We've been busy the last month!  On July 8th we received a call that we had been matched with a birth family, and on July 10th Morgan Angela Rhodes was born in Anderson! We brought her home on the 13th and it has been crazy around here!  Two kids is a HUGE adjustment but things are going great! 

Morgan was 4lbs 15oz when she was born and dropped to 4lbs 9oz by her first week appointment.  She is a good eater and today at her 5 week appointment she weighed in at 7lbs 9oz!

We just want to thank you all for your support and all you have done for us!  We are going to keep this blog open because not only will be be paying adoption expenses for some time (and possibly more fundraising) we also plan on adopting again down the road!

Just checking in!

We are still patiently waiting for any news, and ready at any time!  Many more couples have dropped off of the list, and we are being told that many of the birth mothers are choosing childless couples.  We are confident that when the time is right we will get a call!

We are doing great chipping away at our adoption loan, and we have some ideas up our sleeves for some upcoming fundraisers to help us lower that financial burden!

I (Jordan) possibly have my first wedding cupcake order, and have heard some great feedback on the wedding programs and stationary that I did for a couple of weddings late last year.  I'm looking forward to my next projects.

That's about all of the updates that I have for now, we hope to be updating sooner than later!

January Update

All of the waiting couples listed before us at the agency are off the list, so while that doesn't guarantee that we will be next, we think we will be getting a call very soon! 

We reached our goal with our "100 Nests" fundraiser in just over a month, and we added an additional $1,194 to our loan payment last week - just from the sale of the pendants.  We have already sold more pendants, and have some ideas for future fundraising.  Things are going well!

We really planned for Christmas this year and it wasn't difficult for us to get back on track financially after the holidays were over.  Both Klif and I have been doing exceptionally well watching our money, and we've made some minor adjustments to make it even easier.  The temperature in the house went down, the cable was cancelled, and we are doing really well sticking to the grocery budget and meal plan.

For now it is just continuing with saving and fundraising, and waiting for that call!

Quick update!

I'm not going to lie, I've been getting a little disheartened lately.  We haven't heard anything from the agency, and not one of the prospective parents listed on their website has dropped off in months.  Today I was very excited to see that at least 4 families in our category are no longer on the list!  I am really excited for these families!  The families have either been given the amazing joy and task of caring for a new life, or they have chosen to go another direction.  I sincerely hope that it is the former, and that all is going smoothly!

At the same time we are pretty excited that this could mean our time is coming near.  It is not a "first-come, first-serve" situation - our birth mother will choose us because of how she feels we will raise her child.  We could be the next couple chosen by a birth mother, or it could be months down the road.  We are just excited to see some activity!

"100 Nests"

I'm back already!  Just wanted to let you in on a little holiday fundraiser we just started!  I have been working hard making bird's nest pendants, and they are now available to purchase.  They are $10 each, and our goal is to sell 100 of them of this holiday season to raise $1,000.00 for our adoption fund.  I have a number of pendants already made, or I can make them with custom colors (think birth stone colors, team colors, etc.).  I can also ship up to 5 of them for just $2.  Check out the pictures below -

If you are interested just get in touch with me and we can work out the details.  They would make a great gift or stocking stuffer!

Wow, we've been busy!  So here is what has happened since I last updated in June (wow, didn't seem that long ago!)

We have completed ALL of our paperwork, visits, and requirements.  We are now simply waiting on a call!  Yay!

We took out a personal loan for the remainder of what will be due when placement happens.  That way, we are not held back by just money.  We are definitely still fundraising, we will just be paying back toward the loan instead of stashing it in savings.

So now we are just back to our normal day-to-day lives, knowing that any day would could get that call and be heading to the hospital. 

We have a holiday PNO and my work craft fair coming up to help with more fundraising, and I'll be trying to keep this up to date better!

BIG news!

What a day!

It started with my setting my snooze alarm an hour late.  Hooray for an extra hour of sleep.  Once I arrived at work, I was greeting by an amazing email - starting July 1st, we are no longer a business casual company - jeans every day!  It's the little things that make us so happy.  :)  

Here's where it gets really good.

