Tax Day!

Now that we have fixed one paper, it was time to redo our taxes and sign a paper affirming our signatures.  We did this already for the taxes filed last year, but with the new year we need a new set of documents. We finished the taxes today, so we just need to notarize that paper and wait to receive our immigration approval. Then those two documents will be sent together and our dossier will (fingers crossed!) really, truly be finished. I am getting a little nervous about the state of things in the country we will be traveling to. I am worried for the people who live there, and I am also worried about how the events may affect our adoption. The sooner we are there and back with the boys, the better!

We are sending in the orders for our Superman shirts tomorrow, so this is the last call if you want one!

All of the shirts from our other sale should be sent out and received soon.  Thank you to everyone who helped us by purchasing one! I do have a few extra adult t-shirts in different sizes if anyone wants one.

We are getting a date set for a spaghetti dinner at our church. We will also be doing a silent auction with the dinner. We are still getting things set up with the local paper to advertise for us. I am hopeful that we will have a good event!

We are also collecting shoes! If you want details on how you can help us raise money with shoes (you don't need to be near us to help!) or raise money for your own family's adoption, let me know!

I have also been talking a lot about Salome. I would be so happy to see her in a family.  The giveaway for her has had very few entries. Right now your odds are about 50% for prizes worth as much as $50! Please take a look at the giveaway for her HERE, at the things I've written about her HERE and HERE, her Reece's Rainbow profile with a grant for more than $6000 HERE, and the video about her HERE.  Please share her.

She is so wonderful already, I can't even imagine how joyful she would be in a family. Consider what your life might look like with her in it.  Would you take her on a walk through your neighborhood? A lot of the kids in her building don't go outside for years at a time. Would she snuggle on the couch while you read to her?  Would you dress her in her own cozy pajamas before bedtime? My kids are enjoying cake and cupcakes tonight. Has anyone ever given her a piece of cake, then lovingly washed all the frosting off her fingers and her face while she giggled?

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Please remember these families also!
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So I said before I would love to see what would happen if a chunk of money was showered on Casey's family.  That is still true! Want to know why? They are also going to be Iggy's family.  Do you remember how he aged out over the summer and so many people were so devastated? This is a chance for redemption.  Their FSP needs to say $8300 and they travel in February. They are having another auction!

https://www.facebook.com/events/480659795377663


http://reecesrainbow.org/63228/sponsorcasey

      

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The Campbell family needs $13K more and they travel in about two weeks. They have an auction going on right now!

https://www.facebook.com/events/190488061149994/


http://reecesrainbow.org/63380/sponsorcampbell-2

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The Jenks family needs their FSP to read 23K! They are adopting TWO older girls.  It should be pretty clear by now that these older kids are close to my heart.  I love seeing other families who are also taking older kids into their homes and their hearts.  They travel in February, and I would love for them to be funded. They are selling an adorable unit for young kids on their feelings and emotions.  

There is also a $1 entry giveaway for a tablet, benefiting this family.  Check that out here!

http://crystalkupper.blogspot.com/2014/01/take-your-gotta-have-it-tablet-habit.html

http://reecesrainbow.org/62945/sponsorjenks-2

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The Claus family is not yet fully funded for Donald.  He turns 4 this week, and they are asking people to donate $4 in his honor.

http://reecesrainbow.org/57886/sponsorclaus

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The Novit family is adopting a sweet little boy, and they travel in the spring! Colleen is a great advocate for so many children, and she deserves that same support! They are looking for auction items at https://www.facebook.com/events/447354295393224/ !

https://www.adopttogether.org/novit

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The Kunkle family is adopting adorable little Jenni.  They have a puzzle piece fundraiser right now.

http://reecesrainbow.org/69451/sponsorkunkle

Happy Birthday, Birthday Boy!

Today is Orion's birthday.  He turned 13. We have a few birthday traditions in our house. One of them is that we repeat "Happy birthday, birthday boy!" (or birthday girl) over and over again throughout the day.  I can imagine our comedian loving all the silly things we do.  I can't wait to hear his laugh!

