We officially have our home study in our hands!!! One was sent to the local court to go along with our Petition to Adopt. In the meantime we are now working on gathering information for our next step which will be our paperwork for the form I-600A, to adopt internationally. We just need to get a money order and send it on it's way. I've heard that can take up to 4 months before it comes back....so it will be another waiting process. I do finally feel like we are getting somewhere though and it's amazing. I can't stop thinking of this time next year where we will be. Will the process be complete, will we be with our child, will we be in Ukraine. The unknowing is scary, but exciting.
This weekend I met someone and talked to another person regarding my crafts. One person wanted to buy some baby blankets because she will be a Grandmother next weekend. She told me that her daughter had 5 miscarriages and this will truly be a miracle baby. She gave us encouraging words, telling us, our child is out there already, just waiting for us to come and bring them home.
I also talked to another lady via Etsy, who wants to place a custom order for her sister's baby. She also said this baby is a miracle after her sister had to endure 2 miscarriages and will also be the first grandchild. This baby will also be wrapped in the blanket, this will truly be a special blanket as I am recreating a blanket that her sister used to carry around as a child.
I feel I was meant to meet both of these ladies. It really feels good to know the babies will be so loved and wrapped in my creations! Plus to hear the encouraging words brings me a lot more strength. Times can be tough, but just work through them and miracles can really happen.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Craft Fair
Wow, I just realized this never posted and was saved as a draft, so here we go.
After months of planning, the craft fair is over. It was a success! We had 31 vendors that really had some neat stuff and they were all different from eachother. I sold some of my creations at the fair as well, which helped bring in some more money. My Mom and cousin Sarah both flew out to help us out, and thank goodness they did. I really don't know how I could have done it without them. We were slow in the beginning (as every fair is), and they went over to the pancake breakfast the town was putting on and handed out many flyers, getting us several shoppers! There was actually a time where my booth was busy! We talked to each and every vendor personally and all in all they were pleased with the fair. Even some had low sales, but they didn't care because their vendor fees went to a great cause. That's so amazing to hear how nice people are. Everyone keeps telling me I should do this twice a year. I'm debating it, but it's easy to say when they didn't go through the months of work. It truly was a lot of fun, but really, I could have worked a part time job with no stress for that! I do love crafting and crafty people though, it's a passion of mine, and I may consider doing a spring show. Spring is just so much harder than winter to get shoppers. We'll see....stay tuned :)
I am thinking to make signs up and every Saturday until Christmas go outside on the driveway and have a boutique around the same hours people have garage sales. If I don't make anything, then I just enjoyed a beautiful day, and if I do make something, then I got rid of some inventory and made some money.
As for the adoption goes, we are just about finished with our home study. Our social worker sent us the proof for us to look over before she sends it to the courts. Thank goodness we get to look at it first! There are spelling mistakes and errors all over the 15 page document. I already looked it over and wrote down everything I found. Now it's Tim's turn to do the same. We will then have to email her all of them and hopefully she will fix it and send it on it's way. It will probably take a month in the courts. At least the waiting time is over the holidays when we won't even have time to notice we are waiting!
One more thing. Since my Mom came out for the fair, we ended up having her stay through Thanksgiving, which is awesome! We decided what better thing to do together, then decorate the kid room. I was going to wait until some down time to do it, but this is perfect. We painted one wall lime green and blue, with a white stripe. It looks amazing and is not at all gender specific. We made it an alphabet room, so every letter is in the green section of the wall. Each letter is different. Either store bought or made my us, or decorated by us. It's so neat. We still need to get the letter "o" up there, and then it will be complete. I hope our child likes it, I love the room!
I think that's all I have to say for now, it's really been another crazy month, but everything is going very well. Please consider sponsoring some puzzle pieces, we really need to finish the puzzle before our child comes home. I really want them to feel so loved.
