The Waiting Game...

Well, I put in applications today, and I will again tomorrow. If we can do it before our homestudy is complete, we are also going to apply in the next week or so to the Both Hands Ministry through LifeSong Ministry. Both Hands is a project to help a widow and at the same time you are earning funds toward your adoption. You can earn up to 10,000.00 in funds. What a huge chunk of money just for spending a day volunteering to help a widow! Wow, what a blessing...

http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/bothHands.html

Please check it out. What a way to help widows and orphans :)

Getting Ready To Go Out...

Looking for a job AGAIN!!! Something has to give soon. And I am noticing other job opportunities as we are out and about, soooo....

I am going to Target. I figure if I get a job there, that money will go toward our immediate adoption expenses, and maybe there will be a discount? I saw a beautiful comforter/sheet set that we want for their room! And some furnishings for their room, too. Not to mention all the pretty clothing for girls there :)

Also, Babies/Toys R Us is hiring. Either place will work for the same thing, adoption expenses and discount for future purchases. Just praying that something comes available soon! God is Great and He will provide what we need! :)

Have a great day!

Happy 28th Birthday Christopher!!

You know, I woke up today with a thought...my oldest son Chris is 28 years old today! WHAT...where did the time go??? Boy did I feel old, but then I remembered that Chris is my oldest! I felt so much better because my youngest son, Cale is just 20! WHEW! :D

28 years ago today was Easter Sunday and Christopher was born! I went into labor with him on Good Friday, was in labor for 36 hours and the dr. finally gave up and did a c-section. I was young and he was my first! God gave me my son and He changed my life. My sister and I are totally the opposite, like night and day! My sister was always the babysitter for all the cousins and neighborhood children, and I wasn't and I loved that! That is until that fateful day, April 11, 1982 when I became a mom! I absolutely fell in love with Chris and have LOVED each of my children and have been in love with children ever since! I have taught preschool Sunday school, high school Sunday school. Children are the future...we really need to invest in their lives in a big way! Investment starts with love...

We came back in town last year right on his birthday, so celebrating happened a few weeks later, but this year we are going to celebrate ON his b'day and are having his favorite...grilled barbecue chicken, potato salad and Coke! We missed doing this while we were in Kentucky.

We loved our boys and really did have a time of it trying to raise each of them, in different ways, and sometimes had to question whether we'd make it through every stage...but we are happy to say that Chris is exactly how we raised him to be. He is loving and caring, would give the shirt off his back to help someone (even in the cold) and he is a great kid!

He is looking forward to the twins getting here, and I think they will really LOVE their big brother Chris!

Happy Birthday Chris...we're glad we're home again to celebrate your day! We love you! :)

Here Is Our BUTTON!!

Grab This Button

Here is the blog button that Lu made for us! Thank you sooo much Lu! If anyone knows me, that button is perfect for what I am about! We are so excited to share our button with anyone who wants to share it with others to help us bring them home sooner! :)

About 3 weeks ago the MOJ of the twins country gave us the okay to file papers for the twins to be ours... That, to us, is HUGE! We are so excited for the day we fly to pick them up!!! They are so special to us.

So now I'm in 'super get busy' mode. We figure if we need to stay here a little longer, then we will bloom where we are planted. God provides, we just need to be patient and wait for Him. I won't lie, being patient isn't easy for me, and this seems to be an underlying thread of learning for me, but at least I can see that now, and with His help, we will be fine.

So, today I am in the pantry and the kitchen. I am clearing things out to sell in our yard (tag sale here in New England...just a little cultural lesson :) sale, organizing for our eventual move and getting ready for our homestudy to begin.

Then to switch wardrobes from winter to summer so we can get rid of all these storage tubs out of the twins bedroom.

I am also going to put in an application for a job. They are not hiring or interviewing until 4/15th, so if I get that job, at least I will have had a jump start on cleaning and getting ready for our homestudy! Yay!

