Building to bring my baby home

I have always wanted to learn to build. Someone told me about an awesome website with great knock off furniture plans. I have been wanting this bookrack since I saw it years ago, and I especially wanted the above the bed bookrack for each of my kids. But I was too cheap. So when I saw the plans for this, I got busy!
Gary helped me with the first one. I was scared of the table saw, then an awesome friend lent me her husband's miter saw, and I love it, not scary at all.
So, for our first fundraiser I will be creating a custom made bookrack for a lucky someone.
I have chosen not to do a "raffle" These take a lot of work to make, and the purpose of my hard work is to make money for our adoption. So for the first bookrack, it will be wider version pictures below. I fit at least 130-140 books on the skinny verson so 150-175 books should fit easily on the wider version, as it has a little more book space than the skinny version.
You will get to pick your paint color!! And it will come with hardware to secure  it to your wall.
I am asking for a minimum donation of 85.00

       The one in this picture was made for a friend who hired me to made the wide version, love it!

I make them so that they fit snug against the wall with no gaps.

This was my first one, it is the tall skinny version. I kept it for my kids.

If you want a matching small bookrack you can add that for 25.00

I made these for myself and a friend hired me to make them for her 4 boys. They go above the bed to store nighttime reading books. I have not hung mine yet, as we are due to move this spring, but I am so excited about them!!

Our Cost Breakdown

I have not felt lead to post this till now. We will be fundraising in a more proactive way soon.
This is our projected cost breakdown:

What is the cost breakdown?

UP TO $24k for one child

Breakdown: (ROUGH estimates)

$700 homestudy update PAID

8/17           $100   mailing 1^st set of docs PAID

8/28           $830 USCIS,i-600a and fingerprinting PAID

$3000 flights first trip

$3000 flights second trip

$8600 facilitator fees

$1700 first trip lodging ($80/nt 3 weeks)

$1100 second trip lodging ($80/nt 2 weeks)

$450 first trip food/other supplies ($20/day 3 weeks)

$250 second trip food/other supplies ($20/day 2 weeks)

$600 passport

$550 Visa and Medical

$2000 transportation (in country)

$1000 orphanage donation/dossier preparation costs

Still need to pay 22,250

By keeping a tight budget we have been able to pay for our costs so far out of hubby's paychecks. That is something that God has always gifted me with, I can save money when needed. I drive my husband crazy with it too I think. There is no Starbucks, no hair appointments, no pedicures, etc...

We have been blessed with some very generous donations. Our FSP account with Reece's Rainbow has 531.00 in it, wahoo!!

Stay tuned for some upcoming fundraisers. And if your willing to skip a Starbuck, a lunch out, etc... to help bring Ella home, then click on our Ella Button to the right and you can make a tax deductible donation to Reeces Rainbow into our account!!

Posts Galore!

So, I have not been the best blogger this go around. I really have not explained how this whole thing is going to work.
We are almost done with all paperwork on our end, well, we are done, pending our translator reviewing our documents for mistakes, so see if we have an do-overs!
From there we are only waiting on our 171, that is from INS, it is our official approval to adopt and bring and orphan into the states. They have recently redone the system and are backlogged. They have had our application for 4.5 weeks and we are not even assigned an officer as of this morning. Ugh
The country we are adopting from does closes down for adoptions sometime in November. We NEED that INS approval, we cannot move forward without it. I have contacted a senator's office immigration liason for help, not sure if he'll answer my email, if not, then I will call.
Assuming we get that done in time to submit our dossier to our country by their closing date in November. Then we mail it over there, our facilitator submits it to the SDA office there, then anywhere from 2-4 weeks later we are given a travel date for anywhere from 2-4 weeks later (that's the "norm")
So WHEN, you keep asking, I dunno!!
I am not a patient person, so trust me this is painful. God's timing is always perfect I keep reminding myself.
Once we are over there we go to our SDA appt., recieve our official referral, then travel to where Ella is to meet her. We will have daily visits with her, while waiting for our court date, which "averages" 2.5 weeks after getting there. After court there is a 10 day waiting period, then traveling to the capitol of that country to get more paperwork done, then come home. We  plan on coming home directly after court, then probably just myself going back for the second trip.

I promised to post

when we found out what happened with the bill that was trying to put a stop to all adoptions in the country we are adopting from. It did not pass, actually it was never even voted on. So we can all carry on and breath just a little easier!

A laugh or a cry

There is nothing exciting going on here. But if you would like a good laugh or a good cry, I direct you to this blog http://www.covenantbuilders.blogspot.com/
They are in EE, they just successfully adopted a beautiful boy who happens to have arthrogryposis. They adopted him despite the fact that he is in an institution. In this country children with special needs are sent to an institution at the age of 4, some orphanagaes are able to hold onto them till 5. The Nalle family have not had a traditional journey due to the fact that Aaron is not only in an institution, but that there has never been an adoption out of this region. The Nalle's had to go through a court session that was grueling, and it ended with the judge saying "If God led you to adopt this child, then God led me to decide in your favor"
Both Julia and Rob are excellent writers. I read their blog and I laugh and cry. I have said that never before have I felt closer to God than during adoption. Getting pregnant can happen on "accident" God has to move mountains for a lot of these children to find homes. His presence can easily be seen, but that does mean that the journey is easy!

Anything New?

Hmm. well, so is anything new with the adoption? Well, right now we are finishing up our dossier paperwork. That is our official set of documents that is sent to Ella's country. It has things such at medicals, employment verification, verification of the size of our house, power of attorneys, etc, etc, etc.... First off let me say Russia's dossier was about 3x as much paperwork, so I am not complaining! But it is still very specific. We will fax all these documents to be reviewed, then I will drive to Atlanta to be apostilled. That is a certification of a notarized document. There is only one place in each state that does this, it is very official. Thankfully our state charges 3.00 per seal, rather than the 10.00 some states charge. Once we are done with that we can do nothing else until we get our I600A approval. That is the United States government approving us to adopt and bring an orphan into this country. This will be the only thing we are waiting on, that and Ella clearing for international adoption, sometime in October. So best case scenario would be her clearing at the end of October and us getting our I600A approval by then. Then the paperwork is submitted, and typically you receive a travel date about a month or so out from there. So the earliest we could be traveling looks like the end of November.
That being said, we also got word of a "vote" that is being done in the next couple weeks in her country that could stop adoptions. Many people who know this country well, say that it is not likely this bill will get voted through. But still we are not breathing easy until that day comes and goes. We will let you know when it does!!

I've got a new picture!

Well it was actually taken June 1st. Another family was at her orphanage adopting and there was a function where the children performed. (this is common in EE orphanages) The family had remebered they saw her but forgotten they took a picture. It's more face on, but she is still looking down. Man is she cute! And the curls, oh, the curls!! I can hardly stand the wait. The person holding her in the picture does not appear to be a caretaker, maybe a grandmother? June 1st is her birthday, very happy that she she has someone who cares enough to visit on her birthday, praying that person is selfless enough to sign the papers so she can be adopted.