After months of planning, the craft fair is over. It was a success! We had 31 vendors that really had some neat stuff and they were all different from eachother. I sold some of my creations at the fair as well, which helped bring in some more money. My Mom and cousin Sarah both flew out to help us out, and thank goodness they did. I really don't know how I could have done it without them. We were slow in the beginning (as every fair is), and they went over to the pancake breakfast the town was putting on and handed out many flyers, getting us several shoppers! There was actually a time where my booth was busy! We talked to each and every vendor personally and all in all they were pleased with the fair. Even some had low sales, but they didn't care because their vendor fees went to a great cause. That's so amazing to hear how nice people are. Everyone keeps telling me I should do this twice a year. I'm debating it, but it's easy to say when they didn't go through the months of work. It truly was a lot of fun, but really, I could have worked a part time job with no stress for that! I do love crafting and crafty people though, it's a passion of mine, and I may consider doing a spring show. Spring is just so much harder than winter to get shoppers. We'll see....stay tuned :)
I am thinking to make signs up and every Saturday until Christmas go outside on the driveway and have a boutique around the same hours people have garage sales. If I don't make anything, then I just enjoyed a beautiful day, and if I do make something, then I got rid of some inventory and made some money.
As for the adoption goes, we are just about finished with our home study. Our social worker sent us the proof for us to look over before she sends it to the courts. Thank goodness we get to look at it first! There are spelling mistakes and errors all over the 15 page document. I already looked it over and wrote down everything I found. Now it's Tim's turn to do the same. We will then have to email her all of them and hopefully she will fix it and send it on it's way. It will probably take a month in the courts. At least the waiting time is over the holidays when we won't even have time to notice we are waiting!
One more thing. Since my Mom came out for the fair, we ended up having her stay through Thanksgiving, which is awesome! We decided what better thing to do together, then decorate the kid room. I was going to wait until some down time to do it, but this is perfect. We painted one wall lime green and blue, with a white stripe. It looks amazing and is not at all gender specific. We made it an alphabet room, so every letter is in the green section of the wall. Each letter is different. Either store bought or made my us, or decorated by us. It's so neat. We still need to get the letter "o" up there, and then it will be complete. I hope our child likes it, I love the room!
I think that's all I have to say for now, it's really been another crazy month, but everything is going very well. Please consider sponsoring some puzzle pieces, we really need to finish the puzzle before our child comes home. I really want them to feel so loved.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Garage sale madness
Yesterday we had our big garage sale. We completly lucked out with the weather. After dealing with 90's and 100's all summer long, we had a beautiful low 80 degree day. Tim and I woke up at 3:30am, no different then when we go to work, and were outside no later than 4am ready to set up. I was quite cold for about 5 minutes until I started breaking a sweat moving things around and getting things out of the garage. I quickly realized (which I expected), that we had way too much stuff for our driveway. It ended up taking the entire yard to have the sale. We weren't sure how we would do with the sale because everything was donated to us, most of which were items that others weren't able to sell during their sale. I was also a little nervous after finding out there were so many people having sales that day. There was a community sale across the street that had at least 74 homes participating plus many others in our neighborhood. It could've been a good thing to bring more traffic, or a bad thing if everyone spent all their money before coming to us. We had super busy times then had periods of nothing. We debated on continuing the sale on Sunday, but we were so exhausted and sore and couldn't imagine having to get up super early again and setting all that stuff up. Looking at our yard when everything was said and done, it didn't look like we even sold much, but after hauling it back into the garage it was evident we did sell some stuff. We had a final total of $453.10. Not too bad. I was definitely hoping for more, however, I'm glad we made that much. Every little bit helps, and this sale will help us out a lot, especially when everything was donated to us! It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. If we didn't have the home visit coming up next week, we would've considered a different weekend of trying to sell more, but it's ok. We both felt very done with it all. At the end when I was attempting to clean everything else up, we had people keep coming up and it was getting difficult to clean up around them, but we made some good money at the end, so I'm glad it worked out the way it did. With the sale over and the craft fair apps coming to end, it's about time to start thinking of other ways to get more funds. I'm so exhausted, but knowing our child is waiting on us and counting on us, is what's really making me keep going.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Officially started!
September has been an unusual crazy month. I took the Girl Scouts to camp in the beginning of the month, then my beloved Grandmother passed away and I needed to fly to Chicago for a few days, and then I was sick for a week. But, we are back on track now and going at full speed. The garage sale items are just about all priced (I will price the rest that day), the signs for both the garage sale and the craft fair have been made, and we got tons of paperwork filled out. We are officially started in the adoption process! It's so exciting. The paperwork was a little overwhelming, but we got through it just fine. Today was our first interview for the home study. I was so nervous because I'm a person that has a hard time talking about myself and was unsure of the personal questions that would be asked. I think we both did a great job and we really like our social worker. She is a person that is very easy to talk to, which helps greatly. She's open and honest and started preparing us for some things that we never even thought of. I'm excited we found her and I think we will be very happy with her getting us through this beginning process. We have our home visit from her on October 20th. I'm definitely not as scared about it as I was. I think it will go well. There are a few things we need to do prior to that; doctors visits, vet visits, fingerprinting, and a few other papers to gather, not to mention the garage sale. Today was the first time we had to spend some of our fundraised money and we truly appreciate the help everyone has given. We still have a very long way to go, so any additional help, would really help us along. I'm so excited we are officially started and can't believe we took the first steps in the process. I can almost picture this actually happening!!!
