How did we get so busy?!?

We sure have kept ourselves busy while "waiting" this fall.  We have been on the go almost every weekend since the beginning of September.  Here's a quick run down on what we have been doing and where we've been going.  I've tried to find a picture from each weekend too, just to keep it more exciting :)  I'll also break it in to a few different posts, as to not bore you with a really long one!  This will hopefully also explain why its been so tough to keep up with the blog over the past few months.  I know, I know....excuses, excuses!

September 
First weekend  - Adoption Shower
Second weekend- Adoption yardsale
Third weekend  - Traveled to Md for Brady's 2nd birthday!

Fourth weekend -  This weekend Mark drove all the way to the mountains to go ziplining, then back home to get me, and all the way to the beach.  We spent an extended weekend at the beach with Mark's family from Tennessee and had a blast.

Adoption Yard Sale

On the weekend of September 15th we hosted our first ever yard sale, with all of the money raised going toward our adoption costs.  Neither of us ever hosted a yard sale before and we learned that we had a lot to learn.  With the help of some amazing friends, neighbors, and family we were able to pull it off and make some money!

Thank you to everyone who donated items for us to sell, we are so appreciative of your generosity.  We sold more of the donated items than we did our own stuff!  Thank you to Jenn, Morgan, and Nicole (and Blake) who spent much of their Friday night in our driveway going through all the donations and help us organize and price items.  If it wasn't for them, we would not have gotten any sleep on Friday night because it would have taken us way longer to sort through all of the donations.  Thank you to Mariela who woke up early and spent her Saturday morning helping us sell items - she was better at negotiating than we were!  And thank you to everyone who stopped by to visit with us and do a little shopping (or bring Starbucks- it was much appreciated :)).   We are so grateful to have so many awesome people in our lives and so thankful for your friendship and support!

Our first ever yard sale was a huge success and we made $740!!!!  Mark still has some "big ticket" items to sell (golf clubs, weight bench, etc.) on Craigslist, so the total raised may even go up higher.

And to end an awesome day, all of our neighbors came out and we had a cul-de-sac pizza party.  It was so fun to see all the kids running around playing in the cul-de-sac and all adults catching up and just hanging out.  We couldn't have asked for a better day!

Beginning of the day 

Nearing the end of the day - looks like a lot is left, but its so much less than the morning!

Nursery decorations

Thanks to some inspiration from Pinterest, Nicole had the idea of having shower guests paint/decorate letters for the the nursery! We picked out scrap paper and paint that matched the colors in our bedding set, and then had the guests decorate the letters however they wanted.  They turned out awesome and I absolutely can't wait to hang them in the nursery. Thanks to everyone who helped to decorate one (or two, or three!). I can't pick a favorite because they are all so good!  They actually have given me some new inspiration for the nursery!

Yes, we are aware that the A and the X are missing, we've had some friends/family who couldn't make it to shower who are going to help us out with them :) 

With all of the colors in the letters, the colors choices for the nursery are pretty much limitless.  We've thrown around some color ideas that will pull together the bedding set and the letters...but of course we have not made any decisions yet!  I promise to post pictures once we have decided! 

And as a bonus...while I was out of town last weekend for Race for Cure, Mark was hard at work on rearranging the guest room, bonus room, and most importantly the nursery...he even put together the crib to surprise me :) 

 The ladies and I having fun while Mark was working hard at home!

The Crib!!!!  

Flapjack fundraiser - save the date!

Adoption can be expensive, and for some families the cost deters them from ever moving forward with the process. Lucky for Mark and I, we love a challenge. I have to admit that the cost scared us at first too, we wondered how we could ever save enough money to fund our adoption. But as time went on, and we felt more and more that adoption was God's plan for us, we knew that there had to be a way. We have faith that God will provide, although we also know that money will not fall from the sky, so we have planned a few fundraisers.

Last weekend we held our first ever yard sale (and probably last ever yard sale). Boy was it hard work! We are reminded time and time again how amazing our friends and family are. We had so many people donate stuff for us to sell and come to help us out on the big day. The yard sale itself deserves a whole post and I'll be working on that soon!

In the meantime, we are gearing up for our next big fundraiser - our Flapjack Fundraiser on November 3rd. Those of you who live locally we would love for you to come out and join us, it's from 8am-10am at the Applebee's on Hillsborough St. We will be selling tickets ahead of time and will need to give the restaurant a head count a few days before. So if you are interested in coming make sure you get your tickets. Shoot me an email or text to let me know if you want one and I'll get up with you. We also need a few people to volunteer to help us seat guests and serve pancakes that morning so let us know if you want to do that too!

Feel free to share the flyer with anyone you know who might want to come (coworkers, friends, small groups, family, etc) - the more the merrier!

