Godspeed (Sweet Dreams) By the Dixie Chicks with lyrics

Just a quick little HELLO!!

Hello everyone, I just wanted to write a quick little post for everybody! Nothing has really changed since my last post, which is good. We are still working on compiling our dossier and will hopefully be getting our first piece of it finished this week!! We hope to get everything else done and completed quickly. We have a great person who will be doing our notary and is available whenever we need her…so hopefully we can get this done quickly!!:) I have tried to check on our USCIS status already and for those of you that know me well, know this is no surprise. I have a very hard time with waiting and this part of our process is going to kill me, I’m sure. However when I did call and talked to the people at USCIS they said one way to check to see if our packet of paperwork had been accepted was to call the bank and see if the cashiers check had been cashed…..so I called the bank and guess what it has been cashed!!!!!!! WoooHooo!! I know this is a small step but it’s still a relief to know that our paperwork was accepted and is getting processed! This means its time to buckle down and work on getting our boy home!! With that being said PLEASE check out our fundraising page and see all the fundraisers we have going! The finished paperwork won’t mean anything if we don’t have the money to get to Aaron and bring him home! So anything helps, no matter how small or big we are sooo grateful for all the support you have already shown and hope that it continues while we get through this process!!:)

It's actually happening!!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to make a quick post and update everyone on our process in the adoption!! We have FINALLY finished our home-study!!!:) We received the big packet in the mail on September 30th! I can honestly say it was such an awesome feeling to come home and find it sitting on our doorstep. It has also made this whole process soooo… much more real! I know I have said that exact statement in the past but now there is no going back, we are doing this and we will have our boy home with his family in the next couple of months!!! It’s so exciting, crazy, scary, and joyous all at the same time! On Friday 10/7/11 we sent in our packet to the USCIS!!!!!!! For most of you, you may not understand but USCIS stands for “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services” and this is where our “golden ticket” comes from. They are the ones who give us the approval to adopt our little boy!! So while we wait for this to be approved we are now working with all systems going. We are preparing our dossier and getting all the needed documents together for that, as well as planning our big fundraiser! On my last post I had talked about our Halloween Costume Ball fundraiser, and unfortunately we have had some changes to that. We were going to hold the fundraiser at our house when we realized that we could not accommodate the large number of people we would be having at the event.... So we have changed everything about the fundraiser! We are now having Aaron’s Harvest Hoedown on November 19^th and have new venue to hold our event at! David’s National Guard unit has been so very supportive and kind in allowing us to use their facility; which is WAY bigger then our house and allows us to accommodate everyone!  Soooooo…..if you’re in the mood for hoedown you show join us on November 19^th from 6-11. I promise you won’t be disappointed!!

And finally I am working on the fundraiser page. Who knew it would be so hard to figure out! If you are interested in coming to our fundraiser email me at: chellsonfamily@gmail.com and I will get all the information to you. If you are my friend on facebook you should have received and event invite on there which has all the details. I am working on some homework for school after I post this and then I will be back to working on the fundraising page…so be on the look out for the fundraiser page in the next day or two!!:)

Our Crazy Busy Life

             Well I can’t believe it’s been over a month since my last post!! I am soo... sorry I haven’t been keeping this updated like I should. But I have a VERY good excuse; life has been sooo… crazy busy over the last month!! So here is a quick recap of our last month and an update on our adoption process!!

             August started with David starting his new position as Open-Space Deputy, which he loves! He is getting to be out hiking in the hills and patrolling the open space of Marin County now and he loves the change of pace from being on patrol on the streets. I started back to school full time and am hoping that this is my last fall semester at our local community college! Hopefully if all goes well I will be at Sac State in the fall of 2012 and only a few semesters away from graduating with my degree so I can FINALLY start teaching!! Ryan also started school in August; he is officially a big kid now that he is in 1^st grade! I have to be honest and say that watching him go off for his first day of school was much harder this year then it was last year in Kindergarten. I did really well until I got to the car and cried a little bit. My baby isn’t a baby anymore and that hit me like a ton of bricks that day! Ryan has also been very busy with baseball over the last several months and every game he getting better and better! So between David working, Ryan and I in school and Ryan’s baseball schedule…..life in our house has been a little crazy but we wouldn’t have it any other way!

            Not only are we busy with just general life stuff but we are super busy with all aspects of our adoption process!! We had our last home visit for our home-study in August and it has become our little hang up in this process as we are STILL waiting to make our edits and to finalize of our home study. But I’m crossing my fingers and hoping we can do all that by the end of this week!! Other then this little issue we are going full force with all other aspects of our process. We will be starting on our dossier paperwork in the next few weeks, which makes me nervous and stressed all at once but I know it will be done quickly and ready to go when it’s time to send in everything!! We are also planning and currently selling tickets for our first big fundraiser. We are having a Halloween costume ball at our house on October 29, 2011!! Tickets are $25 dollars and all adults are welcome to join us if you are in the area and want something to do around Halloween you should come and join us!!:) We will be having a raffle, silent auction and costume contests…I promise you will have a blast and enjoy the evening helping us raise money to bring our little boy home!! We are also in the works of a couple other small fundraisers that we are planning to hold in November and December! And please don’t forget we are still holding “Aaron’s Lucky Stars” fundraiser, this will be one that we do up until we actually leave to go get our little man and bring him home!!

            Again I promise not to go so long without posting again and if you have any questions about our up coming fundraiser please feel free to send me an email at chellsonfamily@gmail.com. If you would like to purchase tickets you can pay using our chip-in and then email with how many tickets you bought and I will get them to you, if you want to pay with cash or check email me and we can work out all the details!! I am trying to get a page up and going for our fundraisers and the information on them, so be on the look out for a link to our fundraiser page on our blog!

