Sarah's Treasure Box Pendant Sale!

I am continually amazed by the hearts that come forward in generosity for adopting families. Thank you again for each and everyone who donated a prize or made a donation to the Rippee's fundraiser. I'm still working on contacting some of the winners. If you have won something and have not emailed me your home address or contact email please do so ASAP!

And with that fundraiser behind us and lots of room moving forward, I am super-glad to announce a One Day Pendant Sale at http://www.etsy.com/shop/sarahstreasurebox!

Sarah and her husband operate an etsy shop called Sarah's Treasure Box. They are adoptive parents themselves and are blessing other adoptive families by "paying it forward" with the opportunity to have $5 from EVERY pendant that is sold on October 5th to go to The Rippee's Adoption Fund!

WOW!

OCTOBER 5th is The Rippee's Day!

And it's coming up fast. Can you help spread the word?

Could you blog about it?

Twitter about it?

Tell your neighbor?

Tell your friend?

Your Mom?

Your sister?

Your Adoption Chat group?

Just check out all the cool faith pendants and adoption ones too, more being added daily so check often as she restocks her store before the big Oct. 5th day!

The necklace pendants range from $7.99 to $16.99 (a wee bit more if you choose the custom design option listed.) It's a super price for a little bling! Especially bling-with-a-cause.

Here's what you do:

1• Go to http://www.etsy.com/shop/sarahstreasurebox

2• Choose some super sweet neck wear for your favorite people for Christmas, Birthday or Just Because.

3• When you check out on October 5th, MAKE SURE TO PUT A NOTE THAT IT IS FOR THE RIPPEE'S FUNDRAISER.

That's it! (The sale that donates to the Rippee's is only on Oct. 5th AND the note designating it for The Rippee's is what will get them the $5/pendant so don't forget that!)

Here are a few more ideas of who to buy a pendant for:

That Hard to Buy For School Teacher

A Sunday School Leader

Your Faithful Mail Carrier

Your Sweet Bloggy Friend

Your Mom

Your Sister-In-Law

Your girly-girls

Your Secret Sister

Your little girl's best-est friend

Your baby-sitter

Your Operation-Giggle child (if she's old enough)

... Yourself ...

My goal for this fundraiser? Two-Hundred.

Seriously ... this is so do-able if you help spread the word and won't you please?

Oh yes, and International shipping IS available!

And what a conversation starter when you wear your pendant and someone comments on it. You can say that it helped bring a special little girl to her Forever Family and who knows what seeds of faith you may plant!

P.S. Here is a page sized jpg of 6 cut-apart card you can hand out to your friends at church or throughout the week to remind people to donate by buying ON next Tuesday OCTOBER 5th!

12:00AM through 11:59PM

One Day.

It's Gonna Rock.

Blessings!

Valerie

Here are a few more of my favs from Sarah's Treasure Box.

Dad Has Returned!

As most of you know, Randy made a trip back to the states for his dad's surgery. I purposely didn't publish the dates he was gone as it isn't something you want to advertise publicly. He has now returned and we are all so joyful!! Dad was missed so very much by the girls and myself. Things weren't exactly easy around here while he was gone. 16 days was a terribly long time for all of us and especially these girls!! I was just getting to write up some of our experiences of dad's absence if you'd like to read all about it, you can go to the following website http://chinaloveministries.blogspot.com/ You can also read plenty of stories of what all goes on at the Forever Home!

Now, we will be working on getting our physicals completed and sent in to our caseworker. I talked with her this past week and she is still lacking a few pieces of paperwork that our agency is collecting due to the fact that we live outside the states. I do not yet know how much longer this will be before completion, but these sort of things are never fast enough for the family involved!! I'm sure that many of you, who have also adopted or are in the process, can relate to this quite well. Anyway, that's the latest on the adoption progress.

Update

I just thought I'd also mention that Randy's dad's surgery went quite well and he is out of ICU into a regular room. He's supposed to be in the hospital for a total of about 5-6 days. Thank you so much for lifting up this situation!!

And the Winners Are!!

I have listed the prizes and the winners in the order we drew the names. A special thank you to all of you who have donated these absolutely wonderful prizes!! Congratulations to all our winners! Please be sure to email Valerie { almquist(at)fmtcs(dot)com --remove the (at) and (dot) and replace with @ and . } with your mailing address so that she can send you your prizes.