Adoption Baby Shower Part 2

We are so blessed by great friends and family who came to celebrate adoption (and the future baby Harrill) with us! We had a couple's shower and close to 50 people came (and tons of adorable babies). Everyone was so generous and we got some awesome gifts to help us get ready. We feel so very loved and so lucky to know that we are supported by so many people.  I wish we would have gotten pictures with all of our guests, but unfortunately we didn't.  There were so many friends/family there, that we didn't even get to spend time talking with everyone, but we absolutely appreciated everyone excitement and support! How did we get so lucky?!?   Baby Harrill is going to be one loved and spoiled baby! I can't wait to tell him/her about all of the wonderful people who were a part of this celebration.   

Here are just a few many pictures of the fun gifts that we received for baby Harrill

 Clothes

 Animals on baby's butt...so darn cute! 

I LOVE owls

 "Worth the Wait" and "Loved" onesies - perfect 

 Blankets (they are all so soft)

 Lots of books :)

 Do you think our baby will be clean?  

We are excited for lots of fun bath times!

 Storage (even baby storage is cute)

 Diaper bag and cart/highchair cover (for germa-phobes like me:)) 

 How fun are all these toys

  Ready to eat 

Yay, our video monitor 

(which I may or may not have already used to spy on the dogs) 

 Umbrella stroller (not the best picture)

 A rocking turtle!  Is this not adorable?

We missed everyone who wasn't able to make it, but we plan to continue celebrating adoption from now till forever, so I'm sure we'll have an opportunity to celebrate together :)

This past weekend we hosted our first fundraiser...the yard sale!  Again, we were so blessed by donations and help from friends and family!  I'll try to post about it later this week, so stay tuned!

Adoption Baby Shower Part 1

This past Saturday our amazing friends threw us the best baby shower ever. Karen, Nicole, Shannon and Stacey spent the past two months planning this day to be perfect for us, and it absolutely was. I know they put tons of time and energy into this shower and I hope they know much we appreciate their generosity.

  Cheese/crackers, Delicious salsas/dips, and  Bacon wrapped hot dogs   

                           

           Cookies and Cream and Lemon Strawberry cupcakes - amazingly good

   (Our friend Jen is an amazing baker!) 

  Candy table with all my favorites - jolly ranchers, jelly beans, lollipops,  

 twizzlers, sour patch kids, mini chocolates, and m&ms 

     Pin wheel sandwiches, chicken and beef skewers, buffalo chicken dip, 

caprese tomato skewers and fruit skewers 

                               Me with my "second family" - Gabriela and her mom Karen

                                                              Me and Nicole

                                                             Me and Shannon

                                                               Me and Stacey

Thanks again ladies, this shower was better than either of us could ever have imagined!!!!  Thanks for celebrating adoption with us and showing us so much love and support!

I'll be posting more about the shower later this week.  Stay tuned...

Timeline so far

* Warning another long post, without pictures* (I promise if you can hang with me, my next post will have pictures)

Adoption can be an incredibly long process and we've been lucky so far that the application/home study process has moved so quickly for us. We went to our first information session for our agency on February 11, 2012. After that session we both felt good about adoption and felt sure that God was leading us in that direction, but we took some time to really pray about it before moving forward. At the end of March we mailed off our preliminary application and it was accepted a few weeks later. We attended a mandatory day long conference on April 21st and got to meet several other families also going through this process. It was such an eye opening experience and it was great to get support from other women going through the same experiences. It was also during that session that We really opened our hearts to the idea of open adoption (more about that in another post).

The next step was to complete the formal application. This application included long autobiographies, criminal background checks, and lots of other paperwork. They asked so many personal questions, and although at times it was frustraing to have to disclose so much about ourselves, it also brought up good conversation between Mark and I that we probably would not have otherwise had.

Once that was done, we had three "home study" visits with our social worker, only one of which was actually at our home. Mark and I were interviewed together, then separately, then together again and on the last visit she toured our home. After that we just waited for her to type up the home study and for the board to approve us as adoptive applicants. We received our official acceptance on July 22nd. Then met with the director for our final meeting on August 1st and were officially waiting that day!

Since then we have submitted pictures to be placed on the agency's website which is where the birth mothers/families will first see us, and we have completed our photo book, which will help interested birth mothers/families learn more about us.

What we do know is that the wait can be long, the average is 9 months, but other families have waited more than 18 months. Although there have certainly been times during this process that we have found ourselves frustrated and overwhelmed, I can look back and see the purpose behind what we have done. I can also look back and see that our path through the application process could have been much longer and much more trying. We have absolutely been very blessed. Here's hoping our waiting process goes as smoothly (and quickly) as the application process has!

Now for those of you who managed to get through the whole post, you get to see what happens at my house while I'm hard at work typing a blog post...