BLESSED!

Blessed beyond comprehension!

Merry Christmas my sweet friends!

(missing each of you & missing updating my blog...I will shortly :)

Christmas CLEARANCE sale....

Don't miss out on our Christmas clearance sale. If you purchase them during the next couple of days you should have them by Christmas. I will ship as soon as you order!!

Leave me a comment with your email address and what shirt you want...I'll confirm I have it and let you know asap.

We have a few shirts left in our inventory...see below.

ALL shirts are $20 SHIPPED!  

Women's FITTED Defender
2 Large

Women's UNISEX Defender

1 Small SOLD

2 Medium SOLD

Women's FITTED Warrior

1 Medium

1 Large

1 XL

Women's UNISEX Warrior

1 Small

Men's Warrior

1 Medium

2 Large SOLD

Shirt Update...

There was a delay at the printers but the shirts are finally here!!! I will ship them all out tomorrow (Thurs.)

Thank you for being so patient!!!!

VOTE for our family...PLEASE

Okay guys, Kohl's is doing this cool giveaway I need your help!!

The thought of how we could use the winnings to help adoptive families and orphans is very, very exciting!!!

Check it out HERE! And VOTE FOR OUR FAMILY...pretty please :)

Contest rules...you can vote once EVERY day...so keep those votes coming :)

Baltic Amber necklace for teething

Soooo, I'm a tad bit skeptical about the effectiveness of using a baltic amber necklace for Jubilee to help reduce teething pain. I still don't completely understand how it's suppose to work but so many mama's swear by them. So, I ordered one for little miss.

Amber is a natural analgesic and all the articles I read about why it works makes sense. You can read more about 'why' this works here.

If anything, she looks so stinkin' cute wearing it :)

Oh and little miss just discovered her little tootsies...she is pretty fascinated by them...

I am too...they are sooo cute!

Jubilee's dedication

We had the incredible privilege of having our little Miss Jubilee dedicated earlier this month....on...Orphan Sunday...how cool is that!!! Nothing brings us greater joy then publicly dedicating our babes to the Lord. It is only by His incredible blessings that we have been entrusted with these treasures. We are so blessed to be part of a body that loves us, supports us, and holds us accountable in raising our babes in the ways of the Lord.

For some reason, unbeknownst to me, our Sarah girl found it appropriate to stick her tongue out the ENTIRE time at her uncle who was taking pictures. Mind you...our sanctuary has TEN HUGE TV's...aacckk!!!

Cana girl thought it was the best time to tickle Jubilee's feet while Solomon thought it was the perfect time to make a mad dash on to the stage....

Life is quite the adventure with 7 kiddos...three of them being 5!!!

Just some fun cuteness of our girl who is ALREADY 5 months old...crazy!!!!

BOYS!!!!

Precious, beautiful boys! Do you see little boys as beautiful??? Oh, they are wonderfully beautiful!

Being a mama to both boys and girls has been quite the adventure. Adventure you say?? Yep, adventure...you see I have all sisters so when our first born was a boy, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with him.  14 years later, I have realized that it's the girls I don't know what to do with...me-oh-my!  The boys are the 'easy' one's :)

I get the whole "sugar and spice and everything nice" but come on...who doesn't love having a mama's boy??

There are sooo many precious boys waiting for families...desperate for a forever family but they are getting passed by simply because they are boys.

The thought that he...

could still be confined behind institution walls is an unbearable thought!  Our Solomon has brought us so much joy...to think we could have missed this...it's unimaginable!

The reality that he....

 and he....

 and he are waiting...

clinging to hope that they will have a family to love them...to care for them when they are scared or hungry or lonely.

Come read about these boys and others like them...pray for them...help me advocate for them...

www.lovingthefatherless.blogspot.com

CHRISTMAS FRENZY

Christmas Frenzy is for EVERYONE!!!

You will fit in one of two categories....

1. Fundraising family

OR

2. Supporting family :)

Okay...here's how it works. All of us LOVE to give Christmas gifts EVEN when times are financially tough. Having just finished the fundraising journey, I keep thinking how can we help other families?!?! Soooo, here's my idea.

FUNDRAISING FAMILIES:

~You must be in the process of adopting or recently home. You must be using the funds from your items to directly fund your adoption costs.!
~You are selling an item to help raise funds to bring your child home. (no raffles, please...it's okay if you are currently running a raffle BUT you MUST be selling fundraising items too, like shirts, etc...that is what you need to be linking to)

~If someone is giving your family part of the proceeds for items, like Scentsy, jewelry, THAT WORKS, TOO :)

~You need to post on your blog and/or facebook about our Christmas Frenzy and link back to my blog. This is CRUCIAL...the more awareness we raise the more supporting families we will have.