So please pray for this job opportunity...it could easily help us to bring Slavka and Sandra home to us! :D And that will make me one happy mama!

Can You Tell?...

Can you tell how excited we are to have them with us next Easter? This is the pic of a couple of things we bought for them...cute felt Easter baskets, some bunny necklaces and rings, some stickers and grape flavored lip balm and a bible matching game...I can't wait to go get them, we'll be bringing these things with us when we go... :) I just thought I'd share!

Keep us in prayer as we do our fundraising...so we can go pick them up soon! :)

Happy Easter! He has Risen!

We had a very nice Easter Holiday with our family. We enjoyed spending time with my parents and our boys! Even more, we had a glorious day remembering that this is the last time we will be alone on Easter morning...next year we will have two beautiful little girls, Slavka and Sandra, to have an Easter morning Egg hunt, and then dress in frilly dresses for church! And I will once again be able to color Easter eggs and all of the other fun things we did on Easter morning...until the boys grew up!

I have to admit, I did buy Easter hats (pictured above, for some reason I can't get this blog to put pics where I want them) and little Easter baskets with little trinkets...I just couldn't help myself this year :)

I am beginning to count down the holidays we have without the girls... Mother's Day, Father's Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, first day of fall and hopefully they will be here before Thanksgiving! What a wonderful Thanksgiving that will be! We are so excited to have a full house again! God is so Great! :)

Have a great night!

Recapping...Again...STILL...

We are still waiting...for a lot of things...still...

I am working on a crib sized baby blanket, still. I am in the process of making 20 more pins, still. I am trying to figure out how to get them out where people can see them and where we might sell the pins so that we can reach our goal, still.

I am trying to get the word out about our puzzle fundraiser, pins, prayer blankets so people will help us bring the girls home, still. I am working on a huge yard sale, still.

I am still waiting for a job, I will be going to fill out an application for a receptionist job that I qualify for, but won't know anything until after April 15th. Praying real hard for a job, still.

We just had someone donate to the girls, she purchased a few pins and donated above that, so we are in the neighborhood of $650.00 to $700.00 away from our commitment fee! Another step closer! That truly did our hearts good...so as of tonight we have a new way to view 'STILL'...

Psalm 46:10-Be still and know that I Am God. He truly is Great and has provided thus far, so we are still and we know that He is in Control. :) We'll be there for you girls, your Father has Promised!

Happy Birthday Cale!!

How's this...two post updates in one day! It's a record for me I think :) I just wanted to say Happy Birthday to my youngest son, but he's no longer the baby. I just spoke to him and he is excited about his new sisters, but I didn't dare call him the big brother yet :)

I miss having him here all the time, making me laugh and saying silly things. I guess we can say that he is the reason we are adopting. I had so much fun with him having him here all the time, homeschooling him and teaching him right from wrong, I just stayed young through it all. He is goofy, like his dad and I was lucky enough to have him home with me!

Well, as much as I am proud of him, I am also melancholy as today my last teenager turns 20...so no more teens at this time. But I take great comfort in the fact that soon we will have little ones again in the house...keeping us young and making me happy! No more silent empty nest! YAHOO!!!

Well, I have to go finish email and being a housewife...HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY CALE!!!

Well I Thought...

I really thought I would just feel the way I felt when I heard from our facilitator about the country's decision to allow us to adopt the girls...just loaded with nervous energy! Right? Yeah, that's all, and then I'd want to go out and window-shop, looking for things for the twins! Yeah, that's it.

I have seen others who say they were moved to tears when they found out and such, but that didn't happen to me. Then, on Wednesday afternoon when I received a note from Andrea, it didn't say anything in the subject line, so I opened it and there was a link and the message was copied to the woman, Lu from England, who makes the blog buttons. All the note said was 'Up and running'. So I sat there and couldn't figure out what that was all about...that was probably the longest 1 minute of my life, then I clicked on the link...

