How to participate in Karleigh Mei's quilt

I have this posted on our quilt site (quiltforkarleighmei.blogpsot.com), but thought I would also post it here.

Just send me a fabric square of your choice, at least 8" X 8"  and a smaller piece of the fabric (for the scrapbook) along with a prayer, blessing, good wish, scripture verse, or whatever you would like to say to Karleigh Mei.  You can do this on any acid free paper no bigger than 8" X 12". I will be assembling a scrapbook with pieces of the fabrics and the good wishes so that Karleigh Mei will know whom each piece was from.  You can email me at gagegang@gvtc.com and I will send you our address.  Thank you!!  :o)

100 Good Wishes Quilt

I am collecting quilt squares for our Karleigh Mei.  I have a quilt site---> here.  I have FINALLY posted some of the squares and good wishes/prayers that we have received.  I'm loving getting these from family and friends.  If anyone would like to contribute to our collection we'd love to have you represented in Karleigh Mei's quilt!  Just send me an email and I'll send you my address.

An Orphan's Ticket Home

As we are on this journey to Karleigh Mei it has been heavy on our heart to do more for orphans. But what?!  We started an adoption fellowship with our church with another dear family-- The Martines.  The Lord has brought together and is growing an amazing group of families representing different agencies, churches, and adoption countries!!!  Last week, the Martines asked our group if we would be interested in putting on a banquet to help raise the funds for AWAA's "An Orphan's Ticket Home" program.  How exciting is this!!!!??  We are thinking BIG----GOD BIG!!!  Which means bigger than we can even fathom!  If I can get everyone to begin praying over this I would so appreciate it!  I'll keep everyone posted on how God is moving on this.  

Here is some info on AWAA's "An Orphan's Ticket Home" program:

One of the greatest challenges orphans face is they do not have the necessary paperwork in order to be adopted. With your support, America World is undertaking a new initiative to make children "paper-ready" in countries such as China and El Salvador. Through this program, we hope to provide the necessary legal services and documentation to help orphaned children overcome this problem and become eligible for adoption. What's more, documentation for children is crucial for those who will not be adopted as well. Simple basic documents, such as a birth certificate, provide children a ticket to a better education and health care. Purchasing one ticket provides identity papers for one child in El Salvador and up to four children in China.

Check Out My Quilt Blog :o)

Okay....so I LOVE Danielle's blog designs...but I have also wanted to learn how to play with all of the pretty papers and headers.  I have worked and worked trying to figure it all out...and I can finally do it!!  Yea!!  (patting self on back--actually, hugging self!)  You can check out my quilt blog as this is my first attempt at "designing" it myself.  www.quiltforkarleighmei.blogspot.com  You can see, it's not the BEST, but for my first (okay 2nd at the header) attempt it's not too shabby.

To Anonymous Sue

I had an "anonymous" comment on my most recent blog post.  And I had a feeling as I was writing this blog post that I might get a comment such as this.  The blog post that I left was somewhat vague...but then I did say it was really meant for me to remember the date. The comment was this:

Hi there,

Have you ever considered opening up your heart to an older child? I know it's not the "norm." Everyone wants a six-month old baby girls with little to no special needs. I understand that - I used to be like that. Then God opened my heart up to older children. They have such beautiful spirits and I have a burden for those left behind because everyone wants the youngest thing possible. Please pray that God would show you the right child, even if it's not exactly what you always imagined.

Love in Christ,
Sue, mommy to Kayla (5)

I have every reason to believe that Sue left this comment with completely good intentions. Her heart is for those children who are older and left behind.  I'm right there with you Sue!! If we could all swoop in and rescue them all!!!  The thing is, Sue doesn't know what age we have said we would accept or all of the special needs that we are willing to take.  Our decision to adopt a special needs child was not one taken lightly.  We prayed over the age limit (which is far from a baby of 6 months old) and all of the special needs......some would consider quite severe. Our decisions were based on not only what we felt we could "tackle", but also on the needs of the children that the Lord has already blessed us with.  Life is NOT always as perfect as it may appear---especially on a blog!  :o)  Our little blessings that we have here at home have their own unique struggles and challenges.  Some may (and have!!) call us crazy to even be on this journey of adoption!!