~Please make sure you create a NEW blog post regarding the Christmas Frenzy...don't link to an old post. BUT don't forget to highlight what YOU are SELLING in that post :)
~I would love for you to become a follower of my blog...just cause I wanna know who my friends are :)
~Add your blog LINK to the BELOW Linky tool (at the bottom of this post)
~Fun idea for fundraising families...you guys can swap items and then have some fabulous items to do a raffle.

SUPPORTING FAMILIES:

~Make your Christmas list and try to support as many families as you can by purchasing their fundraising items as gift. (click on the below links to see the families)
~Please help spread the word for these families!!! Blog, facebook, tweet, and link back to my blog!!!

Fundraising for Jubilee and Christmas Frenzy

It's Christmas Frenzy time!!!!

We are only a couple months away from finalizing our adoption of our surprise girl, Jubilee. Her surprise story is HERE!  Because she was a complete surprise, we are needing to fundraise her adoption fees.  A daunting task since we had just finished fundraising to bring our son, Solomon, home from China. But as daunting as it is, it's all worth it!!!

We recently launched our T-Shirts for Jubilee. You have got to read the amazing God story behind them...here!

We are also continuing to make our Solomon Beads and the new purpose is for our Jubilee girl. We will be listing new items weekly and are currently taking custom orders.

To order you Defender and Warrior shirts...

To order your Solomon Beads....

CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE!

Bad Dream!!!

I'm sitting here crying....my "S" just woke up...

S: Mom, I had a really bad dream in my head and now I feel like I'm going to throw up!
Mom: I'm so sorry baby, what was your dream?
S: That I didn't have family.

SERIOUSLY...my sweet girl...she is only 5, adopted at birth. I can't even put adequate words to how this makes me feel. Oh, I tell you...our kids so get this...they so completely understand the ache of the children without a family!  Deep breath mama...she has rocked my world this morning with those words...they are echoing in my head over and over!

Beautiful girl, God is going to use you mightily to help the orphan!!!

Adoption news...Nightlight Christian Adoptions and A Helping Hand Adoption...

I am beyond excited about the recent news that our incredible agency, Nightlight Christian Adoptions, is joining forces with another incredible agency, A Helping Hand Adoptions. AHH is now an affiliate of NCA. I have been very blessed to already be in contact with the China staff and let me say....I AM SUPER, CRAZY EXCITED ABOUT ALL THE LORD IS GOING TO DO!!!!  The Lord has also brought another neat opportunity in our path...I will be sharing about this one soon ...let's just say that God is opening up many doors for our family to be able to help raise awareness for more waiting babes and prayerfully that will allow us to find more families for them!

You can read the announcement for the agencies HERE.

My favorite part:
"The consolidation will provide clients of Nightlight and A Helping Hand with opportunities for domestic adoption, embryo adoption through Nightlight's Snowflakes program, and international adoptions from countries including China, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Russia, Taiwan, Uganda, and Ukraine."

GIVEAWAY update....adoption shirts

UPDATE: Giveaway winners are....
Daleea
and
Dawn C.
(we used random.org to generate the winners)
HUGE thank you to all who ordered shirts. We will be ordering a few extra so I'll keep you posted ;)

Here is the update on our shirts...we are only $1500 away from our goal. This is what we NEED asap to pay the lawyer fees for Jubilee's finalization hearing!!! Soooo, we need to sell 100 more shirts!!! That's it...100 shirts.

Wanna win a shirt for FREE??

We are giving away 2...YES... TWO shirts...1 womens and 1 mens!

How do you win....
1. Blog about our shirts = 1 entry
2. Facebook about our shirts = 1 entry
3. Order a shirt = 2 entries per shirt ordered
4. Refer a friend that orders a shirt = 2 entries
Don't forget to leave me a comment with how many entries you've earned.

~ORDER YOUR SHIRTS HERE~

OR

Order from the right column of the blog

*Giveaway drawing will be held 11/7
*All pre-sale orders will go in 11/9

Don't forget the incredible message behind our shirts. We are called to be both a Defender and Warrior for the orphan...help spread the message...be challenged to share about the orphan crisis.

China Waiting Children...waiting NOW!

Just listed some precious treasures on our advocacy blog...just look at these beauties...