And then the tears came pouring down my face and I must have cried for at least the first 5 minutes...there on the opened RR page was our beautiful twins faces and our family profile that said 'Slavka and Sandra for the Stancil Family-Manchester, CT'. It was probably the first time it wasn't surreal for me! If you were sitting here watching me type this right now you would see me crying again!

I called Tony at work and told him through my tears, and he said 'There's no crying in adoption!' which did get me laughing...he's a goof-ball like that! I still can't look at that page without tearing up! I didn't think I'd be this sappy, I just figured I would be full of nervous energy, but no, cry baby is more like it. I really have to practice not crying, I'm gonna mess those two babies up when we finally go get them...they will think I was sad or something! And going to see the officials! UGH...I hope they can discern happy tears from sad!

Well, gotta go look at my daughters again and cry some more...have a very blessed day!

They are OURS!!!

I just love saying that :D We are so excited and our love grows stronger everyday! I get up everyday and check the 'my family found me' page just to make sure this isn't really a great dream that I just woke up from...and everyday their pictures are there, and I just want to reach into the screen and squeeze them both and give them hugs and kisses! I have been waiting too long for daughters, they don't have any idea what they are in for!!!

We are about $800.00 away from promise fee...I have a couple of good friends that are helping me plan a large yard sale, complete with baked goods and maybe some lemonade (or just kool-ade, or maybe some sweet tea-we learned something while we were in Louisville)! I am now starting to plan a 6 to 10 mile walk for adoption...just trying to get a hold of people that have organized large walks like I'm thinking...we'll see ;)

I am also looking into 2 job possibilities this week, maybe at Babies R' Us and the other at Walgreen Drugstores. Please pray that I am successful! I am really getting excited at the prospect of working and being able to take care of our homestudy within the next couple of months, and then for the other expenses that we are finding in our guide book for their country. I am getting excited by the hour, I can't believe they are ours, right now it seems surreal...maybe I'll go back to see if they are still on that mffm page! Yup, they are still there! :D Did I say I'm really excited? :)

Thanks for following our blog! We hope you had a very blessed weekend!

Oh HAPPY HAPPY WEEK!!!

Well, if you have been looking at the 'my family found me' page on Reece's Rainbow, you will notice that our 'TWINS' are there! We had sent in our information to our facilitator and to Andrea, but I had not thought things would happen so fast, at least not until Monday of this week. We found out kind of by accident, someone emailed about the new page that was created and she was happy to see new commitments there including our two, Sandra and Slavka!

So my heart sank, :( I worked up the nerve to email Andrea to ask who had come forward, or was it us. She responded so quick that my stomach flipped. I told Tony I couldn't look, so he said he would...and here was her response:

YOU are the family! :)

I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT!!! I think my heart really sang! I have only felt that way a few times in my life, the day I was married, and everytime I found out I was expecting! I totally feel like we are pregnant, minus the sinus headaches for three months and the night sickness! We are SOOO EXCITED!!! I had so much nervous energy we took a drive and ended up looking at things for the girls! Like I didn't already create a tote of things for them, like cute magenta tops I found on clearance, Hello Kitty hot cocoa mugs, a bouquet of 'stuffed flowers' with faces, a bible memory game...and more!

I'm not sure if we can announce it on the elist until our FSP is posted, so until or unless I hear otherwise, this is the only place that we will announce that Sandra and Slavka are OURS!!!!

Now reality of the work ahead has set in...we received the guide for the country we are adopting from...and there is so much to do! I just thank God for those who have walked this path before me, their experiences will certainly be appreciated! One step at a time. And I refuse to panic about the money. There are several people we know who are nay-sayers and are really trying to make things much bleaker than it needs to be. If it is God's will, these girls, God's girls, God will see to it that every penny, dime and dollar will be there! :) AAAAAHHHHH - THEY ARE OURS!!!!!

We did find out that we cannot rename the girls the names that we chose when we adopt them, the only change will be their last names. I'm just excited to bring them into our family, I think I'm okay about not renaming, at least at first.

