Amazing People All Over the Place!

I am finding myself having to write a whole lot down lately.  I have "to-do" lists for everything in my life right now:  around the house, work/patient notes, adoption, fundraisers, and lately a whole lot of names to have on my "thank you" list!  In the past week we have had SO many people come forward with ways they want to help us here in OK and in AZ.  I wanted to write about some of the recent people who have been in our life and just made us smile really big...we are SO blessed to know these people!

A very sweet friend from church, started off calling us about items his family had to donate to our garage sale, this then tuned into him getting a huge trailer to help us haul all of the stuff from our house to the church Thurs night as well as to load up other items from the house of another sweet friend from church and bring back to the church so we can set-up before Fri morning.  Not that that wasn't enough he then took it upon himself to go around to various meat markets and stores in our town to ask if they would donate brisket to our fundraiser and was able to get a lot donated.  That is a lot of footwork that saved us a lot of time!  He will also be hanging out from midnight on Fri night to help with brisket for Saturday's events.  And again and again he has offered up his time and whatever he can do for us...mind you we just met him and his family last week!

Another friend from church who thought of the idea of smoking a brisket to sell, has been so excited and helpful with figuring out what all we need and offering to get items donated from friends he has in the area.  And let me say this again...he will be hanging outside from midnight and on to get all the brisket smoked (a 12-hr process).  We have known him ever since we started going as he is the main greeter when you walk in but we've only really got to know him over the past week or so.  To do this for us and at the end of a very crazy work week in which he is traveling to FL and will return Thursday, he then took off Fri and is designating his time on Fri and Sat to helping us!!! 

So moving onto the next amazing person, another new friend from church called me last night to say she had some stuff to donate to the garage sale but also wanted to let us know that her and her husband own a local BBQ place and said whatever they can do to help they would love to, future events with smoked turkey legs, or whatever they can help with they will! 

Now this next person entered into our lives about a month or so ago, another church friend who before meeting us, heard about our story and decided that her and her family wanted to help contribute to our adoption and their generosity didn't stop then.  She has offered to put on a bake sale during the garage sale and has offered up her and her families abilities to help us with whatever we need...even offered to have her babysitter stay longer so both her and her husband can be there to help...I mean seriously you would think all of these people have been in our lives forever!

Now some out of state friends...you may remember me posting about a friend I grew up with in IL who then moved to AZ and is a photographer there now, had offered to make September a month of photography for families at discount with all of the proceeds going towards our adoption as well as another long time friend who is also adopting from Ethiopia.  Today we received a check in the mail from Lindsey with a card thanking US for allowing her to be a part of our journey...ummmm Lindsey, THANK YOU!

Yesterday I received an email from a newer blogging friend who is also adopting from Ethiopia, letting me know that  she has decided to start buying their Ethiopia coffee from our website in support of us...again, yes they are also adopting.  You just gotta love the direct support received from other families in the same shoes!

Another good friend of ours from 5-6 years ago in AZ has offered to host a garage sale in AZ so all of our friends and family there can donate items and proceeds will go towards our adoption.  Again we really are lucky, blessed and thankful for everyone in our lives, it just makes this journey even more memorable and special and makes us want to work harder than ever to bring our baby home and continue working and fighting to help the orphans in this world be no more!

Well I think now that this is turning into a novel and it is nearing midnight, I should cut this one off...but don't worry there will be more to come.  I don't want to leave anyone out and want to give credit where credit is due so stay tuned.  Thank You so much to ALL of our friends and family and a BIG thank you to our church H2O and Pastors Gary and Zac for allowing this upcoming weekend to happen and for being so supportive of what we are doing! 

