Enter Clever Title Here

I couldn't come up with a clever title for this blog post, so yeah. :P


I have been posting a lot about fundraising lately, and to be honest it's because there isn't a whole lot going on around here aside from fundraising and the usually family stuff. 


But, there are a *few* things worth updating about...so here it is!


First, let me address the most common question I get...which is "WHEN ARE YOU GOING BACK TO RUSSIA FOR COURT?!?!?! WHEN WILL KENZI COME HOME?!?!"


Yes. This question is often in all caps, and yes...I know it's actually 2 questions, but they always go hand in hand...so let's go with it, shall we?


Now, for the answer(s).


We had expected to get back to Russia for court in late July. That is not going to happen due to some paperwork delays on the Russia side of things. No biggie, our girl is in a good place, we'll get back when we're meant to get back, and it's expected to be the first or second week of September. The positive in this is that airfare will be cheaper, which is why we're now $6500 away from being fully funded, instead of $10000 away, so thank God for always showing us the silver lining. As far as when Kenzi will come home, that will be 30 days after court, so to keep things really simple, lets say that Kenzi will be home in time to rock her first Halloween costume...which will be amazing!!!


As far as how things are flowing on our side of the pond...we're done with paperwork! I need to pick up a few papers, but as far as filling stuff out, we're good to go on that. We're waiting for our state background checks to come back, I have to pick up the disks that contain our chest xrays, and I have to pick up a copy of our doctor's medical license...then I need to have all that (and the other paperwork!) notarized, certified, then driven alllll the way to Nashville to be apostilled....then it can be sent to our agency, where it will be reviewed, then it will be forwarded to Moscow where it will be reviewed again, and translated, before it's forwarded on to our in country facilitator...so that's where we all on all that!


So, you're caught up on where we are in the process...so now let's catch up on how we're going to get this sweet girl home!

Why, thank you for asking, random notecard holding hand! There are several ways you can help!


You can pray for us. I know that sounds cheesy, but I do truly believe in the power of prayer, and I do believe that the fact that we are this close to being funded is proof that God wants Kenzi in our family, so please, pray for our family!


You can donate. I don't like to be that girl that begs for money, so I do my best to offer something in return. I make lots of girly items, so check out 


my facebook page at: www.facebook.com/KenzisKraftKorner 


My nesting doll giveaway at: http://www.facebook.com/events/414826038559028/ 

and coming soon....the mother of all giveaways, featuring well over $1000 in prizes! It's launching soon, so stay tuned!


Now, for something fun!!! As many of you know, I'm funding a good chunk of this adoption through crafting. I've always loved to craft, and now it's helping to bring my girl home so I love it even more!!! Well, the more orders I got for crafts, the more supplies I needed, and the more supplies I needed, the more storage I needed! A friend told me about these storage cubes that are specially designed for crafters, and for organizing crafts! Anyone who knows me knows that my 2 great loves (outside of my family) are crafting, and organizing...so when she told me about a product that combined the two...I'm pretty sure I heard angels singing. Check out this picture and tell me you aren't in love!

well, my anniversary is Sunday, so I told my hubby that I wanted something like this, for organizing my craft supplies...and we went to Michael's and he bought me a smaller version of this set up, except mine has a desk top. I can't WAIT to get it all set up and show you pictures!!! EEK!!!


Well, that's it for now...Good night, and much love, 
Cilla

We Hit Five Figures!!!!

Shocked.


That is the only word I can think of that could possibly describe my reaction to seeing our FSP hit $10,000!!! Thank you so much to everyone who helped us reach this incredible milestone! I know it sounds sappy, but every single person who donated even a dollar, who was part of making that number increase, and increase until it hit 5 figures...you're all heroes in my book. You're part of something incredible, you're quite literally part of saving a child's life, my child's life, and I don't take that lightly at all. My heart is so filled with gratitude it could burst. Thank you so, so much.


Now, we move forward. That little FSP box needs to say $16,750 before I can shout from the roof tops that we are FULLY funded! This is crunch time, and we may just need a miracle. It took 6 months for that little box to hit $10,000...we need to increase it $6,750 more in mere weeks. We can do it, I know we can. I'm ready, willing, and able to work my fingers to the bone to contribute as much as I can to bumping up that number. We have 12 puzzle pieces left (Yes! Only 12 pieces!), as always I'm selling bows and other girly goodness. We have a nesting doll giveaway going on through facebook, and I'll be launching the mother of all giveaways at the end of the month. 


We hit $10,000 in our FSP!!! Yes, I know...I've mentioned that like 10 times already...I'm just so pumped!!! I want to try something that I've seen others do, and break down our "gotcha" trip into chunks and people can choose to sponsor a portion of the final trip that will bring Kenzi home to her family once and for all! If you would like to sponsor a chunk of this unfunded trip, you can donate the amount you wish to our FSP, then comment on this post with how much you donated, and how you would like the money used. I will then cross out that amount on this blog post, so everyone can watch us inch closer, and closer to funding the most important trip of all!