The information on the hows and whys of their country is really exciting, but intimidating. There is so much we will need to gather, but after following many blogs, especially 'beautifulgiftofGod', Bella and her family, I know we can do this and that it will feel amazing when it's over!

Our biggest prayer is that we can get everything done and have them here with us before Thanksgiving...What a wonderful day of Thanksgiving that will be!!

We are PRAISING our God for the opportunity to be Sandra and Slavka's mama and daddy! AAAAAHHHHHH!!! The TWINS are OURS!!!!

Well...we just keep plugging along!

Our days are filled with bad stuff like cars breaking down to exciting things like friends coming along side us and making donations to our adoption! I truly feel like life right now is a roller-coaster ride! This past week, we had someone who has become very special to us on this journey tell us that she and her husband would like to donate to our adoption. Well, I was speechless, (which doesn't happen very often) then I regained my composure and emailed back. They sent us a wonderful love offering which is allowing us to send in our Voice Of Hope fee and Family Sponsorship Page fee along with our applications. We can now concentrate on our promise fee and then our homestudy fee. Little steps, but steady steps. We also had a couple of people donate to the twins fund page which is even more encouraging to us! We really had a very blessed week from truly special people in our hearts, and God will bless you for your gracious gifts! Thank You!

Tony and I chose names for the girls the other night and we are so excited about our choices! Can't wait to share them...email me if you want to know what they are, we aren't going to share on our blog until after the facilitator and court accept us to adopt them.

I went out looking for a job this morning at temp agencies, because once I get the twins home I intend on devoting my whole being to them as a full time sahm and homeschool them, as I think that teaching them one on one is the best way to overcome their issues.

Well, the trip to the temp agencies were very unfruitful...there is truly nothing out there, so I am just praying something will open up soon, anything, even retail! I will be going out again tomorrow morning, so if you can pray for success in this, that would be great!

But as we go out on this journey, we know this...God does have a plan for us and for the girls, we just need to continue to be patient...He will provide a way for us to bring them home! :)

What I'm Doing Now...Prayer Blankets

Pink, Purple, Blue, Green, Yellow with Pink Border

I am making my Prayer Blankets available for order. I started making Prayer Blankets about 10 years ago in Ashley Nichole's honor. I call them Ashley's Dream. Here are pictures of them in the colour pallet I follow.

Blue, Pink, Purple, Green, Yellow, Blue border

Green, Yellow, Blue, Purple, Pink, Green border

Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Pink, Yellow border

Small is Carseat sized $45.00
Medium is Nursery/bassinet/layette sized $55.00
Large is Crib sized $75.00

All prices include shipping unless you are out of the US. And these prices are subject to change if prices of yarn goes up astronomically. I am selling these to raise funds to bring our girls home! Yes another fundraiser :) Anything to get them home! Please email me if you are interested in one and we'll talk price then. And if you are a Reece's Rainbow family, I have special pricing for you so that it isn't so pricey...adoption fees are bad enough without having to spend a lot for something special!

I am keeping my idle hands and minds busy, so that I don't become discouraged in our journey! So, To God Be The Glory!

Have a blessed weekend! :)

Plugging Along...

Well, yesterday was a busy day for me. I went comparison shopping, found a better place to shop, visited with our friend that hosted our party, and I may have landed a temporary part-time tutoring job to teach a woman from Peru how to speak english, and she and her friend would pay me for the tutoring which will be a donation to the twins. I am beginning a very temporary pt english tutoring job starting this Saturday. I will be helping a woman learn to speak english and understand what she is reading for her citizenship exam in a couple months.

Every little bit helps, and I'm still praying for a full time job to hurry to bring the girls home, but we'll see what God has planned! Can't wait for the day that I can look back on all this and 'laugh?'...

Today, I took all of our donations to date and wrote names on the back of the puzzle pieces to begin! We had enough to write names on 80 pieces today! You can see pictures on our 'Puzzlemaniac' website. At least I feel like we are getting somewhere...not fast, but we are getting somewhere...And we are grateful for every donation! :)

Well, time to get some more house work done, enough day dreaming of the day we get to bring them home! :D Okay, I'll multitask...I'll daydream and do housework at the sametime! Sounds like a plan...

