Family Photo Shoot Fundraiser!

We have a couple of different fundraisers coming up just in time for the holidays!!

As many of you know, I love photography and have had the honor and privilege to photograph several families over the years. With the holidays approaching soon, many of you may be looking at scheduling photos for your holiday Christmas cards.   Great news! Our next fundraiser will be a family photo shoot taking place in Lindale, TX on Saturday, November 14th and November 21st in 45 minute increments.  Every family will receive a CD of edited pictures.  There is no fee, however, we do ask that you donate to our adoption fund to help bring home our baby!  If you are interested, feel free to text, call, or Facebook me in order to reserve your time slot!

Thanks to our wonderful friend, Erin, we also have a Noonday Adoption Fundraiser happening now! Noonday is a fair-trade accessory collection that uses fashion to create meaningful opportunities around the world! 10% of every purchase made goes towards our adoption fund!  This is a great opportunity to knock out some of your Christmas shopping! You can check out the link here: https://www.noondaycollection.com/pws/ErinMayer/eventstore13992/AMUS/default.aspx

This event closes November 9th! Help us bring home baby L!! 

Also, don't forget that if you are interested in AdvoCare products, please visit Meredith's website, at https://www.advocare.com/140511628/. 



Waiting...

Now that we have been officially approved by our agency, several people have asked what the next steps are.  We have created a profile book, which is basically a scrap book of our lives.  It includes things we enjoy, letters to the birth mother, our families, and lots of pictures! :) We will give our profile book to our agency, who will then present those to birth mothers that are ready to start looking at prospective parents to place their child.  Birth mothers will look through several profile books and if they chose us, we will have a meeting. If all goes well, that will be considered a match.  We are so excited to be in this next phase of the process!


Also, many have asked about how you can get a t-shirt, well now's the time! We have re-launched our t-shirt fundraiser! If you would like to order a t-shirt, you can visit:
https://www.bonfirefunds.com/bringing-home-baby-l.
This fundraiser will end October 20th! 

What's next:?
Now we wait....

We wait for the Lord to work in the hearts of the birth family.  We wait for the Lord's good and perfect timing.  We wait for his plans to line into place.  We wait to meet our precious baby and the birth family.  We wait as our Father works in our hearts and prepares us to be the best parents we can be.

How you can pray:
We would love your continued prayers for Baby L and his/her birth family.  Please pray for our fundraisers and that the Lord will be glorified through this process! Pray for patience as we trust in the Lord and his timing.

How you can support:

If you are using a smart phone and are looking to Donate, click on "View Web Version" at the bottom of your screen and then scroll to the right to see the "Donate" button.

If you would like to purchase a t-shirt you can so by clicking here.At the end of the 10 days, Bonfire Funds will create and ship your shirts to you.   A portion of the proceeds from this fundraiser will go directly to our adoption fund!

Our Thirty One Gifts Fundraiser will end October 15th at 3PM.  All commissions from the on-line fundraiser will be donated to help bring home baby L! Here is the link for all online orders:  https://www.mythirtyone.com/627516/shop/Party/EventDetail/8680977

Also, don't forget that if you are interested in AdvoCare products, please visit Meredith's website, at https://www.advocare.com/140511628/. 

Thank you for your love, support, and prayers to bring home baby L! 

Blessed!!

We are blessed that the Lord has placed so many people in our lives that want to help us bring home baby L!  One of those being a family friend, Jenifer Armstrong.  Jenifer has so generously offered to host an online fundraiser for us through Thirty-One Gifts.  Thirty-One Gifts is a company whose desire is to empower women.  The name Thirty-One Gifts comes from Proverbs 31, which describes the qualities and importance of being a virtuous woman.The mission of Thirty-One Gifts is to give women the opportunity to own their own business and provide them with support in building a new career opportunity.  Thirty-One Gifts is widely known for their cute bags, but they have several other products available as well. 

You can place orders until October 15th at 3PM.  All commissions from the on-line fundraiser will be donated to help bring home baby L! Here is the link for all online orders:  https://www.mythirtyone.com/627516/shop/Party/EventDetail/8680977

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Jenifer at Jenifer.armstrong@att.net.  Thank you for your support!!

APPROVED!!!

We have had an incredible week!! We are still overwhelmed by the love, support and encouragement that we received last weekend through our garage sale.  We are so blessed to be a part of such a wonderful community of friends and family who spent their weekend helping us prepare for our biggest fundraiser thus far to bring home baby L!! We are grateful to everyone who donated furniture, clothing, and so much more towards the garage sale!! The Lord is so good!  We had a big goal to raise $4,000, but we serve an even bigger God! Not only did we reach that goal but we surpassed it!!! 

As some may recall, our Home Study was initially scheduled for last Monday, but due to circumstances, our Agency had to reschedule it for this past Monday.  We are thrilled to announce that we are working with Chosen Child Adoption Agency in Dallas and as of today, we have been OFFICIALLY APPROVED!!!!! We decided to go out to dinner to celebrate at the fanciest restaurant in Lindale, Leo's Asian Bistro! :)

What are the next steps?