I was walking from one building to another when I ran into my department manager.  He's a level above our team managers and is often busy with more important tasks, so he's often in and out of the office.  He just happened to ask how the adoption process was going, and I excitedly told him that we were just continuing to do fundraising and whatever we could, and that we were currently only about $40 away from our first milestone - the $5000 mark - which is when we would actually sign on with the agency, start paying fees, and start the process rolling.  We talked for a brief moment as we were heading back to our department, and he asked me to stop by his office when I had a chance.  When I did, he handed me an envelope with $40 dollars in it, and was very excited to help us reach that major goal!  I immediately went back to my desk and called the agency!

We now have our in office interview and home-study class scheduled for the middle of next month, and our check for signing on with the agency will go in the mail tomorrow!

The lady at the agency said that this was perfect timing because they have a seminar next week (this is what we went to last June) and the office interviews and home-study classes will surely fill up after the seminar.  She also told me that they currently have more birth mothers than they do adoptive parents.  She said that they have 5-6 mothers that are due in September/October, and while she knows they won't all place, there are some that have no adoptive parents to place with.

Can we financially be ready for that?  We don't know.  But we are going to continue to do fundraising, as well as now explore other financing options.  We are looking into no/low interest adoption loans, grants, and worst case scenario, we have more than enough credit available for the parts of the process that are finance-able.  I don't want to use the credit cards if possible, because we have worked SO HARD lately to pay them off/down, but it is really nice to know that the option is there.  Once an adoption is finalized, we will get $5000 in adoption assistance from my work that can help pay for any high interest debt we may end up with.  In addition to the assistance from work, if we are able to adopt this fall, we will have a quick turn around with tax credits which would cover most, if not all, ofthe remaining debt.

So where do we stand?  We currently are $12,000.00 away from our goal, and we now are contemplating moving UP our goal date, instead of moving it back.  Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, let us know of any helpful information you might have, and bear with our fundraising efforts over the next few months.  We are so excited about what's coming up!

April/May Update

We just finished our third Parent's Night Out, and it went great, as usual!  We had a smaller turnout than last time, with 3 kids coming, but we still made money for the adoption fund on a night that we would have just been at home (or worse, out spending money that we didn't need to spend!)  We're still slowly chipping in money when we can while still rebuilding our emergency saving fund and paying off medical bills. 

Our candy bar sales have kind of plateaued, but that was expected, and we both continue to keep them out at work and we sell a few here and there.  We have added over $100 to the adoption fund from just the candy bars, and we still have at least 200 bars left, which will be all profit.  We plan on keeping this up indefinitely.  In other candy news, I made some adorable birth announcements for my new nephews, Henry and Julian, on Hershey's Nuggets.  I have already received 2 other orders, $30 of which has already been put in the fund. 

A friend of mine will be hosting a Wrap Party on June 02, and is donating all proceeds to the adoption fund.  If you've never tried a body wrap and would like information on the party, please get in touch with me!

We are also planning on being a part of our neighborhood's rummage sale this year.  If you are interested in non-financial ways of helping us raise money, this is one!  We will be accepting any and all items you would like to donate to the rummage sale, and all of the proceeds will go into the fund.  I already have my car parked in the driveway for the foreseeable future so that we can start clearing out the house and organizing and pricing items.  We are happy to pick things up from your house if you live in the Indy area (or Muncie, though we would have to plan that on a weekend that we are there!).  The rummage sale isn't until sometime next month, so just get in touch with us if you have items to donate!

Klif has also been working major overtime lately, which has been helping out immensely with us catching up.  Pat him on the back next time you see him.  Or don't, because he doesn't like to be touched.  :)


Upcoming fundraising events:

Wrap Party - June 02
Jordan's June Bonus
Rummage Sale - June
June Parent's Night Out

March Update

We just had our second Parent's Night Out, and it was even better than the first. We had 5 kids attend, ages 3-7. They all got along great and had fun watching movies, playing video games, and playing with toys. They especially like decorating their own cupcakes! We made $85 from our second PNO, plus we made $40 more from two other days of babysitting this week.