Seriously folks...I wanna bring them all home! Please help me spread the word about these sweet one's waiting for their forever families!!!

To learn more about these miracles, go HERE!

Are you a Defender or Warrior for the orphan?

This thought came to me one day while I was vacuuming.  I felt the Lord pressing on my heart the direction for our fundraising t-shirts for Jubilee's adoption fees.  Our passion to advocate for the orphan is so deep...so fierce that it sometimes feels like we are in a battle for these precious children that have no voice.  The drive to defend them, fight for them can be so overwhelming and extremely URGENT!

As I prayed through the thoughts of defender vs. warrior for the orphan, it became very clear what our roles as advocates and parents are....the daddy is clearly the Warrior for the orphan...fighting to make sure the orphan doesn't become a victim in this fallen world...fighting for the simple justice that we take for granted.  The mama is clearly the Defender...the one who swoops in, scoops up the hurting child to protect them at all costs and to help healing begin.

But then I thought...I can see times where our roles have switched a bit and the mama has to be a warrior, too. I think of our own little Cana and the fight we had to bring her home.  Same goes for the defender...the daddy is the first to jump in the line of fire for these precious babes...to protect them at all costs.

I am excited to share with you our newest shirts.  Warrior for the Orphan AND Defender of the Orphan. The proceeds from the sales will go directly to fund our surprise girl's adoption. We have $12,000 in agency fees due and we have an immediate need of $2,000 for the attorney.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Warrior for the Orphan will be offered for both men and women ('cause I LOVE the design ;)

Defender of the Orphan will only be offered in the women's cut ('cause I don't think the boys will dig the frill ;)

Here are some pics...head on over to our SolomonBeads site to order yours! We are offering these as a PRE-SALE...the order will go to the printer on Nov. 9 and will be shipped to you by the end of the month. I do have a few in stock so if you order quick, I may have your size :)

Women's

 Men's

 Men's also has "Warrior" on the back..it will be a little bit larger.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER 

We Are Grafted In...

We had the most incredible honor of having our post on SPD featured on We Are Grafted In website.  We were truly blessed to be asked to share our Cana girl's story. Our greatest prayer is that it will help other families struggling with SPD.

I had meant to blog about this the day it was up but was in the hospital with hubby.  He had his gallbladder removed...there were some minor complications but after 3 days in the hospital was allowed to come. He continued to have a few complications after surgery but I am praising our Lord that he is finally doing much better.

Sooo, check out our family on We Are Grafted In ;)

65 families wait.....

3 years ago our precious friends, the Kahler's, traveled to Kyrgyzstan to meet their precious son, Asa, for the first time. As they were preparing to make their 2nd trip to bring him home, ALL international adoptions in Kyrgyzstan came to a screeching halt. 65 families were in process of bringing their babes home and the hope of their children coming home was beginning to look impossible. These 65 families continued to wait for glimpse of news...any news...some families received the terrible news that their sweet babes had passed away due to illness...while the others waited and prayed that the officials could come to an agreement and allow their adoptions to proceed. Fast forward 3 very LONG years, these families still wait but God is moving MIGHTILY!!!!!!!!  

One of the waiting families, the Bilyeus, lost their daughter due to complications of hydrocephalus in August 2010. They have chosen, with God's strength, to turn their deep grieving into hope and help for the remaining families. They have partnered with Lifesong for Orphans and Altynai's Legacy Adoption Fund was born. The mission of Altynai's Legacy Adoption fund is to provide financial assistance for the remaining families adoptions.

I am in tears as I write this post...I can't even being to imagine the pain of losing a child that had they been allowed to come home would still be alive. I have watched several of my friends walk this journey and it shakes me to the core.  I am asking you...my sweet, precious friends to please consider a donation to Altynai's fund...help her orphanage "brothers" and "sisters" home to their families. Altynai is safe in the arms of her Father...can you please help the other children home to the safety of their forever families?

Please go to the Bilyeus's blog to see how you can help. Read the families stories...be blessed, be moved to act! Our friends, the Kahler's, story is here. I had the privilege of getting to know this sweet family as we waited to bring Solomon home. They were in process to bring their son, Ezra, home from China. Our greatest hopes were to travel together but the Lord had other plans and we missed each other by 2 weeks. Their hearts are to serve the Lord and I have been amazed and blessed at how they have endured their journey to Asa...a journey that we pray daily will lead them back to Kyrgyzstan SOON to bring him home.

The Kahler's with Asa on their first visit! Sweet baby boy, we are praying you home soon!