Winner winner!

Sorry this post is so short! I'm in the middle of packing and getting ready to go on my first road trip with all three kids, and no hubby. Pray for me! haha

You guys have killed it with helping me promote this fundraiser...and the donations? Oh my goodness I am FLOORED by how many people have given to help Cliff come home! My husband did the random generator thing and here are our first winners:

Journal and Pen Set = Winslow Gang
$10 Amazon card = Charity Morris
$10 Subway card = Alex Anderson
Apparent Project Bracelet = Bliss M
Bulgaria Adoption Shirt = Joni K
Hair Clip Set = Shelby Johnson
Hair bow holder and clip set = Carrie Shields
God's Not Dead DVD Set = Lisa W
$25 Amazon Card = Beverly K
$25 Starbucks Card = Lauren S
$25 Barnes and Noble Card = Brian Miller
$25 Options Card = Jaime Vanchura


Congrats to our winners and remember that your names stay in the running!!! You can win again!!! Enjoy your prizes and thank you for caring enough to help this little man come home.

PS I don't recognize some of the names, so if anyone who reads this is friends with a winner, please tag them and let them know to contact me and I'll get them in touch with the person who donated the items!

EPIC giveaway for Cliff!

We are working so, so hard to get Cliff home! We have hit several bumps in the road with fundraising, our spaghetti dinner and silent auction idea fell apart when we realized we wouldn't have enough items to make it worth the cost of hosting the event. I won't lie, I was extremely disappointed because that was our BIG fundraiser when we were bringing Kenzi home. Fundraising in general has been much harder this time around, but we aren't letting that stop us. This precious boy deserves to be OUT, and we are determined to make that happen. 

So, we had a little brainstorming session and decided to host an online giveaway with the items we did receive! First and foremost, we are so grateful for every single item we were able to add, it means the world to us to have friends who care about Cliff and want to see him home. So, here it is. 

Cliff's EPIC Giveaway!!!

Right now our FSP is at $14,361. In order to be fully funded, we need to be at $25,000(ish). We originally thought we would be fully funded at $22,000 but a fee we hoped would be waived due to the severity of Cliff's needs ended up not being waived so this is where we're currently at.

So, we need to raise $10,639!!! Holy wow...that's a big chunk-o-change! Do I think this giveaway will get us there? Nope, not by a long shot...but man I could use a miracle right now so who knows, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised?! :) Our goal is to raise $4,500...about half of what we currently need, and this is how we plan to do it.

First, the rules:

This is a *giveaway* you can enter for FREE each day by reposting this blog link, and commenting on THIS BLOG POST after you post the link. You can also get a FREE entry everyday by posting the blog link on your facebook page, twitter, instagram, etc. If you blog about our giveaway you'll get THREE free entries! Please, please, please remember to comment here so your free entry will get counted! You can enter for free EVERY DAY until the giveaway is over!

You can also earn more entries by donating to our FSP if you choose. 

The breakdown is as follows:

$5 = 2 entry

$10 = 5 entries

$25 = 15 entries

$50 = 25 entries

$100 = 50 entries

We will be drawing for prizes the whole way through the giveaway so enter early for the maximum prize potential! Everyone who shares and donates stays in the running the entire time and there is NO cap on how many prizes you can win! Here is the breakdown:

Donation levels are on the left, prize is on the right.

$50 = Journal and Pen Set

$100 = $10 Amazon gift card

$200 = $10 Subway gift card

$300 = Apparent Project Bracelet

$400 = Bulgaria Adoption Shirt

$500 = Swarovski crystal hair clip set

$600 = Hair bow holder and flower clip set

$700 = God's Not Dead DVD set

$800 = $25 iTunes Gift Card

$900 = $25 Amazon Gift Card

$1000 = $25 Starbucks Gift Card

$1100 = $25 Barnes and Noble Gift Card

$1200 = $25 Options Gift Card

$1300 = Hammered By His Hands Jewelry

$1400 = $50 Target Gift Card

$1500 = $50 Amazon Gift Card

$1600 = Four Passes to Rock City in Chattanooga, TN

$1700 = $100 Donation to any child or family on Reece's Rainbow

$1900 = FitBit Flex

$2100 = Kindle

$2300 = Scrapbooking Set

$2600 = iPad Mini -or- $200 Reece's Rainbow Donation

$3000 = Samsung Chromebook

$3500 = $250 Visa Gift Card

$4000 = 2 nights at the Atlantis Casino, Resort and Spa in Reno, NV and a $45 Darden gift card

$4500 = 2 nights at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, plus breakfast for 2, and a $50 gift card to The Southern restaurant

***BONUS***

Make sure you get your entries in ASAP, for the next 2 weeks I will be randomly choosing donors for mini-wins! If your name is picked, you'll win a key fob, a hairbow, a necklace, etc....in addition to being entered to win the BIG prizes! There is no cap on winning miniprizes so keep coming back and donating for our sweet boy!!!

