Hello Springtime!

It's been awhile...it's been busy around here! We are overjoyed to be through with 2013, and excited for what 2014 will bring us! Instead of the laundry list of things that went wrong in 2013, we are focusing on what went right -- our decision to pursue this adoption journey. This year promises to bring lots of fundraising opportunities and I'm spending this weekend celebrating Spring and kicking off our Baby Bottle Boomerang Fundraiser! What's that you ask? How many of you have a basket, bowl, bucket, or some other vessel sitting around your house with loose change in it? I think we all do -- I'd like to collect that change from you! In a baby bottle! My brother surprised us at Christmas and kicked this off for us by handing over a blue bottle (he's hoping for a BOY!) full of his spare change. It sits on my desk as a constant reminder of how much, so little can mean to someone else. This bottle of seemingly insignificant change means we are a few dollars closer to meeting our goal. (Insert sappy Sarah McLaughlin music here). We are truly blessed by the already generous support that we have received. I also know that spring brings a season of cleaning...or at least that's what my momma led me to believe! So, I challenge you to clean out those couch cushions, those old coat pockets, and in between the seats in your car. Collect all of that seemingly insignificant change and store it in a bottle! I've got several to hand out to help you get started. All of which were donated to us for the purposes of this very fundraiser, and will then be passed down to the next family. We can hand deliver or mail to you, just let us know what you prefer. Or you can help build this beautiful fundraiser and donate a bottle that you have purchased (they have them at the dollar store) to help build the stash of bottles for families to come.

Our Etsy shop also remains open, for those of you in need of a Spring treat! We've added some new items for the Spring! Please share our link, this shop has already led to several dozen midnight candy making fests, but it has brought us nearly $700! Sweet Treats

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

A day late and a dollar short...it's been a very busy couple of weeks for us and I'm just now finding a moment to check in with everyone. No significant news yet in terms of baby! We were overwhelmed this past week with family and friends! Spending the holidays with both of our large families is always a treat and an annual reminder of how much we miss everyone! We are well on our way with the puzzle fundraiser and can't wait to finish that up and put it together when baby comes home! My brother surprised us and kicked off the baby bottle boomerang and we can't wait to get bottles out to everyone to start collecting spare change!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

What an amazing few days here! We've gotten close to 10 inches of snow in the past 3 days and it's been beautiful! This time last year, our street was not full of homes yet, and you could see snow covered land for miles -- well, maybe not miles, but it was a very different sight that what we were accustomed to in our previous neighborhood! There are no streets lined with broken lawn chairs marking their spots, no black slush sitting in the alley, just beautiful untouched white snow as far as the eye can see! We are the last street in the county to get plowed on snow days, or so it seems sometimes, so our street went un-touched for a good portion of the morning. The few people that did venture out, left tire tracks that were quickly re-covered by the snow that was still coming down!

Among the snow, we've also been showered with orders for our Etsy shop! We are so excited that this is successful and hope that the success continues after the holidays. This past weekend, we made a little bit of everything -- it was our first big weekend for orders and we are looking forward to the coming weekend to be just as busy! We were blessed to provide turtles for VIP bags for Avergan Foundations Launch Party and are working on a number of teacher gifts for the local community! Head over to our etsy shop and get your orders placed today!! Sweet Treats!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are so thankful for so many things this year! In no particular order: our families, our friends, our neighbors who have become friends, our canine children, our faith, our beautiful home...oh yeah and each other! We are also thankful for the journey that we are taking towards adoption. In just a few days, we've secured a handful of Etsy orders for our homemade candy and have "sold" several puzzle pieces! We can't wait to deliver the pieces for everyone to decorate! Thank you for Avergan Foundation, Courtney Anton Photography, and Sparkle Events & Cakery for advertising our Etsy shop! And thank you to all of our friends & family who have shared our Go Fund Me page! 

Mountains of Paper Makes Candy~

You read it right! Making candy is something that my mom and I used to spend hours upon hours in the kitchen doing every Christmas! Homemade caramel, drop turtles, chocolate covered pretzels -- you name it, we made it! It was a chore, and our fingers were sore for days, and "our feets hurt" when we were done. But, nonetheless, each year, without fail, we repeated tradition. When Pete and I met, we continued that tradition and for the past few years, every member of the family looks forward to peanut butter balls and no bake cookies =) This year, we've decided to expand our repertoire and delve into some other things. So, we set up shop on Etsy! Every dollar earned through this shop will help turn our dreams into reality as we continue towards "gotcha day" (aka: the day we meet our future son or daughter). We'd be delighted if you would share in the magic. Purchase candy as gifts for co-workers, neighbors, church members, or even yourselves! Or just share our page with others! Every item comes wrapped and ready for gift giving and includes a personalized gift tag -- we will even ship direct to the recipient!

Find us at https://www.etsy.com/shop/MountainsofPaper

The Holidays Are On The Horizon!

It's been a couple of weeks since I've last posted and while there has been a lot going on for us in the world of adoption these past couple of weeks, there isn't really much to share in terms of updates! We are, yes, still waiting...but since we've passed out announcements, and made official announcements to our employers, we've been overwhelmed with support and people saying "you know, so and so adopted". We've been blessed to meet another couple in our neighborhood who is traveling this road alongside us. We will call them Team PB! We met for the first time 2 weeks ago for dinner and ended up shutting the place down! It was so nice to meet another couple walking this road and sharing our hopes, dreams, laughs, tears and everything in between.

We've also started working on clearing out what will become the nursery. We've raised more than $150 so far by consigning items around the house that we either no longer use or need. With that were able to purchase a dresser that had been refinished by a local woman. We've started picking out paint colors -- did you know that babies cry more in yellow rooms than any other color?! Who does this research? Needless to say, we will NOT be painting the future nursery yellow!

With the holidays coming, we know that we will be busy, busy, busy. We've received our first donation for the puzzle and we hope that we will have all 60 pieces of our puzzle filled by the end of the year! We are asking for a donation of $10 per piece, but will really be thankful for anything that you wish to contribute. We want this baby to have a piece of each and everyone of their family members (both glitter & glue) hanging in their room. We will be bringing the puzzle, as well as bottles for the bottle fundraiser to upcoming holiday gatherings along with pens/markers to decorate your own piece!

Puzzle

View the entire collection of cards.

Happy Homestudy Day!

Happy Anniversary & Happy Homestudy Day to Pete and I. We celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary and completed our homestudy today! We are so excited to be through the mountains of paperwork and be officially PAPER PREGNANT! For those who have been wondering, our next step is to wait! We will be finishing our profile key in the coming weeks, which will give the agency an idea of what type of child we are going to parent. This key allows us to choose race and birthmother history. We have chosen to keep our exact choices private. We do not get to choose gender, and there is a high likelihood that we will not know the gender until the baby is born. Rest assured that we will continue to share details during the matching process as we can. We have a job to protect the privacy of the birth mother, and we plan on honoring that. We encourage you to follow this blog for all of our updates.

Last night, we posted a picture on Facebook to announce to the world that we were adopting! This picture sparked an amazing number of likes/comments/private messages and we are overwhelmed with the amount of support that we are receiving from friends and family! Thank you! But something else pretty amazing happened when we posted this picture. We found another family within walking distance who is also adopting. She reached out to us via facebook and we found that we are both in the dreaded waiting period. I'm so excited to have found someone so close that is going through the exact same thing as we are. I think I actually asked "can we be best friends?!"