TOGETHER FOR ADOPTION

(My mom and I trying Milk samples at the Shatto Milk Farm)

My mom and I are meeting up in Austin tomorrow to go to the Together For Adoption Conference. Aaron would have come with, but he's at another conference in Waco. I know... were just a couple of dorky conference goers :) I'm not sure what to expect from the next couple of days and to be honest the schedule was pretty overwhelming to me. Just gonna play it by ear. See you there!

OFFICIALLY A WAITING FAMILY!

We heard from our agency Friday afternoon. All the paperwork is complete and we are officially on the waiting list! We already had plans that night to go eat dinner at the Joneses with another couple who is wanting to adopt! It was the perfect way to celebrate! It's crazy to think that in about 10 months we will get to see a picture of Arthur's face! We'll know how old he is and a little bit about his story! I have been thinking it might be nice to have something to wear everyday in place of a pregnant belly. I'm pretty set on this ring I found on etsy. It's perfect! If anyone ever comments on the ring I can tell them about little Art!

IT'S OPEN

Well guys, that happened a lot faster than I thought it would! With a little encouragement from Amanda I went ahead and opened the store! The art print will be ready to ship Wednesday and I'm doing a pre-sale on the shirts... meaning you go and purchase a shirt on the site and after a couple weeks I get an idea of how many I should order and what sizes. Brilliant! Since I'm starting small I can't spend a ton of money on100 t-shirts and have them sit in my basement. This helps me avoid that :) I'm so excited about what I've created for the store and I hope that you like what you see!

Go buy something, and help us get a little closer to bringing our guy home!

LOVE IS WAITING ONLINE STORE

Well... last Monday we put our dossier in the mail!! Yeah... it's done! I can't believe it! Miraculously, our agency received it the next morning and assured us that everything looked good. Now it has to travel to D.C. for authentication. In about a week someone will call us and say "you are officially on the waiting list for a healthy boy, 12 months or younger from Ethiopia" AHHH! Can't wait! After we get that call we'll have about 10 months to save, nest, cry and probably freak out a little bit.

I've wanted to put my talent to good use and figure out a way to pay for this adoption and I've recently found time to put a few things together. Some of these are still in progress, but I couldn't wait to share! I have had so much fun putting these pieces together. When I started brainstorming I got really hung up on making everything hold together in a certain color palette, style and theme, but that would just be too limiting for buyers... right? I want to have products that are adoption/african inspired but will appeal to a lot of people. So, now that the designs are almost done I have to switch over to business brain and think about how much I can spend, how much I can charge, how many I should print, and what printer I should use! Business brain is not my favorite :( Thankfully I have friends that are giving me great advice and helping me to make smart decisions. I think I have to start small and print one thing at a time. The "Gotcha Day" art print is on the schedule to be printed at Blue Collar Press and I can't wait to see how it turns out. It's a three color screen print on natural stock measuring 8x10. As soon as I have them in my hands my Storenvy store will be up and running. Since this print is more specific to Ethiopian adoption, I plan to partner with some other Ethiopian adoption blogs to help spread the word. Maybe do some giveaways?? Also the Together for Adoption Conference is right around the corner and I hope to make some new friends there! What do you guys think??

SPEECHLESS!

Wednesday Aaron and I had an appointment to close on our house. We were able to refinance, which is going to be a HUGE help with our budget. Aaron made the call about a month ago to get everything started. He told the mortgage planner that we were trying to save for an adoption and when we met with her to sign papers she seemed really curious about the process and asked lot of question about our adoption. I could talk about it all day so it was no big deal ;) After the last paper was signed she put a gift bag on the table and said, "Ok, this is totally unrelated to the loan. It's a gift from me. Ever since I talked to Aaron on the phone and he told me why you guys were doing this I was so touched and really wanted to do something for you..." And so on.

Wow!

She found our blog and as far as I'm concerned she is a master scrap book maker! How beautiful is this? The paper work for this adoption has taken WAY longer than we anticipated and I was kind of down in the dumps, but this totally made my day. It's so cool to know that there are people out there that we don't even know thinking and praying for us as we continue on in this journey. Thank you Erin! You are a blessing :)