How Are You Doing?

How are you doing? That is the big question that we have received this weekend...We are devastated! It is so hard not to be. Kalan is holding it together, while I am essentially falling apart. Why?, you might ask. Because we didn’t really tell people but we have been looking at Russian adoption photo listings and we had two sets of children that we have been praying over and as soon as we were approved on our application then we were going to give the adoption agency their names to find out more information on them. Unless God moves in a mighty way, please continue to pray for Russia because God can still move there, we will never know about those children. We know that God is in control and has a plan for us. We just aren’t sure where He is taking us yet. As we walk this journey, please be praying for us. Pray that God will continue to give Kalan strength and wisdom to lead our family. Pray that God will comfort my hurting heart. Pray that God will continue to work in the hearts of the men in Russia, that they would see the folly of this decision and reverse it. Pray that God would lead us in the next steps to take. We are still planning on adopting but we are not sure what the next course of action should be. In the meantime, we do have plans to continue raising funds for our adoption and keeping everyone updated on our decisions! Thanks for all of the love and support you all have shown us!

Stephanie

Pampered Chef

Time for another fundraiser! Do you know anybody that likes to cook? Need some cool Christmas presents? Or maybe a gift for yourself? How about ordering some fabulous Pampered Chef products? 

Right now we are holding a fundraiser through Pampered Chef for the adoption. Want to know how to help? Here's how:

You can find someone with an order form if you are local, Savannah or Beaufort, and order through them and save on shipping or you can go online and have it delivered straight to your house. To order online, go here and click the link "Shop Online". It will then ask you for a Host/Organization name, please enter in the first block "Smith Adoption Fund" and press Enter. It will bring up the options and you just need to click on the option "Smith Adoption Fund Stephanie Smith" and then you can shop to your hearts content! If you have any questions please message us here or through our FB page here. 

If you think you can sell Pampered Chef to your friends, please pass the word and they can order online or I can get a catalog and some order forms to you! Any help would be greatly appreciated! 

Here is how the adoption fund benefits: Based on sales (before tax and shipping), a contribution of 10-15% is made directly to the adoption fund. If total sales are less than $600, the contribution will be 10%. If the total sales are $600 or more, the contribution will be 15%. Plus our lovely Pampered Chef representative is donating at least 1/3 of her commission to our adoption fund! How cool is that? 

We need all orders in by November 21. I know that this time of year is really busy so be sure and get your orders in quickly! All orders should be to you no later than the first week of December.  

Our Love Story

Kalan and I met through some mutual friends. I was hanging out with this family and really getting to know them. The mom of the family told me that there was this guy that her husband was working with that she wanted us to meet. When they first mentioned him I was totally disinterested. Finally, he came to church and I was able to meet him. I was smitten from the very beginning! We went on our first date a week later. (Little known fact, I actually asked Kalan out first!) It was a double date but still really fun. That was November of 2008, right before Thanksgiving.

Our First Picture Together

 I met his family that Christmas Eve. Kalan bought the ring in February/March of 2009. He hung on to the ring until May of 2009.

My Gorgeous Ring

Kalan was actually pretty sneaky about the whole proposal. He told me that he had an appointment with the allergists that day, totally believable because his allergies are horrendous! Instead, he drove all the way out to my parents’ house to ask my dad’s permission to marry him. That day was not a great day for us. We were disagreeing about something, I cannot for the life of me remember what the disagreement was about but at the time it was “devastating”.  It was a Wednesday night, so after church we decided to go downtown to swing and just talk. It’s always nice to go somewhere to just talk to your significant other. It really gives you time to communicate and focus on each other. When it got late, I stood up and said that I needed to get home because it was getting late. As we are walking back to the car Kalan pulls me over to some benches and says to sit down. I started going on and on about how late it was and how early I have to get up. (For those that know me this is still the story today.) As Kalan sat me down on the bench and proceeded to get down on one knee, I started boo-hoo crying! I don’t remember anything about his beautiful speech (I call it that because I know that it was) except for this: “I can’t promise that we won’t ever fight but I know that we can make it through with God’s help.” After his speech I got the most beautiful ring ever! (Sorry ladies but mine really is the best! J)

Revisiting where Kalan proposed to me.

 I went to bed that night dreaming of “my man” and woke up not believing that I was truly engaged. From there it was planning the wedding for the next 11 months. On April 10, 2010, I married the man of my dreams!

Our Wedding Day

Our relationship has not been an easy one. We have endured (only by God’s grace!) family disputes, sickness, job losses, and everything in between. God has remained faithful to us when we have wanted to give up. We are always thankful for His amazing grace!

