My Heart is Overflowing

Where to even begin?

Our papers are officially submitted! We won't know travel dates for a little while, but we can estimate mid-April to May.

I am overwhelmed with the outpouring of love I have seen as people discover that Barton has a family coming. Thank you, every one of you. So many people have been holding him in their hearts.

We have had people ask us how much more money we will need.  We are guessing that we will need $12,000 more after taking his grant into account. We still need about $5000 for adding Orion as well. Our FSP will need to read $18,887.

If you would like to help, we have a full list of our current fundraisers HERE.  Read about our Superman shirts HERE - TODAY is the last day for this order!  We are also accepting donations for an auction beginning Monday - see that HERE!

Our expenses for Theo are now fully covered! I promised we would share a video of him when that happened. I am so excited to show everyone the awesome music this sweet boy makes.

We have made no secret of our focus on older children who have waited without families for so long. Salome is one of those children.  Her 16th birthday will be March 13th.  A family needs to send in their i600a form and fees before that date.  Getting our form in BEFORE Barton's birthday is the reason we are able to adopt him. If you looked at her even once and wondered if you might be her mama, PLEASE send your form in.  

I don't want her to wait for months after her birthday, left in limbo, waiting to see if a family will commit.  I want a family to step forward for her NOW.  Have you seen her grant?! More importantly, have you seen her? She deserves a chance to be a treasured daughter. She has such a strong, gentle spirit to survive the life she has lived and still melt into giggles over attention.

http://reecesrainbow.org/59327/salome

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There is a boy who has already turned 16 that lives with two of our boys.  He has a family coming! They are traveling very soon. Read more about them and consider helping get him home. They have a few fundraisers listed on their blog. They need their FSP to read $9995. 

http://blakebloggers.wordpress.com/

http://reecesrainbow.org/60507/sponsorblake

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I am still offering two gift cards for an equal donation to the Stolz family, adopting Andrei! You can have a $50 gift card to Montgomery Inn or a $25 card for Honey Baked Ham if you make an equal donation to their account.  Contact me if you donate so I can send you your card! The boy they are adopting used to live at the same place as Theo and Orion.  He aged out during the fall.

http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/andrei-s-turn/93874

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The Jenks family has a matching grant right now.  Their FSP needs to read $8420 to meet it! They are adopting two older girls who have been waiting for a very long time.

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

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The Smith family is adopting Sutter, an aging out teen. Please consider supporting them!

http://reecesrainbow.org/69643/sponsorsutter

Exciting News - Part 3!

Have you guessed the news yet? Here you go! Barton, who turned 16 way back in December, will have a home! He will NOT be left behind.

We are making a leap of faith for an incredible young man. We are so excited for his future here!

He is in a different region than our other two boys, so we will need to raise an additional $12,000. The village helped find him a home so I know we can all work together to get him home! PLEASE share our fundraisers and consider donating to our auction!

New Announcement - Coming Soon!

We have an announcement coming soon! We can't wait to share it with everyone. You can start guessing now but you will need to check back to find out what it is!

I am happy to say that Salome met her $1500 matching grant! Her grant will be almost $11,000! If you are thinking about adopting her but aren't sure, PLEASE send in your i600a now so that it arrives before her birthday on March 13th.

Watch her NEW video! 2 minutes isn't too much to give. If you feel moved, share it!

We are really hoping that our papers will be submitted tomorrow, so keep your fingers crossed for us! After that it is usually 2-3 months to travel.

Our $50 donation match is still going on. We have received $20 toward it, so only $30 to go! We need less than $200 to completely cover the costs for Theo's adoption. That is amazing! We will be sharing a video of Theo making music to celebrate when we have funded his portion of the adoption expenses.

We have quite a bit of fundraising that we need to do. Our next Superman shirt order will be submitted on Friday, February 14th. Get your orders in now if you are interested!

Superman Shirt Page

We are also selling handmade wooden knitting needles if you or someone you know would like a set. I can customize the length and I have a variety of colors for beads on the single points.

If you have made a donation in payment for one of our fundraisers, please make sure you forward your receipts and order information to kayleighbloom@gmail.com so I can send you your items!

Our auction is starting next week! I still need to sort and photograph a lot of items. Donations are also welcome if anyone has something they would like to offer. I would really like to raise half of the cost to add Orion to our adoption. Do you think we can raise $2500? It is a high goal, but I think we have a shot if we get more donations and have lots of people sharing the auction.

Empty the Shed Auction Page

If you are local to us you can also take part in our shoe drive. We are collecting gently used shoes as another fundraiser. Other people can use the same program to collect for their own families or sponsored children, so let me know if you are interested in taking part!

