Team Mom

Baseball season is half way over. It has been a lot of fun watching my boys play on their respective teams. I was delegated team mom (by default) for ds1's team. There isn't a lot I have to coordinate for this age group. They don't need snacks after the games, and really all I need to do is coordinate the coaches gifts and the trophies.

However one thing that I am going to try to pull off is an action photo of each child playing this year to give to each of the parents. I have gotten some great shots with my new camera! The thing has awesome zoom capabilities and an image stabilization. So no matter if my hand is unstable, the camera is! I am loving it! I have two more kids to get either batting/catching or pitching... and then I'll get the best shots printed and look for some inexpensive frames. :-) I'm finding that this little project taps into my creative side, and I'm really enjoying it.

I'll leave you with two photos of ds1 and ds2.

Yard Sale Success!

Sorry it took me a day or so to update this... but I was exhausted after that sale! My feet were so tired and so was my mind. I went to my son's baseball game afterward , and sat in a camping chair with t he breeze blowing and I almost fell asleep!

We raised just over $500 at our sale! Yeah! The weather held off for us, and only once did it drizzle and only for a little bit....DS1 sold lemonade and brownies and made $34.00 all by himself! I was really proud of him, and how polite he was with folks. He did a great job.

I wanted to take pictures, but we were so busy all day, it wasn't until 3pm, when I crashed on the couch, did I see the camera and remember. Next time!

Guess what? We are having another yard sale this weekend as well... we have a ton of stuff left, and so we are putting an ad in the paper and are gonna go for it again. :-) Shoot, the work is all done already, all we have to do is bake some more brownies and open the doors! I'll update again after the next yard sale.

Eve of Yard Sale

It's almost 1am, and Chris and I are still working on getting the yard sale set. He ran to Walmart for the second time, as he forgot the cups for the boys to sell lemonade. Can't forget the cups!!

I have a few more signs to make and we have a few more things to price, and then it's off to bed. I already made my apple butter for the morning, to serve with warm biscuits for breakfast. Coffee is set on the timer to begin percolating in a few hours. Just a few hours now....

The weather is iffy... we may get a shower or two, but I don't think it will rain the entire day. We have everything in the garage except for the bikes. Those we will put outside and hope for the best it just drizzles.

I've had yard sales in the past, and I forget how much work they are! A lot! I'm so thankful for my husband who is mister "get it done" in these last few hours. He has even taken our old ceiling fan out of our bedroom this evening, and replaced it with the one downstairs from the living room. All in about a 1/2 hour. We are putting that older fan in the yard sale as well. Right out of the ceiling and in the sale! lol!

Anyway, I'm exhausted, so I'm gonna sign off an head to bed. It promises to be a busy day tomorrow!

Some photos...

First I HAVE to say a huge thank you to my friend Susan! Seriously, I can't thank her enough... she came over to my house and while all our children played, she helped me sort through and price a ton of clothing. For over 3 hours! I know I wouldn't have gotten it all done by myself, and it goes so much faster and is much more fun to accomplish with a friend. Susan was a blessing to me..... in a very real way.

Chris and I worked tonight on hanging all those clothes. It was a job, but not nearly as time consuming as pricing them. (grin) I am hoping it doesn't rain the day of the sale, but it isn;t looking good. 50% chance of scattered showers. It has rained every Saturday for the past 3 weeks. How do I know, because baseball has been delayed or canceled each week. Not a good track record for this coming Saturday. Maybe it will hold off until the evening. So anyway, I took some pictures of our garage. Here they are: Oh yeh, and Chris built those clothing racks out of wood and rebar. How is that for innovative?! Do you like the bikes in the dining room? They had to go somewhere!

Great Post

My blogging friend Kim wrote a great post about attachment and the international adopted child. It's great information and really explains to family and friends what kinds of things we'll be working towards when we return home.

Click here to read it!

Holy Cow Batman!

We Have a TON of stuff!!! I seriously have no idea how we are going to get it all done. Seriously. I organized some things today and emptied bags of clothes. I sorted in piles to be priced. It's all in my dining room. Scary looking right now.