He is getting so big! I can't believe how much he has grown, just in the last few months. Sometimes it is hard to look through all the photos I have of him and see how little he was and how long he has been waiting. A lot of birthdays have passed without a family. As hard as it is to look at these, it is really amazing that we have so many photos of the boys. I am so thankful that we can see how they have grown up, even if we couldn't be there for that part of their lives.



These two photos are from a couple weeks ago.  Look how happy he is to try on clothes.  He will have a whole dresser full of his own clothes soon. See him looking through that book? He will have walls and walls of books when he is here.

This picture is from the fall.  Look how much he has grown since then! I love seeing him with his friends.  It would be so amazing if we could recreate this picture in a couple years with all of the boys in families!

This is from winter last year, near his birthday. They have been in the group home for a little more than a year here, and it has been a great thing for them.

This is the year before, 2012. The boys had only recently moved into their new home.  

And this is from near his birthday in 2011. Isn't he little here?

  Here he is in the summer of 2010. I love this picture.

This is from the summer of 2009. At this point the institution has started receiving more and more visitors to work with the children.

Here is Orion in the summer of 2008. At this point the boys have started to have some time in separate, smaller groups.

This is from a very early visit the charity made to the institution in December 2007 to bring toys and spend time with some of the children. The boys spent all of their time in large groups at this point.  

These are from the charity's first trip to the institution in the spring of 2007. Orion had just turned 6.  These are the oldest photos we have.

We don't know what his life was like before that. We don't know when he might have been transferred to the institution, although many of the other children arrived before they turned 5. We don't know if he was in a better place before being transferred or if he ever lived outside of an institution.

We know that when the charity first visited the orphanage, it was the most overwhelming sight they had seen. We know that the conditions have slowly and steadily improved at the institution, but most visitors would still say the same thing.

Things have improved for Orion and Theo. They were spending their days in an empty room with 30 others with disabilities, both children and adults.  After that, more caregivers were added and a few of the boys began to spend some time in separate smaller groups with some instruction.  Eventually, the group home was built and the boys moved in. They have more attention than before and more lessons, but it is not the same as being in a family. There is also no hope for a future beyond staying at the institution and possibly tending the grounds as some of the other boys who have grown into men do now.

We are very excited to celebrate next year as a family.  If you would like to help us make that happen, we are currently selling Superman Was Adopted shirts to raise the remaining funding we will need to complete the adoption process.

Sweet Salome Is Almost 16

We are kicking off the giveaway for sharing Salome! I can't wait to see how many people will see this beautiful little girl for the first time. The full details for the giveaway can be found HERE. I have talked about Salome before.  You can read that post HERE. There is also a video starring her HERE. Her profile and grant on Reece's Rainbow can be viewed HERE.

What do you think when you see her picture? Can you look past her shaved head? Can you look past the signs of institutionalization? Can you see the joyful child inside her? You have to look for it, but she is in there.

As awful as conditions are in this kind of institution, they are that much worse for the children who are not favorites.  Salome isn't cute like some of the younger children, so she gets even less attention. The thing she loves the most, she gets the least of. I think she is beautiful.  I wish I could show that beauty to other people.

Once she turns 16 she will never have a chance to leave the world she lives in now. She doesn't know how important her birthday on March 13th will be. Who has celebrated any of her other birthdays?

Once she turns 16, there will be no hope of ending the monotony of time in her crib. It will be broken up by an occasional bottle and diaper change. She will get baths, but not as often as they are needed. If she is very lucky, she will get to spend a short amount of time in the playroom with other children. She is not one of the favorite children though, so she will not get the extra time and attention that helps to keep those children alive just a little bit longer. Look at how long she has survived in a place where more than a dozen children can die in a year, where most of the bedridden children like her are buried behind the institution instead of passing another birthday. She is so strong to survive for so long while being given so little. I want her to do more than survive. I want her to live!

