Our Sierra Girl!

My goodness, it has been a long time since I've posted! Partly because this has turned into an adoption blog and nothing has happened with an adoption lately. But, other things have happened in life, so here goes a new blog post!

The beginning of September we had to put down our sweet Ellie girl. She had gotten out while we were gone one day and somehow injured herself, resulting in her back legs being paralyzed. We took her to the vet and tried a cortisone shot, but the next day we knew we would have to put her down. Our hearts were broken.

A few weeks later, we were just missing having a dog around. We started looking thru some ads and found a German Shepherd mix puppy in our area... for free!! The owners sent a picture of her and we absolutely fell in love! We immediately went out to pick up our new pup! Already she has stolen our hearts and helped heal the wounds left from losing Ellie. We named our sweet girl, Sierra! She has been learning to sit and fetch and not jump and all those things puppies need to learn! Joe is especially happy to have another 4 legged companion!

Nursery Before and After!

The nursery has been a slow work in progress. It took me a while to decide just what I wanted to do. Then I had to clean the room out and find a new home for everything that was in there! If you've read previous posts, you know I was given a crib - which I painted white. My mom had an old dresser that she said I could have, but it sure needed some TLC! We moved an old rocking chair upstairs. I had an old end table already that just needed some new paint. Of course, I painted the walls and sewed new crib bedding and curtains. But before you see all that - you MUST see the before pictures. Pretty bland!

 Wow! I think this dresser has seen better days! I have no idea what the red stain is on top!

Bland white walls. Even the red curtains don't add much!

Now for the after! My beautiful 'Under the Sea/Sea Turtle' nursery is complete. A lovely aqua blue covers the walls! The crib my grandma gave me I painted white! It looks stunning against the colorful quilt, crib bumpers, crib skirt and crib sheet that I made! Our fundraiser turtle puzzle is complete and framed and hangs over the crib! Each time I look at that puzzle, I am overwhelmed with gratefulness for all the generous donations to our adoption!

Can you believe how different that dresser looks?! Bright white - new knobs! And a changing pad with a cover that matches the crib bumpers!

The little white table sports an awesome lamp I found that goes perfectly with the curtains I made! By the way, the green polka dot curtains were kind of the inspiration for the whole nursery!

My nieces gave me a few small stuffed sea animals and I put them on the little white shelf with a few books from Grammy and Lil Ribbert the Frog from Aunt Kelli.

Notice my stuffed turtle collection in the crib?! And last but not least, the cute sea turtle picture that my talented sister Rachael painted! (Sorry, I don't have a close up!) I hope to have letters spelling out our baby's name to hang over this picture!

 Well, that's it! We don't yet have closet doors, so I didn't take a picture of that wall!

I am so happy with how the nursery turned out!

Now all we need is a baby! I walk by the nursery everyday with a great longing for it to soon be a home to a baby! Please pray with us that a baby will soon join our family!

If you like our nursery transformation, please leave a comment and let me know what you liked best!! Thank you!

Puzzle Piece Fundraiser Update

When we first thought about doing the puzzle fundraiser for our adoption, we talked to our pastor about it and what his thoughts were on it. He was quite excited and asked what our goal was. Well, a 1,000 piece puzzle at $10 per piece would - if we sold all the pieces - raise $10,000. Our pastor asked what would happen if we were given more than our $10,000 goal. We said that would be great, but inwardly, we both thought there was no way we would ever raise that much. Oh, we of little faith.
We sent our friends and family information on our fundraiser and put a little insert in our church bulletin. Immediately, funds started coming in! We were so excited at everyone's generosity! Within the first week, we had met our $10,000 goal - we were so overwhelmed! Friends, family, even complete strangers that we had never met before gave money to our adoption!!
I was reminded of the phrase from a Bible verse that said "pressed down, and shaken together and running over.'' That is exactly how I would describe this blessing. God had given us sooo much - we were completely overwhelmed with His goodness. I grabbed my Bible because I wanted to know what the whole verse said and here are the words I read: Luke 6:38 "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again."