We are currently working on our profile book.  This is a scrapbook of the two of us, full of pictures and letters to Baby L's birth mother.  Our Agency will be able to present this book to the birth mothers they are working with for them to look through and pray about who they wish to be their child's adoptive parents.  

We will also be working on getting CPR certified as well as getting some other training hours.  

How you can pray?

Please continue to pray for Baby L's birth family as they are making the difficult decision to place their child for adoption.  Please pray for Baby L's birth mother, that she will find peace and comfort in her decision and that she will feel loved and supported.
We would also love your prayers as we continue to work on our profile book.  We want to put so much love and thought into this book as it's purpose is to show Baby L's birth family who we are and why we would make great parents for their child.

How can you support us?

If you are using a smart phone and are looking to Donate, click on "View Web Version" at the bottom of your screen and then scroll to the right to see the "Donate" button.

Also, don't forget that if you are interested in AdvoCare products, please visit Meredith's website, at https://www.advocare.com/140511628/. 

Thank you for your continued prayers and support in our journey to Bring Home Baby L!!

Updates

We have several exciting updates to share with everyone!

Curtis's sister, Meredith Garner, and her husband Rob are distributors for AdvoCare.  AdvoCare is a nutrition company that specializes in health and wellness through supplements and skin care.  They are so gracious to allow 100% of the profits sold through them to go straight to our Adoption Fund!! We are so excited about this fundraiser! If you are interested in AdvoCare products, please visit Meredith's website, at https://www.advocare.com/140511628/.  Also, feel free to message us or Meredith on Facebook if you have any questions! 

We are also excited to announce that our first interview with our agency was on Monday, and it went so well! We have officially scheduled our Home Study for Monday, September 14th!! 

Our final announcement is that our next fundraiser will be a 10+ family garage sale in Lindale on September 19th!  We are so grateful for all the families that have donated to the sale.

Ways you can pray:

Please pray for our baby and his/her birth family.  We can not wait til the day we finally get to meet them! Pray for confidence in our birth mother's decision to place her child for adoption, pray for peace and comfort for her during this journey, pray for love and that she has a great support system.
Please pray for our garage sale, that we will have a great turn out and can minister to those in the Lindale area.

Ways you can support us:

If you are using a smart phone and are looking to Donate, click on "View Web Version" at the bottom of your screen and then scroll to the right to see the "Donate" button. 

We are SO thankful for all of your love, support, and encouragement since we announced our adoption journey!!! 

Wow!! We are so thankful to everyone for supporting us in our first fundraiser!! We surpassed our goal of selling 110 shirts.  We officially sold 136 shirts and raised $1,612!!!!  We are completely blown away! What a great way to start our fundraising! If you are still interested in purchasing a shirt but we're not able to, we will re-launch our t-shirt fundraiser again at a later date.

Yesterday we mailed in all of our paperwork to our agency! We are so excited to finally have this part completed and underway! The next steps in the process are the interviews and Home Study scheduled by our agency.  Our agency will be interviewing Curtis and I together and individually as well as make sure our house is baby ready.

We would love your prayers in this next step as we make sure we are ready to bring home Baby L! Please continue to pray for our sweet baby and his/her birth mother and family.

T-Shirt Fundraiser!

We are so excited to announce our first fundraiser!! We have launched our Adoption T-Shirt Fundraiser through Bonfire Funds.  We have a goal to sell 110 shirts! We know that's a lot, but we are hopeful that we can do it!  Our fundraiser will only last 10 days!  At the end of the 10 days, Bonfire Funds will create and ship your shirts to you.  You can purchase them here. A portion of the proceeds from this fundraiser will go directly to our adoption fund!

Also, if you are using a smart phone and are looking to Donate, click on "View Web Version" at the bottom of your screen and then scroll to the right to see the "Donate" button.

Thank you for your love and support!!

Starting the Process!

We are so overwhelmed and incredibly thankful for all of the support and encouragement we have received through Facebook, text messages, phone calls, etc since announcing the news that we're adopting! We are so blessed to be surrounded by people that love and care for us and our baby! We have been on a long difficult road but the Lord has led us every step of the way.  We have no doubt in our minds that He has great and mighty plans for us and our family.  We are excited to be apart of this journey that he is leading us on and thankful that so many of you want to be a part of that journey too.

We have started this blog page to keep you updated on where we are in the process, how you can be praying for us, and ways to support our adoption fund raising efforts.

Where we are in the process:
We feel that the Lord has led us to a Christian agency that we have fallen in love with.  We are in the process of  approval which includes filling out lots of paperwork, interviews and a home study.   Our hope is to have all of the paperwork submitted by next week so that we can begin the next steps.

How you can be praying for us:
We would love your prayers for the process to go smoothly, no hiccups in the paperwork.
Clear direction and wisdom from the Lord.
Most importantly we would love your prayers for our future child and his/her birth mother/family.

How you can support us:
We will have several fundraisers coming up and will keep you updated as they get closer.  We have also set up a PayPal account.  You can simply click on the link "donate" and the funds will go straight to us.  


Thank you for your prayers and support!!