A mummy and his mummy

every year, our church helps with our towns Fall Festival. There's always thousands of people, fair food, games, chili cook off, old people singing. We always work the festival, but this year we did Trunk or Treat as well. Nothing more creepy than grown men asking if you want candy out of their trunk.. I kid, I kid. Actually, I think it's kinda a genius idea for churches & event like this! 

 I knew I wanted to dress C up, but buying a costume just wasn't in the questions.. $30 bucks for a few days wear.. no thank you. So, following my mother's tradition of always making our costume, I made C into a mummy. Total it cost me under ten bucks. I bought a yard of fabric from Walmart for 3 bucks, some tights, and sports tape. His costume looked way better before we left the house & when he would let me put his head wrap on.... but real life happened and the kid squirmed, and the fabric bunched together & he ripped the wrap off his head.


Alas, I still think he was one darn cute mummy...

 ^^I know, right? adorable.

 ^^C discovered suckers that day. we're in trouble.

I can't believe he's mine. And that I get to be his mummy.... see what I did there? lame, hilarious. I know:) 

And because it's funny...

Halloween 3 years ago

Halloween post C... I mean, his tininess... slays me.

I hope you all have a HAPPY HALLOWEEN! For now, tonight's plans include staying at home, watching a scary movie, & passing out candy to the kids who braved the rain.  I just don't think C can make his little legs walk to all the houses. So pumped for that next year! 

zoo to the boo

A couple weekends back, we joined some friends for a last minute trip to ZOO BOO. As I mentioned before in a previous post, we are stereotyping the mess out of this fall. & because I have a bajillion things to do today (like clean the entire house before hubs comes home from an out of town trip & cook dinner for my seester) I'm keeping this post short and sweet.

onto the photos.. because let's be honest, of course there are photos.

What fall things are you doing? I want some new traditions!!

Hey all you locals...

This is happening. Head HERE for more details!!

Don't live close or don't need a session, no worries you can still help this family come home for the Holidays by purchasing your Christmas Cards from her shop HERE

DIY threadbombed ANTLERS & DIY Link Up

 I've seen these floating around the web. I knew immediately upon discovering them, that I had to find a way to get one in my home. There are shops that sell them and to be honest, they look much better than mine, but I don't have the extra money laying around with this adoption.  Who am I kidding, I don't even if there was no adoption. Husband's budget is no joke folks.

So thanks to an abandoned pair of antlers sitting in my parents garage and my brothers skill in killing a deer, I got me a pair of antlers. No worry dear brother reading... I secured the thread (which I already had from old projects) with tacky glue. It can easily come off... the white paint however, well that's permanent. But I expect a thank you, because it looks better than the wood in my opinion. I'm debating painting the brown cover silver... but we all know how indecisive I am.

I love the pop of color it brings to my dining room & the rustic charm. With my table and clock being so industrial and clean, I need some rustic color to break it up. This project cost me ZERO dollars. The best kind of project there is basically.

All you need is a pair of antlers (check craigslist!! or even FB status asking someone if they have an old pair they could give/sell), some thread or yarn, tacky glue, and some creativity with the colors!

If you are looking to buy & not fool with the DIY, I totally suggest this lady (who is actually running an instagram giveaway right now). I swoon over her antlers and only wish mine looked as good as hers! Check out her ETSY for amazing antlers!

that's all for today. Have a DIY you've recently blogged? I wanna see! I'm a sucker for DIY projects. Leave a link below! Just be sure to be a follower before you link up! Thanks:)

Our Adoption Profile Book & Film

Want to know what the most nerve racking thing to ever do? and by nerve racking I mean doubtful, indecisive, unsure, excited, hopeful, and then one more big scoop of unsureness just to make it nail biting. It's not jumping out of a plane, or going skydiving, or even walking with a lion, (which I've done by the way, another story, another time) as one would expect. Oh no, it's the simple but totally not simple task of making an Adoption Profile Book.

This single, little book is the deciding factor for a birth mom. She views them. Reads them. Chooses from them. And then decides that your family is the possible best fit for her child all based on 20 pages of images and text. This book is the gateway to our son. N to the ERVE racking. I labored over this baby for weeks and weeks. Some pages would be completely done and then the nerves set in and I'd completely redo it. 

FINALLY, I was done & it was over and all the indecisiveness paid off. To me, it's perfect. Oh you know, besides the world "sunggle" instead of "snuggle" if you know me, you know that OF COURSE I'd have one tiny word slip all the peoples eyes who proof read it. Story of my life. Even so, it's still true to us. HA!

My inspiration came from a family drawing sweet Emily did for us after C was born. I scanned in her drawings and used Photoshop to create the individual pages. I then loaded these pages into BLURB software (it's free and downloads right to your computer) and from there made and ordered the book. If you aren't as tech savvy, you can create the entire book inside BLURB software. It's so incredibly easy to navigate. I planned to use my photography lab to have these printed, but because we needed several copies, BLURB prices were more affordable, and not to mention still amazing quality!

