Post #60

Ok so call me crazy :) but I have been waiting to post anything until we got a date and because this will be post #60 on our blog. I know crazy! Anyway the day that we have been waiting for since the day that we got submitted has arrived. Nancy called me this morning to tell me that our facilitator in country emailed her to let her know that our date is February 14th @ 9 a.m. yep that's right Happy Valentines day!!! :) We will leave on the 11th. I am so super excited, I can not wait!!! We have our SDA appt exactly 7 weeks from today! :)

still waiting...

We are still waiting to hear from the girls country on a date for us to come over. To say that we have been patiently waiting would be a lie. I long to hold my beautiful girls in my arms, to show them the love they so deserve. To do so many things with them that they wouldn't normally be able to do. As Christmas approaches my heart is hurting more because I know where they are and I know where they will spend Christmas. I made a few Christmas cards with the girls picture on them and hung it on the Christmas tree, and Andrew's son and daughter picked out ornaments for the girls to have on the tree. We have a tradition that each year the kids get a new ornament, and even though they are not with us, they too get a new ornament. They have a family that loves them and longs for them to be home we just happen to be a few thousand miles away right now. We will soon have them and our arms and soon they will be in our arms and I can not wait for that day to come!

I hope my next post will be that we have been given a date until then I hope each of you have a blessed day!

A child's heart

As most of you seen we posted a coca~cola sled fundraiser a few days ago, along with posting it on here, I posted it on facebook, and then I set up at the local grocery store and sold chances. We drew today, and Mandy Shemwell is now the proud owner of a sled, which by the way they can use today since it is snowing like crazy outside right now.

We set up(at the grocery store) last Saturday the 4th and then I set up Friday(10th) and Saturday(11th). I tried to remind everyone that was putting in for a "chance" to win a sled what they were really doing was having a part in saving the life of two little girls that will be coming to a HOME and will be orphans no more. We live in a small town so most everyone that came in the store were people that we know, yesterday (Saturday the 11th) a lady I love dearly, worked with for a long time, and who is raising her grandson who is a sever diabetic came in with her grandson. I hadn't seen her in a while so she didn't know that we were adopting, so I told her the whole story hehe and so she gave $5 dollars for 6 chances and then a $15 dollar donation. Over the rest of the day more people came in and more people entered to win the sled. I was about to pack up and head home and in walks the little boy and he came up to the table and stood. I asked him what he was doing, how his day had been, and he told me. As he was walking away, to go get the sodas that his grandmother sent him in to get, he came back to the table and handed me a dollar and I told him I said your grandmother has already put in and he said yeah I know but my uncle gave me 11 dollars for Christmas and I wanted to give a dollar to your girls. Awwwww I mean he is a child and he gets it. I mean I had a dollar thrown at me earlier, and yes thrown at me, and said I guess I'll give a dollar, I even had funny stories about some of the people that came in, I can't tell you how many people wanted to know "what" we were adopting I mean really we had pictures of the girls all over the place. But for this child who got 11 dollars as a Christmas gift from his uncle, who could have easily spent it on a toy, spent it on candy, or whatever he wanted to he chose to give it to Ellee and Johannah to help bring them home. He left and went and bought his sodas and left, but as he left the store he had the biggest smile on his face, and walked a little taller and he should by all means have the biggest smile on his face and he should walk taller. :) Hence the title "A Child's Heart"

Feeling like I should post...

Not much really to post, but I feel I need to post something lol... Just waiting right now, tomorrow will be a week since we were submitted to the girls' country, the next step will be getting a travel date. I guess right now the big things that are happening would be the fundraisers that we have going on. One is the Coca~Cola Sled that was featured in the post before this one, the Pampered Chef has been extended until Friday so only 2 more days, and of course beautiful jewelry through Picky Gal on Etsy. Lots of great items for Christmas!

Christmas is only 24 days away and  This year All I Want For Christmas is my daughters to be happy, to be safe, have a loving family, to never have to worry about being wet, hungry, cold, never go to bed without an I Love You, a kiss and a hug. I never want them to be scared alone again. I want them to know when they get up in the morning they have a family waiting to greet them. I can't wait until we get "the call" that tells us our travel date, I can't wait until the day that I write the blog post "Gotcha Day" I can't wait until I write the blog post that says "On our way home" and I can't wait until the day I write the post that says "We're Home!!!"

Please be in prayer for us as many things will be taking place over the next couple of weeks!

*Oh I thought I had nothing to post lol ;)

New fundraiser!

Enter for your chance to win the Coca-Cola sled below! 1 chance for $1, or 6 chances for $5. To enter to win go to the donate button on the side and once you have made your donation please message me to let me know. This will help us bring our daughters home! Drawing for the winner will be December 12th Enter today for your chance to win!

Cokes not included lol

***If you live out of town you will be responsible for shipping charges*** Thanks a bunch! :)

A VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Wow we have so many things to be thankful for! First and foremost being saved by the Grace of God! Family and friends to share time with, and this an extra special THANKSGIVING We were submitted to the SDA (state department of adoptions) in the girls country. A big step! Now we wait for them to send us an apt date and invite us to their country. I can not wait to meet my beautiful daughters! I can not wait to hold them in my arms! I can not wait to bring them home! I have so much to be thankful for!!!