Salome needs a family who can accept her where she is and help her grow as much as possible. She has made an amazing amount of progress with just a little bit of time with a massage therapist recently hired by Maya's Hope. So little has done so much for her.  She can sit up.  That doesn't sound like much, but it is when you have spent a lifetime in a laying down room. I don't know what her limits and her potential really are.  I know that her life would be better with a family. I know that a family would be better off for having her in it. I know that she deserves a family just as much as any other child.

Please see her. Please help other people see her too. Help them see this beautiful girl with such strength, locked away on the other side of the world. There is a family out there for her. Maybe they aren't sure yet if they are the right family. Maybe they haven't even seen her picture yet. Help them find each other.

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Remember, go HERE for all of the details about the Sharing Salome Giveaway.  There are tons of prizes, including the Ukraine outline shirt we are no long selling and the Superman Was Adopted shirt we are selling now, plus things from Russia, gift cards, a $50 donation to the waiting child or family of your choice on RR, a personal portrait, and more!

So Much

Before I get started, I want to mention these two things so they don't get lost at the end.

Thank you to everyone who supported our giveaway! We have contacted the winner and we hope she will enjoy her vacation!

There will be a giveaway for sharing Salome that will start on Sunday.  You can read more about Salome at the bottom of this post and at a post I wrote HERE.  She is turning 16 in March and needs a family desperately. If you would like to donate anything to the giveaway PLEASE let me know! We need to have as many people as possible see her so that she can find her family.  There is a family out there for her.  I just know it!  Help us find them!

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This is the longest blog post ever, and I am so sorry for that! I don't have the energy to shorten it or break it up into different posts. I am so burnt out right now.  We have had so much good stuff in the last couple days, but also a little more of the "hard" creeping in.  Is the good there to help us overcome the hard? I hope so, because it is taking a lot of intentional effort today.

So let's talk about the good.  Life is good in so many ways! We were able to walk in and get our fingerprints done early. That was incredible by itself.  It shaves more than a week off for us. We called those in and found out we already have an officer assigned to us. I've heard good things from other families about this officer, which is reassuring.

We are selling our SUPERMAN WAS ADOPTED shirts, and we have had a nice response so far.  We are doing all the legwork on these ourselves, so we are getting a lot more personal interaction than we could with our previous shirt fundraiser.  It has been so neat! We are talking to people who have adopted from or will be adopting from so many places.  There are so many beautiful families and beautiful people in the world, and it has been such a positive experience for us to hear from so many people. That has lifted my spirits beyond measure.

Needing to raise some of our adoption money has been hard on my pride. It puts me outside my comfort zone in so many ways. It has been a miraculous experience too though.  We have received so much unexpected support, both financial and emotional. Seeing friends and family and strangers share pictures of our boys and share our journey to adopt them has been so uplifting. I am very much a person who is happy to stay quiet about things, happy to do things on her own by herself.  I can't do that with this! I have to move beyond myself to get these boys home.  That's hard for me to say, but it's good for me to say too.  In return, I have been given the chance to see so many people offer support.  Each penny in our account, each time someone shares a fundraiser, that's a little miracle in my eyes.  I am a recovering cynic, and this has been so good for my heart and my soul.

One of the nicest things about those shows of support is that they always seem to come when we need it most.  We get home from struggling with a particular document to find someone telling their friends about these boys.  We hit a setback, but make a connection with another family.  Another adoption expense comes up, but a donation comes in.  We've had a few more hard things over the last couple days, so it's really nice to see the support too.


                                     


Let's start in on our hard things.  My 4 year old was kicked out of her ballet class yesterday.  Yeah, that was embarrassing.  With our bitterly cold temperatures, none of my children have gotten the outdoor playtime little kids need so badly.  Everyone in the studio was on edge because of one family's medical crisis, and one of the instructors couldn't be there because of it. In retrospect, when I realized the other instructor wouldn't be there, I should have pulled my daughter out proactively.  I feel a bit guilty for allowing her to remain in a situation where I knew she would fail. If things aren't better next week, we may need to pull her out of the class for the rest of the year.  The combination of the classroom environment and the way misbehavior is handled in the class without the second instructor are just a recipe for disaster for my daughter. We have been working so hard to help her succeed, and she was making a lot of progress. It's not worth it if it starts causing setbacks.

