The end of an auction, the beginning of a rainbow

WOW!!!! The amazing auction (brought to you by the amazing Christina Scott) ended tonight with bids totaling...


...wait for it....


$937!!!! WOW!!! I was hoping we would hit that $1000 mark but hey, $937 is absolutely AMAZING!! Here is proof of how amazing it is:


$937 will cover one of the following:


*the required orphanage donation
*Kenzi's visa, medical, and more
*our entire hotel stay for one trip
*our driver fees for BOTH of our remaining trips
*one of our in country medicals, and part of the other
*all the rubles/spending money for food, etc we need for BOTH of our remaining trips
*the remaining portion of our agency fees


and the list goes on! I know $8,000 seems like a really daunting figure, and it is a HUGE amount of money, but when broken down into chunks, it is TOTALLY doable, and we are so grateful for all the help that is being poured out! 


If everyone pays for their auction winnings, we will be roughly $7500 short of being fully funded!!


We have our yard sale coming up next weekend, Friday the 29th and Saturday the 30th and omg you should see how much stuff we have! We're literally going to have to ask our neighbor if we can use his yard too, it's CRAZY!!! We're going to have a bake sale, a craft sale, and what I'm most excited about is the balloon sale! Our goal is to bring Kenzi home, but what fun would that be if she didn't get to see her friends from her region come home too?! So, we're going to sell balloons to raise money for families adopting kiddo's from Kenzi's region. I'm so excited!

Thank you to my sweet friend Gentry for designing this flyer! I tweaked it to make it a yard sale flyer for the general idea was hers! It REALLY pays to have smart, creative friends!!! :)

So, like I mentioned above, we are still $7500 short of being fully funded, so I just want to remind people of a couple ways to help bring our girl home.

1. Our puzzle still needs to sell 66 pieces! If we can sell all 66 pieces, we'll be $330 closer to our goal!

2. I'm still making bows and other crafty stuff! Check my previous posts for details, or check out THIS link! 

Now, I would like to launch our latest, and in my opinion, our greatest fundraiser yet. The reason why I think it's the greatest? My 9 year old son created it all by himself. It was his idea, he added the text in paint, he used his little glue stick to put his sister's picture on it, he scanned it, he did EVERYTHING. This little boy has been so selfless during this entire process, everything, and I mean *everything* he was capable of doing to help bring his sister home, he did willingly, with no hesitation. He even let his 2 year old brother move into his room so his sister could have a room of her own...and he TOTALLY gets it, which is amazing, he said to me "Kenzi has never had anything of her own, she deserves to have her own room and her own stuff". I'm raising a wonderful little man, and I couldn't be more proud of him. So, without further ado, here is the launch of our latest (and greatest) fundraising effort.

I'm not as talented as my kid, so it scanned a little crooked, but for a donation of $5 or more, we will send you a 5x7 glossy print picture of this design made by my sweet Dylan. Please consider donating, and if nothing else, please consider leaving a comment letting him know what an awesome big brother he is...it would make his day. ;)

Thanks, and God Bless!

Broken Feet, Psych Evals, and Visas....oh my!

Well I had a fantabulously eventful week. Minus the fantabulous part. I fell in the Target parking lot (gee that's not embarrassing at all!) and I messed up my right foot pretty bad. Luckily I don't need surgery but I do have a knee high boot cast I get to rock for 6 weeks, so that's awesome (or not...). My kids call it my robo-foot...and they think it's awesome. My husband likes to boom "FE FI FO FUM..." when I clammer down the hallway with my not-so-quiet boot. Aren't the men in my life lovely?


In other, non injury related news, we are crawling ever closer toward getting back to Russia to be with our sweetie. We are fully funded through trip 2 (court trip)!! We're working on getting funded for our 3rd and last trip. I'm taking applications for company on that last trip. Plane tickets are just too expensive for us to justify fundraising for BOTH of us to go pick up our little lady, but if one of my friends would like to go with me...I'll cover hotel and food if you'll cover your plane ticket!! Serious inquiries only. ;)


We finished our psych eval, so one more thing out of the way, we paid for our visas, we mailed a check to our agency, we downloaded our state background check forms, and we made appointments for our physicals. I have more paperwork to do and lots to get notarized, but I'm REALLY hoping to get it all done and get back to Russia by the end of July!


Upcoming FUNdraiser:


YARD SALE! It's June 29-June30 at my place, 8am-? We have TONS of stuff...no really, we look like hoarders and I can't and won't drag this stuff back into my house so please, come out and buy it and help Kenzi come home! We'll have a bake sale and lemonade and ice cold soda/bottled water. Our oldest Dylan wants to help his sister come home so make a fuss over his bake sale please. <3 


I'm going to have a craft table set up, a lot of what you see here and on my facebook page will be available to buy at the yard sale. We'll also have balloons for the kiddos! 


Hope to see y'all there!!!


<3

Its Raining Hairbows!!

