~A Quick Post After The Long Weekend~

Happy Memorial Day Everyone!!! This three day weekend was much need after our big fundraiser...We kicked this weekend off with a bang with our fundraiser on Friday night. The fundraiser was a success and we enjoyed the evening surrounded with people who are just as excited as we are to bring our little lady home. The evening also brought us a HUGE step closer to being full funded!! We still have a little bit of fundraising left to do but I’m still riding cloud nine and feeling thankful for the support we had on Friday night. Now I would love to post pictures from the evening buuuut I didn’t take one single picture with my phone or camera. I know some friends took some with their phones which I’m thankful for but I feel so lame for missing out on pictures but at least I have the memories. :)) 

So now where do we go from here you ask?... Well we have one last paper that should be coming in this week and hopefully we’ll be submitted next week (fingers crossed for that) and then we wait for a date. And now its a push to finish our fundraising...we are working on setting up another Instagram auction which was a HUGE success when we did back in January. Our friends have plans to hold another fundraiser for us towards the end of June and hopefully these things can get us to our goal in time to travel. 

So other then that news it’s still the same old craziness around here. Baseball is finally winding down and we are in playoff mode for Ryan’s team...I have signed up to play softball for the next few tuesday’s which has been fun and a reminder of just how old I am getting. LoL We are also just 10 short days away from the school year being finished and then we all get to sleep in again!!! Yay for sleep!!!! :))) This week we have some special littles coming to visit while their mommy and daddy travel to meet their new brothers and I can’t wait to hang out with them!!

I hope you all have had a wonderful holiday weekend and remember to thank those who gave all so we could live free!! 

Write To You Soon,

Melissa

~Just A Little Something For Your Thursday~

Why hello...long time no type. I hope this blog post finds you all doing well. Our house is in full blown busy mode...baseball season started in February for Ryan and we have been go, go, go since day one. And when we are not doing baseball related things we are doing therapy for Misha and when we are not doing that we’re plugging along at finishing up our adoption paperwork. So life is keeping us busy but in the best possible way. :))

So a little update for everyone. Our dossier is DONE...and off to Baby C’s country!!! I am still in a little bit of shock at how fast it all went....when we adopted Misha is took 3 months for our home study and about 4 months to complete our dossier papers, that's a total of 7 months!!!....this time it took just 2 months to finish everything this time around!!!! It’s amazing what a little experience and help can get you accomplished. Sooo now we wait and fundraise!! :))

Paperwork finished and sealed with a kiss and off the Baby C's country!!

Speaking of fundraising, we are gearing up for a pretty amazing evening of celebrating Baby C while enjoying the company of our amazing support network of family and friends on Friday May 23rd. We are calling Cinco De-Laney it is going to AMAZING!!! It’s going to be a fiesta filled evening with great food, cool drinks and great friends, along with raffles, auctions and so much more!! Tickets are on pre-sale for $25 (includes 2 drink tickets) and will be $30 at the door (and include 2 drink tickets). 

We can't wait to celebrate with everyone!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and thank you for stopping by to read our update!

Love,

Melissa

It's A Date

Hey, Hey, Hey Everyone!!! I hope you all are having a wonderful week, I know we sure are!! I have VERY exciting news for you all!! WE HAVE A VENUE FOR OUR FUNDRAISER (and a NEW date)!!! "Cinco De-Laney" will be on FRIDAY MAY 23rd at the Saturday Club of Vacaville…we are super excited to have a place to hold our big event and can't wait to see everyone come out enjoy a little fiesta time while raising money to bring our sweet Baby C home!!! Tickets will be $30 and each ticket includes 2 drink tickets. We will have a delicious Taco bar, chips~n~salsa, and all the other fiesta fixings!! We will also have a bar with Margaritas & Beer…along with non-alcoholic beverages. Their will be a silent auction with gift baskets, 2 one week vacations to surprise locations (locations will be reveled at our event), and may other wonderful items!! We hope to see you there for ALL the fun!!!  

~THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU~ Oh, and an update!!

Well hello there...So it’s been a while and I apologize for my absence...but I am back to write a AWESOME post about some great news and an update!! 

I’m sure most of you remember the awesome shirt fundraiser we had going on...well, we sold OVER 500 shirts!!!! How awesome is that?!?!! I want to send a BIG, HUGE, GIGANTIC thank you to Shannon for doing this fundraiser for our family!! And another BIG, HUGE, GIGANTIC thank you to ALL of you who participated...you all have brought us a lot closer to bringing home our sweet Baby C!! I can’t even begin to tell you all how blessed we feel by your generosity and support. Not only have you helped us become closer to getting our baby girl home but you are also willing to raise awareness about Down syndrome!!! We are sending you a big hug and thank you for all that you have done to help us make this fundraiser successful!!! 

Now I get to follow that exciting news with a happy update!! We have sent our paperwork in for our home-study update and should hopefully have that finished by the end of next week!! I will also be sending sending off the first part of our dossier in the next week and will be working super hard to get that finished and hopefully sent off by beginning April!!! I can’t believe how faster this process goes the second time around!! 


So that’s about it for tonight's update...again a BIG, HUGE, GIGANTIC thank you to everyone who bought a shirt and helped us get closer bringing our baby girl home!!!

Just a Little Bit of Awesomeness!!

