Monday, October 31, 2016

Adoption Awareness Month Begins

WOW!
We are shocked.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Pumpkin Glow Bake sale raised over... wait for it..... $1,300!

This has been our best fundraiser yet.

We had 15 bakers for this event. We had 8 helpers the day of the events.

What was sold? Hot Dogs, Chips, Cookies, Popcorn, Brownies, Popcorn, Hot Chocolate, and Candy.

We were blessed with great weather this weekend and a tent to shield us from the wind.


What is the most amazing thing about this event? Community. Michelle (I) was not among the bakers or helpers. I drove around and collected items but when it came down to it, I was home recovering from surgery. I couldn't say thank you to each person that dropped items off at to sell. I couldn't say thank you to each person that set up and helped at the event. I couldn't help. For me, that is hard.
But with this awesome community around us, this fundraiser was a huge success!


November is Adoption Awareness Month. I will be sharing facts and information about what adoption is and how it works all month. We will also be doing a lot of fundraisers this month.

Who are the children that are adopted? Although the typical profile of child varies depending on the country you are adopting from, on average, most children are boys and girls between 2-3 years old at the time they arrive home. In 2015, 75 percent of children placed through Holt International had some special needs, whether minor or correctable, considered healthy in the US, or more moderate.  (holtinternational.org)


Please save the date: November 16th: Warwick Burger Night. $1 from every burger sold will go to baby campbell. (Local to Hummelstown PA)

We've been given an amazing opportunity to be a feathered family for this cape and dress sale! How cure are there?!?! Take a look at the link below and select "Creating the Campbells" in the dropdown menu if you are interested in ordering! These would also make a GREAT Christmas gift for the Superhero or Princess in your life!
DRESSES  tinyurl.com/dressforacause and CAPES  tinyurl.com/capesforacause.

We are looking forward to both fundraisers for different reasons. The burger night will be so fun to get together with friends and build our village for Baby Campbell and the capes and dresses are a great way to get everyone involved. Please share the links to friends and family that you think may be interested. The more sharing we have the more successful this will be!

Thursday, October 20, 2016

PHEW!

2 Months... It has been 2 months since I have written a Blog. Why? Because adoption is hard. Really hard. There are good days and not so good days.

I have been told that adoption is not for the faint of heart. I completely understand why they have said that.


What has happened? Let's start with the hard stuff and move on to the happy and now!

We had our home study. We were so excited! We didn't know what to expect and of course were anxious for the day to arrive. Once it was finally here, we were ready.

During the adoption process we have to prove that every part of our life is good enough for a child. They asked questions such as: How are we going to support a child? (financially) What do we not like about each other? How will we handle a child with special needs? Etc.

We did a quick tour of the house to ensure that our rooms were big enough and our house is "good enough" for a child.

I say we are guilty until proven innocent. This can become taxing. We try to stay positive.

During the home study we learned that there was information and paperwork that needed to be done months ago that we were never told about. The information that they needed was our "net worth". All I heard was that we weren't "worth enough". Meaning we weren't good enough. I was heart broken. I was angry. I was sad. I cried. How can someone say we aren't worth enough?? We aren't good enough??   Someone that hasn't met us or only met us once. Since when does money make you a good parent?

Long story short, after hours of work and doing a complete inventory of our house and lives were were able to move on to the next part.  I was exhausted.

We scheduled our second visit. Yesterday was that visit. We were asked to fill out a long relationship questionnaire prior to our social work coming to the house. Of course, we did it that night and sent it along. During this home study, the social worker spent 1.5 hours with me and 1.5 hours with Adam. The questions this time were about our family.

We were asked to give 5 adjectives about each of our parents and memories that went along with them, we discussed relationship with siblings and our nieces. We answered a lot of the same questions that we answered during our psych eval.

Adam asked if we failed our home study! Our social worker said "not by a long shot". This gave me enough peace of mind to enjoy the night. Adam and I ended the night with a sushi date.

Today when I got off work I had an email saying that there was no concern and that we would make great parents. This was the BEST email I have ever received!

We now wait. We wait for our home study to be written and sent to us. Then, we can move on to our international paperwork!



FUNDRAISING!
We have been busy fundraising and planning during this time. We have a lot of fundraisers coming up.
In October, we did a family picture fundraiser. Thanks to Marta and Jessica the families are blessed with gorgeous pictures and we were blessed with over $500 to add to baby campbell's account! We are so thankful!
Next weekend we will be hosting the bake sale at the Pumpkin Glow in Hershey. If you are in the area check out the beautiful pumpkins and come say Hi!