All this said....having children, having more children, adopting children, adopting children with special needs, all of these are incredibly personal decisions and every family is so wonderfully unique.  What might be God's plan for one family....would not be the right plan for another.

We know that the Lord is continually leading us on this adoption journey.  We are in absolute reliance on Him that He IS leading us!!  Oh my...how could we do it any other way!!?  My greatest comfort is that the Lord has a plan for us and for our darling Karleigh Mei--whoever she is, however old she is, and whatever special need she has---the Lord has already placed His hand on her!!!

Again...please be praying for all of the precious children that need families...all over the world....not just special needs children...or older children....or Chinese children....or Russian children....or African children......or American children in foster homes.....or...the list goes on and on and on!  It reminds me of the story about the starfish:

Thousands of starfish washed ashore. A little girl began throwing them in the water so they would not die. “Don’t bother, dear,” her mother said, “it won’t make a difference.” The girl stopped for a moment and looked at the starfish in her hand. 
"It will make a difference to this one."

New Shared Referrals Batch

Our agency got a new batch of "Shared Waiting Children" referrals yesterday.  I'm posting this more for myself so that I can have this date.  Karleigh Mei is NOT on this list.  Most of the children on this list are harder to place as they are older and have more severe needs.  Please pray for these beautiful children and that their forever families find them!

Kitty Update

I thought I'd do an update on our kitties.  For those that missed it, our cat (a neighborhood stray rescue) ADOPTED (yes...it's beginning to catch on in the family :o) ) 5 kittens from our humane society.  Four are from the same litter and one was just "thrown in" to have litter mates.  :o)  Let me tell you...they are a MESS...but we are really enjoying them.  They are now all around 4-5 weeks and the older one is about 6 weeks.  And they LOVE to play and wrestle. Sooo cute!!  They've all done really great, except the one little girl one...we named Petunia (we name all of our cats after flowers).  Petunia never understood that she was supposed to nurse from her new mama (Dandelion).  Soooooo...we have to bottle feed her.  :o/  Below is a picture of Garrison bottle feeding Miss Petunia.  I'll try and take pics of them all today ('cause I KNOW you all want to see them...sigh...haha) and post them later.

4 Month LID'versary

4 Months Down....

Old Treasure :o)

As we were going through all of our junk for our garage sale, I found this little "treasure".  I had thought before about it and had wished I still had it for Karleigh Mei.  I was so surprised and happy when I DID find it!  And with the original pictures that I had put in it all those years ago!

In this first set, there is a picture of Lexie (in the orange frame)...my 15 yr. old  whom was the original owner.  :o) In the yellow frame is my sister-in-law--she is now mother to 8 awesome kids!  Wow!  And in the blue frame is my brother--that was his graduation picture which was taken...errr....too many years ago!!!  :o)

This next set has a picture of my sister in the blue frame...think this was a CAMP picture...haha!  In the yellow frame is my love...Karl....and oh...this looks like a high school senior picture as well...wow!!  And the orange frame has my oldest daughter Katie.  I've always LOVED this picture of her with the missing teeth.....so precious!!

I'm going to keep the pictures in these frames and add new, updated ones for Miss Karleigh Mei.  Thank you Lord for allowing me to find this little treasure!!!

Mom Bragging Rights :o)

I can brag about these kinds of things, 'cause I'm mom, right!?!?  My Katie girl will be doing an internship with this amazing worship team/church this summer as a photographer/media gal!  Yippee!!

SUCCESS!!

Our garage sale over the weekend was a HUGE success!  I don't feel comfortable posting how much we made, but you are welcome to email me personally to find out.  :o)

Thank you for everyone's prayers!

Adoption Garage Sale

Tomorrow we are having an "Adoption Garage Sale"! We are not going to be marking anything with a price. Everything will be considered donations towards our adoption of Karleigh Mei. We have not advertised this anywhere and are only telling friends and our church about it. Please be praying that it will be a success and that in turn we can bless someone else as well.

Miss Maggie Mae!!

Had to post the picture of this BEAUTIFUL blessing that Denise has been blessed with!  This is Maggie Mae!  Is she not a doll!!  Her "Gotcha Day" was on Monday.  You can also follow them along on their website while they are there in China.  Just click------ here.