The Puzzle Is Finished!

Back in June, we started an adoption puzzle fundraiser after having many family and friends asking how they could help with our adoption.  One BIG obstacle with adoption can be finances.  So, we purchased a 300 piece puzzle and asked that each piece be sponsored for $5 per piece.  On each puzzle piece, we'd write the name of the person who sponsored the piece.  After it was completed, the plan was to frame the puzzle and hang it in our future son or daughter's room.  Remember, we started this puzzle fundraiser before we even knew about Kate!

We have been overwhelmed at the amount of support from family, friends, and even people that we didn't know!  We weren't sure how this would go and really just hoped that one day we'd be able to finish the puzzle.  Well, it was finished a few months ago and we finally got it framed and hung in Kate's room!! 

And, because I never posted any pictures of Kate's finished nursery, here are a couple more...

And the cutie who the adoption puzzle fundraiser was for...

Updates- Nursery & Puzzle

Wow. What a week, and what a weekend.  We have mostly recovered from our lightening strike and have gotten our house pretty much back in order.  Thank goodness!  The past week has been exciting with the news of the adoption and frustrating dealing with the house (insurance adjuster, making millions of phone calls, trying to replace all of the damaged items, etc).  And the most exciting part of this week is realizing that there are just three more weeks til our expectant mom's due date!  Can't believe it.  :) 

I haven't blogged in a while about the nursery or the puzzle and we've got a few updates on that.  On the nursery front, we now have curtains (made by one of my mom's friends), a hamper (liner also made by one of my mom's friends), new lamps, and we have ordered the bedding! YAY!  Here are a few pictures...

Curtains-  I LOVE them!  The fabric on this was picked out before we got matched.  We'll want to put some pink into the room at some point, but still keep it somewhat gender neutral.  

Close up!  The picture doesn't do it justice.  The curtains look blue here, but they're really more teal. 

Hamper

Close up of the fabric.

Before - Lamp bought from Target.  Even the shade came in a box and I had to put it together.  Weird.  It looked a little plain, so here is the after....

Much better.  Still maybe not FINISHED, but better.

This is a very small lamp bought from Target.  We're planning on using it as a nightlight.

If you don't care for decorating stuff, you probably didn't care for any of that.  So, sorry!  I also updated the the Adoption Puzzle page, so if you want to check on the status of that, click HERE .  

Oh and by the way, we think we decided on a name.  I'm sure we'll let you know at some point this week, so stay tuned... :) 

Fundraiser Update- Week 3

We've got some exciting news to be sharing in the next few weeks as far as fundraising goes.  We're in the process of designing a t-shirt and hopefully we'll be able to share the design and start taking orders soon.  They'll be available in royal blue and hot pink.  We've also got a big event  being planned.  More information on all of that once a few additional details get finalized.

BUT the adoption puzzle fundraiser is going well!  (For more information, click HERE) 41 pieces have now been sponsored and a total of $205 raised! Yay!

An Attempt at Craftiness & Adoption Puzzle Week 2

Kevin and I have been getting the nursery ready, because we have no idea when we might get "the call".  We might have zero notice, so we (I) at least wanted to have furniture and painting ready.  The rest can come later.  I'll post pictures later this week of what we've done so far.  My mom gave me a small dresser that she thought we could use in the closet for additional storage.  Hanging baby clothes don't really come down very far, so it was a great idea.  Here are the before pictures...

The dresser is the perfect size for the closet, but was definitely the wrong color.  So I went to Lowes, bought a quart of paint and then hit up Hobby Lobby for new drawer pulls (they were 60% off- yay!).  Here are the results...

Here is a close up of the drawer pulls.  They match the room color (which you can see in the background of the above pictures). 

And now a quick adoption puzzle fundraiser update... At this point 30 puzzle pieces have been sponsored, for a total of $150 raised.  Here's a picture of the puzzle in progress.  It's definitely getting bigger!

And last, Happy Father's Day to my Dad, and all of the other father's out there.  I hope you had a special day and that your children are as grateful and thankful for you as I am for my Dad.  I love you!

Fundraiser Update- Week 1

First, a big THANK YOU to everyone who has already contributed to our adoption fundraiser and purchased a piece (or more) of our puzzle.  We're so thankful for each and every one of you!  In less than a week, we've sold 24 puzzle pieces and raised $120!! What a great start.  Again THANK YOU.  Here's an updated puzzle picture.  Hopefully in the near future we can post a picture of the completed puzzle!  For those of you who don't know what in the world I'm talking about, click here to read about our adoption fundraiser and see how YOU can help! 

Kevin and I have been under our house for the past 4 hours re-running our cable, installing our new wireless router and hopefully ending all of our annoying internet problems.  We're starving (not literally) and ready to go find something good for dinner.  We're thinking seafood....

First Blog & A Fundraiser!

Hi all!  Kevin and I have decided to start a blog to keep everyone up to date on our adoption.  To read about our adoption process, click on the "Our Story" tab above.  I'll give updates as we get them, but since we're now in the "waiting" stage of our adoption, there probably won't be much to tell!  So, I'm sure a lot of my blogs will not even be adoption related.

We've also started this blog in an effort to try to raise some money to offset the cost of the adoption.  In total, our adoption is going to cost around $20,000.  Yikes!  We've got a few ideas for fundraisers and have spent a lot of hours googling to see what other adoptive families have done.  The most frequent thing that we have seen is taking up donations from family and friends.  But, we've also found a fun way of doing this.

THE PUZZLE
We've purchased a 300 piece puzzle and will be selling each piece of the puzzle for $5 per piece.  If you buy a puzzle piece, we'll write your name on the back of the piece.  Once all of the pieces are sold, and the puzzle is completed, we'll frame the puzzle with the names facing outward.  We'd like to hang this in our nursery as a thank you to all of the people who are helping to make this adoption possible.  If you'd like to sponsor a puzzle piece, you can make your payment through Paypal.  To donate through Paypal just click on the "Donate" link on the right hand side of this blog.  Please note that you do not have to have a Paypal account to make the payment online.  Just click on the "Donate" button and then scroll down the page to the section that says "Don't have a Paypal account?" Click "Continue" and it will take you to a page to make your payment without having to create an account.  

If you're not comfortable with Paypal, but would like to sponsor a puzzle piece (or more), you can send me an email at kelleyelders@yahoo.com and I will send you our address for you to send a check.

Each puzzle piece can be sponsored for $5.  If you would like to purchase more than one puzzle piece, we would be more than grateful!  As I said, we're looking in to additional fundraisers and are planning a huge yard sale for later in the summer.  Please keep us in your prayers as we continue through this process!

Thanks in advance to everyone for all of your support!  We love you all.