I've had a lot of people message me and ask about hairbows and accessories, and several have said they were waiting til payday to get in on the hairbow action! I thought it would be easiest to post everything here so the photos are in one place. If you would like to place an order, just donate to the FSP (the button is over there ~~~~~>) then comment on this blog post, or on the fb group thread that you saw this blogpost on, and later today I'll be rounding up all the orders, processing them over the weekend, and mailing them on Monday! 


On to the cuteness!

 4th of July Tutu with matching bow: $20

 big flower bows with bottlecap center: $5 each, add $2 for headband (if you would like your center to be an initial, please tell me which one in your comment!)

 4th of July bows, $3 each or 2 for $5

 personalized wipe cases, $8 each

 personalized hair bows, $4 each

 Owl bow holder, $5 each

 Flower clippies, $2 each...buy 10 get the owl holder free!

 Down Syndrome Awareness bows, $3 each or 2 for $5

 SALE!!!! mod podged wipe cases and cute key fobs, $2 each! (4 cases available, 5 key fobs available)

Huge Price Cut! Get one of these cards FILLED with small bows and clippies AND a FREE hairbow holder for $20!!! These cards hold 14-20 bows depending on size, and are prepackaged "grab bags" but you will not be disappointed! 4 available so grab 'em fast!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A lot of the items featured above are also featured in the auction my friend Christina is running for Kenzi, you can find the auction here:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/247952485314069/

Lots of cool things will be happening on my craft page next week, here is the link, go like the page and get ready for a blow out sale!

http://www.facebook.com/KenzisKraftKorner

Thank you and happy shopping! If there is anything you're looking for that you don't see here or on my craft page, drop me a line, I can do just about anything that isn't sewing! lol

I appreciate your help in bringing my little girl home, and look at this face, clearly she appreciates it too! lol

Brady Murray, a real life superhero!!

I have been out of the loop lately. Totally focused on fundraising, paperwork, getting a bedroom together for my little miss...oh, and then I broke my foot! Well, while my head was in the clouds, something AMAZING was going on. I would like to introduce you to an incredible man named Brady Murray. He has a downright gorgeous little boy who was born with a little something extra, just like my Kenzi. He is currently competing in an Ironman competition (tough guy!!!) and he is using his human strength to advocate for Reece's Rainbow in a superhuman way, and he needs our help!!!

First, I would like you to check out this blog post:

http://www.onestepclosertohome.blogspot.com/2012/06/racing-for-orphans-with-down-syndrome.html

where you can learn more about Brady and what he's doing. THEN, I would love, love, love for you to check out this video:

http://apps.facebook.com/konainspired/?x=us_facebookapp_312_14

please VOTE (bottom left corner of the video)

and SHARE (bottom right corner of the video)

Please help Brady bring awareness, please help him fight for the kids who are orphans just because they were born with an extra chromosome! 

Thank you friends, and THANK YOU Brady....you're an inspiration to us all.

<3

An Auction for Kenzi

Hey everyone!!! Long time, no blog! lol...I just wanted to pop on for a sec and let everyone know what's going on in our little world. :) We are plugging away, getting things ready for court. We don't exactly know WHAT we need to do other than obtaining visas and getting our psych exam done, so we've been pretty focused on putting together money! We're having a yard sale on June 29th-June 30th to raise money for our gotcha trip to pick up sweet pea! We had 3 VAN loads of donations dropped off and my dining room is completely overtaken! I'm so grateful though!  I'm still making hairbows and using all that money for the adoption, so that's fun! But the BIG thing we have going on right now is an auction that my sweet friend Christina is hosting for us. I'm soooo appreciative of everything this wonderful lady does, not only for our family but for EVERY family. It's absolutely amazing how big her heart is, and I'm so proud to call her my friend. <3 Love you girl!!!


Here is a link to the auction, please check it out! Lots of cool stuff and lots more going up soon! 


http://www.facebook.com/events/247952485314069/?ref=ts 


Sweet dreams friends. <3


(speaking of sweet dreams...here are a couple pics of what princess looks like after 3 hours of rough housing with mama and papa)

 and 5 minutes later....

soooo blessed that our sweet pea is in a loving orphanage that didn't mind for Kenzi to snuggle up and take a snooze on her Mama for a bit. <3

I know this is long overdue....I'm so sorry! I have a semi good excuse though, I was jet lagged for a LONG time...I'm still not totally "fixed"...I'm staying up way later than normal but I'm getting back into a routine. :) Also, I had to play catch up with my homework. For those of you who don't know, not only am I a stay at home mom, and a homeschooling mom....I also make crafts to sell to raise money for our adoption, I handle all the paperwork/prep/stuff in general for our adoption AND I'm a full-time student! LOL...not a lot of freetime in my little world!

So I guess I'll begin at the the beginning! We went to Russia! (duh! lol) AND WE LOVED IT!!! We had a blast, and Kenzi is perfect! I blogged about our trip but I didn't blog much about our return home, so I'll begin there!

