Father's Day Campout 2012

For Father's Day this year, we bought Craig a tent. He has this dream of backpacking the Appalachian Trail with our kids and that all begins with starting to camp with them. Tonight, Asher and Craig are spending their first night "camping" in our backyard. It is so fun to hear them laughing and enjoying their male bonding. To kick the night off, the whole family celebrated together with some backyard fun.

Ready for some s'mores!

Tried to start a fire via Pinterest = Failure

Plan B = Toaster oven s'mores

Asher and Mommy love them!

Daddy and Alethea love it and all of us are sporting glow bracelets.

Chocolate gotee

Let the backyard fun begin!

All tucked in and ready for a night of sleep.

This begins a new family tradition for Father's Day weekend. I can't wait to see the pictures every year as each kid turns three and can join the camp out. The thought of this makes me grin from ear to ear! 

And that means a quiet night alone in the house for me. Now, what should I do? Hmmmm......

UPDATE:

This morning I brought the campers breakfast in the tent along with Alethea, who slept in her crib last night. They looked a little groggy, but I could tell they had a fun time!

One Mango Tree Dress

Lately, I have been called an activist by those who know me and at one time I would have took offense to this statement. Growing up I thought that an activist was someone who took an obscure stance on something that really didn't matter. They never really accomplished anything but they sure cared a lot about that thing. And in my young little brain I always thought, "What a waste! Why spend your energy talking and protesting and not DOING something about it?"

I now view this label as a compliment. I hope that my life is marked and distinct from those around me. My hope is that the things I am passionate and outspoken about are seen as worthy things because I then live my life according to those beliefs. If I can inspire one person to buy coffee that provides clean water for a community or provide photo shoots at a discount price to help give a women in India a business loan to support her family or educate someone about the broken maternity care in this country, then I feel like all my activism is worth it.

If you don't know, we are adopting a boy and a girl from the beautiful country of Uganda. We can't go get them yet, but I can support the people of that nation. Craig and I support Invisible Children and I was excited to discover another organization that was helping to restore the women who were kidnapped and used as sex slaves for the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda. One Mango Tree help to provide jobs for the people of northern Uganda to earn a livable wage. From seed to the finished product, One Mango Tree produces organic women's clothing and accessories AND helps a worn torn community. Here is a sampling of their amazing catalog:

Navy Maxi Dress- $58

Glitter Stripe Mini-Dress- $38

Sweet Peas Pocket Skirt- $32

Deep Lake Ballet Tee- $28

If I was going to truly be an activist, then I needed to put my money were my mouth is. It was time to stop employing slaves and start adorning my body with clothing that I new I could be proud of, not because of how they looked but because of how they were made.

And this is my first fair trade dress and I couldn't love it more! And who knows? This could be my October Dress 2012. You will just have to wait until October to find out!

Fingerprints, Shots and a Homecoming

Since starting the process 6 months ago, we have completed so many steps in this long process. There is no new news about our kids or when we will go, but I thought I would share a couple of milestones along our journey.


We have been officially approved by the U.S. government to adopt two children from Uganda! Our home study has been approved and there are no other obstacles for us to adopt, which is a great thing. To receive our final approval, we needed to be fingerprinted again by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. My good friend, Sabes watched our kids back in May while we headed to Tampa for our official appointment. And we snuck in a trip to Starbucks before and a lunch at Red Lobster afterwards to get in some dating time.

Just this last week we scheduled an appointment for our immunizations. We still don't know when we will be flying, but we thought it would be a good idea to get the shots out of the way. Everyone has been very generous and God continues to provide the money when we need it. The immunizations bill came to $490, so we want to thank everyone who has partnered with us financially so far! Can you imagine a couple of shots and bills costing that much? Thankfully, another Ugandan adoptive friend shared the approximate cost with us to mentally prepare us for the shock.

You can still partner with us financially and get some delicious coffee out of it as well! Check out our last coffee fundraiser here.

Asher is smiling because he knows he isn't the one getting shots!

And the other exciting thing I was apart of was we welcomed home two families at the airport who brought home their newly adopted children home from Uganda. It was exciting to greet them and be a part of this amazing group of families who have all gone before us in this process.