November is Adoption Awareness Month. I will be posting again soon. Save the date for upcoming fundraisers.
All month- We will be selling capes! Fun for kids, great stocking stuffers.
All month- Michelle's mom will be selling homemade bread for Thanksgiving. If you would like to order bread let Michelle or Adam know!
November we will also be blessed with a LULAROE party fundraiser!


SAVE THE DATE: November 16th 5:30-?? Burger night at the Warwick. This is a local restaurant that will be donating a percent of their burger sales to our adoption! We would love to see everyone. We will be hanging out all night. Come say hi, eat a burger, and help us support baby Campbell.

Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and support during this journey. We are excited to focus on fundraising this month while we wait for our home study paperwork to be completed! While there are days that are hard, we know that this process will lead us to an amazing child that will become ours. We forge on. We don't give up. We stay as positive as possible. We put on our big girl/boy clothes and take another step! We focus on one day at a time. One task at a time. No matter what happens, we will not stop. We will continue to search for baby Campbell! We are so in love already and we don't even know who you are yet!


PHEW!

2 Months... It has been 2 months since I have written a Blog. Why? Because adoption is hard. Really hard. There are good days and not so good days.

I have been told that adoption is not for the faint of heart. I completely understand why they have said that.


What has happened? Let's start with the hard stuff and move on to the happy and now!

We had our home study. We were so excited! We didn't know what to expect and of course were anxious for the day to arrive. Once it was finally here, we were ready.

During the adoption process we have to prove that every part of our life is good enough for a child. They asked questions such as: How are we going to support a child? (financially) What do we not like about each other? How will we handle a child with special needs? Etc.

We did a quick tour of the house to ensure that our rooms were big enough and our house is "good enough" for a child.

I say we are guilty until proven innocent. This can become taxing. We try to stay positive.

During the home study we learned that there was information and paperwork that needed to be done months ago that we were never told about. The information that they needed was our "net worth". All I heard was that we weren't "worth enough". Meaning we weren't good enough. I was heart broken. I was angry. I was sad. I cried. How can someone say we aren't worth enough?? We aren't good enough??   Someone that hasn't met us or only met us once. Since when does money make you a good parent?

Long story short, after hours of work and doing a complete inventory of our house and lives were were able to move on to the next part.  I was exhausted.

We scheduled our second visit. Yesterday was that visit. We were asked to fill out a long relationship questionnaire prior to our social work coming to the house. Of course, we did it that night and sent it along. During this home study, the social worker spent 1.5 hours with me and 1.5 hours with Adam. The questions this time were about our family.

We were asked to give 5 adjectives about each of our parents and memories that went along with them, we discussed relationship with siblings and our nieces. We answered a lot of the same questions that we answered during our psych eval.

Adam asked if we failed our home study! Our social worker said "not by a long shot". This gave me enough peace of mind to enjoy the night. Adam and I ended the night with a sushi date.

Today when I got off work I had an email saying that there was no concern and that we would make great parents. This was the BEST email I have ever received!

We now wait. We wait for our home study to be written and sent to us. Then, we can move on to our international paperwork!



FUNDRAISING!
We have been busy fundraising and planning during this time. We have a lot of fundraisers coming up.
In October, we did a family picture fundraiser. Thanks to Marta and Jessica the families are blessed with gorgeous pictures and we were blessed with over $500 to add to baby campbell's account! We are so thankful!
Next weekend we will be hosting the bake sale at the Pumpkin Glow in Hershey. If you are in the area check out the beautiful pumpkins and come say Hi!

November is Adoption Awareness Month. I will be posting again soon. Save the date for upcoming fundraisers.
All month- We will be selling capes! Fun for kids, great stocking stuffers.
All month- Michelle's mom will be selling homemade bread for Thanksgiving. If you would like to order bread let Michelle or Adam know!
November we will also be blessed with a LULAROE party fundraiser!


SAVE THE DATE: November 16th 5:30-?? Burger night at the Warwick. This is a local restaurant that will be donating a percent of their burger sales to our adoption! We would love to see everyone. We will be hanging out all night. Come say hi, eat a burger, and help us support baby Campbell.

Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and support during this journey. We are excited to focus on fundraising this month while we wait for our home study paperwork to be completed! While there are days that are hard, we know that this process will lead us to an amazing child that will become ours. We forge on. We don't give up. We stay as positive as possible. We put on our big girl/boy clothes and take another step! We focus on one day at a time. One task at a time. No matter what happens, we will not stop. We will continue to search for baby Campbell! We are so in love already and we don't even know who you are yet!