Just Us

Here's a sneak peak of a few of the items up for auction! Original artwork by Caleb Palmer Shabaka's Sermon: Winner of this item gets to choose a scripture for Shabaka to preach on at church Handmade baby girl shoes and headband Authentic Korean table setting Again, this is just a sneak peak. There's lots more to come including more wall decorations, a photo package, gift baskets, handmade items and more. Auction starts this Saturday!

November is National Adoption Month. I didn't know this until I stumbled upon this information about a week ago. It made me so excited because it's something I can participate in as we are waiting for our journey to take off, and because I had already decided to hold our online auction to raise funds for our adoption the first two weeks of November. What a perfect time to have this event! The focus for National Adoption Month is finding loving, permanent homes for the foster children who are waiting to be adopted. While everyone involved in any type of adoption should celebrate and raise awareness this month, the main focus is to raise awareness for the children in the U.S. foster care system that are available for adoption. While our adoption is not through the foster system, I am excited to play a part in raising awareness about adoption in general and specifically for those in the foster care system. So, I guess this is sort of a warning that there is more to come on...

We've completed our garage sale fundraiser and are in the midst of caramel popcorn sales! Check out my "Popcorn for Adoption" page if you haven't yet. Very soon, November 1st to be exact, we will begin our final fundraiser for the fall, and I am so excited about this one! We are going to hold an online "silent" auction. It's similar to a live silent auction, just done online. The way it works is very similar to an eBay type auction, except that the items available to bid on cannot be purchased from a site such as eBay. The auction will last two weeks, and each item will be available to bid on for a few days. The reason I'm so excited about this auction is because I know the items that are generously being donated are going to be amazing! I'm going to have a hard time not keeping them for myself. :) There will be something for everyone at this auction, and it comes just before Christmas! What a great way to Christmas shop! There will be on...

I've been seeing this article go around on facebook (thus being shared by many of my friends), so I decided to read it, and I felt a response was necessary. This is my response, but it is not a comprehensive overview of everything I believe about courtship (that would be a long conversation). I think this article is giving a response to a specific group of people from whom the author feels he has been hurt. It is not giving any answers to help change the broken marriages (or non-marriages) that are rampant in today's society. Here's my response: My personal opinion is that many of us get much too caught up in the "lingo", the words. Courting, dating, casual dating, traditional dating, etc, etc, and many times each of those words means something different to different people. So, I don't think we should get caught up in what "word" a person is using in reference to their romantic life (or getting to know the opposite sex, whatever you want to refe...

Nathan and I would like to give a huge "Thank You" to all those that helped make this weekend a success! Both local community members and church friends were very supportive by making their purchases of our caramel popcorn at the Bethel Sheep Festival (and at church :)). It was especially a huge blessing when complete strangers would find out the reason for our selling the popcorn and give us a "keep the change" or a couple that just made a small donation without purchasing anything. We are so blessed to have people surround us and be so supportive in our endeavor. We have been able to continue our small start to our adoption fund. If you especially enjoyed our caramel popcorn and would like to place an order at some point, maybe for a party, special occasion, or just because you like it, check out my "Popcorn for Adoption" page at the top. Just to put a reminder out there, again for the locals, we are having our garage sale on September 12-13 in Shel...

We are officially on our way to our first adoption fundraiser! As in, we've made our first 10 bags of popcorn for the fundraiser. This fall we will be selling our delicious homemade caramel popcorn, thanks to Nathan's dad's amazing recipe. Of course the delicious part is my personal opinion, but we've received good reviews so far from those that have been able to sample it. Our first stop for selling this popcorn is coming up this weekend, August 30-31, at the Bethel Sheep Festival in Bethel, MO. We will have our own stand where we will be selling this homemade popcorn and lemonade shake-ups. If you live in the area, stop by on Saturday or Sunday and grab a bag. We will also be selling our popcorn at all the HCA volleyball and basketball home games this season, so if you aren't able to make it to the festival, you can catch us at the games. If anyone would have any other great ideas of where we could or should sell our popcorn this fall, send them my way! Fun...

I love birthdays. I love celebrating people and their lives, I love getting together with family, I love giving presents (especially to my kids), and I love getting presents. I have a friend who really loves birthdays & every morning on each of her children's birthdays she sets out birthday decorations and makes pancakes for her children; one pancake for each year. How fund would that be seeing the stack grow each year? I don't do that, but I'm thinking about stealing the idea. Last week I celebrated my birthday, and I loved it just as much as I always do. I went out on a date with my husband the evening of my birthday, and even though we had to do grocery shopping while we were out, I thoroughly enjoyed our time together. The next evening we got together with my family for a birthday dinner. It was a simple affair, but I had a wonderful time. Here's one of the gifts I received. The star in Korea marks Mokpo where my husband was born. Today my thoughts turn ...