We have one document we are in the process of re-doing.  That isn't a big deal, mostly just an annoyance.  Then we also just found out we won't be able to submit our dossier without a newly filed tax return. With the timing of everything, there is a chance we will have our immigration approval in hand and need to wait on tax documents.  That was frustrating.  We can e-file on January 30th IF we have all of our papers by then. In the grand scheme of things, it isn't that big of a deal.  We thought we were just about at the finish line for this side of the ocean, so it is mentally tough to think we might need to delay things because of taxes.  I hate taxes anyway.  (Surprising, huh?)

I am also worn out from the fundraising.  Our family needs a certain amount of money.  I tried posting it as the header for the blog, before I remembered that we would be spending money out of pocket for the shirts and shipping.  We won't know exactly how much more our FSP needs to read until the shirts are all ordered and shipped, but I'm going to leave the amount at the top for now. I'm trying to find a way for the local paper to do a story about us and a spaghetti dinner we will be organizing plus our shoe drive, but I have to coordinate so many schedules to set it up! I really want that to be a success because that is our local community who will see the difference in these boys once they are here.  I want people to be able to be a part of that, and I can't let calendars get in my way!

There is so much need, and sometimes it feels like so little to go around. I thought that, until I looked at some math another family posted.  I have 300 friends on Facebook. If every one of them donated $40, we would have enough money to complete our adoption including the third child at the same orphanage. If we adopted the child in a different region, another $40 from all of those people would cover those costs too. I have NO expectation for people to give us money. It was just eye-opening to see how quickly that money can be multiplied if it is given by so many people.


                                           



So, more on the need of so many families.  If you would like to fundraise for your own family or a different family or a waiting child, you can read more about the SHOE DRIVE.  It doesn't cost you anything, and everything you collect is credited to the Reece's Rainbow account you select.



Here are some families who need some support!
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So I said before I would love to see what would happen if a chunk of money was showered on Casey's family.  That is still true! Want to know why? They are also going to be Iggy's family.  Do you remember how he aged out over the summer and so many people were so devastated? This is a chance for redemption.  Their FSP needs to say $10K and they travel in February.

http://reecesrainbow.org/63228/sponsorcasey

      

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The Campbell family needs $14K more and they travel in February. They are having a really fun event on Saturday where you can donate a dollar for their daughter!  

https://www.facebook.com/events/331531376988241/

http://reecesrainbow.org/63380/sponsorcampbell-2

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The Jenks family needs 19K! They are adopting TWO older girls.  It should be pretty clear by now that these older kids are close to my heart.  I love seeing other families who are also taking older kids into their homes and their hearts.  They travel in February, and I would love for them to be funded. They are selling an adorable unit for young kids on their feelings and emotions.  

http://reecesrainbow.org/62945/sponsorjenks-2

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The Claus family is not yet fully funded for Donald. They met their matching grant, but they aren't done fundraising yet! They have an auction here!

https://www.facebook.com/ClausAndMitchellFamilyAuction

http://reecesrainbow.org/57886/sponsorclaus

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The Novit family is adopting a sweet little boy, and they travel in the spring! Go look at this adorable little face! Colleen is a great advocate for so many children, and she deserves that same support! They are so close to $3000! Can anyone bump them over that?

https://www.adopttogether.org/novit

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"Salome" is turning 16 in March.  She is delayed, but she is very sweet and she loves attention.  She has the best laugh ever.  I would love to see her in a family!  I have posted about her before HERE.  You can see her Reece's Rainbow page HERE, and here is a video she stars in. Her grant has $6343 now! 

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The New family is now fully funded! That is so awesome!