Saturday, September 1, 2012
A busy month
Wow, I just realized it's been almost a month since I wrote a post. Things are going very well and we're very excited (along with stressed and nervous) about this whole process. This is what we've been up to lately.
Preparing for the yard sale: We were contacting local residents via Craigslist hoping for donations after their sale was through. We are so exstatic with the response. We have had many people that were happy to allow us to pick up their unsold items. Our sale (on October 13), will be very neat because we literally have different items for all sorts of tastes. We just recently had to stop picking up large amounts of donations as we ran out of space in the garage to store it all. It's a good thing and bad thing. I wish we could get even more for our sale, but we don't have the room. It was tough going out and picking up the donations in 110+ degrees, but has been totally worth it. The amount of support still amazes me. Some people donated to us because of our cause, and others because they won't have to deal with the stuff anymore, but we appreciate every single one. I have most stuff organized in the categories they belong in, but nothing is priced. It will be a very long month ahead of us trying to get that taken care of. I keep hoping for a day that isn't too hot to get out there, but I think I'm dreaming about that one. I will just need to grab the fan and go out there. We do still need to go through our own house getting rid of unwanted items, it will be really nice to get more room in here. We did sell a couple things on Ebay like our Atari, Sega, and soon to be Nintendo. It's sad to see them go, but it's so great to know why we are getting rid of them. I just started making the signs for the sale, and they just need to get printed now! We're getting there!!!
Preparing for the Craft Fair: At the same time this huge yard sale is going on, we are also preparing for the craft fair. I'm hosting this so it's a lot of hoping people are interested, waiting for applications to come in, and trying to organize every single detail. I have been comparing it to organizing a small wedding. The interest has been great and I couldn't be happier. My mom understands how much work there is to be done and has decided to fly out to help us and support us. I can't believe she will be here and I'm so excited. She actually extended her stay so we can even spend Thanksgiving together. I have so much to be thankful for this year. I am in the middle of making a few quilts for the fair to be added to my booth and also getting the big signs designed to bring in shoppers.
Puzzle Piece sponsorships have also been coming through, which is so great. In lieu of gifts for my birthday, some people have sponsored pieces. There's nothing I love more than watching the pieces fill up. Again, it shows support of everyone and is very touching.
Crafting away: I have been unbelievably busy lately with selling my crafts. I have made several custom quilts that were ordered. I'm currently working on a diaper bag, getting ready to fill another large order, and am hoping to have another custom order coming through soon. I've been very busy and very grateful for those orders.
We will be getting our home study started very soon, so stay tuned!!!
Preparing for the yard sale: We were contacting local residents via Craigslist hoping for donations after their sale was through. We are so exstatic with the response. We have had many people that were happy to allow us to pick up their unsold items. Our sale (on October 13), will be very neat because we literally have different items for all sorts of tastes. We just recently had to stop picking up large amounts of donations as we ran out of space in the garage to store it all. It's a good thing and bad thing. I wish we could get even more for our sale, but we don't have the room. It was tough going out and picking up the donations in 110+ degrees, but has been totally worth it. The amount of support still amazes me. Some people donated to us because of our cause, and others because they won't have to deal with the stuff anymore, but we appreciate every single one. I have most stuff organized in the categories they belong in, but nothing is priced. It will be a very long month ahead of us trying to get that taken care of. I keep hoping for a day that isn't too hot to get out there, but I think I'm dreaming about that one. I will just need to grab the fan and go out there. We do still need to go through our own house getting rid of unwanted items, it will be really nice to get more room in here. We did sell a couple things on Ebay like our Atari, Sega, and soon to be Nintendo. It's sad to see them go, but it's so great to know why we are getting rid of them. I just started making the signs for the sale, and they just need to get printed now! We're getting there!!!
