Whirlwind Week/Mega Post!

Aren't those just the sweetest little hands? I can only show bits and pieces of his cute little self on the blog, but if you see me, you better believe that I have my little book of pictures ready to whip out and share with anyone who asks! "He" by the way, has a name and although we are not able to tell his given Ethiopian name on the blog, we can tell you that we have decided to name him Will. We are planning to keep his given name as his middle name. That name begins with "T" so he is Will "T" Harper. When Beckett and Helen were born, we chose to not find out if we were having a boy or a girl. So each time we had to have a boy name and a girl name picked out. When Helen was born, we would have named her Will, had she been a boy. We just love the name and as with both of our biological children's names, the name honors family members. Sean's father and grandfather both share the middle name Willard. Although we shortened it a bit, we wanted to give Will a strong name that honors two very special and influential people in Sean's life!

So, this past week was a complete whirlwind. We were so excited and blessed to receive our referral last Monday! It came at the beginning of a very busy week as we were planning a MEGA yard sale for Friday and Saturday. About a month ago, we decided to have a yard sale to help off-set some of the expenses that go along with an international adoption. So many friends and family members donated items for us to sell and it was amazing! After our garage was full, we had to stack stuff in our living room. It was over-the-top! So, not only were we busy organizing and pricing yard sale items, we were now finalizing all of the paperwork for accepting our referral! That included a couple of conference phone calls with our agency and with an international pediatrician, as well as getting signatures and having many papers notarized! Needless to say, we were quite busy. But it all came together and turned out great! We sent our acceptance of the referral back to AGCI last Thursday afternoon and it arrived in their office on Monday morning!

Quick summary....my sister, Susi came in town on Thursday night and we went to Beckett's baseball game. Came home at 9PM and made signs and came up with a game plan for our set up. We slept for a couple of hours and then Sean, Susi and I got up at 3:30AM to begin to set up. Sarah and her kids, Susan, and Nana and Papa showed up at 6:30 to help us finish getting set up. (Fortunately, the majority of the items were already priced bc there was SO much stuff that it took all of this time just to unload it from the house to the driveway!) Our first customers showed up at about 7:00 and we worked all day long and did it all over again on Saturday! It was hard work, but a lot of fun. So many friends blessed us by coming to help, by donating items to be sold, by baking yummy treats for our bake sale, and by generously giving way more than their purchased items cost! At our "check out" table, we had a picture of Will and a sign telling why we were having this sale. It generated a lot of talk and we enjoyed being able to tell everyone all about this journey of adoption. Everyone was so positive and encouraging! It was just an amazing weekend!

Here are some pictures from the weekend. This first one was taken bright and early on Friday morning. I just wanted to remember the set up and how much STUFF we had to sell! To the left was our "check out" station with the baked goodies and bottled water for sale!

Here is Helen paying for her items. (That is our friend, Matt, taking her money!) Nana took Helen shopping at her own yard sale, and she got to purchase some of the things that she had been checking out in our garage since they had been donated! (Auntie Mame, do you recognize our cash box? That is the jewelry box you gave us full of your old jewelry! It made an awesome cash box!)

It was my initial intention to photograph all of our friends and family who helped and who came to shop! However, this became quite impossible. It was funny how one minute we would have no one shopping, and the next minute there would be 25 people there who needed help or were asking questions. That was great but I missed getting pictures of lots of people! I thought I'd go ahead and post some pics of a few friends who came by, but these are just a few! Everyone was so kind to drop in and visit, help, hang out and eat bake sale items! Here is my sweet friend Carrie and her mom and grandmother! She was celebrating her 30th birthday with a special girl's day, and they came by to support us!

This is one of Sean's former youth group members, Jesi with her husband Kyle and their little girl Blayke! They came and visited for a while and we got to see how much Blayke has grown!

The Kirkland family was a very valuable asset to our yard sale! Sarah came early in the week and spent a whole day helping me price items (along with Nana and Papa) and then she also returned on Friday and Saturday mornings at 6:30 and spent all day helping! She also baked lots of goodies for the bake sale! The kids were here to help as well as to play with Beckett and Helen which was lots of fun for them! We appreciate them so much!

Our neighbor Matt stopped by with Carson and the twins, Noah and Turner to breeze through the sale and see what they needed! Martha (Matt's wife) isn't pictured here, but she was so sweet to coordinate our bake sale! It was so nice to have those goodies for sale. People really seemed to enjoy having the opportunity to purchase something yummy to eat. Especially those hard core yard sale people who go so fast and furiously all morning! Thanks again, Martha! (And thanks to Nana for making sausage biscuits to sell on Friday morning! I'm not sure how many were actually sold, because I think they were eaten up pretty quickly by all of the workers!) :)

Here is a picture of my sister Susi with Beckett on a piece of exercise equipment that was for sale! She helped us so much! She is a visual merchandising specialist and she helped us to lay out our sale in a very "marketable" fashion! We loved having her with us for two nights! We just don't get to see her very much and I'm sorry that we had to work so hard and didn't get to play much, but just having her here was such a blessing!

So many people helped us in so many ways and we want you all to know how much we appreciated your help!

Last week was such a whirlwind, that Sean and I felt like we had barely had a chance to talk! We would lie down at night, exhausted, and try to cover the items that needed to get handled the next day and then we would fall asleep in minutes! So Sean decided that he would take Monday off so we could just re-group and connect as a family! On Monday we headed to Tellico Plains to the Cherokee National Forrest for a day of rest and relaxation! It was a beautiful day and we had a great time. Of course, relaxation for Sean includes a fly rod, so here is a picture of him doing what he loves! He also spent time teaching Beckett some of the finer points of fly fishing and Beckett did really well! In fact, he caught a few fish on his own! He is anxious to tell about his day and to share a few pictures on his blog, so we will try to work on his post sometime on Tuesday afternoon. Check out his blog, The Slam, in a day or so to see his fish and hear how he describes the experience!

We had a picnic lunch and the kids even braved the cold water temps so that they could float down some small rapids in their inner tubes! They had a blast!

I'll leave you with a couple of silly pics of Sean and Beckett and then one of Helen and me. We had a great day as a family enjoying the wonderful weather and just being together.....our favorite thing to do! Now we just enjoy these days with the anticipation of adding Will to the hullabaloo as soon as we can get him here! :)

This is our prayer for all of our family and friends who went above and beyond the call to make this weekend's yard sale a huge success. We love you all!

The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

(Numbers 6:24-26.)