SUPERMAN WAS ADOPTED....shirts!

Go HERE to see what we have available to ship right now! We won't be placing another order until we have sold most of what we have in stock.

Okay, check it out! I know a lot of people have been looking for these!

We are selling these in adult and youth sizes. Our main shirt colors are red and blue.  The printing is in white. 

They are $20 per shirt, including shipping. For sizes 2XL and up, add $2.  If you are ordering more than 10, we can set up a bulk price.  Want to buy some?  Send the amount to our FSP here http://reecesrainbow.org/67790/sponsorbloom and then email me a copy of your receipt at kayleighbloom@gmail.com with your mailing address, colors, and sizes. If you are outside of the United States, there will be an extra charge to cover our shipping costs.

More questions? Let me know!

ADDING A YOUTH SIZE CHART!

YOUTH SHIRT SIZES

XS - 4/5

SMALL - 6/8

MEDIUM - 10/12

LARGE - 14/16

XL - 16+

Fingerprint Dates!

Yesterday was tough.  We are having the coldest weather in decades.  Sounds like a great time for the furnace to stop working, right? The same exact part burned out on the coldest day last year too! I had all the kids snuggled up in blankets in the bedroom with a space heater.  We even had a picnic lunch on the bed! They thought it was great, but I was busy trying to figure out what we would do if we couldn't get the heat back on right away.

This is what cold looks like.

It was especially frustrating because we have needed a constant cascade of repairs since we began this process.  I heard other people talk about this, but had no idea it was so common! Our house is 20 years old and most of the appliances were original.  We knew when we bought it that we would need to replace things, but we didn't know we would be replacing everything within a few months!  We needed to put in a new hood above our stove. We repaired our washer twice before it completely died. The technician couldn't repair our dryer when it stopped working so that needed to be replaced, and we just replaced our refrigerator today.  We needed to put a new engine in our car, but that was also overdue since the car had 185K miles on it.  It has been tough on our wallet, but it has also been tough on me mentally.  I am not a replacer. Our last house had a 60 year old stove going strong, and I loved it.  It was almost old enough to be cool again!

So clearly I started yesterday feeling a bit negative.  I have faith that things will work out, but there has been a lot of "hard" recently.  We had some great news to turn the day around though! I went out to get the mail, and our fingerprint dates for USCIS were waiting.  This is such exciting news! It was just what I needed to change my attitude. Some departments let you come in before your appointment date, so we are going to try to shave a little time off of the process.  The sooner we can get to these boys, the better!

Now, let's talk about fundraising and our financial status.  I hate doing this! I'm going to put it all out there though.  At this moment, we need about $6350 more to be fully funded for these two boys. We just finished one t-shirt fundraiser, and we are about to do another.  I really appreciate all the support we saw with our last t-shirt sale.  I have just been in awe.  Thank you! I don't want to overwhelm people with our need, especially when so many other families and children are also in need.  We are going to keep working hard, and we will get there!

Right now, we are doing a flash finish to our VACATION GIVEAWAY reboot. If you want to enter, you have until midnight on January 9th. Donate $10 to our FSP located HERE, then email me your receipt. We will drawing a name at random to decide who gets to spend a week in an awesome 8 person suite right near Disney! I have only received one email about entering this giveaway. If you have donated and want to enter, you will need to forward your receipt to kayleighbloom@gmail.com so I can enter you!

We will have more exciting news tomorrow.  Remember how I just mentioned we would have more t-shirts for sale soon? We will be selling SUPERMAN WAS ADOPTED shirts! I will open ordering for those for ONE WEEK.


Please remember the other families linked HERE too.

Shoe Drive Explained!

Reece’s Rainbow Shoe Drive Fundraiser

Who can participate?

Anyone in the eastern half of the United States can participate! Our map explains what you could earn per pound. You can fundraise for a family or a waiting child!