Preparing for the Craft Fair: At the same time this huge yard sale is going on, we are also preparing for the craft fair. I'm hosting this so it's a lot of hoping people are interested, waiting for applications to come in, and trying to organize every single detail. I have been comparing it to organizing a small wedding. The interest has been great and I couldn't be happier. My mom understands how much work there is to be done and has decided to fly out to help us and support us. I can't believe she will be here and I'm so excited. She actually extended her stay so we can even spend Thanksgiving together. I have so much to be thankful for this year. I am in the middle of making a few quilts for the fair to be added to my booth and also getting the big signs designed to bring in shoppers.
Puzzle Piece sponsorships have also been coming through, which is so great. In lieu of gifts for my birthday, some people have sponsored pieces. There's nothing I love more than watching the pieces fill up. Again, it shows support of everyone and is very touching.
Crafting away: I have been unbelievably busy lately with selling my crafts. I have made several custom quilts that were ordered. I'm currently working on a diaper bag, getting ready to fill another large order, and am hoping to have another custom order coming through soon. I've been very busy and very grateful for those orders.
We will be getting our home study started very soon, so stay tuned!!!
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Craft fair date is set
I am very excited to announce we FINALLY have a date for the Craft Fair. November 17, 2012 will be fair at Founders' Park in Queen Creek. It was tough finding a place to hold it, but we finally found a fantastic place. It will be held on the multipurpose field so there will plenty of room for 30+ crafters and vendors. Please contact me if you are interested in being a vendor and I can send you an application. If you are not crafty or don't want to be a vendor, we can also use plenty of help during the fair. I too will have a booth, so I will need to run that and do everything else if I don't have the help. We could use people to sell drinks and chips, keep an eye on things, answer questions, and have a good time. If you help us I will be happy to make you a free Ukrainian Love tshirt that you can wear that day to show you we are all together.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Thank you
A special thank you to those who have sponsored puzzle pieces. Each piece sponsored brings us closer to completing our family. The ones that are flipped over are the ones that have been sponsored and already have their names written on the back. As you can see, we still have many pieces left that need very special sponsors. Please consider helping our family come together. We are extremely greatful for any and all help.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Puzzle Pieces
It's here!!!! The jigsaw puzzle we had ordered has made it here! It's called Family Pride and I think it's very appropriate, a lion, a lioness, and their cub cuddling all together.
Puzzle Piece Sponsorship Fundraiser:
To help us raise money and find our missing puzzle piece of the family we will be selling sponsorships for these pieces. This is a 300 piece puzzle, each piece will be $10. Sponsor one or sponsor some! Every piece counts. Once you sponsor the piece(s), we will write your name or your family's name on the back of the piece(s). We will be doing this fundraiser until all sponsorships have been sold. Once the puzzle is completed, we will frame the puzzle in a double sided glass frame. This way, once our child comes home, they can look at the puzzle and see how everyone has come together to help bring them to their family. You may sponsor using PayPal on the right side of this blog by clicking the "Buy Now" button for the puzzle, or you can send a check directly to us. Contact us for our address.
I will post pictures here and there of the puzzle coming together. Please note: You are sponsoring, which means nothing will be shipped to you. The piece will be put in the puzzle to be forever treasured by our whole family. Thank you to all for your sponsorships.
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Tracy
Puzzle Piece Sponsorship Fundraiser:
To help us raise money and find our missing puzzle piece of the family we will be selling sponsorships for these pieces. This is a 300 piece puzzle, each piece will be $10. Sponsor one or sponsor some! Every piece counts. Once you sponsor the piece(s), we will write your name or your family's name on the back of the piece(s). We will be doing this fundraiser until all sponsorships have been sold. Once the puzzle is completed, we will frame the puzzle in a double sided glass frame. This way, once our child comes home, they can look at the puzzle and see how everyone has come together to help bring them to their family. You may sponsor using PayPal on the right side of this blog by clicking the "Buy Now" button for the puzzle, or you can send a check directly to us. Contact us for our address.