So, our last visit with Kenzi was awesome, she was super tired when she first came in was content to snuggle for a good 20 minutes before deciding it was play time! She LOVES to be tickled, and to play "astronaut" where I count down (3, 2, 1...blast off) and make space shuttle noises and lift her high in the air! We did that for a good 30 minutes until my arms were going to fall off....she's a chunky monkey! LOL

So after playing the blast off game, and tickling her while she rolled from one end of the room to the other and squealed and giggled...she was ready to play with the toys. She is ALL ABOUT toys with animals on them. Her favorites? Ducks, puppies, and pigs....she went to town with them! She was semi interested in a firetruck, REALLY interested in beating David in the head with a plastic hammer (are we sure this isn't my biological child? I think I need to go on Maury for a maternity test....), and she LOVES blocks! The squishy kind that crinkle and rattle...obsessed doesn't even begin to describe her love of all things crinkly. To put it simply....she is a riot! So fun and so bubbly....I would have never guessed she would be so busy!

Clearly she wore herself out because she crawled up in my lap and laid her head down, so I cuddled her up nice and close, rocked her, and she was quickly fast asleep....I have a video of her snoring to prove it! lol Normally the orphanage doesn't want the kids to sleep outside of bed and nap time, but since it was our last visit, and I was a bit sad, and she was knocked out....they let me sit and rock her and cuddle her sleeping, snoring little self for an hour extra. :)

When we left the orphanage, I was a good girl and didn't sob like a baby. We drove around a bit killing time before our notary appt. We went to the bay, the WWII memorial, we took a walk, then we went to sign the OFFICIAL paperwork to make Kenzi OURS! We "Accepted the referral" and now we wait for a court date!

We went to the beach one last time before packing to head to the airport. Our flight left and 1am and was PACKED with students from the university going home for summer. We flew from Kenzi's city to Beijing, China...where we had a 10 hour layover...and where you need a VISA to walk around the airport!!! We couldn't get anything to eat or drink from 1am until around 9am....which made us less than kind to each other lol...we were hungry, and sleep deprived...and sad but we finally figured out where to go to get the visa, and we were on our way to the other end of the airport where there is basically a shopping mall. We ate breakfast at Kenny Roger's Roasters!!! It was SO GROSS, I couldn't eat my food, I wanted to throw up...lol....no really it was WEIRD! So we went to a coffee shop and I had the most AMAZING Iced Hot Chocolate....totally made up for the funky Kenny Roger's food. Then we got our souvenir's for the boys, walked around a bit, got our boarding passes, then we went to our gate and spent the last 2 hours there watching planes take off/land...it was actually a really fun experience! Then...we were off to San Francisco!!

The flight from Beijing to San Fran sucked. There was an obnoxious, crazy, LOUD child in the row in front of us and his mom was just as nuts as he was. They delayed our plane 30 minutes because she REFUSED to sit down with this kid because everytime she sat down, he screamed. It was awful, finally they said sit down or get off, so she sat down. I hate to fly and this just made me all the more freaked out....I kind of wanted off the plane too. :\

San Francisco...back on U.S. soil! I was bummed that I didn't get to see the Golden Gate bridge...so I bought a magnet with the Golden Gate bridge on it. When I"m 80 I won't remember that I didn't REALLY see the bridge so I guess I'm covered now LOL....uneventful...onward to Chicago!

We get HOME (sorta) and we end up having to shell out $120 for a cab to my SIL's because our ride fell through...that sucked but oh well, it is what it is. My SIL had gotten sick while we were gone and was in the hospital so my poor MIL, who is in her 70's, had been watching both boys, by herself, for DAYS...that had to have been hard for her but she didn't complain a bit. :) We stayed a couple days, visited my SIL in the hospital, and headed home.

You have no idea how amazing it was to sleep in my own bed, shower in my own bathroom!!! I was so HAPPY to be HOME!!!! I spent a couple days just hanging out with the boys, enjoying them, and my own house, my own space...then it was time to get down to business...we have a court date to prep for!

I found a pysch for our psych evals, I found someone for our visa's, I gathered some paperwork, I dealt with school stuff, and the best of all....I started planning Kenzi's room!!! It is SO FUN having a girl!!!!

I'll close with pics of the items I bought for her, I can't wait to show you all her FINISHED room!!!

Thanks for tagging along on this journey with us...

PS...we are having a yard sale JUly 13-15, if you are in the Jackson area and have stuff you don't need/want....consider donating it for our yardsale for Kenzi! Thanks!!!! email me at priscilla.morse@gmail.com for more info! On to the pics!

A Video

I have been a blogging slacker!!! I'm so sorry! I have SO MUCH I want to write about, but I'm having a rough time finding TIME to sit down and write out a blog! I'm going to do my BEST to get that done tomorrow....but for now, I'd like to offer up a peace offering...a video of my crazy Kenzi. Enjoy!