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Browsing Tag

fundraising

Adoption

Growing Our Family Piece by Piece: Day Five Update

September 28, 2016

Welcome back to our day five update for the adoption puzzle fundraiser!

We continue to be grateful for ALL the donations and support that has come in. You all can see that we have a LONG ways to go before our puzzle is done, which is slightly overwhelming. We plan to continue inviting you to join us through our puzzle but do want y’all to know we are working our tushes off doing additional things to scrimp, save, and make extra funds. 

  • We had an 5-year anniversary trip to Paris planned months ago that we cancelled last week and got a full refund on.
  • I’m writing a few eBooks and have taken on speaking opportunities this Fall.
  • Jonathan is planning to snag a seasonal job on nights and weekends between now and due date.
  • We have stripped all extras from our budget. If we don’t need it to survive, it doesn’t make the budget.
  • We are selling things in Craigslist and eBay. If it isn’t nailed down or breathing, its fair game.

In some ways we are back to gazelle mode from our early Dave Ramsey days. Back then getting out of debt was certainly a motivator…but bringing home our next child? WAY more motivating! 🙂

I share that for those people like me out there – those who might be tempted to think, “Well why should I donate to people that aren’t willing to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and do some good ole hard work and cut back their lifestyle?” We are working real hard and fundraising is part of how we are taking these expenses seriously and planning to tackle them without debt.

So thank you to all who’ve partnered with us as we scrape, claw, and press our way towards meeting our financial goal. We want to specifically thank those of you who have SHARED about our puzzle on social media or sent it in a message to select friends and family.

Statistically it’s been shown that each social media share is likely to bring the campaign $37 on average. We obviously have a lot of shares to go for our goal to be met but every share counts. So if you’re willing to share, that would be helpful. I know, there are probably many of you like me out there who are not big posters or sharers on Facebook. If that’s you – perhaps think about who YOU would call if you were fundraising and then connect us privately with them.

What kind of progress did we make on Day Five?

  • 200 pieces sold

  • $5,005 raised!!!!

  • 13.35% of our goal of $37,500

Here’s a virtual picture of the puzzle’s progress – We can actually see the top of the text forming!!!!! 🙂

puzzle-day-05

 

If you would like to donate, please do so below. If you know of anyone who has a heart for adoption, please share our story and invite them to consider joining the journey.



Donate w/ Squarecash

THANK YOU!

Adoption

Growing Our Family Piece by Piece: Day Two Update

September 25, 2016

Welcome back to our Puzzle Fundraiser for bringing home Baby Tex #2!! 🙂

We continue to be humbled by the giving hearts and souls around us and we are so grateful for each of you.

I confess there have been and will be moments where I wish we just could pay cash for this adoption and any future adoptions. To grow our family ourselves like most people do.

But that isn’t our reality and I am learning to be okay with that. Someday, probably when we are much older, and we finally have the cash flow to handle adoption expenses, we will likely be past the age of raising littles and it will be our chance to bless a young couple like us by just cutting them a big ole check to adopt. I anticipate that day greatly.

But today we need your help.

For those of you who’ve come alongside us, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Some of you might desire to help financially but can’t – and that’s alright! You can pray for us and expecting Momma and her baby. Or imagine you were in our shoes…who are the first 3 people you would call to help out? Perhaps you can connect them with our journey.

OK, back to the puzzle. What kind of progress did we make on Day Two?

  • 121 pieces sold

  • $3,020 raised!!!!

  • 8% of our goal of $37,500

Here’s a virtual picture of the puzzle’s progress:

puzzle-day-02

If you would like to donate, please do so below. If you know of anyone who has a heart for adoption, please share our story and invite them to consider joining the journey.




 

Donate w/ Squarecash

THANK YOU!

Adoption, Money

Adopting Again…How Soon is too Soon?

April 14, 2015

This is a topic that’s been on my heart lately.

I love being a mom. I really really love it.

Not only am I content and joyful with having Josie, I find myself being hopeful for future siblings for her to be close with while growing up.

But then I come up against the facts – siblings for Josie will likely happen through the means of adoption and not a miraculous pregnancy. Now, I am certainly not God nor do I claim to know his will for our family but by looking at my medical history…adoption will probably be how our family grows.

It’s no longer getting pregnant and watching my belly grow that fills my dreams now.