Weekend Extravaganza Approaching

Who: Jason & Joely O'Neal

What: A garage sale/lunch and coffee (and maybe baked goods)

When:  Fri, Oct 8th & Sat, Oct 9th

Where:  At our church H2O Church on the corner of Main St & Broadway in Ada, OK

Why:  To raise money for our adoption

How:  by the help of SO many friends (we definitely could not do this on our own)

EXTRAVAGANZA is the only way I can describe what is to come this weekend for our garage sale and I cannot wait!  This all began as a plan in the beginning of summer to have a little garage sale at our home around July to raise money.  After telling one of the pastors at our church he said if we were gonna do it, we should do it at the church and wait until Ada's fall festival so more people would be around.  So from that day months and months ago, this garage sale has now turned into many, MANY families from our work, church, and neighborhood donating items to sell to the point that our garage is packed and we haven't even gotten stuff from at least 5 other families that want to donate.  Not to mention we combed through our garage, attic and house today and compiled a lot of large containers of clothes, home decor, kids stuff, care seats and more.

On top of a garage sale, we had a friend at church offer to smoke beef brisket on a large smoker to sell as another fundraiser during the garage sale.  This requires him to stand outside and begin smoking it at midnight Friday night to be ready to sell by Sat early afternoon.  Some other people have offered to hang out and keep him company as well and we are going to bring them a heater and some snacks while they do such a huge favor for us!  Jason looked into it and because our church is also a coffee shop/lunch venue known as HeBrewz a few days a week we can sell food out of it without needing a license.  The chamber of commerce also said that if we were to serve food that would help them because they were in need of finding food vendors for the events so we will be selling lunch (brisket sandwich + chips + a drink for $5.00) and all the proceeds will go towards our adoption.  I was also approached tonight by a sweet friend at church about doing a bake sale too so that might also be going on!

...and then we of course want to promote Ethiopian coffee so I purchased a couple bags of coffee from our Just Love Coffee website and we will be selling cups of it as well.  I have started making signs for the garage sale and have business cards for the coffee, our website and thank yous to all who come by that day.

It has just been amazing to see so many people approach us to help in any way they can and we are so thankful for the wonderful friends we have made since living here in only 1 year!  We also are so thankful for our church as they have been so supportive of what we are doing and are just awesome in what they are constantly doing to help others out...Thank you H2O Church and to everyone who is helping us in some way or another and just letting us know you support us, we appreciate it SO much and are so thankful for each and every one of you!!!

a HUGE step completed!!!!

 Oh I don’t even know where to begin with writing right now.   I feel like I haven’t updated in forever because this last week has been the longest week ever and now we have a HUGE weight lifted from our shoulders!  We drove to Tulsa today and have our International Adoption course with our agency and 2 other families (adopting from China and Korea).  This is a requirement for our adoption and needs to be completed before the home study can be completed and it was just awesome!  We learned so much and feel even more prepared now for what is to come once we become parents to an adopted child.  I want to mention a few things that I thought were so interesting but I first would like to say we have a VERY BIG step completed in our process….

…Application Part 2 is DONE, hand delivered, and waiting on the desk of our case worker to be reviewed!!!!  If you are adopting through Dillon, you know what a task this part is but if you aren’t you’re probably thinking, another application?   Because Dillon is our adoption/placing agency and home study agency application part 2 is basically a little part of an application and then much of what is required for the home study and dossier so it included our autobiographies, birth certificates, marriage license, passport copies, 5 reference letters, doctor’s physicals, infectious disease screenings, bank statements, IRS past 3 years tax forms, letters to Ethiopian government, financial worksheets, contracts, pictures of our home inside and out and our immediate family and more!    We will have more paper-chasing to do throughout the process of course but this gets us ahead of the game in many aspects.  So now the next step for us is to wait to hear back from Dillon if they need anything else from us and then we will be proceeding onto our home study...YAY!!!

Last time I was in Tulsa was about this time last year to take my board exams that I had studied at least 4 mths for and I can honestly say I have about the same feeling of accomplishment right now as I did then.  Most of you reading this are in the process or have gone through it so this may not be news to you but these were just a few of the interesting things we learned today.

 ~ It is strongly recommended to not have many new people introduced to the child when they are brought home and should be taken care of solely by the parents so the child doesn’t attach to someone other than his or her mom or dad.  This means diaper changes, bottle feedings, rocking to sleep, etc , needs to be done by the parents only, in the beginning so the child can have optimal bonding and attachment time.  Also it is important to remember that this child has already had people leave from their own life and to get attached to someone else who is visiting and will be leaving could be very hard on that child. 

~The child most likely did not get the hands on, direct contact attention that most babies do so being rocked, cuddled, fed a bottle, played with and comforted often might be new to the child.  It is important to start the relationship with this child doing these things even if they are what we might think is too old to be doing something.  It allows them the same bonding and attachment ability as any other child would get.

~Bringing up the child’s birth parents to the child so they know it is okay to bring up and don’t feel bad or scared to do so.  Some ideas they talked about were saying “I wonder if your birth mom was good at ___ and that’s where you got it from since your dad and I aren’t good at that at all”.  Also honoring their biological mom on mother’s day and saying a prayer for her or talking about her (or dad on father’s day).  Another family that was there said they had their son (adopted at 10 years old from China) draw pictures of what he thought his biological parents looked like.

Now...onto getting ready for this upcoming week....Jason's parents will be coming in on Thursday and our big garage sale at church will be occurring this Fri and Sat so tomorrow we will be making our signs, flyers, etc and going through all of our own stuff to get rid of.  Our garage is filled right now and we still have others bringing stuff to the church directly for it...I will post pictures of it all so stay tuned...it should be a lot of fun!

Yay for More Adoptive Families in Oklahoma

I was starting to feel like we were one of the only families adopting a child from Ethiopia in Oklahoma when we started talking to people about it.  I thought, man are we going to be explaining quite a bit to our friends and co-workers about "Why Ethiopia?", "Why adoption?", "Why adopt from a different race?" and Yes, we have had to answer many of these questions over and over but I am now finding that we are not the only ones adopting from Ethiopia in Oklahoma and I am SO excited to be developing a friendship base with other families nearby.  So here is my list of those families I have met thus far and please feel free to let me know if you know someone not on this list in or nearby Oklahoma.

 

Kelly and Dillon  http://oursomethingbeautiful.blogspot.com/
Jennifer and John  http://ourmissinglinck.blogspot.com   (check out the sweet post Jennifer just wrote about my artwork...just made my day!)
Jocelyn   http://jocibro.wordpress.com/
Kerri   http://1crazyfamily.wordpress.com
Scott & Toni   http://ourangelsinafrica.blogspot.com/
Rachel and Scott   http://www.waitingforaamina.blogspot.com
Matt and Sarah  http://forthesakeofone.blogspot.com/ 

and of course my dear friend of (gasp) almost 20 years!!!  Hilary and Joshua  http://helmshappenings-ethiopia.blogspot.com/  they;re not in OK but very close and only 2 hours from us.

For all of you in the area, remember November 6th at Queen of Sheba for the quarterly Ethiopian Fellowship Group gathering....we can't wait and will see you there!!!

Advice Needed

Well as overwhelmed as I have been feeling, tonight everything just started coming together and I feel so organized and much more put together now.  Our application part 2 is much like application+ parts of home study and dossier in one so when I was looking at the page-long checklist of what is to be included I thought, this is going to take FOREVER.  Then I started making piles with sticky notes on each and compiling things we already have like birth certificates, marriage license and passports and dividing what still needs to be done between Jason and I and it really isn't that bad.  I am very lucky that my doctor adopted 3 children from Uganda 6 years ago and completely understands what is required of international adoption and is so willing to help us so my health stuff is taken care of, just need to get Jason and Jalen in for their physicals.  Just a few forms to fill out and get notarized and then write our autobiographies and we can send in part 2!!!  The DHS, OSBI and background check info will go out tomorrow and we have emailed the info required for our reference letters to those writing them for us.  I also have been making copies of everything and have been sliding them into sheet protectors in order, inside my large adoption binder I made so...I feel much less overwhelmed (for now).  Thanks for the idea on the sheet protectors in the binder Tiffany that was a great idea!

