Updated "How you can help us reach our Matching Grant Goal"

We have 16 hours left until our Matching Grant expires.  We have received over $6,000 in donations in the last 2 1/4 weeks!  We have just $600 left to reach our goal of using the donations and matching grant to cover all future projected adoption expenses!

Here's how you can help us make the $600 in 16 hours:

1. Pray!
- for expediency in the process
- for Priscilla’s health
- for money in place when needed

possible custom doll idea 1

possible custom doll idea 2

2. Spread the Word!
- Share A Seventh Sister Blog, especially this blog post, through facebook, twitter etc
- If you own a blog, blog about our adoption

3. Donate to our Reece's Rainbow Grant
                     (tax deductible - it's too late for a check getting to them in time, so only paypal donations will count towards our matching grant)

4. Donate to our Paypal Account
                 (click on link and you'll see our paypal email address)
        
5. Donate via check
                  - email me for our mailing address and payment info~I will need to have check in hand by Friday, May 3 in order for it to count for our matching grant

possible custom doll idea 3

Custom Made Waldorf Dolly -
 You select color or eyes, hair and skin!

6. Buy Restaurant.com Card - $50 gift card for just $20, we get $10 for our adoption!

7. Buy This Custom Made Waldorf Style Dolly
      


8. Bid on our Facebook Auction Items, especially those without bids yet!
   

possible custom doll idea 4

Possible Custom Doll Idea 5

Thank you to all who have donated so far this month - it has been amazing!

Thank you to all who share this blog
post or donated in these last two weeks!

Oh - and I was sent the draft of our home study last night and was able to read through it and send back some things that needed editing or further explanations.  We are so close to having this in hand and sending in our I800a (application to be approved to immigrate a child).

Please pray that the home study will be completed without further delay and that our I800a will be approved in record time!

I am working on compiling the documents needed for the following step - Dossier Submission!  This is a complex set of documents, but I'm taking it one step at a time and it is coming together, slowly but surely!

34 Hours and Counting - New Waldorf Dolly For Sale!!

Priscilla Look Alike Waldorf Style Dolly

Our Matching Grant expires at midnight, PST tomorrow.  It has been absolutely amazing to see God work in the lives of others to generously give to our adoption fund.  Amazing.

Lovely hand knit hair!

Just this morning I was fighting tears in the bank, as I unfolded a donation given to me at church yesterday.  I had been amazed that someone would give us yet another $100 bill in cash in person, but then as I was making out the deposit, it was THREE $100 bills!  When I got to the car, I could no longer hold it in.  God has blessed us beyond expectation over and over again, people have surprised us over and over again at their generosity.  Donations from people that we know are struggling to make ends meet themselves, enormous donations from people who have extra, and everything in between.  Even the coins given to us by children amaze me,

Custom Made Dolly - you pick color of hair, eyes and skin!

And just minutes ago, this beautiful dolly (who looks an awful lot like Priscilla might just look like once we get her hair to grown out from it's "orphanage hairdo") has been offered for sale and all of the proceeds (minus shipping) will go to our adoption fund!

And if that isn't enough, Cheryl just listed a CUSTOM Made Waldorf Style Dolly - you pick the hair color,

Please share this listing on your social media - let's find buyers for these dolly!

As of the donations of these dollies, we are down to under $1000 to reach our goal of covering all our projected estimate future expenses for  our adoption (barring anything unforeseen like price hikes in airfare).  Isn't that AMAZING????  Just 5 weeks ago we were looking at needing to come up with around $21,000 to complete this adoption!!!

Oh - and our Home Study is waiting for the final director's signature today!

Lila Rose Party for Priscilla!

But first - News!

Our home study is written, and awaiting the signature of the home study agency director - he'll be in the office on Monday to sign it!

Today I sent in our FBI background checks to be Apostilled in Washington DC!  This cost us $75 for this service, we used Caring Hands to do this service for us.  We need these apostilled for the dossier.  We have some other home work for the dossier, but I have plenty of time to get them done - apostilling our marriage certificate, new medical certificates (apostilled of course), getting a psych evaluation done and a local police background check (I have to find out if we'd need to do this in our local town or with the Sheriff since we do not live in the city limits).

I have the I800a all ready to go, we just need to sign it (all adults) and attach the home study and a hefty check (around $1000 because we have 5 adults in the house).  This takes 4 - 5 weeks to process, and then once we get that back, we send in our dossier.

