Immersed

Immersed is the only word I can think of to describe my experience of the first three months of Caleb's little life. I am still submerged somewhat into the depths of the newborn world. Although technically he is not a newborn anymore and is growing so fast, I still see him as very young. Three months old Saturday - wow! Each day turns into night and night into day again so quickly. Today it is already 2:30 pm and I have not "done" anything. I ate some food, put some clothes on, took a nap with the baby, fed the baby a few times, changed the baby a few times, visited with a friend, walked up and down the street to try to get baby to sleep, bounced on the yoga ball, looked at some emails on my phone. The small tasks of taking care of this beloved little infant consume all of my time and energy. At the end of the day I am tired and I still haven't "done" anything...which, of course, is false. We are witnessing and participating in the most amazing growing experience of our lives! Caleb is changing every day and I am privileged to watch.

It used to be that he could not get his fists to his mouth really, then last week he could get only his whole fist in his mouth. This week he can get individual fingers in his mouth and it must feel good because he drools all over them as he babbles about it. I know he is young, but I swear that he is getting teeth already or this process is quite long because he is massaging his gums with his lower lip quite frequently and the drool has warranted a little bib most days to keep his clothes somewhat dry. He has not rolled over just yet, but it sure seems like he will soon! This week he loves to lift his head and do these little sit ups. If I hold his hands, he will pull himself up to sitting and thinks it is just so fun!

I am amazed at what a tremendous transition this is for me; not going back to work when school started felt strange and wonderful all at the same time. Now I am also gearing up a little for intensive trainings in October and I think that it will be challenging to be away even for a few hours for me. He is still so young and we are quite attached :). 

All in all, life is wonderful and amazing! It is also so different from before the baby was born that I feel almost like I've started a whole new life; as a mother. Wow! I still have to pinch myself when I think about it. I am so immersed in it and loving it that I have not even had a moment to reflect - until now. A whole new chapter - sigh!

Welcome Baby

Dear Friends,
It is with great excitement and tremendous joy that I say: Caleb is here!!!! Our baby boy was born on June 15 at 12:59 and weighed 6 lbs, 13 oz. He was born at home after a very quick labor and his birthmom did a wonderful job. She is well and feeling good. She was so gracious to allow us to stay with her until we came home. Tamara stayed the whole time and helped to take care of her while she took care of the baby. Then, the second night, Tamara started breastfeeding and she rested. Tony came back and forth to also take care of the dogs and pick things up that we needed. It was an extremely special, sacred time and we feel so privileged to have been a part of his life from the begninning. We can never thank his birth parents enough for entrusting us to be his parents. There are no words to express how incredible a gift they have given us.
It was a very proud moment when Tony was able to bring his son home on Father's Day! Wow. What an amazing event.
We were exhausted already and it was an emotional day saying good bye to Caleb's birthmom, but we were so glad to be home.
Now Caleb is almost three weeks old...and yes, I am finally blogging!!! Well, I've been a bit busy and loving it - challenges and all. Breastfeeding is working with the Supplemental nursing system, but I am not producing enough for him on my own. We have been receiving milk from BM for him and we have some in the freezer. It is an incredible journey; wow!!
Thank you all for your support all along the way; your prayers, hopeful contributions, and positive attitudes! We are parents now and on a new road!
Here is a picture of the little bundle - he is growing so fast!

With gratitude and love,

Tamara and Tony

Sweet Showers

Today I am going to a baby shower. It is the first of a few over the next few weeks. I have been to so many over the past ten years for some beautiful women who have become wonderful mothers. It is such a wonderful thing to be a part of - helping someone usher a new little one into the world by showering them with love, support, crocheted blankets, and nipple cream. As the years progressed and our friends had children, first one, then two, at times it was painful for me to attend the showers on one hand, while at the same time it was a way for me to stay connected to the tribe of mothers that I so wished to be a part of. It has been nine years since we were married (on the solstice in June) and today I am having a shower. It feels like a rite of passage, a turning point, and a delicious treat I am sneaking in the middle of the night all rolled into one.
At first, I really didn't think I "should" have a shower. We are adopting and it felt funny somehow; then it sunk in - we are bringing home a baby!!!! I am going to be a mother and I will walk through the doorway into the mothers' room of life and I would like to have my beloved circle of women there with me. It is so humbling to know that women will gather today to celebrate me becoming a mother just as we have gathered together to celebrate others. I am truly honored and amazed. AND, my mom will be there! We are so blessed to have TWO grandmas here for our baby!!!