We have always wanted a large family consisting of biological children and adopted children in no particular order. We tried for about 2 ½ years to get pregnant with “no luck”. Pursuing adoption isn’t our “Plan B”. We believe that it is God’s “Plan A” for us! Since embarking on this journey we have seen God be faithful to us time and time again and we have only been doing this for a little over a month now.

Our First Fundraiser Results

We have completed our very first fundraiser.  It has been a very crazy but fun adventure!

When we first started out on this adventure we were really just hoping to sell 48 sets of cups in order to get free shipping and we would banks more of the profits. Then we found a week after we started that we had already surpassed that number. So we set a goal of selling 100 sets. Then we started collecting all of the orders and God totally blew our minds! Our final count for cups is 148 sets!! How amazing is that? 100 more sets than what our original goal was! Praise God! Thank you to everyone who bought cups, you are all making our adoption happen!

Be on the lookout for some more blog posts in the very near future and for our next fundraiser. Ladies, this fundraiser is going to be for you. Start thinking kitchen and cooking!

Spirit Cups Fundraiser

Our first big fundraiser has arrived! Don't forget to check out our other fundraisers here. We are super excited about this fundraiser and we are hoping to get the men involved too. We are selling Spirit Cups (you can check out their website here). The cups are BPA Free, Made In The USA, Dishwasher Safe, have 3D Animation, 18 oz. capacity, and a 4-pack sells for $15.

Here are some of the sample cups that we have for you to look at. The cups come in all NFL Teams, NFL Pink (The cups are pink for all the ladies that love football!), MLB, Collegiate Teams, US Military, and Collectible (Packers, NY Giants, Red Sox, San Fransisco Giants, Cardinals, Crimson Tide, Tigers (Auburn), Huskies, Blue Devils, and Wildcats)

Same cup, showing the holographic design. 

If you are interested in purchasing any of these cups for yourself, for gifts, or if you are interested in participating in this fundraiser, please leave a comment with your name and email address below. We will be ending this fundraiser on October 20, 2012. So get your orders in fast!

For everyone that is outside of the Savannah, GA and Beaufort, SC area, shipping for 1 or 2 sets of cups will be $6.00 in the continental US, everyone else should message us. If you want more than 2 sets we will work out how much the shipping will be. Please don't let distance stop you from buying cups!

Thanks for reading our blog! Please follow us on here and you will get emails everytime we update our blog!

Q & A Time

Lots of people have been asking a bunch of the same questions. I thought it would be good to go ahead and answer some of these questions here and if you don't see the question that you have then comment below and I will answer that one too because most likely someone else has the exact same question!

Question: "What agency are you using?"

Answer: We have some friends that used AWAA (American World Adoption Agency) and had a very good experience. We have filled out information for them already and have spoken with a couple people from their office and have had a great experience so far. I am really looking forward to working with them for the next couple of years. I highly recommend them! They do both international and domestic adoptions.

Question: "Why international over domestic?"

Answer: We looked at both options and really felt God pulling us toward international adoption.

Question: "Why Russia?"

Answer: We were looking at a couple of countries (Russia, Ethiopia, and Brazil). We met the age and marriage limits for all of these countries. We were super interested in the Brazil program but then found out that all of the kids are older and way out of the age range that we are looking for. It was just Russia and Ethiopia left. After that it was a pretty easy choice. Stephanie has been to Ukraine on missions trips before and the culture between Ukraine and Russia is pretty similar. So it seemed to be the most obvious choice!

Question: "Do you have specifics that you are looking for in the child?" (i.e. gender, age, special needs, etc.)

Answer: This answer may seem really vague but we are leaving it all up to God. First, we have to be approved by our homestudy for ages and quantity. Then we have to see what is available in Russia. We would really love a girl but I am completely content with a boy. We would love a sibling group but are completely ok with just one. We are really relying on God and His faithfulness to guide us through our adoption.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask. Please share our blog and FB page with all of your friends!



Let's Start "Piecing" It Together

Our First Fundraiser is going to be a Puzzle Fundraiser. I have seen lots of other people that have done it before and I thought it was a great idea. Plus who wouldn't like sentimental art for their walls? So here is how it works: 

This puzzle has 2000 pieces. I would love for every piece to have someones name on it to show our child(ren) how much people loved them even before God brought them to us. It's $3 to purchase 1 piece of the puzzle and $10 to purchase 4 pieces of the puzzle. When it's finished and assembled, we plan on getting a 2-sided glass frame for it, so all the names can be seen and we can always look back at everyone that helped make this adoption possible.

To make a donation and sponsor a piece:

1. Click on the Donate Button on the left hand side of the blog, OR

2. You can send a check. You can leave a comment with your email address, and we will email you the address to send it to.

Be on the look out end of next week for our first BIG fundraiser! We are really excited and we think the men are really going to love it! Be sure and share our FB Page and have your friends like it. Plus follow our blog for up to the minute updates!