Happy New Year!!!

It's almost happy New Year time! We have been very blessed to have spent Christmas with Patrick's family and our two sweet doggies! We received some great news that Zeus will be off his medicine and (fingers crossed!) free of his auto immune disease (Masticatory Muscular Myositis) at the beginning of February. We are hoping for the best but are still keeping a close eye for any relapse.

This great news means that I'm back in business for babysitting starting in February!!! As some of you know, I haven't been sitting since Zeus got sick in August. Thank you to all the families who have graciously understood my predicament. I'm looking forward to getting back into the groove and spending time with the sweet families I sit for. Please give me a call or send me a message if you (OR anyone you know!) need a sitter, house sitter, dog sitter, etc.! I'll be there ;-) 

Just wanted to give a short update: We have received two more $50.00 donations and 1 $75.00 donation along with our first 2 men's t-shirts sold and 1 more female shirt. See the pic below and order one for the men in your life :-D Adoption rocks!!! (Men's shirts will be able to ship at the beginning of Feb.)

Our new total: $877
Only $19,123  left to go! Almost to our first $1000!!! Yippee!!!

Thanks again for your amazing support! Can't wait to see what our taxes are next month! Hopefully a big chunk can go into our adoption account! Stay tuned!

It's Christmas Time!

Hello All!
Well the last week has been quite eventful! I've cried quite a few tears, happy of course! We are so extremely grateful for all of the support we've been shown. We sold 1 more shirt and received a ton of donations, one touching donation from my 1st grade team of teachers and some from parents of my students and some co-workers. We even received one from a secret Santa in the spirit of Christmas ;-) Thank you whoever you are that left a beautiful card and cash in the door of our truck. Sometimes words just don't do our feelings justice, but know that our hearts have been touched in such a special way! 

Our new total is: $678.50

Only $19,321.50 to go!!!

We still have a few shirts left: 15 smalls, 16 mediums, and 6 large. You can order them on our Etsy link!

Also, I spent the last week volunteering at the Scholastic book sale. Check out some of the baby and toddler books I picked up:

Can't wait to read the Five Christmas Penguins one day to our sweet baby that was meant just for us! Thank you again and Merry Merry Merry Christmas!!!

And check out a couple more cute outfits! 'Tis the season! **Can't wait!**

Wow! All I can say is THANK YOU!!! We have had such an amazing response to our blog and fundraising ideas and have been shown such amazing support! If you only knew the strength and the courage it took for us to take the step and make it public ----we felt so many emotions over the last several months and as timid as we were to ask for help, we knew we had to take some action to make our dream of being parents possible!

As some of you know we had set up our baby room with crib, swing, toys, books, clothes, (everything you could need!) etc. at the end of June. 

And wanting to be supportive and happy for all those around us having baby showers and sweet little ones join their family was/is quite trying. There have been a ton of hard days with doubt, fear, sadness, anger, jealousy, and of course the dooming question "Why me? Why us?". There were many days of keeping the baby room closed and many days of sitting in the room wanting sweet giggles and laughter to fill the room. And then there was the question of, well, what do we do, should we take it all down and pack it away? Of course we knew we had to work through our grieving period and see the light at the end of the tunnel. While there are still moments of brief sadness here and there, there is now hope, desire, passion, and promise! We finally got around to decorating for Christmas (but missed Halloween and Thanksgiving). We did pack up some of the baby things (after Thanksgiving) for now like the bedding and toys and stuffed animals, but the crib and swing are still in tact. We have been dealt our cards, but we are now ready to prepare our hearts to meet the little one that is meant for us! 

We started fundraising the week of Thanksgiving 2013. It's been about 3-4 weeks and we have sold several t-shirts on our etsy link and have had several donations! Our total is now $465.00. So, only $19,535 left to go!!! 

On the side, I have a Teachers Pay Teachers account where I sell teaching items and have earned $226 this year which went to purchasing the 48 t-shirts ($330). I will continue to put what I earn into our adoption account. And we have decided to cancel our cable for the next new year saving about $200-250 a month starting in January. And those of you who know me, know I love to get books for my classroom. Over the last two booksales I have volunteered for, I have been getting books for the future bambino ;-) So far we have a pretty good collection of baby and toddler board books. Such fun!!! Here are some of Patrick's favorites:

And here are some of my favorites:

We know this journey may be long and trying at times, but we have hope in our hearts and our desire is strong! Thank you so much for supporting us and our adoption. Thank you for encouraging us and lifting us up! Thank you for making a difference in our lives and for helping us have a great start to our journey!!!
Hopefully on a Christmas Day in the future, we can see our little one dressed up and ready for Santa ;-) Can't wait!