Another Baby Todd

Hi Everyone!

Eek, we have made it through week 1 of 4 with our $2,500 matching gift deadline slowly approaching. I debated on how I should title this post because it IS the next Creativity update, but it is ALSO our very first matching gift update. Whew. The challenges of blog writing 😜

I’m going to need you to play the imaginary drumroll in your heads right now, because here we go! Our hearts have been blown away at the generosity poured out on our family this past week. Guys. We received a total of $3,235!! That is not even a typo. That is OVER our goal and allows us to receive 100% of our matching gift!

All together, that is $5,735 that will help us cover our imminent adoption expense AND begins to support the expense after that.

I hope you can imagine this with me. The excitement we will feel when the phone call comes introducing us to our daughter will have absolutely NO shadow of finances hanging over it, because every penny of that $5,000 expense is covered and more.

With this incredible milestone being reached so early in our February Fundraising efforts, we wanted to ask if you would be interested in helping us cover another upcoming adoption expense? Within a couple months of being matched, all of the documents we have carefully collected need to be sent to India so that their courts can begin their process to finalize the adoption. The preparation for those documents includes a lot – copies, translation, shipping, and more. Our fee for this is $2,000. You have already helped us cover $735 of that $2,000. Would you help us cover the remaining $1,265?
Join us here: Link to Give

Reaching this point in the adoption journey has truly taken an investment. Already we have put forward $20,000 to cover various adoption expenses as most grants do not accept applications from families until after our match. We will not give up on applying for grants, but as many grants report back to us, there are more families in need than there are funds available to give. Your help is an incredible encouragement to our hearts as we continue to wait for the phone call that our little girl is ready to be matched with us! (Woah, so serious. Seriously, seriously, we love you all so much!)

And with that… back to our Creativity Update!! 💕

What a crazy January it was here in Orlando. When Sam and I set out to find good deals on furniture, it was a big priority for me that we were able to do things like painting in January. Because January is the month in FL where we have low humidity and cool days, right? The beauty of winter in FL.

Nature has had other plans. Our weekends have been cloudy, humid, rainy, or (and this is wild to me) too cold to paint! Insanity, I tell you. Doesn’t nature know we have a baby to prepare for?? 😉 Best laid plans, I guess.

Still. We DID manage to finish our very fun furniture project and now have the big pieces we need to welcome our little girl home! I bet you can’t wait to see the room’s final set-up now!! I can’t wait either!

Because of prior construction in the room, it needs an armoire for clothing as opposed to a closet. We found this gem in excellent condition for $20! Our final touch will be installing the clothing rod to hang her precious clothes.

This dresser was truly in dire (and free!) condition. I actually forgot to take our before picture before sanding! 😁 We also took extra time to paint the inside of the drawers so that they can be converted into nice pullout shelves for easier toy storage if that is better for the room’s needs.