As most of you know, although I have not published much about, I have been preparing to breastfeed our little one when he arrives. I have followed the protocol that was designed by Lenore Goldfarb and Dr. Jack Newman http://www.asklenore.com/ and started pumping on Friday night (six weeks before the due date). It was not so comfortable at first - okay, painful the first night before I figured out that I needed to turn the pump down! - but last night, only 24 hours later while pumping for the fifth time, my breasts produced little drops of milk!!!! I cried so hard out of relief and amazement at the awe of it all. Tony was with me as I was doing this and just smiled in supportive understanding of my sheer pleasure knowing that I CAN DO IT and I will be able to feed our baby by breastfeeding. It feels like, and maybe it is, a miracle.

So, today I title my post "sweet showers" for two reasons - the modern ritual of a baby shower in my honor and the shower of sweet drops of milk that are sure to come more.

Thank you for your loving prayers all along this journey and for listening!
With hope and gratitude,
Tamara

Getting Close!

I am embarrassed to see that my last post was January 30. I can see how time flies when you're busy as a "one armed paper hanger" - as my grandmother used to say. We have been quite busy around here and there is still more to do....LOTS more...but we are getting close! So, here is the most current - my house is a mess....It must be like the squirrels I used to watch build nests. They would just fling sticks out of the trees and they would fall down in scattered piles all around the base of the tree. I feel like all of the "pieces" to our nest are all scattered all around but we are in this "nesting mode" and it will somehow work out that soon we will have a lovely nest. The sticks that are in place so far:
1. carpet down
2. walls painted
3. crib bought
4. changing table/dresser bought
5. cloth diapers bought
6. breastpump ready
Well, that seems like a short list now, but it feels like a lot! We'll get there. We are so excited to bring him home in just two short months. Somehow I'll get the house cleaned up and sorted through and all of the sticks in place just right - or not! I'm not so sure he'll notice, really.
Today our birthmom told me that the baby has the hiccups....it is such an incredible gift, blessing, miracle that she includes me in these things and I will be eternally grateful for it.
Eternally grateful is a long time, but I mean it! I think that this journey connects us in a way that can only be understood in the span of eternity - a shared path that connects us on a path that goes far beyond this moment or this life it seems.
With love and hope,
Tamara

It's a BOY

We are at 20 weeks now! AND, it's a BOY!!! Wow, a boy. I was able to go with our birthmom to the ultrasound and saw it loud and clear - a boy. Tony is so excited! We are half way there, too. 20 out of 40 weeks. This is so exciting; now we are in preparation mode. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself...there is so much to do, it's a challenge to focus on it. I am getting things together to start preparing to breastfeed and am very excited about that :). Dr. Jack Newman of Toronto is a huge help. His website http://www.drjacknewman.com/ is great as he is the forerunner/expert in the field. I am looking forward to the bonding experience and am grateful there is a chance of providing at least most of the breastmilk for the baby!

Here's a picture of the little guy.

Isn't it amazing?

With love and hope,

Tamara and Tony

Expecting

We feel as if we are "expecting" and I guess we really are!!! Of course, I'm not pregnant, but our birthmom is and due June 19! It is just so incredibly exciting. Nine years ago tomorrow, we got engaged to be married and 5 short months later we were married on June 21...this feels so similar. In only 5 short months from now, we will bring our baby home. We just cannot express how incredibly grateful we are to God for blessing us with the hope and faith that He has given us. It is amazing to believe that soon we will be parents. We've already started some preparations, of course, and continue to do so - this is the "oh my gosh there is so much to do" stage, I guess! Wow :)

Thank you all for your continued support and prayers.
With love and hope,
Tamara and Tony

On the Receiving Path!!

