Her room is practically ready!

I've been working to prepare a room for this little girl and I've made some great progress this week. My goal was to have it mostly set up before we leave for Mississippi on Wednesday. This week, we were able to get the walls smooth and fill in the holes (I think they must have had a dart board in that room or something). Then I primed and painted. John hung up the curtains last night and I set up most of the bedding. There are still some things left do, but it is mostly finished now and if we were to get a surprise phone call, we'd be ready for her. Here are some pictures! I wanted to do an accent wall with the hot pink color from her bedding. I plan to paint flowers on this wall that match the flowers on the quilt (only in white and light pink). Click to see a larger image.

My Baby Wishlist

I have been asked by some people if there is anything I need or want for the new baby. So I've put together a little list.

Fuzzi Bunz Cloth Diapers (one size diapers in any girlie color)
http://www.kellyscloset.com/FuzziBunz40R41-One-Size-Cloth-Diaper-3rd-edition-with-Hip-Snap-_p_3666.html

Micah is in cloth diapers in case you are wondering. I have found it to be a lot cheaper in the long run. When this baby arrives we will have two in diapers and one in pull ups at night and that adds up really quickly! I have some already, but I need 12 more.


Recliner Cover in khaki so my lazy boy doesn't clash with the new nursery decor
http://www.surefit.net/shop/categories/wing-chair-recliner-and-ottoman-slipcovers-recliners/la-z-boy-stretch-honeycomb-recliner.cfm?sku=36518&view=0


I have enough clothing for now. She is so small that she is still not anywhere near wearing 0-3 clothing yet and I think I have enough of that for the moment. so I want to wait and see what season it is when she's ready for 3-6 before I get anything else. I'm not sure if it will still be summer or if it will be fall by then. It all depends on how fast she grows.

Our next fundraiser - Zumbathon!!

I guess I posted this on facebook and forgot to put it on here.

I am so excited to announce that we will be having a Zumbathon to raise money for our adoption! What is a Zumbathon? It's two hours of pure Zumba, baby!! Zumba is an aerobic workout that uses Latin dance moves and music to give you a really great workout. It's popularity is soaring around the world because it's just so much fun, and it works. I lost an inch and a half off my waist the first month I did Zumba. My Zumba instructor ROCKS and our classes are a blast!!

This event will take place on 9/26 from 2-4pm at Stafford Sport and Health. You DO NOT need to be a gym member to attend. Tickets are $10 before 9/20 and $12 afterwards (members need to buy a ticket too). If you want to come, I would advise you get your ticket early. Zumba is really popular around here and the classes I go to always fill up early and have to turn people away every week. There are only 110 spots available for this event, but my Zumba instructor has several hundred people on her mailing list. Act fast!

Get your tickets here:
http://golaceygo.com/2_hour_zumba_party_926_for_the_wilcox_family

Want to see Zumba? Check out this spot the today show did:


DISCLAIMER:
Because Zumba is based on Latin dance moves, there is a lot of hip swinging and booty shaking involved. I know that some of my more conservative friends will not enjoy something like this so I wanted to let you know in advance.

Cici's Follow Up

I know some people are waiting to hear how things went tonight. We had a really great turnout. It was so awesome to see so many people who love and support us there tonight. We had some who drove quite some distance to come. I wanted to cry at one point when I looked around and realized that I knew most of the people there and I knew they were there for us. Cici's gives 15% for fundraising events and the amount we got to keep was $107. We also had $13 in our donation box, so the total for tonight is $120. This brings our need down to $9,600. Thank you so much to everyone who came out tonight. It really means so much to us and I'm praying God blesses each one of you!

Cici's Pizza Fundraiser Today!

I have no idea Today is our Cici's fundraiser! I've got fliers in several major stores around here. I also promoted it on Facebook and I emailed about 20 churches in the area and asked them to announce it in church yesterday. I don't know if any of them did it or not, since no one wrote me back, but I pray they did. A friend also offered to hand out fliers for us at an event he was participating in yesterday. So I tried to get the word out. Please pray with me that God brings in a lot of people. Please pray that He brings in more support than I ever could have imagined. And if you come and it's packed and there is nowhere for you to sit and you are local, don't forget that take out is also an option. Just make sure you put your receipt in the bucket so your tab will be counted in the total. Also, please remember that Cici's does not take credit cards.