You really don't want to see the garage... especially after Chris unloads the van. I'm surprised we can even walk around in there. It's not a very big garage as it is, but now it feels downright small. Somehow we will be organizing it all this evening. Thank the Lord my friend Susan (who is a yard sale queen) gave me some really practical advice on pricing, and she has offered to help organize everything on Wednesday. Bless her heart! My friend jeannie offered to help as well....but that would be 12 kids here (mine, Jeannie's and Susan's) and I'm not sure we'd get much done. Lol!

I so want to take photos to post..of our organized chaos. But that will have to wait until we have time! lol!

Yard Sale....

I am behind on all my blogs! Sorry! I am also behind on getting the yard sale stuff organized. In most things (other than pictures) I'm an organizing freak. Okay maybe freak is a bit strong...but the right word isn't coming to me at the moment.

Chris is hopefully going to be making some hanging racks for the clothing at our yard sale. (Hopefully). I really would like to hang everything so that it's easy to see and "shop". We need tables badly. I had planned on using the air hockey table that is sitting in the garage, but Chris piled stuff on it that we aren't selling and put a tarp on it. That was going to be a really big display area. I'm still hoping to convince him that we can use it. I'm planning on taking my dining table out there to put stuff on, as well as our homeschool table.

We have a ton of stuffed animals that I need to put in a box or several baskets. Currently they are being stored in a pink Little Tikes toy chest, but that is for sale as well. (I love Little Tikes!)

I have made all the signs to post, and plan on putting some balloons on our mailbox the day of the sale. So much to do...I need a list! Top priority is change at the bank. Chris is driving to three homes this evening to pick up some more things. Thankfully we have no baseball at all today, so this evening we will be setting up the garage and organizing everything. If I can get a big jump on it this evening.... then I will feel so much better as the week progresses.

The boys will be selling brownies and lemonade at the sale as well. Plus we are taking donations to help fund our adoption. Oh, and did I mention that someone from our Sunday school class has a dog that just had puppies recently? What does that have to do with our yard sale post? Well they have sold all but 4 of the puppies and they are bringing them to sell at the sale, (taking names and numbers as the pups are not ready to go home yet). They will be donating the funds to our adoption. How is that for amazingly creative! I was so blown away on Sunday by that unique idea.

God is so faithful and good, and He continues to amaze us through the generosity of His people!

Check it Out!

Please jump on over to my friend Rachel's blog! She and her husband Troy have officially adopted their son from Russia... he is such a cutie that I just want to scoop him up!! Congratulations you two... I am thrilled for you!

Troy and Rachel's New Addition!

Lost the Pictures....again.

Just a little vent... I have pictures that I submitted twice for our dossier to Russia. They are photos of our family, our home's exterior and several interior shots of the house as well. The second time I had to do this, I said to myself... (after hunting down the photos from several locations)... "Jackie, you need to get all those photos together should you ever need them again."

I don't know if you are like me, but I have photos everywhere... on a flash drive from an old computer, on my current computer, at two different processing websites, and in shoe boxes and photo envelopes around my house. It's a little scary and there is no way I would consider scrapbooking just for the sheer dread of having to sort through all of those photos. Quite frankly if you are one of those organized picture people, then you can skip this post, or better yet come to my house and help me! lol!

So, after determining to put all the photos in an safe adoption place... guess what. I can't find them....... anywhere. How frustrating! I'm trying to put the children's photo albums together so I have it all done before we get the call. So much for advance planning.... now I have photos out everywhere and none of them are the ones I need! Anyone else do this kind of thing?

Not the Call.....

For those just joining our blog, we are in the process of adopting two children from Russia. We have requested either two boys or two girls, 4 years and under (A sibling group). Our dossier has been in Russia for what seems like forever... (actually since August '07.) What happens next is when a sibling group in our age range etc becomes available for adoption, our agency notifies us of the region in Russia where the orphanage is located, as well as any information they have on the sibling group. Then we are invited to travel on our first trip to meet the children.

