Yard sales, Tupperware parties, and crafting, oh my!

We cannot begin to describe how thankful we are for the support we have received since announcing our plans to adopt. Kind words, encouraging cards and e-mails, and financial support from many has been such a blessing to us in this exciting, yet stressful time in our lives!

There are so many things going on that pertain to fundraising that I just wanted to write a post that sort of highlights all of them!

First, the awesome women's ministry at our church, FBC Williams, is hosting a yard sale/bake sale on June 21-22. It will be at Almaroad Properties in Jacksonville. We are accepting donations up until the day before and will even pick up if you just let us know when/where. If you would like to help with the bake sale you can also let me know about that. We will need volunteers the week of and days of the sale. Some specific things I know we will need help are: sorting/pricing items, picking up items, transporting items from the church to Almaroad Properties, and helping with customers during the sale. If any of these interest you, please just let me know. We would LOVE for you to help us!

Next, my awesome sister-in-law (Chris's sister), Stephanie, has put together an online Tupperware party fundraiser. From now until June 6, if you order Tupperware from this link, we will receive 40% of your purchase for our adoption! If you need Tupperware or know someone who uses this product, please let them know. To shop the fundraiser just click on the link below and then click on "Find a Fundraiser" at the top of the page. Next find "Alabama" and then you will select "Chris and Sallie Adoption." From there just shop like you normally would! If you have any questions about it, just let me know and I will find out an answer. :)

http://order.tupperware.com/pls/htprod_www/home

There is a really great website that you may not even be aware of. It is especially great for those of us who do a lot of online shopping. It's called Pure Charity. In order to use the website you have to have to create an account, it's free and really easy to set up. Then you shop at TONS of stores online, just like you would normally. Stores like Sephora, Best Buy, Target, the Apple store, Walmart, Forever 21, etc. are on there. All of the stores set their own percentage that they give back to you. It goes into your "giving" account on Pure Charity and then you turn around and choose a charity to give that money to. Our adoption is set up as one of the charities so any money put into your giving account can go to help us! All the money from this goes directly to our agency, Lifeline Children's Services. It would help pay for our agency fees, which include things like our home study. Some people have also asked about just making a donation. This is a great place to make a donation because it will be tax-deductible and you will receive an e-mail for your records.

If you are interested in this, you can create your account at: https://www.purecharity.com/home and our fundraiser is called "Chris and Sallie Thomas's Adoption."

I'm also still making and selling crafts and jewelry. Most of it is being listed on Facebook, but if you are not on there, just let me know and I can show you what I'm selling if you are interested! My latest creation is some Sweet Home art. I can do any state (with whatever phrase you want on it) and LOTS of different patterns/colors are available. A sample is below. They are $10 each. If you are interested just let me know or you can purchase it from my Etsy store.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/152152341/sweet-home-alabama-tile?ref=v1_other_1

Again I thank all of you who are partnering with us on this incredible journey! We are blessed beyond words and can't wait until we get to see who all this is for.

If you have any questions about our adoption, please feel free to ask! Chris will be doing a post next week while I am away in the Dominican Republic on a mission trip!

Blessings~
Sallie

First interview... check!

So I'm a little late getting this post written, but better late than never!

When we started the blog, we decided to be very open about the whole process so that if anyone is interested in adoption they can see everything that goes on with it (which is why there will be posts explaining a lot of what we are doing throughout the process).

After getting accepted into the program, you begin your home study, which is where we are now. The home study is a process that usually takes 3-4 months to complete. It's actually not so much what it sounds like. It's a series of three interviews with our social worker, a home visit, getting fingerprints done, and LOTS and LOTS of paperwork. And then a few more pieces of paperwork! What kind of paperwork you may be asking... Some of it is basic stuff like just copying our IDs, sending pictures of us and our house, etc. Some of it has been forms about the different policies and procedures of our adoption agency and making sure we understand all of that. There was also a form where we identify the type of child we would like to adopt (this has been the hardest thing so far). You select if you prefer a boy/girl or if you don't have a preference and then there is a whole page of special needs that you check either yes/no/maybe on. You also select the age preference. We have decided to to choose a preference as far as a boy or girl is concerned. As far as age, we are hoping to get the youngest age possible, which for our country (Colombia) is 18 months, but until we receive our match we won't know the age for sure.

We also had to do an online questionnaire kind of thing called Prepare/Enrich which is designed to help identify strengths and weaknesses in couples and find areas where we can grow together, especially as we go through this challenging process. After we completed this we were able to do our first interview.

This past Monday was our first interview. We got to meet our social worker, Beth, for the first time (besides just talking on the phone). She is so nice and I'm so glad she is there to guide us through our journey! The interview was basically just us meeting with her and getting to know her and another girl from the agency. She went over our results from the Prepare/Enrich assessment, but mostly it was just conversational. It went really well, and wasn't anything too intense. We came away both feeling more affirmed and encouraged about the whole adoption thing (not that we weren't already certain, just specific details were starting to line up more).

Our next step is to finish writing our autobiographies (which is basically just answering a TON of questions about us and our families) and then we will be able to have our individual interviews. We will also be completing lots of education as part of the home study. Some of it is just reading stuff off the Internet, pertaining to adoption or pertaining to the Colombia. We will also be completing several online modules for couples who are adopting and also reading a book about adoption.

So that is a very quick look at what the home study is. The agency moves at our pace, and we are trying to get through this part as quickly as we can!

Please continue to keep praying for us through this process! We are trying to be patient, but it can be tough!

Last, I wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has supported us so far by buying a necklace or coasters or just giving us a donation. YOU ARE AWESOME!!!

Also, for those that aren't aware, on the side of this page there is an Amazon button. If you ever purchase anything on Amazon and use this link to get to the Amazon page a percentage of what you spend will come to us for our adoption. We got $5 the first day when someone clicked on it and bought a vacuum (so thanks to whoever that was!)

~Sallie