Zone 1 - within 125 miles of Holyoke, MA - 35 cents per pound once 500 pounds have been collected by our participants (25 cents per pound before that) and you can earn 45 cents per pound if you provide your own delivery of 1500 pounds to the business

Zone 2 - West and North of Ohio but outside of Zone 1 - 30 cents per pound once participants collect 500 pounds (20 cents per pound before that)

Zone 3 - all other areas - 20 cents per pound

What do I do?

Collect shoes that meet the guidelines.  When you have enough to fill a few boxes, let us know! We will get you free shipping labels that will be linked to the FSP or waiting child account you would like the credit deposited into. Yep, it’s that easy!

What kinds of shoes can I collect?

Check out our flyer! We need shoes that are gently used, so no holes, tears, or separated soles.  We need shoes for men, women, and children, plus athletic shoes and sports sandals.  We can’t accept flip-flops, crocs, high heels, or boots.  

Do we have a deadline?

No! This fundraiser will continue year-round as long as we have interest.

Why do I want to do this shoe drive? Aren’t there other companies?

Fundraising is hard.  Drives can take up a lot of your time and a lot of your space!  You don’t need to wait until you have thousands of pounds of shoes for this fundraiser.  You don’t owe anything for shipping, so the quoted price per pound is what you actually earn.  You can even mobilize friends and family who live in other parts of the country to collect shoes for you! The contract with the company is already arranged for anyone who would like to participate.  You just need to start collecting!

How do I ship the shoes?

You will request shipping labels. Those labels will also be used to keep track of what account your funds will be deposited into.  You can find free boxes that meet the size guidelines or you can pay a deposit for boxes from certain stores.  If you pay a deposit, you will be reimbursed when the full boxes are shipped.  Larger shipments may also be eligible for free boxes.  Each box will hold about 50 pairs of tightly-packed shoes, and will be shipped to the business we are working with.  Large shipments may request pick-up, or you can drop the boxes off at the mailer.

More questions? Feel free to ask! Email me at kayleighbloom@gmail.com !

What a great day!

Yesterday was long, but good. It started out with an incredible update on Theo from a therapist who was recently hired to work with some of the children. You can support therapy for the kids through Maya's Hope! Theo is not one of the children receiving regular therapy because there are other children with more desperate need right now, but he was able to be evaluated.

It was really great news! His cerebral palsy affects one side of his body more than the other, and the stronger side is in generally decent condition.  That is amazing, because we had been under the impression that he had triplegia and didn't have much use of either of his legs. He does have some joint problems in his hip, which we expected from the amount of time he spends in the same position without stretching and that he is an older child who hasn't had therapy. He does have some atrophy on his weaker side, which we could tell from photographs, but he is able to use all of his limbs to some degree.

We are just amazed. With adoption, you really have no idea how accurate medical records will be. Often they are breadcrumbs, hinting at bigger or different problems. Sometimes concerns are overstated or files are mixed up. You really never know what you will get, so it is best to be prepared for the worst and pleased if things aren't what you prepared for. It is still quite possible that we will find something we weren't expecting. Most of our assessments have been based on photo or video clips, so hearing from someone with expertise who has been there and cares about the kids is just beyond great.

We received a new picture of Orion too! I love his sense of humor. He is wearing a caregiver's vest, which is part of their uniform.  He kept saying that he must be in charge since he was wearing the vest. I love it!  He is pretending to read in the picture, but who knows what he will be able to do once he is here! We know these kids are going to do great things!

It was a good thing that we had such a great start to the day, because the rest of it was spent on a long but productive slog to enable us to mail out our completed documents.  Have I talked about the notary > county certification > apostille process before? It is long and tedious, but a necessary step to validate all of our documents. We were holding completed documents from several different counties that all needed to be checked out. Some counties are wonderful to work with. They have quick, cheerful clerks who do their jobs well. Other counties aren't so great, but in the end you get what you need.  One of the counties was the latter. But I got what I went there for and right now that is what counts.


