale some time in the fall. Thanks to the generosity of Billy and Christy Taylor, we plan to have the yard sale at Home Town Lenders on North Parkway next to Flint River Baptist Church. We will start around 8 and go until we drop, probably.  If you do not consider yourself a yard sale shopper, tell your friends who are!

The Beginning

Hi, Everyone!
I decided I would blog about our 2nd adoption to keep everyone informed. Let me tell you how we got to this point.  In February, we attended a Steven Curtis Chapman Concert at Capshaw Baptist Church.  It was a great concert! Of course, he shared about their three China adoptions and showed the video of families on Gotcha Day while he sang "When Love Takes You In." I stood in the back holding Kayleigh and cried through the whole thing!  It was at that moment I started thinking maybe we needed to do this again. (Just as a side note, it was the SCC concert I had attended two years before that brought us to adopting Kayleigh. Jeff isn't never going to let me attend another SCC concert.) But, there were two big hurdles. First, we are not financially set for a 2nd adoption like we were the first, and by the time we actually travel to China, Jeff and I willd be 49 years old and counting.  Chasing toddlers around is a little tiring, especially when you are older!  So, anyway.... this just kept tugging at my heart. I could not let it go. Adopting another little girls literally consumed my thoughts - day AND night.  I began talking to Jeff about it, and we began praying about it. I was still too worried about the money and being older. In the interim I read Choosing to See by Mary Beth Chapman.  Through that book, God confirmed over and over again that we needed to adopt, and one night I just told Jeff that we HAD to do it. I contacted our agency, and in late April of this year, we submitted our application. Within just a couple of weeks, we were accepted and the process began again. At this writing, we have already completed our fingerprints and sent them off, and I have sent a stack of papers and our first big check to our agency.  The ball is definitely rolling, and I am already thinking about packing!  We are probably looking at at least a year from now before we travel again.  Keep watching and reading, and I'll do my best to keep you posted!