I will post pictures here and there of the puzzle coming together. Please note: You are sponsoring, which means nothing will be shipped to you. The piece will be put in the puzzle to be forever treasured by our whole family. Thank you to all for your sponsorships.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Busy Days
We have been going full force, being creative and researching everything, including the Ukrainian language, when I'm not working. I have found how truly amazing strangers are. With a few emails out to people who were having garage sales in my area, I had 2 different people respond to me. One fabulous guy decided to cancel his garage sale and we were able to pick up all items from him he was planning on selling. It was well worth the 4 hours and many trips to his house to pick everything up. Another lady had her garage sale and was nice enough to let us come over on the day she was moving to pick up all the items she didn't sell and anything else she found as she was moving. We are getting some great donations, but definitely not even close yet to what we need. I want this sale to be the biggest sale ever and we still need many, many donations.
I have just made a stenciled shirt as a fundraising effort. I hope these will have some good responses. Please see the side bar of this blog to view and purchase the shirt, they can also be purchased on my Etsy page. I love this shirt. It has the Ukrainian word for love with a heart. These are not mass produced, each shirt will be made once the order comes through. They are made using freezer paper stencils, which means each one will vary very slightly. When ordering, make sure to let me know what sizes you would like. I can make them in any size from children to adults, but there may be an extra fee for 2XL and larger. If that's the case, please check with me before ordering, and I will let you know for sure. They are $15 each and $2.50 for shipping. Order the whole family one! As always, 100% of the proceeds will go directly to our adoption.
Finally, today I was able to talk to my sister. It's sometimes difficult because she's busy on the weekends, and I'm busy on the weekdays. It was great to hear she's excited for us. She gave some pointers as well, I mean who knows best about different kid things from discipline to educating than someone with 5 kids with the oldest only being 12. She would love us to have a child right in between her kids ages :)
That's it for now. It's never a dull moment anymore and I assume it will be even busier soon.
Tracy and Tim
(I have added an email button so you can easily keep up with this blog, make sure to put your email in there so you never miss a beat!)
I have just made a stenciled shirt as a fundraising effort. I hope these will have some good responses. Please see the side bar of this blog to view and purchase the shirt, they can also be purchased on my Etsy page. I love this shirt. It has the Ukrainian word for love with a heart. These are not mass produced, each shirt will be made once the order comes through. They are made using freezer paper stencils, which means each one will vary very slightly. When ordering, make sure to let me know what sizes you would like. I can make them in any size from children to adults, but there may be an extra fee for 2XL and larger. If that's the case, please check with me before ordering, and I will let you know for sure. They are $15 each and $2.50 for shipping. Order the whole family one! As always, 100% of the proceeds will go directly to our adoption.
Finally, today I was able to talk to my sister. It's sometimes difficult because she's busy on the weekends, and I'm busy on the weekdays. It was great to hear she's excited for us. She gave some pointers as well, I mean who knows best about different kid things from discipline to educating than someone with 5 kids with the oldest only being 12. She would love us to have a child right in between her kids ages :)
That's it for now. It's never a dull moment anymore and I assume it will be even busier soon.
Tracy and Tim
(I have added an email button so you can easily keep up with this blog, make sure to put your email in there so you never miss a beat!)
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Garage Sale
We have a tentative date for the Garage Sale of Saturday, October 13. We could really use all the help we can get. We need to collect many many items, so if you are getting rid of items, please consider donating them to our sale. I would like to make this one giantic sale, with amazing success. We could also use volunteers to help with pricing, organizing, making signage, advertising, baking (for a little side sale), and people to help watch over the sale to answer questions and make sure no one steals anything. Please let us know if you can help. Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Fundraising efforts
As many of you know, the adoption process is very expensive. While we are confident we can raise our child, we will be needing to raise a lot of money to bring our child home. Some things we plan on doing to raise money will be selling items on Ebay, Craigslist, and Etsy, having a huge garage sale, holding a craft fair, bake sale, collecting pop cans, car washes, and I'm sure more ideas will come to light. It will be a busy year or so trying to raise enough money.
How you can help. Both Tim and myself find it very difficult to ask for help when it comes to money. In this case, we have realized, it really will take a village to help bring him or her home to us and could really use all the help you are willing to give us.
* If you live in the Phoenix area, we could use items for our garage sale, which I'm hoping to hold in September or October. If you are going through your stuff, please consider letting us have it rather than throwing it away or giving it to Goodwill. We will be glad to come and pick it up from you. It can be small items or big items, even though it will be a few months until we will hold the sale, I would love collecting as much as possible as early as possible. If they are nicer items, I may sell them on Ebay rather than the sale.