And as the old saying goes "What doesn't kill you will make you stronger" I totally believe that after the journey of paperwork! God is so good, and I can never thank him enough! My faith has truly been strengthened!

I love you Ellee and Johannah and mommy and daddy are coming soon!!!

The post everyone has been waiting on since our rollercoaster ride started on Saturday

As you know we found out on Saturday that we had mistakenly sent 2 copies of my state background check... Our fault for not triple checking and being in such a hurry, but the state guys fault for giving us 2 copies of mine instead of one of mine and one of Andrews, which he later corrected with sending us 2 copies of Andrew's and we received on Thursday. But we still didn't know anything was wrong with our paperwork until Saturday and didn't realize he had sent us 2 copies of Andrew's until Saturday. Now with all that said, we are determined people, we know God has called us to adopt Ellee and Johannah and nothing will stand in God's way! We have a great team who works really hard with us to. We had the extra copy but we had to somehow get it over to the girls' country in time for us to be submitted this Thursday, and if you remember from an earlier post this last package had a ride, so we didn't particularly trust a delivery service. So Nancy told us to send out an email and ask if anyone was leaving out on Monday or Tuesday so we would have time to get it to them. So I did that and a wonderful lady named Samantha came back and said that she was leaving out Tuesday (tomorrow the 23rd) and she would be willing to take it for us if we could get it to her in Phoenix in time. Ok so how are we going to get it to Phoenix in time. So we started calling delivery services, there are no delivery services open Sundays, so we were looking for maybe a same day service but the cheapest we found for that was $500 What are you kidding me. Next option seeing if anyone had frequent flyer miles they would be willing to give us because we did not have the extra money for a plane ticket, plane ticket $300. No one had frequent flyer miles. We put out requests on facebook, and believe me if you want something done put it on fb, because we had wheels turning everywhere and Heaven was being flooded with prayers for our beautiful daughters.

By Sunday though I had become discouraged, I was almost giving up, because I felt no way was this going to happen. I skipped church because I was so bummed, and I didn't feel like going in and plastering a smile on my face and pretending everything was ok or was going to be ok. But little did I know that Heaven was going to be flooded and lots of prayers was going up that morning. My daughter's Godmother had special prayer in their Sunday School class, and then our pastor made an announcement for special prayer.
Meanwhile I had a family Thanksgiving meal to go to, and was bummed but I went and I did have a good time, but the whole time I was thinking we had failed God had failed and it was over, satan had won. Wow was I WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!

We had come to the conclusion I was going to have to fly to Phoenix hand deliver it and then fly home. Boy again was I wrong! Andrew just happened to log onto his fb, mind you he didn't put anything on his fb because he is a man I LOVE YOU HONEY ;) but low and behold God was at work! One of his friends posted "About to head to Tuscon!" This was perfect!!! So Andrew called him and talked with him, and asked him if he was flying into Phoenix. Jerry explained to him...Are you ready??? That he was flying into Phoenix but that it was where his connecting flight is. I mean that is Awesome! Our thought was that he would fly into Phoenix and drive to Tuscon, but again we were WRONG! LOL Do we see a pattern??? God is in Control! Andrew explained to him our little girls' lives depended on it and asked him if he would be will to take it to Sam. Jerry said the only problem that might arise was that he wouldn't have to go back through security since it was a connecting flight so she would have to try to come through security. After talking to Sam and the airlines we found out that she wouldn't be able to go through security, he was still going to take the package we were just now going to have to trust a complete stranger with it. Boy was I panicky! :)

So this morning we set out for Nashville bright and early to get the package to Jerry before his flight at 11:00. We met Jerry at his hotel, gave it to him, with a kiss and much prayer over it. I kept thinking we would hear something at 4 because I kept thinking that Phoenix was an hour ahead of us instead an hour behind us. So when I didn't hear anything at 4 I got a sick feeling, but Andrew told me that his flight wouldn't be in until 6 our time 5 theirs. So I had another 2 hours of pacing the floor, along with others pacing with us, which I could never thank enough for hanging in there with us. So at 6:30 Sam called and said "The Eagle has Landed" I think I might have screamed in her ear. I was laughing, crying, jumping for joy! The funny part was they didn't have to go through another person Jerry handed it straight to Sam. They asked the security officer if he could give her the package and with a strange look and a shrug of the shoulder Jerry handed the package over the security guy to Sam! Isn't God so Good!!!

My friend Linny has been through a lot today with her family, and this next little section is a snit bit from her blog, and because she said it so well I snagged it from her. I told her though lol ;) This is what she said "No doubt, the enemy is ticked!! I don't often talk about the enemy and his tactics, but I strongly believe that he, indeed, "comes to steal, kill and destroy".....and when God's children challenge the status quo, speak passionately on behalf of the orphan and are relentless to make a difference, the enemy wants to ruin their day. He wants to to discourage, to torment with fear and to harm...so thankful we serve the mighty God of the Universe - - - who is far more powerful in every way!!!"

She is so wise!!!

Thank you to EVERYONE who helped, prayed, called and showed us lots of love during this time!!! We love you all!!! (And Amber who lost sleep with me)

Now to wait until Thursday to get that email that says "You have been submitted"

To be continued until Thursday with A Reason to be Thankful Post....