Just some examples of mini prizes!

We're getting there!!!!

de quervain tenosynovitis

So I have officially made too many hair bows, hair ties, headbands, etc. Between McKenzie's adoption and Cliff's adoption I have raised over $25,000 just from selling handmade crafts. They sell for roughly $5 each so you can do the math but let me just say that it was a ton of cutting, sewing, glueing, and piecing together of items in a very small time span and it wreaked havoc on my dominant hand. So here is the run down about how we're going to deal with things now that my only source of raising money for Cliff is off the table. 

I'm going to pray, a lot, and I hope you guys will too. Please pray that I find something else to do to make up for the lack of crafting. Please pray that I heal up quickly and can get back to work! I won't be able to make bows for a long, long time...but I think I'll be able to manage bottle cap keychains and badge reels and other things in a few months! Please pray that Cliff isn't forgotten while I'm unable to work to earn his ransom. I will keep shouting for him but we don't get a lot of straight donations so I'm very very nervous! I'm making a ton of stuff now and I'll host an auction on my page https://m.facebook.com/dollfacedivasonline while I'm recovering, so I hope you'll check it out! 

Here is a pic of what's up with my hand if anyone is curious. I'll be in a spica cast for at least six weeks...so add in an extra prayer that I don't go stir crazy! 

The ramblings of an adopting mother

So, adoption is really, really expensive. Fundraising is super expensive too, especially when your fundraisers flop, which many do. I don't want this post to turn into some whiny "poor me" rant, but my goodness it is SO hard to fight and claw your way to the finish line! I am working so very, very hard to bring Cliff home but I seem to have gotten into a rut with fundraisers and stuff. Everyone in my family has gotten the flu, then bronchitis, and it's just been all consuming and I'm struggling to get my groove back! 

We are having our biometrics fingerprinting done this Friday, and a friend of mine got her USCIS approval ONE WEEK after her fingerprints! USCIS approval is the last thing you need to have everything submitted then you're on the bench waiting for travel dates. Along with that comes fees. Agency fees, travel fees, medical fees...money on top of money and it's so stressful, and a really lonely season in life when something so big is happening, and so much is out of your control, and your support system is, well...silent. I know that my adoption is no one else's problem, I guess I just wish that someone would see Cliff, and how badly he's been treated, and want to make HIM their problem, just see him, accept that he's been dealt a bad hand, and do something to make his journey home a little easier. 

There are so many kids with similar stories, so if not Cliff, please choose another child and make their path to a family a little easier. Bless a family that is struggling with the knowledge that their child is on the other side of the world and they can do NOTHING to protect them except secure the funds to get them out, because that's where I am, and it's a hard place to be. 

I guess ranting and venting happened anyway, even though that wasn't my intention, but writing is cheaper than therapy so maybe I saved some money, right? haha

We have fundraisers going on right now, this shirt is one of my favorites!

http://www.booster.com/baseballshirtsforcliff


My son is making these ice pop holders to raise money for his plane ticket to meet Cliff and see the orphanage where he's spent his life

They are $10 for a set of 7 with free shipping, to order you can donate here: 

http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/sewing-for-cliff-/311298

Please leave your mailing address on the page or in the note section on paypal!

Lastly, this is our link to our Family Sponsorship Page on Reece's Rainbow. You can also find it at the top of our blog. Our fully funded number is somewhere in the neighborhood of $22,000. We will be bringing a nurse with us for our pick up trip, and depending on what medical equipment she will need to bring, that number could change, but I feel like it's very accurate. This fund hasn't moved in quite a while, and it's really stressing me out! Any kind of bump would be amazing. I make all sorts of crafty stuff and I would be happy to make anything you need in exchange for a donation to Cliff!

http://reecesrainbow.org/81896/sponsormorse-2

This blog has been one of the hardest things I've ever had to write. I try so hard not to ask for help, I try to earn as much of our adoption fund as I can...but it gets to a point where you need people to step up and if nothing else just lend an ear...it's such a lonely, scary, road. I'm worried that my hand (I have De Quervain syndrome from all the crafting I've done fundraising)is going give up on me completely before Cliff is fully funded, and I was hoping to get funded quickly after our first trip so I can have the surgery I need to correct my hand before I have a teeny Bulgarian to lug around everywhere! :) 

Please keep Cliff in your prayers, specifically we need prayers for him to stay strong and hold on, because we're coming as fast as we can, but he is so frail. I can't let my mind finish that thought, please just pray for strength for him.

Thanks for listening to the ramblings of a crazy, worry filled mama...sometimes you just have to pour it all out so you can take a deep breath, and keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

<3