You know, if how much I give is how God decides how much to bless us with, then I figure He would sprinkle a tiny bit of blessing on us. I don't deserve much. I'm not a good giver. But God, in His great goodness, decided we needed so much more than what we deserved! He filled our savings account up, then he 'pressed it down and shook it together' to make some more room and filled it even more, so much more, that it's running over! We cried many tears of joy as we praised God for His blessing. Even now as I type this I have tears streaming down my face!

To date, we have been given over $12,000!! Thank you to everyone who donated to our adoption! God urged you to give and you did and now our dream of having a child is so much closer! 

Our puzzle is put together and we will soon start writing the names of those who have donated on the back. I think soon, we will have our baby. God led us to a great adoption agency, and he provided a HUGE portion of our adoption expenses.  So we know that He has a baby for us! We cannot wait to meet this little one that is part of God's plan for our family!

Adoption Fundraiser

As most of you know, we are in the process of adopting a baby. With the adoption comes lots of fees! To help pay these fees, we have decided to have a Puzzle Piece Fundraiser! Basically, if you would like to donate to our adoption fund, then you can buy a puzzle piece for $10 and we would write your name on the back. You can buy one piece, or as many as you want! Once we sell all the pieces and have names on the back of each piece, we will put the puzzle together and hang it in our nursery. The picture will be displayed, but we can always turn it around and take a look at the names of the generous people who helped make our adoption possible!
Since our nursery theme is Sea Turtles, this puzzle was the perfect choice!
If you would like to donate, there is a PayPal Donate button at the top of the page! If you are local, you can also give donations directly to us! We greatly appreciate any donation!!
Already, you have surrounded us with love, support and prayers and we are so very grateful.

-Joe and Candice

Special Gifts

I've recenlty been given two items for the nursery that will be greatly used in the future. First, a dear friend gave me an old bassinet. It needed some TLC, but I cleaned it up, found some foam and cut out a new mattress for it and made some new sheets for the mattress. It sits by my bedside and is ready for our little one to dream away inside!

Then, my grandma gave me a crib that she had used in her Bed and Breakfast, but no longer needed. The great thing is, it was a style that I had looked at getting, but was not in my price range! It was gorgeous as it was, but I wanted a white crib to go with the theme of the nursery, so I put a few coats of paint on it. Then I finished sewing up all my crib bedding and got everything set up and I absolutely LOVE the results!

I am so thankful for these two gifts, from two special people!

Waitin' By the Phone

I remember when Joe was deployed, I took my phone with me everywhere! I did not want to miss his call. Day or night, my phone was right beside me. I would sometimes even just hold it and will it to ring, hoping he would be on the other end. Anytime the phone did ring, my heart started beating faster and I would get excited thinking it may be him. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. But no matter what, I was going to have that phone with me at all times!
Now, I'm waiting on a different call. The call from our agency that they want to show our profile to a birthmom. Or the call from our agency that they have a baby waiting for us. I get all my emails on my phone as well. So our agency could email us about a particular situation to see if we are interested. So each time I hear that beep, I get excited, my heart starts beating faster! Could this be the email? A few times, I have received an email from the agency and when I see who the email is from, I can't help but think, 'this could be it'. So far, they have only been informative emails - nothing about a possible adoption situation.
So, I keep waiting by the phone. It goes with me everywhere. I wait for the call. I wait for the email. It will come someday. I just hope it comes soon!

Baby Quilt!

I finished my baby quilt! I don't think I have ever finished a quilt project this quickly! I think that for several days when my hubby got home from work, he would find me at the sewing machine! There was lots of love and prayers put into every stitch of this quilt! I cannot wait until all the bedding is done and we get our crib and put it all together! Then, of course, I can't wait for baby to get here and to be able to use it all! But for now, I am happy just having the quilt done! I love how it turned out! Love it, love it, love it!