If the Lord is leading you to support us beyond eating at Cici's, I will have a table set up with some adoption information on it and also a donation box. I will be at Cici's the entire four hours and the rest of my family will be coming sometime between 6 and 6:30 for dinner and staying as long as the boys can handle. If anyone has any suggestions on what might be good to include at my table, please let me know. Please tell everyone you talk to today about our fundraiser and invite all your facebook friends. Thanks and hope to see you at Cici's tonight!

If you need the address please click on the link on the right side of this blog entitled "First Fundraiser."

Follow Me!

I added a followers widget to the blog. You can sign up to be a follower of the blog now so that you don't miss any updates I make.

Another great visit

This morning we had interviews 3 and 4 in the homestudy process. Those were for my visit with our social worker and the home inspection. Everything went really well. The only thing she said about the house was that we needed to have a fire extinguisher. I had to go to Target today anyhow, so I've already picked one up. I turned in our profile books to her and she thought they looked great. Today she will be mailing out reference letters to those we listed as references. That was supposed to have happened awhile ago, but got overlooked. She will need those to come back and she is also waiting on the results of our fingerprint/background investigation. Once she has those things, she will write up our home study and we will be all set. She had wanted to have us done by the end of the month, but now she will have to wait until she receives the letters back so it may still be a few weeks. If you get a letter about me, please complete and return it quickly. We need to be approved before I can start applying for grants and I'd like to get started on that as soon as I can. Pray that the background investigators send their reports back quickly as that can sometimes take awhile.

Next up for us is our fundraiser on Monday evening at Cici's Pizza. If you need more info on that, click the link at the top right side of the page entitled "First Fundraiser." Please pray that God really uses it to bring in a lot of financial support. I'm praying that he will move some people to support us beyond eating there and I will have a donations box out. I will be at the event the entire four hours and John will bring the boys around 6ish for dinner. They will stay until the boys need to go home. Hope to see several of you there!

Adoption Profile

I've spent most of the day working on our profile book. This is like a scrapbook of what life is like in our family. It is shown to the birthmoms for them to choose a family from, so it's very important. I've gotten all the questions we're supposed to fill out completed and I've written the letter to the birthparents. Now I just have to decide what pictures I want to put in our book and how I want to print it and it will be done. Friday morning is our home visit and I still have a few things to do around the house in preparation for that. This weekend is Nathanael's third birthday (and party) so I also need to find time to make a police car cake and get party favors together. It's going to be a busy next three days!

On being pro-life

Just heard this quote and it really spoke to me.

"In order for the church to really say that it's pro-life, it's got to be pro-child. And it's got to be willing to embrace these 4,500 that the world is throwing away every day. Until we're willing to say that we'll take them, we have no right to say they we're pro-life." ~Randy Bohlender

Wow! Talk about conviction! This guy and his wife have an awesome ministry. You can check them out at www.thezoefoundation.com. The 4,500 he's referring to is the number of babies aborted in the this country every day.

Loan Update

I just found out that we are approved for the $10,000 adoption loan! That leaves $10,500 to cover the rest of the adoption. Of that amount, we currently have $750. Please pray God blesses our fundraising efforts and brings in the remaining $9,750. Of course, we'd love his help in paying the loan off as well, so you can pray about that too. :)

Bedding!

I'm so excited! Someone has purchased the bedding I posted about for our little girl! I cannot wait to start putting her room together this week.