I absolutely love how it turned out. It's so us. So many of the profile books I viewed at our agency as examples were just too boring, and they really didn't represent the families personalities. I'm so thankful for Emily's drawings, because they were exactly what I needed to make our book pop, and hopefully stand out to the birth mom. 

If you are an adoptive family viewing this for tips and tricks, here are my few suggestions:

-Start on this sucker weeks in advance. Trust me. You'll need it.
-Photos, Photos, Photos!!! Choose photos that tell a story!
-More images than text... I kinda didn't follow this own suggestion, even though I really tried.
-Use a design that really reflects your family verses just cute vector images or scrap book looks.
-Keep the book 20 pages or less. you don't want to overwhelm.
-Keep it crisp & use layouts. Collages of images can work, but make sure they is a layout to it.
-Use simple sentences and words. Keep it at a basic reading level.
-Don't use cookie cutter text. You can't tell, but we really let our personalities shine through our text, -Josh joked around a lot, and I wrote like I was talking to her in person.
-Use relevant photos. Showing images of years passed could be confusing to the birth mother. Let them see what your life is like NOW.

If you have any further questions, feel free to email me! My info is on my contact page.

&& I'll leave you with our adoption profile video. We are allowed to substitute a third image for our web profile with a video. We jumped on it! It's a chance for the birth mom to get an even better feel for what our family is like. I suggest asking a friend or even hiring a professional to shoot your video for you. Our friend and professional, Evan Logan, did ours. He did and incredible job. Just remember... MAKE IT YOU!!!


oh, and one last thing, if you are short on funds, you can check out my adoption giveaway HERE. It helped us raise $2400! Need more info, email me! I'm here to help!! Us adoptive mommas gotta unite:)

totally stereotyping

some things need to be stereotyped. It's a must. Like perfect 60 degree weather straight up begs to be stereotyped into the perfect fall day. & of course, we obliged. Pumpkins, Hay rides, gourds... anything you usually stereotype with the fall was included. We didn't do a single "fall" thing last year since C was, oh you know, two weeks old. But this year, this year, we are doing it all. We met up with some friends and my sisters family at a farm a few towns over. Groupon being its splendid self gave us a massive discount to the days activities. We spent several hours just talking and letting the kiddos run around, basically doing nothing. Doing nothing at all is sometimes the best doing something, at least in my opinion. You know, you are out doing something, but it's really nothing too grand but seems grand because you are there doing nothing with all your favorite people. And that's pretty much what we did while we were there. nothing. well except the hay ride & pumpkin picking & talking. Which are all really somethings but when done with friends and not given much thought just feels like you're enjoying doing nothing. It all makes sense in my head at least. reread if you must.

I hope you all stereotype the mess out of fall. It's basically begging you to.

A very MASSIVE BIG THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!

 Let me paint you a picture real quick. There's a 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23 year old me sitting right here at the computer reading story after story after story on adoption and how the Lord overwhelming blessed all different couples and provided for their needs. There my younger self was probably crying reading each one because adoption was so strongly a calling in my life, asking the Lord that when her time came, He would do the same for her. 

Fast forwarded to last week. I specifically asked the Lord for $2,000. I felt like this was really asking a lot of a blog giveaway, but I'm so often guilty of not asking the Lord for big things when He wants to bless us with BIG things if we will have the faith to believe He can do it. 

I had faith. I really had faith He would answer this prayer.

My friends, the time has come, and He did the same. And more. 

This week because of your love, support, generosity, and donations, we raised $2,410!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just can't quite figure out how to say thank you. Laying in bed last night with husband, we just marveled that God blessed us this much. We are so unworthy, undeserving, and sinful people. How great is our God that He still chooses to bless us? All glory to Him!!!! Some of you may think it was just coincidence that you found my blog, you watched the video, heart strings were tugged, so you donated what you could. 

No. It was the Lord. Not a coincidence. And I'm so thankful. 

Thank you to the family and friends who entered daily and pushed hard on social media. Thank you to the strangers who have never met me a day in their life but acted as if they were friends and family. Thank you to strangers and friends who gave $5 because it's literally all they could give. You are like the old woman with her small coins sacrificing to be obedient. Thank you to the strangers who donated well over $25. You don't know us, but you have blessed us greatly. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts ( I don't even know what that phrase even means but like i said, I'm struggling to get my amount of thankfulness out in words). My heart is overwhelmed.

I'm grateful, humbled, thankful and thankful some more. You have made an impact in our sons life. You have helped bring him home. My momma heart is just barely holding it together here. You have no idea what your donations have meant to us. 

Winners are announced on the giveaway post below on the RaffleCopter Entry Form, and were picked randomly by RaffleCopter. I will check their entries & email them shortly!! 

Thank you again EVERYONE!!!!