Hey Everyone! I hope you all are having a great weekend!! I just wanted to pop in real quick and give an AWESOME update to our shirt fundraiser!! I received an email today letting my know we have sold almost 250 shirts!!!! How awesome is that!?!?! Our goal was to sell 100 and he have clearly knocked that number way out of the park!! I’m wondering if we could sell 321 (in honor of World Down syndrome Day) or maybe even hit the 400 mark?!?!!! What do you think? OH and I almost forgot the best part, now that we have sold 100+ shirts the price goes down to $12 per shirt!! So what are you waiting for? Send and email to 321awareness@gmail.com with your order information or any questions you may have. Thank you again for helping us get closer getting our sweet Baby C home!! 

Love, 

Melissa

Here is a peek at what the shirts look like...

To order email: 321awareness@gmail.com and specify your size (2T, 4T, 5/6, YS, YM, YL. Adult: XS, S, M, L, XL AND XXL) and color (Grey - as shown, Purple w/dark purple print, Pink w/dark pink print, Blue w/dark blue print, Green w/dark green print). The shirt are $20 a piece BUT once we’ve sold 100 shirts (which I’m guessing we'll knock this number out of the park!!!) the price will drop.....$5 of every shirt will go towards our adoption of our sweet Baby C and the adoption of the other family bringing home a sweet little boy with Down syndrome from Hong Kong. When ordering PLEASE leave your name, address and whether you will be paying through PayPal or by check. ALL ORDERS HAVE TO BE MADE BY FEBRUARY 25TH. Invoices will be emailed after your order is received!! :)

~An Exciting T-Shirt Fundraiser~

Hey, Hey, Hey Everyone!!! So I’m popping in quickly to tell you about an awesome fundraisers that an amazing lady is doing for us!! 

A few days ago a few friends voted for us to be part of a t-shirt fundraiser an amazing lady named Shannon was wanting to do for an adopting family. And lucky enough she picked us and another family to do the fundraiser for!! We are again so humbled and excited about this fundraiser. The t-shirt is not only helping us raise money for us and the other families adoption but bringing awareness to World Down syndrome Day!! I’m guessing you’d like to see a picture of the super amazing t-shirts...well, here you go!! :)

Now that we’ve seen these super amazing t-shirts here’s the ordering information: 
To order email: 321awareness@gmail.com and specify your size (2T, 4T, 5/6, YS, YM, YL. Adult: XS, S, M, L, XL AND XXL) and color (Grey - as shown, Purple w/dark purple print, Pink w/dark pink print, Blue w/dark blue print, Green w/dark green print). The shirt are $20 a piece BUT once we’ve sold 100 shirts (which I’m guessing we'll knock this number out of the park!!!) the price will drop.....$5 of every shirt will go towards our adoption of our sweet Baby C and the adoption of the other family bringing home a sweet little boy with Down syndrome from Hong Kong. When ordering PLEASE leave your name, address and whether you will be paying through PayPal or by check. ALL ORDERS HAVE TO BE MADE BY FEBRUARY 25TH. Invoices will be emailed out after we hit 100 orders!! :)

A little Update…

Hey Everyone!!! I hope this post finds you all doing well. We've had a VERY busy last couple of weeks and I’m excited to share with all of you!!

A few weeks ago I wrote about some fundraisers we had coming up and let me tell you they are/were amazing!! Our dear friend Shelly started a puzzle fundraiser and it is going great. The wonderful part to this fundraiser will be the awesome picture puzzle of Baby C we’ll have to hang up in her room as a great reminder of all the wonderful people who helped us bring her home!! I also talked about our online auction that my friend Beth was putting together for us. Well, we started it on a Saturday and closed it on a Monday morning and it brought in over $1600!!!! This far exceeded our expectations and we are so extremely humbled by the support of everyone who participated!! I am still in awe of the complete kindness we have received from complete strangers...We are working hard on nailing down a place for our big fundraiser and should have that ironed out next week!! We really can’t wait to celebrate Baby C!!

The other week we also celebrated David and Misha’s Birthday!!! It’s crazy to think our sweet Misha is 5 already!! He has blossomed and grown so much over the last, almost, two years and next school year he’ll be in Kindergarten!!! I can’t believe the little boy we brought home from Ukraine is getting ready to head to off to big kid school!! We decided to keep birthdays low-key this year and do a joint birthday dinner and cake for Daddy and Misha, which worked our perfectly for us. During this time we also found out our oldest son, Ryan, made the minors division for little league. We are so proud of him and can not wait for this baseball season to start...only a little over 5 weeks until opening ceremonies and games starting...but who’s keeping track, right?! ;) 

Other then that we are hard at work with adoption papers and planing our big fundraiser!! Oh wait , I almost forgot...Something else that happened of the last few weeks is we were finally talked about in a anti-adoption forum ran by trolls!! Hahahaha...I’m sure some of you are thinking “What the hell, how can you laugh at this” but I can it’s almost like a right of passage when adopting..we had some trolls leave nasty comments during our adoption of Misha and I am expecting many more this time around. And to be honest the things they say are so far from the truth it’s hard not to laugh...I welcome them talking about us because all it’s doing is getting the word out about our adoption...And just in case the trolls swing in to read this post I have to let them know, our adopted son DID NOT damage/ruin/hurt our family in any way, if fact he has made us closer as a family, he has brought the best out in all of us and has blossomed into the most amazingly wonderful little boy....I’m not sure what went wrong in your lives that you have to bash others but just remember Karma is “B” and she’ll find you in time!!...And here’s something I’ll leave the wonderfully lovely trolls with: William Shakespeare once said~ “Love me or hate me, both are in my favor...If you love me, I’ll always be in your heart...If you hate me, I’ll always be in your mind.” So to you trolls, thank you for reading and giving us a good chuckle!! 

I hope you all are having an amazing week!! I’m off to work on our home-study and dossier papers!! 

Love Ya,

  Melissa