I dream of the adoption process and getting to do it all over again.

Filling out paper work. Having our lives examined and cross-examined. Connecting with a birth family. Being chosen to raise and love the most precious gift of all. Meeting our newest little one at the hospital. Taking the full milk supply I’ve painstakingly built for Josie and getting to continue breastfeeding both my babies.

And everything else that goes with adoption.

But then one thing stops me in my tracks: Money.

We fundraised a majority of the $25K+ for Josephine’s adoption. It was such a gift, honor, and privilege to have the love and support of so many behind us. I can’t tell you how humbled we were and still are that so many people walked our adoption journey by our sides.

But when is adopting again too soon? And can we actually fundraise again or will we get the stink-eye from people?

I don’t want this to come off wrongly but Josie is almost 6 months old…and if I had healthy fertility and was yet again cycling, Jonathan and I would likely begin trying to have a sibling for her. I really like the idea of having a few kiddos close in age to one another, no matter how crazy life would temporarily be. I would rather condense the wild and sleepless years together into as brief of time period as possible….

I can already hear God laughing at that one, as he prepares a nice curve ball for me. 🙂

With a natural pregnancy, the wait time is typically 9 months from conception through birth. With adoption? The average wait is 2-3 years!!!

I am well aware that our first adoption happened from start to finish in under 6 months. Highly unusual! I can’t say it wouldn’t happen that quickly again, but statistically it won’t.

That means that if we start the process all over again in a couple months time…we *might* have a second adoption by the time Josie is 3 or 4 years old. Still pretty close in age for siblings but it’s about as far a part as I would like.

This is when I start to get nervous though. We couldn’t afford adoption the first time around without significant help. We likely won’t be able to a second time around either. Part of me wonders if those cheerleaders from our first round will still be around for the next one. Did we wear our welcome? How soon is too soon?

If we were talking about natural conception, we wouldn’t have to factor in anyone else’s opinion…but I feel like with adoption we HAVE to weigh others opinions and perceptions…since we will likely rely on their help once again.

Hopefully we can start saving right away for future adoptions and be MUCH more prepared and not have to do as much last-minute fundraising. I also plan to do more adoption grant applications that we didn’t qualify for this first time around since things happened so quickly.

But what if we do need the help of others?

Will people judge us for trying for another adoption so “soon” not knowing we could be waiting around for 2+ years? Will people think we are free loaders who want handouts? Do people think we are not sacrificing enough lifestyle to save for adoption on our own? (Trust me when I say your jaw would drop on how little we spend on lifestyle as it is.) Should we be fundraising a higher annual income than we currently are, to build in the cost of future adoptions and not have to fundarise for adoption specifically at all?

These questions come from a place of prudent planning but also of fearing others. I don’t want to be there but I admit some days I am.

The other part of me remembers how special fundraising for Josephine was. I felt united to a large family…people cheering us on from around the globe. People who knew that by giving to us…they were primarily giving to God and doing his work. People happy to give, knowing it was not only a blessing to us but it was a blessing to them to be part of the story. Those memories are wonderful and make me believe fundraising again is possible.

Only time will reveal God’s will for growing our family and other’s reactions to how soon we choose to move forward on another adoption. We will keep praying about when and if God will call us to move forward on that.

Until then, I’m just going to think out loud with you here at True Good and Beautiful.

Feel free to let me know how this topic makes you feel.

Really. I am curious.

What is your gut reaction to us thinking about adopting (and mostly fundraising to adopt) again? You can always email me using the contact us page if you don’t want to share your thoughts publicly in the comments section. Thanks y’all!

Adoption

Building Our Family Piece by Piece: Day Three

August 16, 2014

Three days down.

Seven more to go until the day we hope to meet our funding goal of nearly $13,000 for the home study completion and out-of-state agency fee.

I just want to say how humbled and thankful we are to everyone who’s participated thus far.

New friends. Old friends. Family. Neighbors. People we’ve never even met.

I am truly in awe at the goodness of others. That is saying a LOT since we’ve fundraised our paychecks for seven years now and we know incredibly generous people. The support and positive reactions from others has been amazing and we will have quite the story for our precious little one that I am sure they will want to hear time and time again…the story of how many people loved them before ever meeting face to face.

We had more puzzle pieces purchased on Friday and the progress is below!

