2nd Home Study Visit and Next Steps

Happy New Year! Our 2nd and final home study visit was with our social worker Chrys Bitting on Dec 30th in Des Moines and it went great!! We spent four hours at a table at Panera Bread restaurant answering questions about our adoption preferences, our memories of growing up, our interests, our marriage, and how we plan to parent. Now, we are just waiting on Chrys to write our final report, which should come out this week. So far so good!! We are so grateful for all the prayers and well wishes!! It's been a busy and stressful past few months, but we're so relieved at how well the process is going.

To prepare for our 2nd visit, we had to get our FBI fingerprints taken for the background checks, decide on our preferences (number of children, ages, ethnicity, sex, etc), decide on guardians in case of emergency, gather life insurance amounts, retirement and savings account balances, divorce decrees, and our youngest boy's consent for his background check, since he's over 16. We also had to come up with a list of amenities our home town (and nearby cities) have to offer. As my list grew and grew, I got so excited thinking about all the fun things we will get to do with our future child! There really is so much to offer a child here. It gave us both a fresh dose of hope.

Update on Next Steps:

1. Create a profile (pictures and facts about our family) to post on Adoption Associates of Iowa's website for birth families to review and potentially choose us to talk to and/or adopt their child. Once we're home study approved, we will be ready and able to adopt!
2. Start applying for grants and continue fundraising to help with adoption costs:

• The remaining $1500 needed to hire our Christian Adoption Consultant, Dawn, to help connect us with adoption agencies all over the country and help us with applying for grants. 
• About $20,000-30,000 if we adopt through an agency in the US.
• $1050 (plus her travel cost) for at least 3 post-placement visits with Chrys our social worker (some states require more than 3 visits, so it could cost more). If we matched with a birth mom through Chrys, it would cost about $2000 plus our attorney's fees.
• At least $5000 for travel and hotel stay (if matched with a birth mom out of state). We will be required to stay at least 7-10 days in the state the baby is born while paperwork is completed so we can take baby home with us.

Update on Home Study

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas! Ours was so nice and relaxing. Several people have been asking for an update, so I thought I'd share where we're at in our adoption process. Our visit with our social worker on Dec 11th went well and our next visit with her will be in Des Moines where she lives on Dec 30th. After that, it should take about a week to write up the report and then we'll know if we're approved. We're feeling good about it and getting very excited!! After we're approved, we'll need to raise $1500 more so we can hire our adoption consultant and start applying for birth mom situations and for grants. Things are moving along!

We were so relieved with how our home visit went! Much better than we feared. It was very nerve wracking to have someone inspect our home, especially with so much riding on it! Scott got all our smoke detectors and fire extinguisher installed. Andrea cleaned, decorated for Christmas, and made some snacks. We really enjoyed meeting Chrys! She is so nice. First, she interviewed Michael, which she said went perfectly, then we went through all the documents she requested (she was so helpful in counseling us on what to expect ahead of time!). In case you're curious, here is the list of documents we had to produce:

Finally, we took her on a tour of our house. She told me I didn't need to clean that much, that it only had to look "lived in" but that means different things to different people! I prefer to err on the side of too clean, than too messy. She had all good things to say, much to our relief! We didn't have to have child locks or have the nursery set up yet, since we don't know when we'll get to bring our baby home yet. 

Our 2nd and final visit for the home study  will be a 3 hour interview with Chrys and just us two answering questions about our upbringing, our marriage, our families, and how we plan to parent. We will have more visits with her after we bring baby home, but that will depend on which state baby is born in. 

We appreciate all the love and prayers that have carried us this far and could use more prayers to cover us until our adoption is final! ♥️ 

Adoption Home Study

Happy Friday!! Just wanted to give you guys an update on where we're at on our adoption process. We have our first home study visit at our home next Wednesday, Dec 11th, so we’ve been very busy getting ready for that! The social worker (Chrys Bitting) will tour the house and interview Scott, me, and my 16 year old stepson. Our 2nd visit will be in Chrys's office in Des Moines and then she’ll write up a report letting us know if we’re approved. It should take about 1-2 months to complete. Exciting!! Also, nerve-wracking!! 

We’ve been busy taking pictures of donations left over from the yard sale to sell online, de-cluttering/organizing a bit, cleaning, doing fall yard work, gathering home study documents, installing some extra smoke detectors, getting some Christmas shopping done, and switching out fall and Christmas decorations. Will be very glad to relax a little next weekend!! Scott's going hunting and I'm doing some fun stuff at the church like singing Christmas carols at nursing homes and helping with the kids' PJ party!! Love this time of year!!

Merry Christmas everyone!! Isn't this baby adorable?! This could be in our future next year!!

Update on Donations from Yard Sale!

I finally finished up valuing our yard sale leftovers that we donated to multiple charities! Turbo Tax has this great online tool called Its Deductible that lets you keep track of your donations throughout the year and estimate the value of donations to make it easier at tax time. Where has this been all my life!?

The Grand Total was $8,411.50!! Wowza!! It all added up and it was totally worth tracking all of it for our tax return!! Since charitable donations reduce your taxable income, it's not dollar for dollar tax savings, but that means we will see about $2000 in tax savings. That will help us so much! Thank you again to all of our friends and family who donated their items to our sale!!