This time of waiting is not what I want to be doing and it is hard, but as I wrote to a new family in Lakeland starting their adoption process for brothers from Uganda,

"I just keep clinging and crying out to God for strength and His perfect will."

Good-bye, October Dress 2011

I have worn my 2011 October Dress after the project was complete many times and enjoyed it. It was looking pretty rugged, but overall I still enjoyed the simplicity and versatility of the garment. Sure, it had a couple of holes and it was all balled up and in certain light in looked see-through, but it was still wearable. Right?

My sister-in-law informed me while having it on a couple of days ago that you could see my entire bra through the back of the dress. Yikes! I am thankful for her honesty! Who knows how long I would have continued wearing this dress, holes and all for the world to see right down to my skivvies? I had Craig take pics of the dress one more time as a final farewell to this wonderful piece of clothing. And to show you how bad the dress really was and the denial I was obviously living in by continuing to adorn my body with it!

The final curtsey from the 2011 October Dress.

My 2011 October Dress is now in the garbage, as was my 2010 October Dress shortly after that month ended. Putting them in the garbage has made me think more about planned obsolescence and the type of clothing I purchase. Usually I focus on how it looks on me, how versatile the piece is in my wardrobe, if I like it and the cost. I frequent the discount racks at Target and the local Salvation Army for the majority of my clothing, keeping to our modest one income family budget. I am not a huge shopper, but like to look put together, classy and stylish all at the same time as mothering two preschoolers.

If you read my blog, you know I truly love the October Dress Project and am already thinking about this year's dress and starting to ask others about their participation in the project. And that brings me to what dress I will wear starting on October 1, 2012 and for every day after that until Halloween night. Because the last two dresses have not help up well to the continual wearing, I am thinking about trying something different.

My convictions tell me to shop fair-trade and organic, but that is hard on a teacher's salary. But isn't the equitable and fair treatment of another person worth it, regardless of the cost? I say it is and am going to change the way I purchase clothing.

I haven't decided what dress I will wear yet, but I can tell you it won't be from a discount rack at a big chain store this year. This choice might not be right for everyone, but it is for me. It might be a dress I have owned for years, or I might make the jump and purchase my first organic/fair-trade clothing for this October.  

You will have to wait until October to find out...

Adoption Fundraiser #3

( If you missed the first two adoption fundraisers, you can click here and here. We still have 5 shirts left, if you want to participate in our 2nd fundraiser. )

We have finished all of our paperwork, submitted our dossier and are waiting (oh! the waiting!) for our referrals. The thing we haven't completed it our fundraising. We still need $18,000 for our travels to Uganda, stay for a month, foster care for our two kids before we fly over and their plane tickets, passports, visas and medical attention. Whew! It sounds like a lot, but I know it isn't. There is someone I know who has all the money in the world at His disposal.

And so, during our waiting time, we are continuing to save and pinch our pennies and start other fundraisers. This fundraiser is going to be fun, because there is no end! And it is something that a lot of people truly enjoy.

Coffee!!!! 

We are partnering with Just Love Coffee Roasters to raise funds for our plane tickets to go get our kids.

Here is how it works:

-Shop at our Just Love Coffee Roasters page.

-Buy delicious coffee.

-And for all my crunchy friends, they have organic and fair trade brews!

-For every bag purchased, $5 goes directly to our adoption fund.

 There you go! And once you are hooked on their coffee, and I know you will be, you can continue to buy it through our page for years to continue to fund this adoption or and maybe another adoption.....



And what could be better then a handmade coffee cozy to go with your new coffee made by an adoptive mommy-to-be?

 This cute Africa inspired coffee cozy is only $7 and made by this adoptive me with love. You can ask to purchase one anytime you see me, through e-mail, Facebook, or text.

And please, please, PLEASE! Share this fundraiser with everyone you know! 

Post it to Facebook

Tweet about it

Blog about it. 

The more people who know the faster we will meet our fundraising goals. 

Feel the coffee inspiration and help bring two kids to their forever family.