Again, thank you so much for your generosity and encouraging words!! And now.....the list of winners!!!

MeiFaith Studio (Shelley): two stunning pieces of jewelry from her etsy-site

1.) PURPLE PASSION SET --The winner is: Ella Bella Designs

2.) THE FAR EAST Pendant—The winner is: Michele Corday (HeMoves Mountains)

It's Poppy Dip (Sallee):
3.) An adorable size 5T dress—The winner is: Caleb & Christy Phillips

Firefly Photo Jewelry (Shawna): Two beautiful necklaces

4.) I Love You to the Moon Hand Stamped Soldered Pendant Necklace—The winner is: Shannon Miller

5.) Handstamped adoption necklace- Born In My Heart.--The winner is: Caleb & Christy Phillips

6.)Kay Bratt: an autographed copy of the Encore edition of Silent Tears: A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage . --The winner is: Molly Wilcox

7.)Scarlet Threads: Scarlet Threads apron --The winner is: Caleb & Christy Phillips

8.) GirlyGirl Bowtique Package—The winner is: Caleb & Christy Phillips

9.) Girly Girl Bowtique: $20 Gift Certificate --The winner is: Rufflestiltskins
(this was something I WON last Fall when I gave my VERY first donation to an adoption fundraiser. WHAT A BLESSING to include it as a prize here!!! My prayer before checking to see if I had won THAT give-away was that God would use the winners to answer deep prayers from the heart. Wow. God is SO cool!)

10.) Junk Posse (Tracy): a gorgeous "China Necklace," valued at $70.00! --The winner is: Vicki Cupp

Jewels of My Heart (Daleea): 2 packages of 5.47" x 4.21" notecards

11. "LuLu Friendship Note Cards" --The winner is: Kim0

12.) "Sophie Friendship Note Cards."–The winner is: Ashley, reynoldsmommy at gmail.com

13.) Debbie Gentile: "Sisters" Photo, matted 8x 10 black and white photo ready for framing!--The winner is: Sarah Tien

14-28.) Heather: FIFTEEN! ultra-funky camera straps.

The winners are:

14. Kay Bratt

15.Tara Anderson

16. Angie Sanders

17. Mary Kim Herndon

18. Donna Luce

19. Michele Leonard Pompei

20. Christian Hayes

21. KRISF

22. Mary Howard

23. Angela Karum

24. Chris from The Land of Cheese

25. Vicki Cupp

26. nightowl

27. Stephanie (Ni Hao Yall)

28. Football & Fried Rice


29.) Heather: a $50.00 gift certificate to Amazon.com! --The winner is: Tara Anderson

30.) Ruffled Feathers (Valerie): $25 gift certificate from RuffledFeathersCompany.blogspot.com—The winner is: Timothy Tien

31.) Rufflestiltskins (Melanie): a gift certificate for $50.00 toward anything through her website, rufflestiltskins.com--The winner is: Gretchen

32.) Wheat and Wildflowers (Kimberly): a $50 gift certificate to anything in her store of the winner's choice.--The winner is: Vicki Cupp

Molly

33 and 34.) Two handcrafted and designed, beautifully-beaded wrist-watches.

33. The winner is: Mandi Yager

34. The winner is: Mary Kim Herndon

Ruffled Feathers (Valerie)

35.) a little painted chair.

Dimensions are 23"h x 12"w x 12"d—The winner is: Molly Wilcox

Wit & Wisdom Interior Lettering (Valerie)

36.) $30.00 gift certificate toward a custom designed vinyl wall art saying from Wit and Wisdom Interior Lettering. --The winner is: Jenna Hardy

SewShay (Sharon):

37.)The Rainbow Roll—The winner is: Jenna Hardy

http://shopsewshay.blogspot.com (Valued at $18)

ella bella designs

38.) Adoption Announcements Pkg.—The winner is: Sarah McClintock

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ejstoll

39.) Sara (donation by her from Jewels of My Heart):The winner is: Sara McClintock

a bracelet of the WINNER'S Choosing from Daleea's 3,000 Bracelets Campaign to bring her daughter home!