Note: the donation to Cross Point Church was the clothes and coats for Lakota Journey.

T-shirt Adoption Fundraiser!!

Attention Friends and Family! Here is our next fundraiser to help us adopt a baby!! Please consider buying a t-shirt designed by Fund the Nations to help us raise funds within the next 2 weeks!! The last day for orders is Fri, Dec 6th. You get a cool shirt that promotes adoption and we get a portion of the cost to help us pay adoption expenses. It's a win-win!

Here’s some trivia: how many of these superheroes did you know were adopted? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Superheroes_who_are_adopted

Do you know someone who has adopted a child, has been adopted themselves, or has a loved one who has been adopted? Please share this link with them! OR, this would be the perfect gift for them for the holidays. :) We are wrapping up this fundraiser early enough to allow time for shipment before Dec 25th.

It's easy to order! You click the link, select the color shirt, select the size, click add to cart, then you can click continue shopping to add more or you can click checkout, then enter your contact and payment information, and they will ship it right to you!

We have a big goal of $2000 so we can hire our adoption consultant to get advice on our home study and adoption profile, and eventually help us apply for grants and birth mom situations. We need to sell at least 200 shirts to achieve this goal! We sincerely appreciate your purchase!!

Here’s the link to buy a shirt: scottandandreasadoptionfundraiser.bigcartel.com

Details (also included in the link):

Shirt Color: Heather Midnight Navy or Solid Black

Letters: White

Fabric Blend: 52/48 cotton, polyester blend

Adult T-shirts - $18 plus shipping

Sizing: XS-4XL

*2XL and larger are an additional $2 per shirt

Youth T-shirts - $19 plus shipping

Sizing: M-L

If you need youth size small shirts (or smaller) then we will need to create a completely separate youth order. Let me know if you're interested and I'll see what I can do! We need at least 13 orders to place the order.

Shipping - $5.99

Each additional shirt you add to your order is $1 more (example: 2 shirts is $6.99 shipping)

**Additional shipping charges do apply for Canada, Hawaii, and Alaska

***All prices given are in US currency.

Leftover Donations: Making the Most of Our Blessings

It's been a busy couple of weeks since the yard sale!! I've been returning borrowed tables and canopies and itemizing leftover donations. Because of our seriously generous friends who donated items for our sale, we had a TON of donations leftover, which I felt compelled/responsible/called to donate to organizations that are important to us and to ensure that we receive the tax deductions on our tax return. Our friends donated their items to us, giving up their own tax deductions, hoping it would help us adopt our baby, so I want as much of the donations going towards our adoption as possible. Tax savings = more money to adopt our baby!!

I spent a lot of time thoughtfully and prayerfully considering which non-profits our donations would go to, and in the process, I learned more about these wonderful organizations in our community! I feel so grateful that I was able to contribute to them! Read on to learn about the places who received all of our leftover donations and their important missions. Much more important than emptying my garage so I can park in it this winter, but that is a huge plus. :)

The Salvation Army is great because it's a Christian organization and they donate the items they can't sell to people who need them, rather than just throwing them away, like other organizations do. They received our furniture, household, and kitchen items.
>>>Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/pg/RiverValleyARC/about/?ref=page_internal.

Lakota Journey is an important mission we support at Cross Point Church. A group of ladies drove over to the Indian reservation in South Dakota recently to visit them and provide new coats and gently used clothing for the people this ministry serves, so I pulled some coats and cute/warm winter clothes out of our leftover donations for them to stuff in their mini van (pictured below).
>>>Check them out at https://www.lakotajourney.org/purpose.

Pregnancy Resources is an organization in Davenport that provides free resources to moms and dads to help them when they don't have what they need to raise their child. They provide so many different resources, including parenting training, diapers, and free ultrasounds! We donated baby items, stuffed animals, and clothes for ages 0-3T to them.
>>>Check them out at https://qcpregnancy.org/
or https://www.facebook.com/pg/PRQuadCities/about/?ref=page_internal.
>>>More info about the services they provide in this interview (both clips are very informative!!!): https://wqad.com/2019/02/12/coffee-break-how-pregnancy-resources-supports-the-qc-community/.

Life's Little Treasures is a thrift store with lots of cute stuff of all kinds on Brady St in Davenport which donates all proceeds to QC Right to Life. They received our kids' clothes and toys for ages 4T+ and some framed art. I bought my cute little "Welcome" pot holder for my front porch there!
>>>Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/pg/LifesLittleTreasuresResaleShop/about/?ref=page_internal

Closet 2 Closet is an organization in Rock Island that was built, in part, through the adoption of preteen foster children. They offer, free of charge, all-season clothing, accessories, and hygiene items exclusively for foster teens. They will be receiving our adult clothes, shoes, and bags from our leftover donations after I deliver them tomorrow (and then my garage will finally be empty!!). 
>>>Check them out at http://www.closet2closet.org/about.php
or https://www.facebook.com/QCCloset2Closet/.