Thank you for stopping by and reading our blog and I promise not to be a stranger anymore!!

What a busy 2 weeks we've had!!

   I have just noticed that it has been two and half weeks since my last post and what a CRAZY two and a half weeks they have been!!! Three weeks ago I announced the start of our fundraising with a candle fundraiser and Aaron’s Lucky Stars! I am happy to announce that we have finished the candle fundraiser and made over $250 dollars from it this is added to the $210 we have earned from Aaron’s Lucky Stars!! It’s a great way to start out our fundraising and puts us with $460 more dollars then we started with!!:) We have many fundraisers planned for the next couple of months ranging from a yard-sale, to a poker party, to a give away, to a Chevy’s fundraiser and many more ideas in the works!! Also don’t forget we still have Aaron’s Lucky Stars going on until the days before we have to actually leave to get him!!  So keep your eyes out for the next announcement of our next fundraiser!! Also in the excitement of our first two fundraisers I have started a business to help with our adoption. I am now a consultant for Thirty-One Gifts!! I am so excited about all the products they have and can’t wait to get out there and sell, sell, sell!! If you want to check out the fall catalog you can go to www.mythirtyone.com/70745. All my earnings will go towards getting Aaron home to us!!!

    Now onto some more exciting news!! We have our final visit with our social worker on Tuesday and hopefully will have the final copy of our home study by the end of the week or the beginning of the following week!! I am so excited to be moving onto the next step of our adoption process. It will mean even more paperwork and stress and running around but it will be oh soooo worth it in the end!! Our goal is to have our little boy home by January. However there is a little chance that it may just work out where if we can get the funds and paperwork in order that he may just be home in time for Christmas!!!!! How absolutely amazing would that be?! I can say it would truly be the BEST Christmas ever for our family! It is all a VERY big maybe but it’s something worth praying for!!! It also all depends on how fast we can make things work for us. So please keep your fingers crossed and please spread the word to anyone and everyone!!

     Well I think that is enough exciting news for tonight, and am going to keep this post short and sweet!! I’ll post again after our visit with our social worker next week!! Also before I go I want to thank everyone who bought a candle from our fundraiser, we are so truly grateful for all the support! If you missed out this time around their will be more chances to help us!! Thank you all so much for your support, it really means the world to us!!!

A Nervous Nelly Kind Of Day!!

   Nervous is the only word I can use to describe today. Today was the day we had our first home visit with our social worker, and both David and I had no clue what to expect, which made us both nervous nellys!! So as one o’clock rolled around our social worker arrived and was the most wonderful and easy going person!! She made us at ease instantly and the visit was wonderful. We went through the paper work I have finished and the paper work I need to finish, which surprisingly isn’t to much!!:) Our next visit with her is in 3 weeks and I will have everything put together and ready to go. Which means our home-study will be completed within the next month and then it’s onto the next step in getting our little boy home!!!! So as I look at the checklist we have to get done I see I am going to have a very busy three weeks to make sure everything is finished in time!! Please send your prayers our way that I can get everything completed in time!!:)

   Now onto some exciting news…..I posted about our fundraisers on Wednesday  July 13 for Aaron’s Lucky Stars and for our candle fundraiser. In just 4 short days we have raised $120 dollars for Aaron’s Stars and have sold 12 candles so far!! So I have to make 60 stars tonight and will post a picture of them in the jar once I am done making the stars. This fundraiser is going to keep going until we have to leave to get Aaron. And we need to sell at least 98 more jars of candles by  July 29th!!! Sooo please keep spreading the word, I know we can meet our goal with the candles and would LOVE to exceed it. So please share with anybody and everybody you know! We are truly grateful for all the help and support so far and can’t wait to see our little boy home with us!!

Give me a F…U…N…D…R…A…I…S…E…R…what does it spell??? FUNDRAISER!!!!!

Who’s ready for some fundraisers??? I sure hope you are! We have two different fundraisers planned to start tomorrow! And we couldn’t be more excited about them!!




The first is “Aaron’s Lucky Stars” we have a jar to fill with Chinese lucky stars that I will make every time someone buys a star. Each start costs $2 dollars and there are different patterns to make stars from. You can donate through the chip-in on our blog or through the Reece’s Rainbow link on the blog and then email me at chellsonfamily@gmail.com with how many stars you bought and which patterns you would like your stars to be. This will be an ongoing fundraiser. We want to fill the jar up and keep it in Aaron’s room for us to remember all the wonderful people who helped us bring him home!!:)

Here is the different paper patterns and our jar we hope to fill!

This is what the stars will look like when the are done!!:)



The second fundraiser starts Thursday July 15^th and runs through Friday July 29^th. David and I have a dear friend who sells Gold Canyon Candles and they are simply wonderful! There are 3 different sizes (26oz/16oz/8oz) to purchase and 15 scents to choose from!! We own a number of these candles and we LOVE them. They last forever and make you house smell amazing!! Our goal is raise $1000 dollars and to sell about 110 candles. I am postting a picture of the candle sizes, scents you can choose from as well as who to make the checks out to. For this fundraiser you CAN NOT use the chip-in or donate through the Reece's Rainbow link. The money come directly to us and when the fundraiser is over David and I will write one large check to Gold Caanyon Candles when we order the candles. For more information about scents and cost please email me at chellsonfamily@gmail.com.

Thank you in advance for your support and helping bring our little boy home!!