http://orphaned-no-more.blogspot.com/

Baby Be Blessed Dolls

40.) a gift certificate of $56! Enough to cover a PERSONALIZED doll including s/h!—The winner is: Mary Kim Herndon

As This Fund-Raiser Draws to a Close

I just wanted to let you know that as this fund-raiser draws to a close, we are thankfull for many many things. We especially want to thank you for your prayers and encouraging words that mean so much to us. We also want to thank you for your financial generosity. Thank you for helping us to spread the word about our adoption. All these things have meant so very much to us!! Words cannot possibly express all the love we feel in our hearts for your generosity!! I also wanted to reassure you that I've received all your comments, donations so far, and have spent much time in the last few days making sure the counts are right and that everyone has the proper amount of entries. I have to say, we have a few with really high counts--50-80 believe it or not due to very large donations they've given!! We have truly been blessed by everyone from the smallest donation to the largest, for your comments and encouraging words, and help in spreading the word so we can make this adoption a reality and our special girl finds her forever family!! I will continue to check email and such up until drawing time and announce the winners tonight, which will be your tomorrow morning on the 10th. Good luck in the drawing and God bless you all for your generosity!!!

Final Hours!--Don't Miss Out!

The drawing for the FORTY really cool prizes ends tonight!!!
September 9th at midnight.

I wish it could go on forever ... but then again, wouldn't you all like to have some winners?!
I think Chip-In is going to shut down early ... I'm not sure what's up with that ... but I see the clock will end around 6pm CST as it stands right now. HOWEVER!!! If you still want to donate we will honor your donations and other entries through midnight!! Simply email rita with the address on the sidebar:
ritasblessings(at) gmail (dot) com
OR me
almquist (at) fmtcs (dot) com

We will let you know an address where to send anything you might wish to add to the pot and also cheerfully enter you in the drawing!

ALSO, make sure to post a comment to ANY of these posts to let us know what entries you qualify for. They will roll over through our email and you'll be entered. Just need to leave a comment :-)
ie: Valerie 1. blog post (address to the blog) 2.) button on my sidebar 3.) donated (although Rita will know that via Chip In or your email to her or I. 

And make sure we have a way to contact you ... in case you win!

SO Post, Blog, FB, put that button up, call your neighbor or your friend or your sister ... it's amazing to see the drops flowing in and the thermometer rising!

To Him be the glory!

Tomorrow at Midnight

Tomorrow at midnight the GREAT-BIG-GIVE-AWAY  for The Rippee Family's Adoption will close!

Have you entered?
Have you prayed for them?
Are you a follower of the site?
Have you put their button on your blog or FB or wrote a post about them?
Have you posted what you've done to make sure we know?

If you have, thank you SO much!! If you are still thinking about it, please don't wait too long and miss out. There are an immense amount of VERY COOL prizes.

FORTY PRIZES to be exact.

Beautiful jewelry, rockin' lil' girl stuff, some things that would make great Christmas gifts for you or someone in your family or with which to surprise someone. Seriously, if you win something that you don't exactly need ... maybe the true gift will come when you have the opportunity to bless it forward to someone else! And you just may want to check out the donator's sites because there are GREAT BIG THINGS happening through these generous and creative hearts that have donated here. Many of them have their own journeys underway. Support them!

Here's a brief summary. Please link over to the site/post for a full description! And remember to not only check back after the drawing ends to see if you won, but also continuing forward as there will be some really neat up-coming things you'll want to know about AS WELL AS a photo and introduction of The Rippee's daughter when they get the green light from the official folks. THAT will be such a cool day! I can hardly wait!

Here's the Prize-List:

MeiFaith Studio (Shelley): two stunning pieces of jewelry from her etsy-site

1.) PURPLE PASSION SET 

2.) THE FAR EAST Pendant

It's Poppy Dip (Sallee): 
3.) An adorable size 5T dress

Firefly Photo Jewelry (Shawna): Two beautiful necklaces

4.) I Love You to the Moon Hand Stamped Soldered Pendant Necklace

5.) Handstamped adoption necklace- Born In My Heart.

6.)Kay Bratt: an autographed copy of the Encore edition of Silent Tears: A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage . 

7.)Scarlet Threads: Scarlet Threads apron 

8.) GirlyGirl Bowtique Package

9.) