Just Us

Spoiler Alert: No, we did not adopt a child. Just to update curious minds about our adoption journey, we moved our timeline back just a bit, and the plan is to apply to our adoption agency in April, and then the journey really begins. As for this new adventure, there was a young girl in our community that needed a temporary home to live in for a while. Nathan and I were asked if we would consider taking her into our home. We prayed about it (quickly, as a decision had to be made in one day) and sought wise council. The whole time we were considering this decision I felt a great peace. We decided we could take on this new adventure, and I felt a great peace that God's grace was with me for this journey. So, now we have twin girl two-year olds! Eden and our new little girl share the same birthday month. She's been living with us for just over two weeks and has been a jewel. Of course there are normal issues that go along with parenting any two-year old, and she and Eden lik...

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Our online auction to help raise funds for our adoption is finally here! To view the auction, click here:  www.32auctions.com/mayesadoption .  This link will take you directly to our auction. You can view items without creating an account, but in order to place a bid, you will need to create an account (like almost every other website these days) with your email address, a bidding username, and a password. Important note: once you've created an account you'll be sent an email and asked to verify your account by clicking the link in the email, then you'll be ready to bid! We have some great items available (some may have already caught some "sneak peaks"). The website only allows one small photo of each auction item, so I'm adding all auction items with their descriptions to this post so people can get a better look at each item. Auction ends November 15th. Hope you find something you like, and happy bidding! Original Wall Art: Thanks to my brother Ca...

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...