So, last week I had emailed our agency rep to see if she had any updates for us from Russia. I got a call today, and she informed me that there were two girls coming available but the oldest was 6 years old and unfortunately over our ages range. She had no other information nor did she know if the little girl was soon to turn 7. Both Chris and I talked about it, and regrettably we told our rep to contact another family for the referral of those two little girls. I have no doubt they will be adopted by a wonderful family... as so many families desire to adopt little girls.

I'm reflective about today's call for several reasons. One it almost felt like "the call", and yet I knew as soon as she prefaced her info that it wasn't. KWIM? I hung up deflated, and called Chris to speak to him about it..... The second thing is that I hope when we actually receive the call of a referral, that I will be thrilled!

Our prayer has been for two children as young as possible with a hope for twins. So we continue to be patient for God's timing, and will wait for Him to bring the children to us when His time is right.

The Generosity of Friends

We announced to our Sunday school class two weeks ago that we were having a yard sale to help to defer the costs of our adoption. I am just humbled and awed by the generosity of people. I had two people that Sunday come up to me to say that they have a truckload of things to drop off for the yard sale. A third stopped me after church to say they had some bikes to donate....The next Sunday I had someone offer a piano for the sale. A piano!

This week another friend called and said they also have a truckload to drop off... which included a stove and a microwave. They will be dropping it all off tomorrow afternoon. Shortly afterward, I had a friend email me to say she would love to come and help man the tables the day of the sale.

I'm so touched by each of these folks generosity, not only with items they have donated, but with their willingness to give of their time to help. I really don't know that words can capture how awed, humbled and grateful we are....

Random Thoughts....

We had friends staying with us until they found a place for the summer. They actually found a place close to us that is rent free, so that was an awesome answer to prayer! They moved in last evening, and hopefully are settling in nicely.

The guest bedroom is now empty. It is going to be a tagging area for the yard sale items that we pull down from the attic. This will be one more temporary use for the room, until it finally transforms into a bedroom for our two new children. We of course have no idea if we will be adopting two boys or two girls and the ages could be 4 and under. So, they could be in toddler beds, or cribs... heaven only know. (literally). We know that we will not be decorating the new room until after the first trip. Hopefully it will fall near a huge consignment sale here in our town, and we can go pick up everything we need! lol!

Now onto the yard sale again... we'll be using every table we have available to display items. If anyone would like to help man the sale that Saturday, let me know! Even if it's for an hour or so. The more help the better! I'll be saving my plastic grocery bags so people can put items in them. So much to think about and do...it's overwhelming. But the more organized I am the better I feel. :-)

More Yard Sale Info....

Thankfully my son's baseball tournament was cancelled due to rain this weekend. Yeah! I really needed the time at home, and was able to price a few bins of yard sale stuff yesterday.

Our yard sale will be on Saturday April 26th...so I have three weeks to get it all organized! I have been blessed and humbled by the response of our Sunday school class to donate items. Really I can't even describe in words how touched I am. Two different ladies came up to me today and said they had a truckload of things to drop off. How blessed we are by their generosity!

So, that's the update on us.... I'll post some yard sale photos as we get closer! lol!

No Update.

Well we have not heard a thing about our adoption. I will be calling our agency on Monday to check in, as I know we will soon have some more documents expiring. I have had conversations with the Lord this past week, how it would be so easy if he could just have the two children arrive at our doorstep, and I would promise to love them, and care for them, and train them up in the way they should go.... teaching them to love the Lord. But alas, I don't think He has chosen an easy way with our adoption. I'm sure many adoptive parents would say the same... hardly easy, but worth it! I need reminding of that....

On others news we have some friends staying with us until they find a place to live for the summer. It has been really nice to have fellowship during the day, just chatting with a girlfriend about life. They have two daughters and the youngest is 3. It's giving me a taste of what life will be like with a young one in the house again! Perhaps the Lord is preparing me as I have been out of this age and stage for several years! lol!

Finally, I really need to get working on our yard sale stuff. It is 3 weeks away and I am so not even ready. Not even close. I need to begin working on it ASAP, however with baseball season also starting...and a game almost every evening.... life here is getting crazy hectic! I hope to get something accomplished for the yard sale this week.... Anything!