On day three we sold a total of 29 puzzle pieces, totaling $725!! 

Total overall stats thus far are as follows:

  • 286 pieces sold

  • $7,150 raised

  • 55% of current goal of $13,000

  • 29% of original goal of $25,000

Here’s a picture of the puzzle progress:

DSC04106

It’s slow and steady progress but day by day we are inching towards our goal!

Thank you again for all who are joining Team Baby Teixeira! 🙂

Keep coming back each day for new progress updates!

Click here to learn more about the puzzle fundraiser!

Adoption

Building Our Family Piece by Piece: Day One

August 14, 2014

One day down.

Nine more to go until the day we hope to meet our funding goal of nearly $13,000 for the home study completion and out-of-state agency fee.

It’s incredible how much can happen in one day so over the next nine days we will update the Adoption Puzzle and track it’s progress here on the blog.

That way you can see how the fundraising is going and can cheer us on along the way! 🙂

At the end of day one, we sold a total of 88 puzzle pieces, totaling $2,200!! 

Below is a picture of the puzzle progress and what the name’s on back are looking like:

progess.jpgPretty stellar, huh?

This fundraiser has been a tangible way to see and feel the love of God through others. We can’t thank those of you participating in bring home Baby Tex enough. Words will never suffice for the overwhelming gratitude we have for your generosity. May the Lord bless you for answering his call to be a generous steward of the funds entrusted to you.

Keep coming back each day for new progress updates!

Click here to learn more about the puzzle fundraiser!

Adoption, Marriage

Little Happies: Announcing Our Adoption

June 30, 2014

It’s been a big week around TGB. Many Little Happies to recap this week! 🙂

–one–

adoptionphotoshoot.jpg

Adoption Photos!

All props to Alzbeta over at Voboril Photography for being AWESOME! We literally did this photo shoot on Wednesday night and within two hours we had these photos since she knew we needed them to launch our Adoption Page on the True Good and Beautiful blog. We had a lot of fun taking this shoot, especially wondering where those giant balloons ended up when they floated off mid-shoot. LOL! Good thing we snapped a few photos with them first.

Oh and can you tell that Jonathan used blue crayon to color wear marks on his jeans or that he used brown crayon to darken the worn tips of his shoes? Didn’t think so. Pretty clever Lifehack.

–two–

sharing

When we launched our Adoption Page here on TGB, generous people began sharing our information on Facebook. This spiked our blog traffic and we had nearly 7,000 views that day alone. We are so grateful to see others rooting for us!

Infertility has been a long and lonely road…and I understand that it’s hard to concretely support a couple going through it. However, with adoption, we really feel a community rallying behind us. They’ve likely all been praying for us all along but now have a tangible way to help. I couldn’t be more grateful. It’s made me realize how we’ve never been alone in this like I was tempted to believe on the dark days.

–three–

FinancialFreedom6Last Wednesday night we took those Adoption photos…then proceeded to stay up all night building the Adoption Page on the blog. We would’ve went to sleep but we had to catch a flight at 5:50 AM to skip down to FOCUS New Staff Training in Florida to teach a class on Finance & Budgeting!

We landed in Florida, drove to Ave Maria and were teaching within 15 minutes of arrival! A few hours later we taught the class again. We slept like the dead that night, especially because we had separate twin beds and no one could steal the  covers. The next day we met with several staff in 15 minute increments for over 3 hours before hopping back on an airplane.

Might sound exhausting to some (and it was) but we absolutely LOVED every second of it. I only wish we took a photo while teaching, as the staff were great students! 🙂

I also realized we are officially “old” in the FOCUS world. One lovely first-year staff member even asked for our autographs! Yep, we’re getting legendary AKA old.

–four–

adoption page

Last but not least, the launching of the Adoption Page!

Not only have we had people reaching out with ideas on how to connect with potential birth moms, we’ve also had generous people participating in our Puzzle Fundraiser! So far We’ve raised over $1,300 and need to put an update photo up but the puzzle is harder to assemble than anticipated! LOL. An update will come soon.

I’m also excited to see such a positive response from others in the adoption world about our page, photos, and ideas. Honestly, I credit Jonathan’s creativity for 100% of how cool it all looks. I credit myself 100% for making sure it got done. 🙂 We’re opposites but a very complimentary team indeed!