* If you live in the San Tan Valley/Queen Creek area, we would love to recycle your cans. We know cans don't bring in very much money, therefore we don't think it would be wise to run all over the valley picking up cans. However, if you are donating items to our sale and live further out, we will be out there to collect those items anyways, so please collect some cans for us too and we can make it a one stop shop.
* If you live in the Phoenix area, please consider helping us out with planning and organizing events. All help would be greatly appreciated as I'm still trying to figure out where to begin with events like the craft fair.
*If you live elsewhere, and in the valley, we could really use your support as well. We will shortly have a 300 or so piece puzzle on this blog. There will be more information on this puzzle once we have selected one. You will be able to sponsor a puzzle piece for a set amount. On the back of your piece(s) we will write your name. Once the puzzle is completed it will be put into an all glass frame (front and back) and hang in his or her room. They will be able to look at the back and see everyone's names that helped bring them home. You will also be able to send us the money via mail to avoid having a percentage taken out due to Paypal fees.
*No matter where you live, we will also set up a donate button. Please feel free to donate anything you can. Big and small donations will go a long way and we can't begin to thank you enough for any help you can give. You will also be able to send us the money via mail to avoid having a percentage taken out due to Paypal fees.
*No matter where you live, please consider buying gifts from my Etsy shop. 100% of the proceeds will be going towards our fund. http://www.etsy.com/shop/heartfelthandikraftz I will continue to add more items to the shop and I'm always happy to do custom orders. I can send the purchased items either to you directly or to the recipient.
*If you live in Philadelphia or Chicago, please consider holding some kind of event. We have a lot of friends and family in those two cities and it may be possible to have some get together. I would definitely help out by phone and emails, so if you could do something like that, please contact us and we can try to make it happen.
*For everyone, we understand not everyone can help with monetary donations, donating items to us, or helping with events. What we do ask for, is for you to keep us in your thoughts. It will be a lot of hard work ahead of us and we hope you can support us with thoughts and following our blog with updates.
We appreciate any additional ideas you may have. Please follow along on our journey and we will keep this blog up to date.
Thank you,
Tim and Tracy
How you can help. Both Tim and myself find it very difficult to ask for help when it comes to money. In this case, we have realized, it really will take a village to help bring him or her home to us and could really use all the help you are willing to give us.
* If you live in the Phoenix area, we could use items for our garage sale, which I'm hoping to hold in September or October. If you are going through your stuff, please consider letting us have it rather than throwing it away or giving it to Goodwill. We will be glad to come and pick it up from you. It can be small items or big items, even though it will be a few months until we will hold the sale, I would love collecting as much as possible as early as possible. If they are nicer items, I may sell them on Ebay rather than the sale.
* If you live in the San Tan Valley/Queen Creek area, we would love to recycle your cans. We know cans don't bring in very much money, therefore we don't think it would be wise to run all over the valley picking up cans. However, if you are donating items to our sale and live further out, we will be out there to collect those items anyways, so please collect some cans for us too and we can make it a one stop shop.
* If you live in the Phoenix area, please consider helping us out with planning and organizing events. All help would be greatly appreciated as I'm still trying to figure out where to begin with events like the craft fair.
*If you live elsewhere, and in the valley, we could really use your support as well. We will shortly have a 300 or so piece puzzle on this blog. There will be more information on this puzzle once we have selected one. You will be able to sponsor a puzzle piece for a set amount. On the back of your piece(s) we will write your name. Once the puzzle is completed it will be put into an all glass frame (front and back) and hang in his or her room. They will be able to look at the back and see everyone's names that helped bring them home. You will also be able to send us the money via mail to avoid having a percentage taken out due to Paypal fees.
*No matter where you live, we will also set up a donate button. Please feel free to donate anything you can. Big and small donations will go a long way and we can't begin to thank you enough for any help you can give. You will also be able to send us the money via mail to avoid having a percentage taken out due to Paypal fees.
*No matter where you live, please consider buying gifts from my Etsy shop. 100% of the proceeds will be going towards our fund. http://www.etsy.com/shop/heartfelthandikraftz I will continue to add more items to the shop and I'm always happy to do custom orders. I can send the purchased items either to you directly or to the recipient.
*If you live in Philadelphia or Chicago, please consider holding some kind of event. We have a lot of friends and family in those two cities and it may be possible to have some get together. I would definitely help out by phone and emails, so if you could do something like that, please contact us and we can try to make it happen.
