The Coddington Closeout

Thought I'd post some pics form the sale...just view these photos while sitting in 90 degree temperatures with 98% humidity and it'll almost be like you were there. We found some shade and tried not to drink up all the lemonade.
The view from the road...
Our two best sales people. Ice cold lemonade and Gram's cookies...yum.
Three cheers for mom!!! Gimmie a S! Gimmie a U! Gimmie a E! What's that spell?
Look at all that great stuff! Thanks Joanne, Josh and Kristin, Dael and Abbie, and Mom. You guys are great!

Deflated

I'm feeling a bit deflated at the moment...like one of the salmon pink balloons lying on the dining room floor from Lydia's birthday party last Wednesday. It could be the late night tagging merchandise or all that heat and humidity we sat in for the sale yesterday. It could also be the panini sandwich of specialty meats that tasted amazing when I ate it a few hours earlier but isn't sitting to well at the moment. Or, perhaps it's simply the task ahead seems so far beyond what I could possibly do that I am feeling a sense of, well, smallness.

Smallness... is actually good and helpful when one turns it into humility. At the moment I am trying to find my way around the corner of smallness and onto the street of humility. Smallness just leads to hopelessness, but humility is strength in the knowledge that we are small, but God is not.

I suppose that after the sale I had hoped to increase the percent of "the amount raised for two tickets home" by at least one percent. I admit I was a bit disappointed when I worked out the math and realised only a .7% increase. But I am beginning to grasp that if this adoption becomes a reality it will be because of a work of God, not a work of Kris. And that's the way I want it to be. But it will only be that way if I take a deep breath and turn the corner from small to humble and allow The Creator of this universe to do His work.

So many great people helped with our first fundraiser and in no way to I think that it was a bust. It was .7%. But more than that...it is moving me toward humility which gives God something to work with. He's probably like, "Finally Kris, you got out of my way...now I can do something BIG!." So, thank you to Joanne, Aki, Josh and Kristin, Susie Q., Dael and Abbie, Ben, Noah and Lydia. You donated, marked, baked, helped sell, setup, cleanup, etc. Plus, we have plenty of loot left over for the next sale. You have each been a huge blessing! I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Now I leave you with words of wisdom that I would do well to take hold of:

"When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

Deuteronomy 8:10-18

That deflated balloon doesn't look so sad to me anymore. It just looks ready to be filled- with HOPE.

Our First Sale...I said sale not sail, Ben

Who doesn't love a good garage sale? I know I love 'em. When I see that florescent pink sign on a corner my car swerves like it's on auto pilot. I believe I inherited this from my mother who inherited it from her Gram, I would guess.
But on the other side of the fence is the person putting on the sale. Some would call this a lot of work and very little pay. But to me, there's just something great about watching all that stuff exit your home and find a use somewhere out in the big, big world. And as far as the money goes... every little bit helps. We are going to have a great sale. Here's the plan:

Friday, June 27th
at the Andrews Home
9 to 4

We've already had several friends donate items to sell. Thank you my dear friends.

Noah and Lydia plan to bake huge cookies and mix up lemonade to sell. Lydia has a very well thought out plan of attack. They will be using their cash register to make the sales transactions with Noah handling the money for boy customers and Lydia waiting on the girls. She often brings up her "great idea" and cannot wait to see it to fruition. Neither can I.

My plan of attack is similar, but more drawn out. I plan to cleanse my home of every unused item for a couple of hours each day this week. I will pile these items in my living room in a huge pile until it annoys me so much I begin to tag the items. I also plan to harass my friends and neighbors into bringing their extra junk over to my living room pile. Then on Thursday we (myself and any other poor soul I can convince to join me, i.e. the children) shall bake gigantic cookies and tag items until we pass out. Then we will get up very early and transfer said tagged items to the front lawn and wait.

As I go through the stuff in my house and decide what to sell and what to keep it's interesting how my heart responds. It's different than when I have prepared for sales in the past. It's crazy but I really sense a feeling of desperation. A feeling that my children are on the other side of the world and I need to get them home. Who knew I would feel this way just because I filled out a few papers and sent them to an adoption agency? I certainly didn't expect it. But I do. I feel very little attachment to my"stuff" any more. Because every item has the potential to bring me .25 or .50 or 1.00 closer to holding my kiddos in my arms.

Noah and Lydia went to summer camp this weekend and they brought home little treasure chests that they had painted. Noah's is blue and Lyd's is pink and yellow. Inside each was a little blue "jewel." Noah proudly showed me his little blue box and said, "you shouldn't store up treasure on earth, Mommy." So true, so true.

"Don't store up treasures for yourself here on earth where moths and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasure in heaven where moths and rust do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is there your heart will be also."
- Jesus

See you at The Sale!

Naming it

So, we are taking votes on the naming of the blog.

So far:
BaKaNaLa+
Adding Andrews
And then there were four or six or whatever
The Andrews Addition

Any ideas out there?

Let the BLOG Begin!

Apparently, even I, the daughter-of-two-computer-programmers-who-is-yet-somehow-non-computer-savvy can create a blog. Amazing.

The purpose of this blog is to record the happenings of the Andrews family as we embark on the adventure of growing our family through adoption. We hope to keep you, our friends and family, informed of the haps and up to date with where we are in the process. We also hope to communicate our excitement as we learn more about the country in which our children were born and to share it with you. Thus, I would like to thank you ahead of time for being encouraging and welcoming as we prepare for our new children to join our family, which to many of you is your family as well. And to thank you for not telling us we are crazy (at least not to our faces:)).