Hope you have a blessed day!

New Sense of Purpose...

It's funny, the longer we wait, the more determined we are becoming in our quest to get those girls! Everyday that passes, my desire to be their mommy is stronger. I am sad that we couldn't commit to them on their birthday Saturday, but it's okay, that was MY plan, obviously not God's! I just pray that God gives them a sense of peace that they will be okay while they wait. They are wanted in the worst way, I just pray that He tells them they will have a mommy and daddy, and three big brothers waiting to spoil them! And a beautiful black lab named Maddie that will finally have her own little girls to love on!

I can tell that we have a couple of friends praying for us right now because I do have a sense of peace myself. I'm still not sure how everything is going to happen, but I do feel that God 'has our backs' ;)

So in the meantime, I am busying myself with adoption paper work, reading materials, fund-raising crafts and making plans for our presentation at church. Staying busy is the only way not to go stir-crazy for me! Thank you Father for busy work! :)

Have a blessed night!

Happy Birthday Girls...

Today is a difficult day for us. Today is Slavka and Sandra's 7th birthday and they still don't have a committed mommy and daddy. We still want to be, and some of our family is on board...but a simple $1000.00 stands in our way to begin that journey to bring them home. Just last night someone said they thought our gold party was today. :( We are still reminding ourselves that God is in control! So...we keep plugging along...

These are our steps:

I make prayer blankets for babies in Ashley's honor and I just received an order for one this morning and the profit will go toward the twins. I will be posting them on my Etsy.com store if you are interested. And if you are a RR family and wish to purchase one, let me know, there is a discounted price than what is posted on Etsy.

I am applying for full time job that pays a fair amount. I'm praying I hear from them soon so that we can start the process. I have also decided to go to some of these temp agencies and see if I can find temp work that pays a fair wage.

We are going to share what we are doing at our church on March 14th at our pastors request. Maybe that will place some solidity in people's minds that we are serious and perhaps convict some others to either step forward to help or maybe commit to giving to RR in the future.

We will keep on fundraising in any way that we can come up with. As I have said in past posts, God is still in control and if it is His Will, these girls will become ours on His schedule, not ours, although I like my time table better :) He knows we love them already and He also knows what is best...I guess I still have some learning in patience... That seems to be a NEVER ENDING lesson for me...

Pray for us, please, as we continue to try to commit to bringing these girls home...

God Is Still In Control...

Well, we had our GlitterBug Party yesterday. We had pink and white frosted cupcakes, and my son's girlfriend Virginia, her friend Courtney and I sang happy birthday to Slavka and Sandra! There was lots of food, and I had wonderful fellowship with the GlitterBug Rep that drove down from Maine to be here for the day.

The party was planned to be 11am-4pm as an open house so that while people were out and about, they could stop by for some refreshments and to sell their gold and walk away with money. Not sure at this point what God is up to, but time will tell. One of my best friends thought the party was at 7 pm so she didn't make it, but she is still going to sell her gold, she is thinking locally and just give us the total, which would be better than 10% of the sale. I also had a few that said they couldn't make it, but they'd be praying, and others that didn't have any gold to sell but they would give a donation. Out of 160 invitations sent out, a total of 12 people responded, and only 3 people came and we had a total of 3 sales...yes 3, one being my own gold. Our total was $204.00 toward our promise fee. Not alot, but something is totally better than nothing!

I would be a liar if I said I wasn't disappointed...I'm very disappointed at this point, but...I also have immense faith in my Father. I know that He has a plan, and it's better than mine :).

