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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