Dress For Success is another awesome organization that provides professional work clothes and guidance to help women get jobs and support themselves. They received some very nice dresses, blazers, and dress shoes out of our leftover donations.
>>>Check them out at https://quadcities.dressforsuccess.org/about-us/
or https://www.facebook.com/pg/dfsqc/about/?ref=page_internal

Bettendorf Public Library is where my stepsons spent a lot of time after school before they got licenses and vehicles, so they received 10 boxes of books! Note: books are generally not deductible on your tax return, but a library is always a good cause! Another good cause is the Rock Island County Jail. A lady from work is collecting paperback books for a Christian ministry that supports this jail, so I pulled out 2 boxes of paperbacks to give her! Note: I did let my stepdad Dan who owns The Source Books used bookstore in downtown Davenport have first dibs on what he can sell at his store. This picture is what was left AFTER he picked out what he wanted!! We had TONS of books!! I built up some serious ab muscles hauling these boxes around, haha!

We also set aside several higher value donations that we thought would sell better online, so we're still working on getting prices set and pictures taken and loaded online. Expect to see lots of Facebook Marketplace posts from me soon! Planning to start on that next week! We're getting closer to bringing our baby home!!

Tips on Donations to Multiple Charities

1. If you have the time and desire, consider donating your leftover items to multiple nonprofit charities that are important to you or you know have the greatest needs. Google has a wealth of information as well as Facebook. It feels awesome when you can spread the love!
2. When boxing up leftovers from your garage sale, decide which types of items are going to which charity and write on top of the box which charity the items go to. Be sure to set boxes going to the same charity in the same spot and keep them separate from the boxes for other charities. This will make it helpful for when you are ready to itemize (write down the types of items and the number of each type) and then drop off donations.
3. Be sure to itemize the donations for your tax return at home or take pictures of the items to itemize later. There is often not enough time to itemize when you're at the site of donation.
4. Be sure to ask for a receipt for your donations just in case you were to ever get audited by the IRS someday. Keep your itemized list attached to your receipt in your taxes folder.
5. The highest value items for tax deductions would be clothing, shoes, bags, coats, bedding, rugs, lamps, TV's, and furniture. Books are not tax-deductible with a few exceptions, so be sure to do your research. Here are some tips on valuing donations:  https://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/valuation-guide-for-donated-goods.aspx  https://satruck.org/Home/DonationValueGuide
6. Turbo Tax has an online tool that helps you value and keep track of your donations throughout the year to make it easier to file your tax return: https://itsdeductibleonline.intuit.com/
7. After you've itemized the items in a box, place a yard sale sticker on the side (or some kind of sticker) so you'll know if you've already gone through the box. I went through my boxes in my living room over a couple of weeks while watching Grey's Anatomy. Highly recommend! Hehe

Our Yard Sale Success!!

You guys...God provided for us in a huge way...we raised $2900 this past weekend on our yard sale and bake sale!! Amazing!!! We are so, so grateful!! We could not have done any of it without our amazing volunteers who worked their butts off, friends who donated items, and friends who loaned us tables and canopies!!! It was SO MUCH work, but wonderful to know it was all worth it! We felt very loved and encouraged that so many could help us bring our baby home.

Speaking of our friends who donated items...we FILLED a 26 foot U-Haul with donations from over 15 families!! Thank goodness we had just enough tables!! We sold about 2/3 of the donations, even though it started storming around 2pm on Saturday. The canopies seriously came in handy! They gave us time to get the donations inside so they weren't ruined. Friday was our biggest day, but we still made about $800 on Saturday! We made another $100 on Sunday selling leftover baked goods items at church...wonderful idea and so sweet of our friends to coordinate! We were too exhausted to go anywhere Sunday except to return the U-Haul, haha! Speaking of which...a kind soul paid for half of our truck rental!! We really felt God's presence and love throughout the whole weekend! We are truly blessed :)

We decided not to do another sale since we don't have space to store leftover donations until Spring, so we decided to donate the leftovers. We decided to split them between Salvation Army (household items and furniture), Pregnancy Resources - a local nonprofit that provides resources to people who decide to parent but can't afford it (kids clothes, toys, and baby items), and Closet 2 Closet - a local non-profit who provides clothes for teenage foster kids (adult clothes and bags). We will keep receipts for our tax return of course. :) We also held back several high value items to sell online for the adoption fund, so we will likely have even more sales coming! Will keep ya'll posted on the grand total!

What's next: 1) finish itemizing receipts and running donations to charities 2) sell leftover donations online 3) get our house decluttered and cleaned up 4) start our home study (which we can afford now, YAY!!!)  5) start our next fundraiser to raise the rest of our $5000 goal so we can hire our Christian Adoption Consultant, apply for grants, and start applying for birth mom situations!

We talked to a lady at our sale who works at the Davenport Knights of Columbus, and she gave us a great idea: host a trivia night fundraiser! She thinks we could get a discount on the space, so we're going to look into that next! That would be so much fun and hopefully less work for our friends and family. :) Check out all these donations we had!! It was wonderful how kind and generous most people were. It was exhausting, but at the end of the weekend, our hearts were overflowing.