So here is where I need the advice for now.  As part of our education we are required to read 2 books between the 2 of us and then 1 course on adoption and the older child in case our child should come home to us after they have turned 12 mths.  So I'm putting the list out here and would love your thoughts if you have read these or done the courses below and have any thoughts on which ones to choose or if you have heard about them and have thoughts to share.  Not that it matters but if you don't know us, a quick FYI is: we have an almost 2 yr old son, plan to adopt a boy or girl under 12 mths of age, are both full-time working parents and Jason (my husband) was adopted and has 2 adopted siblings of different races so we're pretty well aware of life in a multicultural-multiracial family...if that helps at all :)

Jason with his family

Books:
Raising Adopted Children by Lois Melina
Adoption Parenting by Jean MacLeod
Attaching in Adoption by Deborah Gray
Nuturing Adoptions by Deborah Gray
The Connected Child by Dr. Karyn Purvis
Adopting the Hurt Child by Gregory Keck
Parenting the Hurt Child by Gregory Keck

Courses:
With Eyes Wide Open workbook
Adopting the Older Child online course
Adopting Older Children Internationally online course
Toddler Adoption by Mary Hopkins Best (book)

Okay headed to bed now...I'd say it's about time 12:40am...my alarm is set for 6am, It's not gonna be a pretty sight tomorrow morning that's for sure and making doubly strong green tea will be first on my list of things to do!

Application Part 2 is HERE!

So to most of you this might not sound that exciting but I have been waiting on this since the Friday before last.  Because of the holiday weekend, people being on vacations and the extent of what the application entails/being put together for us specifically it took longer than usual.  I had to go through it and start making piles and lists and a plan of attack. 

This 2nd application includes much of what the home study will require so we will be starting to ask for our references, do our parent education classes (online, in person and via reading books), compile our birth certificates and marriage license, have our physicals to be signed off on, write our autobiographies, go through the checklist of health concerns of the future child, bank statements, tax stuff...oh the list goes on :)  We do already have our birth certificates, marriage license, passports and much of what is needed so that makes me feel slightly less overwhelmed but I'm sure that feeling won't last long.

This sounds and seems exhausting but I cannot wait to start getting the list checked off and sent it.  Once they have everything and we are approved, we will begin the home study which is also through Dillon.  So I know what our weeknights and this upcoming weekend will be full of....Lots Of FUN!!! (my husband may say otherwise but checking off lists and organizing is definitely my fun!)

Our Art Blog is UP!!!

One day I thought a wall in our living room looked bare and thought I would fill the space with some canvas paintings/collages with our adoption theme throughout.  I took a picture of what I did and put it up on good ole Facebook so my friends and family could see and soon enough I had a new friend asking if I could make one for her daughter's (soon to be brought home from Ethiopia) nursery.  She then suggested that if she wanted one, surely others would too and I should use it as a fund raiser...Thanks Rachel!  And with that, Our New Blog is born.

http://artforourcause.blogspot.com/

This is NOT to replace our current blog but in addition to make an easy way for people to place their orders and see what it is all about.

I am so excited to say that in just a few days I have had about 8 people emailing me to ask how they can buy one...so THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to everyone and special thanks to Erica for being super supportive, I am so excited to donate a painting to your fund raiser and hope it brings you closer to bringing your baby home as well.  Go to her blog and buy a puzzle piece for only $10 to be entered into their HUGE drawing...I just did!  I can't say this enough but I LOVE how we all work together to help each other attain the same goal!

So check out the new art blog...grab our button in the right column of this blog and let me know what you think!  

Joely