Do you like Apple Pie?

The highest bid tomorrow will receive a home-made apple pie - made just for you by me!  I've been praying and researching some ways to finance our adoption.  Tonight I started to make two apple pies and I said to Jeremiah, "You could take one to your school tomorrow, I'll take one to mine, and we'll see whoever offers the highest bid will get the pies and we'll put the money toward our adoption fees!"  So, if you are interested, please send either of us an email (depending on who you work closer to) and the highest bidder by 2:30pm will win the pie!  It's worth a shot. Jeremiah_Eye@gwinnett.k12.ga.us or teye@jackson.k12.ga.us

I'm going to share some of the cost of adoption.  I know that it is very private information, but I also know that God will help us $1 at a time and many people who aren't familiar with adoption would like to know how they can help and what the money would go towards.  So here's the financial update.  We have already submitted and paid for the first agency fee of $2,950.00.  I'm sure some of you are gasping for air right now, but we were blessed in the last couple of months in many ways that made it possible for us to pay this fee without taking out any loans.  Preston got into the free GA-PreK program so that saved us a lot of money monthly in daycare and preschool fees that we were paying.  We had also paid off both of our vehicles before we started the adoption process.  On top of that, Preston and Parker's Nana buys their clothes through another family.  So with all of the things combined and a little help from Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace we made the first payment.  Praise be to God!  Those of you who know me well also know that I am a "miserly-mom" and plan out meals and finances pretty well.  I am queen of coupons, so if you see me in the grocery store you may want to get in another line because it takes a while to ring up all of those coupons!

The next financial obstacle we have is the Dossier Fee.  The Dossier is the compilation of documents that we have spent the last 6 months working on.  It's the biggest "homework" project we've ever done!  We aren't finished with it yet, but we are trying very hard to get it done by the end of December.  It's a very complicated process of getting papers notarized, sending things to different government offices, etc.  The approximate fee to file this is close to $900.00.  

Please know that we feel very honored to be adopting our baby daughter from China and I write the blog to share a bit of our lives with you.  If you have any creative fundraising ideas, please send me an email at mrandmrseye@yahoo.com or post a comment by clicking on comment below this blog entry.  If you are interested in helping with any of the fees feel to contact us via email. 

Love,

Tracy

So thankful Sunday

Today we were blessed to be a part of giving away a huge amount of $ through our church, 12Stone.  Through the help of our church and a co-worker, we were able to help a dear friend of mine that I  used to teach with.  I don't want to list her name to protect her privacy, but she is currently battling cancer.  It is truly better to give than to receive and we witnessed that first hand today.  God is good all the time and provides more than we could ever do alone.  

On Thursday we packed up treat/Christmas bags for the orphanage in Haiti.  The boys helped with the project and it was quiet a production!  We ended up getting so many donations that we plan to meet again to make more bags.  It was great to see everyone come together to give to the orphans and my friend Beth will be treating people in the Clinic there and handing out snacks and toiletries.  I'll let everyone know when we are collection items again.  The biggest need for the orphanage is Ensure (the store brand is fine).  One bottle of Ensure cost about $8 in Haiti and we can get a case of Ensure at Wal-mart for about the same price.  

This week we have so much to be thankful for.  Baby Haley, my cousin's baby who was born at 31 weeks, got to come home!  We also got to visit with lots of relatives from out of town and spend time with my cousins three daughters.  

We visited Santa in town and the boys loved him.  There weren't any tears and all went well.  We had way too many events to go to this weekend, so I ended up having to miss a Women's Tea that I was planning to attend so I apologize to my friends that I can't be in all places at one time.  We also had to turn down an invitation to watch our neighbor dance in a parade, so we are sorry we missed you, Alexis.  December is just a very busy month filled with fun events.  

Today we have a birthday party to attend for one of my sweetest students, Bailey.  So the boys are napping since we have an afternoon of playing at Pump It Up ahead of us.  I know this blog entry is in bits and pieces, but that's how our life is right now - running to and from events.  We are going to try to slow down this week so please don't be offended if we turn down your invitations ;)

Love,

Tracy