Happy New Year!!!
It has been since Thanksgiving that I have posted....wow how time flies! Sorry about that!
As some of you know, I have been creating art for a number of years now that depicts (although not always consciously) "baby" or "fetal" shapes, pregnant bellies, and images of that sort. Well, just before the last post, I had a dream of quilting them all together (there are 100's of them now) and creating "receiving blankets". Yes, RECEIVING blankets. I did quilt a few Touch Drawings together for the Touch Drawing show at our gallery which is coming down today. What amazes me is that we are now on what I refer to as the Receiving Path; we are ready and preparing not to "get pregnant" but to receive a baby. Wow!
It looks like it will be June when our baby arrives and we are so excited to be preparing for him or her!!!(We have chosen to not find out if the baby will be a girl or a boy - it really makes no difference :).

We are so deeply grateful to ALL OF YOU for your continued support and ask for your prayers and well wishes as we journey with the baby's birthmom through her pregnancy and the birth of baby. She is wonderful and we feel so blessed to know her and to be able to do this with her. What an amazing heart and beautiful woman! It is with GREAT joy that we announce that we are planning for the arrival of our baby on June 19!! That gives us almost 6 months to prepare. We'll try to keep you updated better.

Receiving such blessings is challenging, and yet I feel like God has prepared us to do so. The term "receiving blanket" is so appropriate because as a baby is born, the parents receive the baby - a divine gift to love, a sacred agreement to parent and protect, a treasured opportunity to grow and become. Due to all of the trials, disappointments, and subsequent learning we have had along with the tremendous support you all have given us - we are ready to receive such a blessing! Thank you! The gratitude is overflowing and the magnitude of this experience is humbling.

At this time, as we savor the recent Christmas blessings of family and time together and celebrate the upcoming New Year, we share our gratitude and hope with all of you - may your New Year be filled with abundant blessings!

With love and hope,
Tamara and Tony

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! We can hardly believe that so much time has passed since our last post. Today I awoke early with a heart full of gratitude. Today (and every day) we give thanks for the blessings we have received and are about to receive. We have been filled with gratitude for all of the prayers, love, and light we receive every day from all of you who are with us on this journey. We give thanks for the possibility of starting a family very soon. We give thanks for our beautiful home, our dear friends, our loving families, and jobs that provide us income to make our dream come true. The list goes on and on, really.

When I was growing up and starting to feel a little down or negative, my dad always reminded me to "make your gratitude list". It always worked! I have not been feeling down, but I realize that I am always making this list in my mind. I am thankful for all of the abundance in our lives; and for the roads we have traveled. It takes a lot to be able to say that because many have not been smooth and we have experienced great loss - but I am!

I reread some of the pages of a daily mandala journal that I made during the months that we were in the process of having a surrogate carry our child. I was taking hormones, she was taking hormones, she was far away and we knew it was probably our final effort to have a child that was biologically ours. We had lost two children already and I had almost died. This felt like our last chance. I made a drawing every day and then wrote about it. It was a way for me to be present in the process and to stay connected to what was happening when things sometimes felt so surreal. Reading through them recently, I saw the word "hope" over and over - on almost every page. It is no accident that we named our blog "hoping4baby". One of the paintings I did after a very disappointing loss is entitled "Window of Hope". Throughout all of the adversity in the past seven years, Tony and I both have remained hopeful that one day we will be a family. We decided that "hope" will part of our baby's name when he or she arrives because through our hope, our baby has been with us all this time.

We are thankful that God has always provided us with the hope we needed and we pray that soon our baby Hope will come to be with us and make us a family. We are grateful that our hope has already made us stronger. May God bless each of you with what you need and may you always live with hope in your heart.

With love and hope,
Tamara and Tony

Dream Big

Our pastor taught a lesson recently about "Dream Big". There was a time when our pain outweighed our dreams and now we know it really is important to dream and to believe- just like the Marianne Williamson quote:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Dreaming big allows us to invite and accept God's will and the miracles that are available. We pray for this miracle and hope, with active faith, that our baby will come to us soon. We believe this to be true and know that by doing this we are liberated from our fear of not being parents. We will be parents soon! Our dreams are big; including Tamara staying home for a while to be with baby and Tamara breastfeeding (this is possible without being pregnant), practice babywearing, and sharing our baby with all of our loved ones.  Thank you all for your supportive actions, sentiments, and prayers.

With love and hope,
Tamara and Tony

Trust the Process

We have a saying in the expressive arts that might have derived from Shaun McNiff, one of our expressive arts pioneers, it says....Trust the Process.