Thank you so much to everyone who has been helping us! You have been a huge part of the process for us!

Help People See Salome

The new video for Salome is finished! I am excited that this will give us a way to introduce her to even more people.  Please watch it and share it with your friends.

She also has a $1500 matching grant until Valentine's Day. Her grant will be over $10,000 when that has been met, almost half the cost for her adoption! It would cover the cost to add her to an adoption from the same orphanage or region, and most of the cost if you are adopting from another region.

http://reecesrainbow.org/59327/salome

Can you help her find her family? Is it yours?

Latest Update!

I will start with some exciting news! We have a $50 matching grant! The next $50 we receive in donations will be doubled!

We are almost submitted. We hoped yesterday would be the day, but now we are hoping for Thursday the 13th.  We haven't gotten back official information about either of the boys yet.  We are hoping to hear about Theo soon, but Orion's papers were only turned in this week so we won't have his results until around the same time we get our travel dates. There *shouldn't* be any problems, but it would be good to know that the official paperwork says it too!

Speaking of traveling - we still have no idea when we will travel. (Sorry about that!) We can guess it will be 8 to 12 weeks from now. Some people travel in as little as 4 or 5 weeks, but we can't submit our dossier for the faster process because we don't know for sure if our boys qualify.

When our FSP reads $1887 we will be fully-funded for Theo's adoption costs. I have an awesome video of him playing a xylophone that I can't wait to share! At this moment we are at $1201.  We have a check for $527 that should be added any time now, which would bring us up to $1728.  We have a bunch of fundraisers that you can check out HERE! $159 and his costs will be covered so we can start working on Orion's!
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Here are some other fundraising needs:

Salome has a $1500 matching grant that ends on February 14th. Her grant needs to read $8711 for her to receive the match. Her total grant will be over $10,000 at that point!

Her birthday is March 13th so we really need to help her find a family. A family ONLY needs to mail in form i600a before her birthday. (Homestudy can be done later!) It takes a few days for paperwork to get through the internal mail system for USCIS, so it needs to happen in less than a month!  Please tell people about her. You never know who might be her mama.

http://reecesrainbow.org/59327/salome

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There is a t-shirt fundraiser for the Kunkle family, adopting Jenni.

https://www.bonfirefunds.com/just-for-jenni

http://reecesrainbow.org/69451/sponsorkunkle
          


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Sutter's family could use some support!

http://reecesrainbow.org/69643/sponsorsutter


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The auction for the Novit family ends TODAY! Check it out!

http://treasuresinhiddenplaces.blogspot.com/



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I am still offering two gift cards for an equal donation to the Stolz family, adopting Andrei! You can have a $50 gift card to Montgomery Inn or a $25 card for Honey Baked Ham if you make an equal donation to their account.  Contact me if you donate so I can send you your card! The boy they are adopting used to live at the same place as Theo and Orion.  He aged out during the fall.

http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/andrei-s-turn/93874

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The Jenks family has a matching grant right now.  They still need $993 to meet it! They are adopting two older girls who have been waiting for a very long time.

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



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I am very happy to say that Casey and Iggy's family is now funded!

            

Knitting Needles

We have another fundraising item! I am taking orders for handmade wooden knitting needles.

Our main diameters are approximately 4.7mm (7.5), 6.3mm (10), and 8mm (11).

I can make single or double pointed sets in any length. Single pointed sets start at $15 plus shipping. Double pointed sets with 5 needles start at $20 plus shipping. I can combine shipping for multiple orders.

These are our bead choices.  The clear beads are only available with the smallest needles.

I have two color options for the wood in the 6.3mm and 8mm sizes. The darker wood is oak and adds $2 to each set.

You can send an email to kayleighbloom@gmail.com to place an order.

I will make larger gauge needles for novelty yarns soon too!

Our Dossier Is Done!

We received our fixed immigration approval, so we took care of that and sent it on its way! We have finished our dossier! Now we are waiting for it to be submitted. I am SO excited!

Our Superman shirts are in! If you haven't gotten an email, let me know! Most of them have already been mailed out. The blue shirts were a different shade than we expected, so I contacted everyone who ordered one. If you want a replacement, I will gladly provide one!  Our next order will be going to the printer in a week or two.

Other than that minor mix-up, I am very happy with how the shirts turned out. The company was great to work with and I would recommend them to anyone else printing shirts in our area. Contact me if you want me to pass on their info!

I am starting to get items listed on the auction page. You will be able to email me to enter a bid without a Facebook account. If the auction page is not available, it may be offline temporarily while I am loading photos and descriptions. It will go up again as soon as I am finished.