Now - about that Lila Rose Party!

We're hosting a Lila Rose Party as a fundraiser for our adoption!

We have a Facebook Page set up for this, but you can order using this link too!

Party Closes Monday Night, but we'd really like to get the bulk of the orders placed today and tomorrow!

Finally, our Home Study is being Written!

The very last document, which was sent in over a month ago, finally crawled back to our state and arrived at our home study agency this morning!

Right now our agent is writing our the final draft of our Home Study and she says we will get a copy via email to look over soon, and the HS should be ready to go by the end of the week!

Also, we are down to just $1625 left to raise in order to meet our goal!  I'll be updating the thermometer shortly!

We are closing out our Tupperware Party today, and our Pampered Chef Party ends on Monday - email me if you still want to place an order and I'll get you the info you need to do that!

Starting very soon (tomorrow hopefully) we will be doing a quick Lila Rose Party!  Stay tuned for details, and for now, go plan your order HERE!

If you want to stay up to date on any parties we are having for Priscilla's adoption fund, join our facebook page, Parties For Priscilla!

So Close! And Auction News!

Turquoise Slouch Hat

Our home study draft is written, it's just waiting for one document.  That document was a background check for child abuse registries in Iowa (where I went to college).  I sent this in nearly a month ago, but it still hadn't arrived as of this morning.

Soft Soled Baby Shoes

So I called that office in Iowa and found out that they do not make note of what background checks they do, so even if they had processed one for me, they would have no record of it.  They thought it should have arrived by now, so they suggested that we try faxing it in and they would fax it back to our home study agency.  Great Idea!  So it has been faxed to the Iowa office.  Now we wait for them to process it (they say it takes them about 5 days to get to a report due to their backlog.

I'm going to call them on Monday and see if it can't be processed quicker since this is the second time around.

Turquoise Chain Scarf

Please pray that this would come in quickly so we can get on to our next step - filing the I800a.  I have the form all filled out, along with all the documentation required, and the money is all in place...we just need to add the home study!

On another note - we've added some new, donated, items to our Facebook A Seventh Sister Auctions, as you can see in the photos in this blog post!

And lastly, 11 days left for our matching grant, $2600 left to raise before he 30th.

PS. We cancelled the giveaway due to lack of interest (not one paid entry in 4 days)

How You can Help Us Make the Most of our Matching Grant!

We have 14 days left until our Matching Grant expires.  So far we have raised approximately $6,500 since the matching grant started.  That means that with the matching grant, $13,000 of the $21,000 in future adoption expenses have been provided for!  Praise The Lord!

That leaves $8,000 in future adoption expenses yet to be covered.  So IF we can get $4000 in donations by the end of April, all our projected expenses will be provided for!

Here's how you can help us make the $4,000 in 14 days:

1. Pray!
- for expediency in the process
- for Prisilla’s health
- for money in place when needed

2. Spread the Word!
- Share A Seventh Sister Blog, especially this blog post, through facebook, twitter etc  
- If you own a blog, blog about our adoption

3. Donate to our Reece's Rainbow Grant
                     (tax deductible)

4. Donate to our Paypal Account
                 (click on link and you'll see our paypal email address)
          
5. Donate via check
                  - email me for our mailing address and payment info~

6. Buy Restaurant.com Card - $50 gift card for just $20, we get $10 for our adoption!

7. Shop Amazon via Our Search
                      Use the boxin the right hand column to start Your Amazon Shopping!
                      We’ll earn a commission on everything You purchase after entering Amazon
                      through this box!

8. Place an order for our Tupperware and/or Pampered Chef Parties:
             - http://order.tupperware.com/coe/app/tup_widget.show_page?fv_page_code=fundraiser_us&fv_section_name=home&fv_category_code=shop
            http://www.pamperedchef.biz/dianetalbert?page=products-category&categoryId=71
           (email me for details on how to place the orders)


Thank you to all who have donated so far this month - it has been amazing!

Thank you to all who share this blog
post or donated in these last two weeks!

Spaghetti Feed Report, plus Matching Grant Update!

Yesterday was our BIG fundraising event!  We hosted a Spaghetti Feed Date Night that included a silent auction and raffles as well as a movie too!