Well, we are in the process and have not had a lot of time to blog about it lately, sorry. We anticipated being finished with the home study process much sooner, but we are still doing it and have just a few things left to finish up. It will feel great to have that part finished :).

Thanks for hanging in there with us as we continue on this journey.  Tonight we will do a teleseminar to find out how to do things a little more quickly, less expensively, and with less heartache. Nicole Will at The Adoption Consultancy in Tampa is offering it. She specializes in helping couples like us adopt with the best possible circumstances and outcomes. I met her at a conference this spring and was very impressed. We'll see what she says tonight :).

We are also still folding cranes and sending thank you's for all of the amazingly generous people who have helped us to raise over $7,000 so far!!! Wow!!! Thank you a hundred times over!!

With love, hope, and gratitude,

Tamara and Tony

Awesome Fundraiser

We had an incredible time last night with the most amazing people at our Hoping4baby fundraiser!! It was heartwarming, humbling, and exhilirating all at the same time. Thank you to John and Mallie for organizing this amazing event and for ALL of the long hours of work that you put into it. We had friends everywhere helping and we just can't thank you all enough. The feeling of having you all in "our corner" is one of the precious gifts of this process of adoption. We feel touched by each of you and your generosity in a way that we just don't know how to describe. Although insufficient, we just want to says THANK YOU!
We were able to raise over $2,200 and it was FUN! After our baby is with us, won't it be great to have a party like that every year to honor all of you who helped us achieve our dream? It will be an honor to share our baby with each of you.

We'll post some pictures soon :) Thank you again!!

With love, gratitude,and hope,
Tamara and Tony

2 Days Away

It's only 2 days now before our big fundraiser!! We are working hard to get everything ready - raffle, auction, cornhole (we call it bags) tournament, tables, chairs, and of course FOOD! It is going to be a fun time. Our friend Mike downloaded 10 hours of rocking dance music, the bounce house is going up, Cornhole tournament starts at 6:30 and everyone is invited! We already have over 100 RSVP's and they keep coming.
We feel so loved and supported that it woke me up early the other morning. Those who know me well know that I love to sleep :). Well, yesterday morning I woke before my alarm which is set for 6am. It was dark and the birds were not awake yet. As I was waking, I saw an image clearly in my mind. The funny thing about images is that they come from within your body, so when you are present to them, they are really more than a visual picture. This image was also a feeling, an awareness and a message.
I "saw" myself cradling our newborn baby in my arms. Tony had his arms around me and all around the three of us, I saw what was like a sea of hearts. I don't really mean literally hearts, although that is how my mind assigned a visual image to it after a moment, but beings, hundreds upon hundreds of people, souls?, surrounding us like ripples in a pond surround the pebble that falls in the center.
An absolutely beautiful tide of gratitude rose up within me and spilled out as tears.
A dear friend shared this verse with me this week.

For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, Saying to you, 'Fear not, I will help you'. -Isaiah 41:13

I can feel His grace through all of you. Thank you for your help with bringing a baby into our lives.

With love, hope, and gratitude,
Tamara

Parents Moving Down

We are excited this week because we will soon get to be with my parents MUCH more! My parents announced this week that they are going to move to Florida! I could not be happier - this is amazing news. I always imagined having my mom around when I had a baby - and now I will! Of course, the timeline on both counts is still uncertain, but it will be sooner than later in the long run. It has been 12 years since we lived in the same town and it is LONG enough!
While learning about grief and loss in teh adopted child, I revisit some of the grief and loss that I experienced as a child because since I was five and my parents were divorced, I always lived away from at least one of my parents. It's a challenging thing to make sense of when you're a child. I know that it all worked out for the best in the long run (they are both still married to the wonderful people they met after they broke up). I would not trade ANY of my parents (and I'm blessed to have 4) for anything. I can only say that being apart from ALL of them these past 12 years has been difficult for me and I feel already, with the prospect of them moving closer, a little gap closing inside. A healing begin. A soothing spring cleansing something inside.
Our baby will be blessed to have four grandparents right here in Sarasota and for that, my eyes tear up and my chest heaves. It is an amazing blessing!
And looking at this picture from a few years ago - it will be much warmer for them and the "critters". :)

