Thank You!

We were blessed to be able to meet the owners of the wonderful restaurant that is helping to fund our adoption grant through The Gift of Adoption Fund. The restaurant is Zaffiros Pizza in Milwaukee and the owners Mike and Rose are the most caring and compassionate people we've ever met. Their family was built through adoption and they truly understand the hurdles adoptive parents today face in trying to raise the funds necessary to bring their kids home. It is a very quaint and welcoming place and the pizza is phenomenal!


Zaffiros have partnered with The Gift of Adoption Fund which is an organization committed to helping build families one child at a time. Their work is amazing and their CEO, Pam, is very passionate about what they do. I would encourage anyone who is able and willing to support this amazing organization please do so. We are so grateful for their work and their belief in us as a family.

All that's missing.....

is our little princess. The room is painted, the bedding has arrived and thanks to some very generous mommies, we have quite a lot of little girl clothes. The crib is still at the store where it will stay until we have travel dates, but I'm trying to stay optimistic and slowly get things together. In my last post I mentioned that some bedding I had ordered had arrived, but we decided to send it back. I've had a hard time choosing bedding for K for several reasons. First off, as those who know me can attest to, I'm not really a girly-girl. I don't like pink, frilly, lacey things and that seems to be mostly what's out there for infant girl bedding. Second, K and E will share a room for a while - we only have 2 bedrooms on our main floor and I am just not ready to be more than a few steps away. Therefore, I wanted to have something that would at least kind of coordinate with E's decor. Third, bedding is EXPENSIVE! I run on a pretty tight budget and I just couldn't justify spending $200 on bedding. Then....I found IT. I saw a set I really loved - the perfect combination of class and glamour, but it was $200. On a whim I decided to check eBay (my new best friend) and found a brand new set on auction with only 19 hours left. I set my max bid at $60 and ended up winning it for $46. I was so excited and even more so when it arrived yesterday and was just as perfect as I'd hoped it would be.

I know the suspense is just killing you, so here it is (our set has the crib bedding, valance, diaper stacker, toy bag and pillow):

A VERY good day

Yesterday was one of those pretty darn good days. It started off with updated measurements of K from our agency. Now, I generally take these measurements fairly lightly as we've experienced the inaccuracy and inconsistency with them in the past. However, K has had a significant gain since last report and I figure even if they're off some, she almost certainly has had a gain which is tremendously encouraging to us right now. She is now the weight of a very healthy newborn!

The day only got better when I was notified that we have indeed received a grant from the same organization that helped us with E's adoption last year. We feel so incredibly blessed by the compassion and generosity of the grant selection committee and all those who support these foundations throughout the year so they may continue to offer financial assistance to adoptive families.

Later, I arrived home to find the crib bedding set I had ordered for K's crib (which is still at the store). We decided we don't really care for it as much as we did on the computer screen (the hazards of online shopping) and are sending it back in exchange for something else, but it was still pretty cool that it arrived.

All we're missing is some good news from Bishkek.............