and harper's "grumpy" face.

london's "grumpy" face.

heading for sledding

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the 1000 view update

we have officially hit 1,000 views on our etsy site! my friend, amanda, suggested that there has to be some way to figure out the views:sales ratio. so, i think 1,000 views is a pretty good litmus test. so, here are the stats:

for every 1,000 views, the following things will happen:

• we will sell approximately 60 items!
• a tall man will partially pay for 2 items, and then disappear.
• we will sell 1 item to my oldest childhood friend, thanks brooke!
• we will sell 1 item to a perfect stranger from new york city.
• people will come out of the woodwork, with their woodwork. (more on the cutting boards later...)
• one sweet and generous friend (eh hem, abby) will throw a pampered chef fundraiser event to raise money for our adoption.
  

so... not too shabby! we are making a lot of progress and have been very blessed by some of the most unexpected people. while we continue raising funds, we also continue to spread the word about how wonderful we believe adoption to be. my most recent experience with this was an opportunity to share in annalee's first grade classroom.

this was a bit of a challenge, because it opens up a whole world of questions that i am NOT about to answer for other people's kids. i thought that by explaining what adoption is, and how a child is born "out of another mommy's tummy," it would raise questions like "well, how does a baby get out of the tummy?" and "how did the baby get in there to begin with?" so, i tried to prepare for those questions... along with heartbreaking questions about orphans and children being born with "no family." so, i prepared for those questions too.

what i could not prepare for was the questions they would actually ask. after completing my whole talk, then reading a book called "a family is forever" the hands started going up. i called on one little girl and she said "do all girl scouts have mothers?"

ummmm... yes, even girl scouts have mothers.

then, my personal favorite, "do dinosaurs adopt babies?"

seriously!? what, are you in first grade or something kid? oh wait, you actually are... "umm, well, have you seen the tv show called dinosaur train!? that show is about a family of teranodons who have a mysterious egg hatch in their nest. when he hatches, he is a different kind of dinosaur, but he is still part of their forever family!" booya. (shout out to pbs for that one...)

it also opened up conversations about blended families, the foster care system and how all families are different. after our discussion, each of the kids got to illustrate a booklet and write about their own family. some of the pictures and words were actually super sad, and others were really cute. but, as i was walking past annalee's desk i saw her first line:

my family is speshul! soooo speshul!

so, there you have it. our family looks a little different than the average family... but, we're gonna keep pluggin' away with this fundraiser because someday, somewhere a precious little baby is is going to be born and will need a home, and will eventually join our family. and, as lucky as we will be to have him or her, they will be pretty lucky to have us... because i've heard we're pretty speshul.

ladybird

new mealtime rule #2: your hands may not go above your head.

new mealtime rule #1: no beat boxing at the table.

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When daddy is in charge of lunch

Pile it on. All at once.

London's new get up: she insists on wearing boots that won't fit her for at least another two years, and a headband from Guatemala. She's so fancy.