I also have 2 burp cloth orders that will bring in another $40-50 as soon as I finish them up! Our personal contributions have slowed while we are working on building up our short term savings to access in case of an emergency, but we hope to be back to putting money in from each paycheck soon!

February Update!

We just held our first Parent's Night Out, where we offer childcare from 6-11pm for $10 per kid. It went really smoothly, probably partially because we only had 2 kids attend, but we are sure the numbers will go up in the future! We made $35 on a night that we would have just been at home anyway (thanks to some extra donations!), and only spent $5 on a Little Caesar's pizza. We are already setting up our second PNO, and the the parents who took part tonight seemed to really enjoy the time they had out by themselves!

Looking forward to the next one!

We are 1/4 of the way there!

Our tax money is in, and that took us right up to the 25% mark!

Tax time!

We love tax time. We have made a habit of having extra money pulled from our paychecks to get a lump sum returned to us after we file our taxes. I just transmitted our return and the adoption fund will be getting quite the boost in the next few weeks. I just had a couple of decently priced eBay auctions end, and I will also be adding those amounts in as soon as the money is received and I ship the items.

We're making progress!

We did it!

Thanks to one last Christmas donation and good paychecks from both Klif and I, we were able to chip in enough money to break the $1,000 mark!

We are feeling pretty good going into the new year, and look forward to 2012!

Merry Christmas!

We had a great holiday weekend and spent a lot of time just enjoying family and relaxing. We were also blessed with some financial gifts for the adoption fund, which I have added to our total. We are now over our 5% mark and we are quickly approaching $1,000. I have some items listed online, and a few items that have already sold, and I will be adding that money to the total once I receive all of the money and ship all of the items out.

Not only did the adoption fund get a much needed boost, but thanks to a lot of overtime on Klif's part, some clever saving, and some Christmas money, we were able to have major repairs done on both of our cars over the last couple weeks and it was all done in cash. I hated to see all of that money go at once, but it was a lot better than having to finance any of it!

We hope everyone has a great New Year's, and we will update again soon!

Klif, Jordan, and Will

November update!

I just finished up this year's craft sale at work. We made $150 and all of it went into the adoption fund!

We have been looking at our money situation and the current plan is to have all of our adoption money raised by spring of 2013. Our tax refund money for the next two years will go 100% into the adoption fun, which will take care of about $8,000 of the fundraising. That leaves $9,000 to go, with $641 of that currently raised. We now have a tangible number to work from and we are excited to watch our fund grow over the next year.

Hey everyone! Just wanted to post a quick update. Shortly after our last post a few things happened: Klif's truck broke down, requiring $2500 in repairs, the monthly bills for Will's ear surgery started, and I visited the ER after cutting part of my finger off in a mandolin slicer. Needless to say, our adoption saving had not been as strong as we had hoped! We are finally getting back on track with all of those unexpected expenditures and we are starting to chip a little bit of money in from each paycheck. It isn't much right now, but it will add up!

I also hope to update my card blog and get some items listed on eBay and Etsy in the next few days.

Thanks again for all of your support!

Klif and I went to our agency on Wednesday for our informational seminar. It was a lot of information to take in, but it was good to learn about time frames and estimated costs. We both came out feeling like we had a better sense of what was ahead of us. For now we are just continuing with the fundraising, and looking forward to starting each of the steps!

Thank you!

Thanks to a couple of larger Etsy orders and a personal donation from a friend, we have raised almost $75 in a span of just a couple of days! This may not seem like much in the big picture, but to us this is HUGE, and every penny counts!

Facebook Fundraiser!

We just launched a fundraiser on Facebook! We are selling "bag gardens", and you get everything you need to grow your choice of 9 different plants. We get $4 for every bag sold, and our goal is to make $200 through this sale. That means we need to sell 50 plants!

Here is the link!

Direct donation button

Klif made a PayPal button for donations. You can find it just under the thermometer at the right!