You can see our auction here:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Empty-the-Shed-Auction-for-Theo-and-Orion/206328386227205

I will be making wooden knitting needle sets if anyone is interested. I may or may not dip into my fabric and yarn stash. I have been debating whether I should post the materials or make and sell things with them. I still haven't decided! These will be for sale ahead of time and in the auction.

My children have been begging for a way to contribute to our fundraising. They have offered very treasured possessions for the auction. One of them even suggested we make our own money to pay our expenses. (No, we won't be counterfeiting!)  We agreed that I will post a few auction listings for pictures they have made. They are very excited to be able to help.

I will also be listing our last outline shirts in the auction. We have had more interest in these. Once we have sold our remaining shirts, we can reopen that fund. We need to be able to sell fifty shirts for them to be printed. I will include our remaining Superman shirts in the auction and also offer a place to order one if we don't have your size or favorite color in stock.

If you have anything you would like to donate for our auction, please let me know! Typically items like gift cards sell well and are inexpensive to ship.

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I am happy to say that more people are posting about Salome! Her birthday is still quickly approaching, but it is heartening to know that more people are spreading the word.  I will be honest. A few others and I have been shouting for Salome for months. It didn't seem to be helping. I was feeling negative about the apparent lack of interest.  This is a huge step in the right direction. I hope it is a turning point!

Here is one of the posts that people are sharing:
http://covenantbuilders.blogspot.com/2014/01/fatherless-friday-salome.html

There should be another big one soon too!

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I am offering two gift cards for donations to this family.  You can have a $50 gift card to Montgomery Inn or a $25 card for Honey Baked Ham if you make an equal donation to their account.  Contact me if you donate so I can send you your card! The boy they are adopting used to live at the same place as Theo and Orion.  He aged out during the fall.

http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/andrei-s-turn/93874

Next Fundraiser: Empty the Shed Auction for Theo and Orion!

This is our shed.  It is filled, floor to ceiling, with bins.  Since I haven't seen the contents of most of these bins since we moved them into the shed when we bought this house, I don't think we need all of these things.  What we do need is to finish our adoption of these boys.  So we are emptying the shed!

I will start posting items on our Facebook page in anticipation of kicking off the auction on February 17th! It will run for 2 weeks, until March 3rd. If you have anything you would like to donate, please send me an email at kayleighbloom@gmail.com so I can list it! I can give you credit and link to your site or I can post items anonymously. If you are local to us, we will also start collecting items for a silent auction at our spaghetti dinner soon.

CHECK OUT THE AUCTION PAGE HERE!


Thank you so much to everyone who has been supporting our fundraisers in any way.  It means so much to us to see so many people helping us and helping these incredible boys!

A Mistake?

A paperwork mistake? During adoption? Who would have guessed? (That was a joke.) With all of the mountains of paperwork we need to complete, mistakes are bound to happen.  This one was a typo with our immigration approval! It should be fixed and sent again shortly.

I'm even more impatient than usual because of the things going on in Eastern Europe.  It will be much easier for me to be at peace knowing I've done all I can once this is fixed. At that point it will be out of my hands, and whatever happens is out of my control.

Fundraising: We still need about $5700 more to cover our costs for Theo and Orion.  That is $2850 per child; $2850 per life! We WILL commit to a third child once we raise the money for these two.

Our Vacation AUCTION will finish tomorrow (Sunday) at 10 PM EST.  Bidding is at $250 for a WEEK in a 2 bedroom 3 bathroom suite with a full kitchen and dining area!

We do still have a few extras for both of our shirts! If you missed ordering, contact me to see if we can work something out!

I'd also like to ask everyone to please remember Salome. Her giveaway is almost over, but a family has not stepped forward yet.  A family needs to send in the i600a before her birthday on March 13th. She is so worthy of a family.

http://reecesrainbow.org/59327/salome


 

Immigration Approval!

I am so excited! Our final immigration approval has been issued! It should be in our mailbox any day now.  This is our last piece for the US side! We just need to go through the notary and apostille process, then our last papers will be sent out. I will be stalking the mail carrier!

I am trying to remain calm about fundraising too.  Trying! Actually, the word calm isn't even in my vocabulary today.  I am bouncing all over the place because I am still so excited! But I'm also trying not to worry about the funding and keep plugging away on it. Moving on to the next stage is a good reminder that we need to raise the rest of this money within a couple months.

I also have a new photo of each of the boys to share with you! These kids are the reason we have put in so much time, energy, and money!

Don't you love Theo's smile? We certainly do!

Orion is a very good supervisor and helper!