This will be my last plug for our t-shirts! The sale ends Sunday night. We are really close, and I hope we will hit fifty shirts! We will go back to our VACATION GIVEAWAY next week, so stay tuned if you want another chance to win!

https://www.bonfirefunds.com/bloom-adoption/?r=19547
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All of the families on THIS PAGE still need our support! I know money is tight, and there is so much need.  Little things like sharing fundraisers on your Facebook page don't cost anything, but that support means so much to families.  It helps us keep fighting for these kids when we see how many other people care about them too!

Here is another need.

The Claus family is SO CLOSE to hitting a matching grant. Their FSP needs to read $3840 for them to gain an additional $1000! Isn't their son precious?

http://reecesrainbow.org/57886/sponsorclaus

They have another fundraiser here too!

http://insearchofpearls.blogspot.com/2013/11/piece-of-puzzle.html

Thank You

We are coming into the home stretch of our t-shirt sale! There are only 4 days left.  We have a lot of donations that I would hate to lose!

Come buy a shirt! Share the link with your friends too!

https://www.bonfirefunds.com/bloom-adoption/?r=19547

I am so excited for these boys to meet everyone who has supported them and our efforts.  I just can't wait. I want to thank all of you.  This is a hard process. It is emotional.  I've gone through 4 pregnancies, and my husband will vouch that I have been just as difficult to live with during the adoption process!  He's a saint, so that's saying something!  Every $5 donation buoys me.  Each like and share of our fundraisers reminds me that other people also see just how amazing, how valuable, these boys are. Thank you.

I posted yesterday about some other families and their needs. I can guarantee you that all of them are equally as appreciate of every bit of support they can get.  Go HERE and read about them.  Share their fundraisers. Show them that other people see the value in what they are doing. They are not fighting this battle alone!

One Day Closer

We are closer! Right now the only part of our dossier that isn't ready is our approval from immigration.  Everything else is complete and about to be sent out! Yay! Immigration has all of our paperwork, so we should be moving quickly on that step too.

While our paperwork is nearly finished, our fundraising is not.  Our T-shirt fundraiser runs for 5 more days.  We need 50 orders, or else we will lose all of the donations that have already been pledged.  Go here and order an AWESOME shirt! Youth and adult T-shirts, long sleeves and hoodies!

https://www.bonfirefunds.com/bloom-adoption/?r=19547

We have some other things we are doing for fundraising, including a SECOND ROUND OF OUR VACATION GIVEAWAY (don't forget to email your receipts!), but for the next few days our main focus is these shirts.  I would hate to lose all of the money that people have pledged because we can't sell these fast enough.

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We aren't the only family that needs help fundraising.  In fact, I had a friend ask if we were fully funded because they saw me posting and sharing for other families and waiting children, but not talking as much about our need.  We were close to being funded before we added a second commitment.  We have approval for three children, but at the moment we just don't have enough money on hand.  BUT, lots of other families and waiting children need help too!

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Casey's family is adopting a child who aged out over the summer. I'd love to see what they could do if a large chunk of money fell into their laps!

http://reecesrainbow.org/63228/sponsorcasey

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The New family needs their FSP to read $11,549.96, and they travel in a couple weeks! Time is short!

http://reecesrainbow.org/69114/sponsornew

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The Jenks family needs 23K! They are adopting TWO older girls.  It should be pretty clear by now that these older kids are close to my heart.  I love seeing other families who are also taking older kids into their homes and their hearts.  They travel in February, and I would love for them to be funded.

http://reecesrainbow.org/62945/sponsorjenks-2

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The Novit family is adopting a sweet little boy, and they travel in the spring! Go look at this adorable little face! Colleen is a great advocate for so many children, and she deserves that same support!

https://www.adopttogether.org/novit

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"Salome" is turning 16 in March.  She is delayed, but she is very sweet and she loves attention.  She has the best laugh ever.  I would love to see her in a family!  I have posted about her before HERE.  You can see her Reece's Rainbow page HERE, and here is a video she stars in.

I hope everyone has a great new year, filled with hope and love!