While we didn't have as many people attend as I had hoped, the evening was a smashing success!  Those attended had a great time, the food was delicious, all the planning made for a smooth evening and best of all, we brought in more that I had hoped for!

So here are the numbers:
$2100 in donations before the event - food, money for food, items for the silent auction
$2800 in cash donations at the event (including winning bids on auction items)
$4900 will be matched in with our matching grant!

So we now have $7700 to use for our adoption that we didn't have yesterday morning!

I worked feverishly all week making posters for the event as well as all the papers needed for the event (bidding sheets, directional sheets, thank you notices etc).

Here'a photos of the events as well as some of the images I used to create the posters.  If you are interested in using my posters at an adoption awareness or adoption fundraising event, please contact me and I'll tell you how you can get access to the larger files!

So here is where we stand as far as getting the most out of our matching grants after last night's huge success!

We still need to raise a total of over $8,000 yet in order to have all the funds to pay for all future events for our adoption, including projected travel costs.

We also need $3000 in readily available cash in order to submit our dossier around the end of May.  Our Reece's Rainbow Grant funds will not be available for our use until after our dossier has been submitted and approved.
So if we raise around $4,000 before the end of April, we will no longer need to do any fundraising as all our future expenses will be covered!  If $3,000 of that is money donated outside our RR account, then everything is all set for the dossier as well.

So there it is - $4,000 in donations in 2 weeks.  That will make the most of our matching grant!  If we bring in more than that, it's OK as the traveling expenses are just approximate.  If we raise more than we need, then we will consider helping out another adoptive family with the fund once we are home with Priscilla!



That could be 80 people giving $50, or or 100 people giving $40, or 200 people giving $20, or 800 people giving $5!  Every dollar counts double with our matching grant>

Here are a few of the posters I made for the event - I'll post the rest on my next blog post as they are on my external hard drive...and I have no idea where that is right now (we had to use it to get the HUGE poster files to my husband's workplace to get the HUGE posters printed - the biggest one was 4 ft by 5 feet!

Tomorrow's A Big Day + What We Have Yet To Raise

Tomorrow we will be holding our Priscilla's Ransom Spaghetti Feed/Silent Auction Date Night!

Amazing things have been happening - here's a few of the unbelievable providences straight from the hand of my Heavenly Father:

Food Donated plus money donated means that this event will cost our family NOTHING!

        Right Down to the last Dollar!!!  This included the fact that garlic bread just happens to be on sale THIS WEEK ONLY!  

Over $1500 in merchandise/gift cards/services have been donated!

             And more items are still coming in!!!

A Sheet Cake with over 90 servings was donated, as well as all the spaghetti!

Decorations were obtained just hours before the person who had them left to go out of town!

And just because He can, I got word from two different people that they were each sending in checks to our Reece's Rainbow FSP for $500 - That means $2000 when our matching grant come into the picture!

Here's a list of some of the items that we will be auctioning/raffling off tomorrow. along with their approximate value:

$30.00	Willow Tree gift basket
$55.00	Custom Modest Swim Suit
$220.00	professional matted photographs
$50.00	sports car rental - Mustang!
$25.00	Vision Plus Gift vouncher
$25.00	Wee Ones children's consignment shop
$20.00	personalized Tee from Bellingham Baby Company
$12.00	Hobbit Posters ($3 ea)
$60.00	Complete Custom Scrapbook Album, baby boy
$150.00	Cornerstone Auto Care Gift Certificates
$20.00	Grace Cafe Pie
$38.00	quilting gift set from Fabric Etc
$65.00	Pain Relief Clinic GC for consulation and adjustment
$13.00	violin lesson
$28.00	hand knit wool socks
$20.00	hand knit toddler hat
$60.00	Carl's Mower GC
$75.00	Hannegan Farm & Garden
$25.00	Jonathan Park's CDs
$25.00	Child of God framed print from Surroundings,
$25.00	tackle box/hat/fishing tackle-Dave's Sporting Good
$35.00	Family Bookstore – CD/ DVD/devotional books
	$400.00 Little Earthling Photo session + prints $84.00 Tupperware FridgeSmart 4 Piece Set

So Here we are...I've crunched the numbers, and in order to cover all remaining expenses that we expect to encounter, including all travel, legal fees and document preparation and we "only" need to raise $7000 if we can raise it before the end of April!  This will only work if we raise all $7000 while the matching grant is in effect..so here is my thermometer to help track our progress!  You can also see it in the right hand column!  I'll update it as we get donations!  This accounting for all donations that I am aware of as being made, or is in the mail as of this moment!