Here goes:


Airfare for Me: $2400
$200     $100    $100    $50    $25    $25
$200     $100    $100    $50    $25
$200     $100    $100    $50    $25
$200     $100    $100    $50    $25
$200     $100    $100    $50    $25


Airfare for Kenzi: $1500
$200     $100    $50     $25    $25
$200     $100    $50     $25
$200     $50     $50     $25
$100     $50     $25     $25
$100     $50     $25     $25


Hotel Stay: $800
$100     $50     $25     $25
$100     $50     $25
$100     $50     $25
$100     $25     $25
$50      $25     $25


Food and other basics: $300
$50      $25     $10     $10
$50      $10     $10
$25      $10     $10
$25      $10     $10
$25      $10     $10


Required Orphanage Donation: $1000
$200     $50     $25     $10     $10
$100     $50     $25     $10     $10
$100     $25     $25     $10     $10
$100     $25     $25     $10     $10
$100     $25     $25     $10     $10


Kenzi's Visa: $230
$25      $25     $10     $5
$25      $10     $5      $5
$25      $10     $5      
$25      $10     $5
$25      $10     $5


Kenzi's In Country Medical Exam: $150
$25      $10     $5     $5      
$25      $10     $5     $5
$10      $5      $5      
$10      $5      $5
$10      $5      $5


You may have noticed a few things:


1. There is no airfare listed for my husband David. 

     ~The final trip only requires one parent to travel, and after a lot of discussion, we decided that for us, we wouldn't feel comfortable fundraising for an unnecessary plane ticket. Yes he would love to be there, but if it isn't required, other people shouldn't be asked to help fund it. 


2. Our hotel cost seems pretty low considering we have to stay in Kenzi's city AND in Moscow for a few days. 
     ~That's because a very sweet friend offered to gift us some points for a free hotel stay in Moscow, so we didn't need to include that 1-2 night stay in our budget. :)


3. I said our FSP needs to read $6750 to be fully funded, but this last trip is only coming in at $6380...what is the other $370 for? 
     ~Paperwork, apostilles, certification of documents, fedex, etc etc etc... :)


So, there it is, laid out nicely, and neatly...the final pieces to our adoption fundraising puzzle! I hope you'll stick around and watch our FSP grow with us!! We're so excited to get to that magical number and KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that nothing is coming between us, and our sweet girl.


Please continue to pray for our family. 


Much, much love, 
Cilla

Brick wall.

Have you ever felt like you slammed head first into a brick wall? That's been my mentality lately. I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how I'm going to fund the last leg of our trip. I've killed myself getting to where we are now, and I am astonished that an adoption that will end up costing around $48,000 is only $6500 away from being FULLY funded. When we started this process we were given $34,000 as a HIGH END quote for how much this would cost, and we had no idea where we would find that kind of money, we just knew that we were being led down this life path, that we we were meant to change this little girls world, and somehow, the money would work itself out. That quote didn't include things like needing visas, twice ($2000), or a third trip ($7000) or warm weather airfare hikes ($3000-$4000), or a psych Eval ($800) or apostilles/certifications ($600) and the list goes on. The deeper we got into the process, the more fees we unearthed, and as we continued to blow our budget over and over again, somehow, some way, the money would appear. I'm proud to say that I've worked really, really hard to earn the bulk of our "fundraised" money. Everything we've paid for without using our RR funds has been paid for with money from making crafty things, and over $3,500 of our FSP money has come from making crafts. I'm exhausted. To put it into context, I sell bows for no more than $5 each...and I've made over $5000 in the last 4-5 months. It feels great knowing I have a way to help secure funds to bring Kenzi home...but I also miss having feeling in my fingertips! :)
So, I say all that, to say this...I need help. I feel horrible and guilty asking for it but it's come down to that point for me, and for Kenzi. I'm running out of ideas, I've hit a brick wall, and $7000 is a LOT of money. I'm still selling bows, and all the crafty fun stuff, but that won't make $7000 in 6-8 weeks! At the end of the month I'll be launching a giveaway, if you're crafty, or if you have unwanted, unused gift cards, or pretty much anything that you don't want that you think would be appealing for a giveaway, please comment, or email me at Priscilla.morse@gmail.com and let me know what the item is, what it's value is, and how you would like to be credited for your donation!

I'm also going to be trying the "sponser a bit of our trip" thing that others have done, it sounds fun and I'll get it put together in a cute way with lots of prizes along the way, so stay tuned!!!

Thank you for your continued interest in our family, our adoption, and our new precious daughter. Your support, friendship, and prayers have made this long, often painful journey so much easier to bear. Thank you could never begin to cover our gratitude. <3

Satan Called....He wants his weather back.

Um. It's hot. Like really, really unbearably, horrifyingly hot! Of course it would be 105 degrees on the weekend I plan my yardsale, right??? Well, needless to say we didn't make a killing, but we had as much fun as a couple of people can have while melting in the sun 8 hrs a day for 2 days. We weeded out a bunch of junk, we put the better stuff back for a second sale at a friends house, and I'll be listing some SUPER cute kids clothes individually on my craft page later this week. All in all, it was a good time. :)


I didn't take any pictures...but just visualize the surface of the sun covered in yard sale crap...yup...that's just about right. lol


<3

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