With love and hope,
Tamara

Cranes in the Mail

Yesterday evening, I invited our friends over to visit and we found a box on the front porch! The return address said, "Everyone...Ferndale, WA". We opened it up and Oak squealed because the colors were so beautiful. He begged me to dump the box out so we could look at them all. It was wonderful to feel the incredible energy that poured from the box as we looked at each one and decided which ones were our favorite. Three year olds are wonderful :).  He decided how some of them were related based on their colors - "this one is the baby, this one is his mommy and his daddy" and so on. Many many thanks to Susan, Mom, and Everyone in the family in Ferndale!!! We are so blessed to receive such a beautiful box of hope cranes. Thank you.

Gratitude Blossoms

Saturday morning

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.
Henry Ward Beecher

This quote describes the feeling  that overcame me this afternoon - day 2 of our yard sale - when a wonderful mother of five came and purchased some toys for her children. She bought $50 worth of items and was so kind. I had to step away for a bit and cry with a friend because I am so humbled by the generosity of those who came to our sale, by those who organized it all and made it happen for us, and by those who are generously supporting us from afar, too! Thank you to our dear friends (who are really like family to us) and all of the people who donated items for our benefit - asking nothing in return.

Our hearts are like gardens that are blossoming in the spring of our journey toward parenthood. I believe that the summer and the abundant harvest that ensues in that season is closer than ever. We will continue to shower nourishment on the seeds we have planted and look forward to what will come.

We made our goal of $1000 for the weekend and surpassed it by $100 with the generosity and kindess of Laurie and Troy who came at the end of the day to purchase all that had not been sold. They took it all for $150 - which was Mallie's brilliant idea by posting on Craigslist - great idea!  We pray that the items will bless them with abundance as well.

So, now we have about $25,000 more to go!!! We can do this, I know we can. The fun-raiser is just three weeks away on Sept. 17 and then we will have another sale in October. We have a few more ideas as well and FAITH.
I'd like to share something our friend Meg shared with me today (thank you Meg):

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.    Hebrews 11:1 (NLT)

With gratitude, faith, and love,
Tamara and Tony

Last load - made our goal and our day!

Truck of Donated Toys

Thank you Debi, Andrew, and Braden for your generous donation!

Yard Sale Success

Our Yard Sale was a success today! Wow, what an amazing day - our friends Mallie and Meg and Mom Peggy all did SOOO much work!! Thank you! Friends came - and even strangers donated A LOT to make the sale successful. We hoped to raise $1,000 and we almost made it with $700, so we are going to be there again tomorrow with the hope of selling the couches, microwave, "Smart Cycle" and more :).
Thank you to all of our readers who came out to support us. We also heard many hopeful stories from others about their family members' adoptions. It was truly inspirational. There are so many that are touched by infertility and adoption. I feel blessed to be able to share my experience with others at this point in our journey as well as to hear the stories of so many others. One woman shared this story with us:
Her sister prayed for a baby after years of trying and being unsuccessful. She prayed that she would be able to be a mother before her 40th birthday, which came and went while they were in the process of trying to adopt. When they finally brought their baby home, they learned that he was born the day BEFORE her 40th birthday!!!
I had chills when she told me this story - I know that God is working in our lives and our baby is coming very soon. The generosity and kindness that so many people have shown us is humbling and heartwarming. This whole process is such a smorgasboard of emotions! :)

With love, gratitude, and hope,

Tamara and Tony

Sale is Saturday

Once school started and I got into the swing of things, time flew by! It's been over a week since I posted. Yikes!
We did have our second visit for the home study and it was great. It really helps to talk about what we think could happen and imagine what we might be able to expect from being parents. Of course, we really have NO IDEA, but imagining is good! Having hope allows me to "go there" and I love that- wow. It's been a while since I've allowed myself to think such concrete hopeful thoughts as "I'd like to nurse my baby" or "We will use time out as a way to manage our child's behavior." Those things feel REAL and that is amazing and wonderful.
This week we are preparing for the yard sale and we are humbled by the efforts our friends are putting into making this all happen. Some friends have dropped off donations of things, left things behind for us to pick up, and then some are making the signs and pricing while I am at work! I just don't know how we will ever be able to express our gratitude.
We have all kinds of great things at the yard sale - couches, crockpots, lamps, microwave, treadmill, children's stuff, clothing, end table, antique mirror, etc etc. The list goes on - and our pile was small! Our friends, parents' friends, coworkers, friends of coworkers - it is remarkable, really. Thank you to all who have helped to make this happen!! We are so excited and will share how much we are able to raise. (This Saturday, August 27 8:00am 4500 Bent Tree Blvd- see link on the right)
As far as the home study goes, we have both had our fingerprints and background checks done, now we have a few more things/documents, doctor visits, etc to do and we will get it all in to the agency so we can get our completed homestudy. Woohoo! We'll keep you posted.