A possibility

Well, we may have the $5,000 soon after all. There are places out there that will give adoption grants to people who need them. Every place I'm aware of says that you have to have an approved homestudy first. So I have been planning to apply, but I was wondering what to do about the five grand that I needed before I could get to that point. Apparently, there is a special adoption loan available that we can apply for before our homestudy is done. The limit on this loan is $10,000 so it won't cover the whole adoption, but it would cover what we need next week and leave another five for the next chunk of money that is due. The day we receive a baby, the remaining $15,500 is due, so this would take us down to needing $10,500. Perhaps I will get some grants to help with the remaining part, plus there will be money from our fundraisers to go towards that too. So I'm about to go to the website and print out the loan application stuff. Pray that this is something we'll be eligible for, that we get approved quickly, and that they can disburse the money quickly too!

The latest

We had two of our interviews yesterday. The first was our joint interview and it was followed by John's solo interview. I think our interview went really well. I had been so nervous, but I really enjoyed talking with our social worker. It was a nice time and it didn't really even feel like an interview. She really surprised us when she told us that she was hoping to have our homestudy done by the end of the month. Yeah, the one that is only two weeks away....that end of the month. We had originally been told it could take several months to have our homestudy completed. I asked when she wanted to meet with me for my solo interview and said next Friday would work for me. She suggested that she meet with me at our house and conduct my interview and then do our home inspection. I kind of stuttered for a minute and she asked if that would work. I told her that the only problem was that we didn't have the $5,000 yet. She said she can't approve us until we give her that money, which we knew. I let her know we have a fundraiser scheduled for the 24th. I knew we'd need it soon, but I didn't realize we'd need it next week!! So we did schedule the appointments for next week. It is totally stepping out in faith that God will provide. She said we need to work on getting the rest of the money together as well, because she'd hate to see us lose out on an opportunity because we didn't have the money together yet. She does not think we'll wait long. She also said that we needed to start working on our family profile book and gave us the instructions on how to do that. So I will start on that this week. My head was spinning when I left. It just seems like it's all happening so fast! We are totally cool with that; we just need God to bring the money in.

I now feel like it's time to prepare for her arrival. Last weekend, someone gave me a few girl clothes and someone else is bringing me some more things next weekend. I was also given some brand new stuff today and I wanted to cry. I have longed to have little pink onesies and dresses for so long. I want to start setting her room up. We already have a second crib and changing table, since the boys came so close together, so I have the major stuff. I would like to do her room in pink and green. I am not spending money on new bedding when we do have bedding (however it's not girlie) and we need all extra money to go towards the adoption itself, but I'm praying that God will provide some pink and green themed stuff. I know some of you like to know the little details, so here is what I'd love to do eventually: http://www.tinytotties.com/baby-girl-crib-bedding/Flower-PK-GR-9.htm?&src=shopwiki. I think I'd probably paint the room green, but I'm not sure. Ok, I digress. It's just so much fun to think about this stuff!!

And as if that's not enough....today God sent a message to us through a friend that our baby is coming soon.

Prayer Requests

Pray hard with us that God will provide the $5,000 within the next week or two. Please pray that our fundraiser is a huge success.
Pray that God guides us as we put our profile together and that the birthmom knows we are the family for her baby when she sees our book.
Pray for the social worker to also know which birthmom and baby God has in mind for us.

Beginning the interviews

We will be doing two of our four interviews next week. One is our joint interview and the other is John's solo interview. Please keep these interviews in prayer. By the time we have the 4th interview, we will have to submit $5,000 so please keep that need in prayer!! Thanks!

First adoption fundraiser planned at Cici's Pizza

We are going to be having a fundraiser at CiCi's Pizza in north Stafford on Monday, August 24th, from 4-8pm. Please come join us for dinner and help give a loving home to a little girl at the same time! Cici's will be giving us a portion of the night's profits, as long as you put your receipt in the fundraiser box. (They will only count receipts in the box for their total.) Please help us get the word out! Invite everyone you know and tell any groups you are a part of. There will also be a donation box if you would like to help us beyond eating there. Cici's doesn't take credit cards, so come prepared. We hope to see a ton of you there!

Cici's is located at:
50 Dunn Dr (across the parking lot from Giant and Home Depot)
Stafford, VA 22554