Edited to add that I found that I missed a number in my calculations, so right now we are down to $6,335 needed to raise if we are to have all funds in place by the end of April.

We don't need to have the money by the end of April...this is just showing what it would take to raise enough so that with the matching grant all our projected expenses would be covered by donations + matching grant! We would no long have to do any fundraising if that happens!!!

Orphan No More!

I am here to share the story of a little girl who crawled into my heart back in July.  I blogged about the photos that I had received of her.  I advocated for her, I raised funds for her.  She was 6 years old and the size of a toddler!

We even considered adopting her...but a child with brittle bone disease didn't sound like the best fit for our big family, for obvious reasons!

So I prayer.  We prayed.  Her fund grew and grew...until she was nearly fully funded even!

And then it happened - her family found her! In November I was able to make contact with "Alexandra"s new family.  They were adoptive parents already and were going to work to adopt her as quickly as possible.

Her new mother and one of her brothers traveled to Ukr@ine a few weeks ago, and this morning I got word that the adoption is final!









Let me introduce to you....Nastia Kate Frye and her new mommy, Tammy Frye!

So amazing to see God work in all the details to ransom this precious jewel and give her a hope for a life in a loving family and receiving the medical care she so desperately needs!

Update on our Matching Grant!

Late last month we were contacted by someone I did not know.  Her name is Anita.   She wanted to let me know that her husband and herself wanted us to be the recipient of the portion of their corporate profits that they donate to charities and other needs.

Juni

Lelia

She explained that she and her husband, Steve, had been drawn to Priscilla when she appeared on Reece's Rainbow Newly Listed Children Page!  They had actually gone to commit to her the day after we did.  They were disappointed, but prayed about it.  The Lord has led them to pursue adopting two little girls from China instead!

But get this - they have already adopted - FIVE TIMES!  They have 5 biological, grown children, and they have adopted five children domestically who all have special needs, and now they are adopting two little girls who have Down Syndrome.  The Lord will bless them richly, both now and before His throne!

But they continued to read about our adoption journey through our blog.  The Lord moved them to reach out to us and offer us a matching grant!

I was so amazed.  God is so amazing, isn't He?

So here's how it works.  They will match any and all donations to our adoption that we receive by the end of April!  They will match money donated to our Reece's Rainbow FSP, our FundRazr Account, directly to our Paypal account, checks and cash given to us directly and any goods that are donated for our auctions they will match at their estimated value, regardless of what is actually paid for the item!

The only limit is being fully funded - that means up to $14,000 given will be matched!!!

Is that generous or what!  I gives me goose bumps to share this with people, and I tend to cry just thinking about His goodness to us.  We just don't deserve this.

Here's a quote from her email to me - "My prayer for your family is that by the end of April you are blessed to be fully funded, so you can focus on the process of adoption and preparing your hearts and home for your beautiful daughter. :)  We don't want any public  "credit" because we just see ourselves as processors for God's blessings in our lives."

Praise the Lord with me on His blessings to us.  Pray that we can make the most of this opportunity!  Pray for blessing on Steve and Anita and their family!

Help us by sharing this blog post so more people can be aware of this unprecedented opportunity!

And the winner is...

Heidi Jayne, who made an entry by donating to our adoption fund!

Congrats Heidi, and thanks to everyone who participated!

I hope you enjoyed the video I made!

30 days left to make the most of our adoption matching grant!

We found out yesterday that Lynden's Dutch Bakery is donating a sheet cake for our Spaghetti Feed!  Yeah!

Ahem...and now for public release!

A video to tell our story - our journey to adoption


Feel free to share this as I think this could be a tool used to get the word out that these children need homes and families to love them!

Here are the blogs of the families represent in our journey:

http://carryyourlight.blogspot.com/
http://www.fryefamilyfive.com/
http://theblessingofverity.com/


Prolife means more than just preventing abortion, it means promoting all life, even those who are abandoned or rejected at birth!  Not all are called to adopt, but anyone can support an adoptive family or advocate for these children who are hidden away from the world and left to die.

And don't forget - we have 31 days left to build up our funds to make the most of our matching grant!