Even though we didn't make much, my parents are donating some of what they sold at the party yesterday, My BFF is donating what she can to the promise fee. The best part of yesterday was getting to know our Rep from GlitterBug. It was funny because the past few times we talked on the phone, she kept talking about what we would do during our down-time, but there were no awkward moments at all, the six hours flew by. We got along great, she was so sweet, we had alot in common and she was like a sponge about homeschooling and adoption. Because she did a party in Virginia a few weeks ago for someone on RR, and then she did my party, she is very interested in learning more about adopting through RR. That may be what God had planned all along. And if that is all He had planned, then that is all that mattered. It's up to us to keep praying and having faith that He will provide for this adoption in His own time and way.

To God Be The Glory...

First Fundraiser: GlitterBug Gold Party/7th Birthday Party!

We are excited at the prospect of having many family members and friends come to sell their unwanted gold/silver jewelry so they can make some cash and the twins will benefit by bringing us closer to committing to our beautiful daughters! I am praying that we will be able to do this sometime early next week so Slavka and Sandra will have the hope of a mama and daddy for their very own! What a wonderful birthday gift!

And as soon as they get home they will have a princess party like the one we will have for them this Saturday! I already have a princess table cloth and pink and white streamers... and we will be picking up balloons and cake for them. Pictures will be taken and added to their lifebook that will be scrap-booked.

Soooo excited to see what can be done for Slavka and Sandra... please pray for this weekend and for the twins that really need a mama and daddy! :)

Getting out of first gear

Well this is hubby/daddy writing tonight. The last few days have felt like we have kind of shifted gears a little bit. Still a long way from full throttle and racing to the finish line but progress nonetheless. I will be sharing with our church the second week of march. JoEllen can't do it because she is a big wimp when it comes to public speaking. That is okay though since she does a lot more than me anyway. I can't wait to let people how God wants to use His people to give these awesome kids a home. I hope I don't turn into a boring windbag. We are very excited to begin partnering with our wonderful church family. Unfortunately my current job keeps me from being there on Sunday mornings. We are praying that changes soon. My prayer and focus will be to inspire more men to take the lead when it comes to adoption. I'm tired of hearing story after story of women having to sell their husbands on the idea. Its time for us guys to get off the couch and into the game and start taking the lead in this. That is God's plan, not mine. If God is calling your family to bring a child home from another part of the world then it is the husband that leads the way into those far away places, not the wife. She is our helper but God has commissioned us to lead the way. Ladies, tell your husband to read the wonderful piece I have linked here tonight. I was convicted. I hope you guys will be too.

http://www.reformation21.org/articles/the-manliness-of-adoption-testosterone-and-pure-religion.php

What An AMAZING Day! My Head Is Still Spinning!!!

Okay, we started our day with a visit to our pastor, and he was totally encouraging of our plans to adopt! He prayed for the girls, us and our time with our parents this afternoon. That was step one...he also asked us to gather as much information that we can about Reece's Rainbow and make a dvd presentation on the children that are available for adoption so we can present this to our church family. Tony will be working on a sermon about adoption to present to the congregation... and we may begin an adoption ministry at our church! That was amazing in itself, but...

The most amazing thing of all was that we went to visit my parents this afternoon, we just stopped in, my grandmother was there with them to share in the news of our adoption plans, and we told them! It went over okay, which is what we had hoped. They had the few questions that we thought they would, and we were able to answer them, and they thought the girls were so cute. I'm sure that when we receive our information after paying the fee that they will be just as much in love with them as we already are! And my grandmother seemed happy that she would be a great grandmother (Bopche, she's polish) again! I feel blessed that God gave us peace enough to tell them and He helped things go very smooth...and we are sooo EXCITED!

We also have a Glitterbug Gold Party planned for February 20th. We are going to make it a Birthday Party for the twins! We are just praying for a larger venue for this event because we are hoping that A LOT of people will come, we are spreading it out as an all day event so everyone that wants to come can anytime they want.

Please be in prayer for us as we look for a large enough place to hold the party and for most, if not all, of the promise fee to be provided on that day so we can pay it on the twins birthdate, February 27th! Don't worry girls, mommy and daddy are working on it! :)