While We Anxiously Wait

In the coming months, while we anxiously wait for our referral we will be focusing on educating ourselves more on Ethiopia and adjustment for our new arrival.  We will also be organizing some fundraising events to help fund our adoption.  Fundraising will be a big part of helping us in bringing our baby girl home.  We are truly blessed with many amazing people in our lives who ask how they can help.  We have had some who donated to us already and have had one successful fundraiser so far.  Our amazing friend Stacey M. hosted a "Thirty One" party some months back and offered a percentage of my sales.  We made nearly $300!!  That was amazing.  We can not thank her enough for taking the time to do this for us.

Here is a run down of what we have been doing and what are in the works...

Just Love ~ We found this amazing company called "Just Love Coffee".  This is an amazing company that has a passion for coffee and helping people raise money for things such as adoption.  So we have created a store front for you to order yummy coffee that can be delivered right to your house and every bag you purchase proceeds goes to our adoption.  You can shop at our storefront HERE or by clicking on the "Just Love" link on the side bar. 

Adoption T-Shirts ~ We are also very excited to give you a sneak peek of our personalized Kratzer Adoption T-shirts that Ryan and I designed ourselves.  I have become friends with a great guy who owns Steve Costume Signs in Saline.  I work with him on CL's school spirit wear, they do great work and will be doing the printing for our shirts.  We will be taking orders for the shirts in late January early February.

Some fun events in the works that we are really excited about and hope you will join us!

• Family Bowling Event
• Euchre Party
• Photography Session Promotions with Yours Truly :-)

Again,  thank you for following us on our amazing adoption journey. 
Thank You and God Bless...XO

Finally a Waiting Family!!

Finally a much needed update!!  Sorry it has been awhile.  We have spent the past months preparing documents for our Dossier.  If you have gone through an adoption you know very well.  If not, let me just share with you...A LOT OF PAPER WORK, Dr. appointments, finger prints, personal referral letters, passports and on and on :-)  I must say, although it took some time to gather it all, it went pretty smooth.  For me, it was more the anxiety of making sure everything was done right.  It can be overwhelming to have a list of requirements and a stack of documents in front of you and just hope you did not miss anything.  Especially anything that may take some time to get.  All went well though and we only needed to fix some small things PHEW!

The Great News...We are finally a waiting family!! WhooHoo!!  Our Dossier was sent to Ethiopia on December 12th.  We are #45 on the list.  The estimated wait time for us is 7-9 months.  It sounds funny but we are so excited to be waiting "officially".  It seems so far away, but in reality time goes by so quickly and CL keeps us busy so it will probably be here before we know it.  We are filled with so much excitement and butterflies just thinking of the moment that we get a referral.

I will do much better in posting in our blog in the coming months.  We are thrilled to share our journey with you!!