Our Adoption Fundraising, Cont.

We haven't posted much about fundraising on here, but now the time has come, as we are getting down to the end. And another cause for thanksgiving!! We have paid, raised and been given around 23,000 so far for our adoption, that is amazing!! It is a very humbling process knowing that you are embarking on something that you cannot do by yourself, trusting God and at the same time not knowing how or when he will bring it to pass. This is the Christian life, even much beyond raising money to bring an orphan into a forever family, so it is good for us. We have had a beautiful fundraiser dinner, with a silent auction that was amazing!! We have had numerous garage sales, some done totally for us, again amazing! We took part in a great program, called bothhands where we worked on a widows home for a day to raise funds for our adoption. We have taken on odd jobs to go toward this fund. We have had MANY numerous/loving/generous people give to our adoption because they know as I do that it is a blessed thing to give, and oh how we have been blessed as well. The remaining funds we need are for our travel, which is roughly 6000, of course it looks like our travel could be during the most expensive time to fly, but we too will trust this is in the Lord's hands...So if you know of anyone who wants to find a good cause to give to this Christmas, please direct them our way. You can now donate right on our blog by just clicking the donate button:) how nifty is that! Please pray with us that the timing of our trip would not cause anxiousness and that the funding needed will come in. Thanks so much, for walking this road to bring precious Shiloh home!!

Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for all year round, but it is of course nice to have concentrated times where we emphasize thankfulness. I know it does good for all of our hearts to fight the temptation of complaining...anyway we had a good thanksgiving. My mom lives here now so she came over and was able to enjoy our meal with our friends. Here are a couple of pictures, I'm still not super good at remembering to take pictures, but trying to get better. Micah and Anna had a dinner at their school too, so some of the pictures below are of them saying what they were thankful for at their presentation.

The kids all dressed up before going to OCA dinner

Micah reading what he was thankful for, while Anna puts her feather on the board.

Anna and I were able to have some time in the kitchen cooking, and this was extra special because we made pecan pie together. This is something I remember my grandma Pinnie teaching me to make when I was younger. I also shared that some of the best recipes are right on the back of the jar, can, container whatever...that is true of karo syrup and pecan pie!!

Some of our friends that came have a 3 month old boy, they happen to be chinese and while he was sleeping Anna thought it would be cute to bring her asian looking baby doll and set her right next to Derrick the real baby, it was pretty funny!

Marbles fun!

Like I said earlier we were able to go on a field trip to Marbles Museum, which the kids all love. We realized we had not been there in a really long time, as they had some new exhibits, or rooms of fun that the kids loved. Here are a couple of pictures from the fun time.

Sammy and Isaiah on the hockey rink!

Micah in the submarine!

Sammy turns 4!!

Well our little Hosea Samuel otherwise known as Sammy, Ho-Ho, Sam Master J, Samwise, um, I guess that's enough, he answers to anything turned 4. Sammy is so full of energy all of the time, he makes us laugh all the time and is constant entertainment for our family. We had a special treat for Uncle Herschel to come up from florida for the weekend before his birthday,this is really special too because Sammy and Uncle Herschel share the same birthday. For Sammy's actual birthday which fell on a wednesday, we were pretty low key, but of course had the standards, chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and chocolate cake with our community group at night. It is helpful to have a community group who feels like our family so we can have a built in party for Sammy with our group. It also was nice the day before we were able to go to the local kids museum with Oak City Academy on a field trip and he had a blast. At lunch time all the kids sang to him, so that was fun. Then he happened to have a hurt leg, so we were able to take him to the doctor, who recommended an x-ray....so we told him that was his gift an x-ray for his birthday, he loved it and did a great job.

Yummy chocolate chip pancakes!!

Reading fun with Uncle Herschel, Happy Birthday Uncle Herschel too!!

Sammy on the X-ray table, oh what kids think are fun!

Micah's soccer team

Well trying to catch up and show some pictures, so yes Micah played soccer too this season, their team is called the Crusaders. Their season ended in October, so a little late, but here are some of the pictures from their last game. Travis is the coach of their team and he does a great job of being patient with 8 roudy boys. These boys have been together for a year or two now I've lost track but it makes their time together really fun, not to mention they are pretty good too.

Adoption Update

We have somewhat of a new timeline for our trip to China and want to keep you updated. Our agency says that we will get our travel approval the first of December, once that comes in is when they will schedule our consulate appointment, which as long as its not so backed up with people trying to get adoptions in before the year is out, should only take a couple days. Then we would book our travel, so it looks like travel sometime in December:)) Will try to do one last push for fundraising soon so will keep you posted for how you can get the word out as we still have our travel funds to raise. We have added a new link to our blog so that you can donate directly through paypal, so this will be how we seek to do that. Thanks for praying for this and the cause of the orphan, we eagerly await to bring Shiloh home.