With love and hope,
Tamara and Tony

Little Shoes

I just have to share this! The other night our friends were over with their precious little boys. We LOVE spending time with all of them; they are so much fun. Oakley is three and he likes to take his shoes off when he comes in the house :). He walked in and removed his shoes and socks, then while walking toward our bedroom door asked me, "Where are your socks?" I was wearing flip flops, so I said, "I'm not wearing any." He then said, "Where are Tony's socks?" I said, "Well, I guess in the closet." Then he disappeared in my bedroom for a few minutes.

I didn't really think too much about it and we had a fun visit. They left a little late and carried Oakley to the car, so he didn't put his shoes back on before he left.

The next morning, I woke up and went into my closet to get dressed. This is what I saw:

I laughed OUT LOUD!! So precious.At the same moment, my heart filled with the warmest and most delightful feeling - hope! All I could think of (other than how hilarious and wonderful this little boy is in our life) is one day we will have little shoes in our house. The "guest room" will be our child's room and there will be little shoes in his or her closet! This is so exciting. I just can't wait!

We had our second home study visit and finished two out of three of our courses. We started learning about attachment and what to expect after the adoption. It is becoming more and more real. The little shoes helped, too :). Thanks, Oak!

With love and hope,
Tamara

Home Study

Hello! It was a busy week and we had many challenges with spotty internet access at home, so I have not blogged as much as I thought about it. We started our home study a couple of weeks ago by meeting with the agency representative, Sharon, but his week she actually came to visit our home and interview us. This is an interesting process. There are several "hoops" to jump through as well, such as background checks, fingerprints, physicals, HR letter stating employment, put up a pool fence, buy a fire extinguisher, install another smoke alarm, 5 reference letters, 6+ hours of online courses, etc. Although it sounds like a lot at first, I was thinking to myself, "if everyone who has a child naturally actually went through all of these steps, they might feel a bit more prepared - or at least parenting would be a conscious act".  The pool fence will be put in later this week and the rest is in the works, too. Baby step by baby step, one foot in front of the other.

One of our courses was called "Missing Steps: Grief and Loss in the Adoptive Child". I attended two funerals this week, so grief and loss are in the forefront of my mind. Life is so precious. What more can be said? Except we learned that the grief of an adopted child is different from grief caused by death - how? Adoption is a combination of events, not a single event such as a death, that add up to when a child is placed in the care of others. All of the questions and losses come at different times, for different reasons and impact the child over time. I am sure that our child will wonder "why didn't my mommy want me? and what happened?". We pray that we will provide a home where our child is safe to express his or her feelings, to explore the landscape of his or her losses and know that they are loved beyond measure by SOOOO many people. I trust that they will know this. Although it is challenging to consider all that lies before us, we feel so grateful to also know it as a reality now! We are on our way and believe it will happen soon. It just takes some time, patience, and money.

Our dear friends are putting together a "party" for us to kickoff our fundraising efforts and we have been working to get the word out. I will post the announcement. We invite all of our friends and their friends to join us on September 17, 5-9 to help us meet our goal. We anticipate the adoption to cost $30,000 or so when all is said and done. We have saved/raised $3,000 so far and have now spent or promised $1,900...so that leaves a little bit more to get our profile done, printed, pay an application fee or two.

We also are holding a yard sale on August 27 at another friend's house to raise money. We are so blessed to have such loving and supportive friends!!!  Thank you :)

The schedule is getting full as I prepare to go back to school on Tuesday. Tomorrow I will run around to do my fingerprints, etc and get as much done as possible before the school year starts up in full force.  We'll keep you posted!

With love and hope,
Tamara