*For everyone, we understand not everyone can help with monetary donations, donating items to us, or helping with events. What we do ask for, is for you to keep us in your thoughts. It will be a lot of hard work ahead of us and we hope you can support us with thoughts and following our blog with updates.
We appreciate any additional ideas you may have. Please follow along on our journey and we will keep this blog up to date.
Thank you,
Tim and Tracy
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Our Adoption Journey is Beginning
Tim and I have some very exciting news. We have decided adoption is the very best choice for us to start our family. There will be many exciting moments in the future and many struggles that we are willing to fight through. We have researched many adoption options and we have found what we believe is the best choice for us. We are planning an independent adoption from Ukraine. We are expecting this process to take a year to a year and a half from start to finish.
Let me explain a little about the Ukrainian adoption system. They do not allow adoption agencies into their country. Once you hit Ukrainian soil, you are on your own, which is why you can hire a facilitator/translator to help you out while you're there (which could be for 3-5+ weeks). We could go through an agency here, however, the only thing they would be able to do for us would be to help us out with our paperwork and charge twice as much to go through them. Therefore, we have decided to do an independent adoption, which is a very common thing. They do not allow for people out of country to adopt children under the age of 5 unless the child is special needs or part of a sibling group where the sibling is an older child. We will consider some special needs that are correctable, however, we will probably look into adoption of a 5 or 6 year old girl or boy. These children are in several orphanages throughout the country and age out of the system by the time they are 16 years old, most of whom become homeless, on drugs, and/or commit suicide. They are looking for a better life and I believe we can give one of them a better life and hope for the future here with us in the United States. We have longed for a child and they have longed for a family.
Our near future will consist of having our home study, collecting many documents including birth and marriage certificates, fingerprints, and completing a whole lot of paperwork. Once we have everything notarized, stamped, and all put together (this would be our dossier), we will be sending it to Ukraine. They will open it within 20 working days of it being received. At that point we will wait for them to call and approve us. Once we are approved, we will be given an appointment date for when we will need to be there. We will then fly to Ukraine and show up at our appointment. After going through all the paperwork and become approved from the judge there, we will then return to the US with our son or daughter and start our life as a family.
As much as it would be nice to think there will be no problems and everything will run smoothly throughout the whole process, we know this isn't true. There are bound to be problems that arise and it will probably be impossible to prepare for them. We would love the support of everyone, even if it's just keeping us in your thoughts. We are so ready to start and can not wait to meet our child!!!
Thank you for all your support,
Tracy and Tim
Let me explain a little about the Ukrainian adoption system. They do not allow adoption agencies into their country. Once you hit Ukrainian soil, you are on your own, which is why you can hire a facilitator/translator to help you out while you're there (which could be for 3-5+ weeks). We could go through an agency here, however, the only thing they would be able to do for us would be to help us out with our paperwork and charge twice as much to go through them. Therefore, we have decided to do an independent adoption, which is a very common thing. They do not allow for people out of country to adopt children under the age of 5 unless the child is special needs or part of a sibling group where the sibling is an older child. We will consider some special needs that are correctable, however, we will probably look into adoption of a 5 or 6 year old girl or boy. These children are in several orphanages throughout the country and age out of the system by the time they are 16 years old, most of whom become homeless, on drugs, and/or commit suicide. They are looking for a better life and I believe we can give one of them a better life and hope for the future here with us in the United States. We have longed for a child and they have longed for a family.
Our near future will consist of having our home study, collecting many documents including birth and marriage certificates, fingerprints, and completing a whole lot of paperwork. Once we have everything notarized, stamped, and all put together (this would be our dossier), we will be sending it to Ukraine. They will open it within 20 working days of it being received. At that point we will wait for them to call and approve us. Once we are approved, we will be given an appointment date for when we will need to be there. We will then fly to Ukraine and show up at our appointment. After going through all the paperwork and become approved from the judge there, we will then return to the US with our son or daughter and start our life as a family.
As much as it would be nice to think there will be no problems and everything will run smoothly throughout the whole process, we know this isn't true. There are bound to be problems that arise and it will probably be impossible to prepare for them. We would love the support of everyone, even if it's just keeping us in your thoughts. We are so ready to start and can not wait to meet our child!!!
Thank you for all your support,
Tracy and Tim
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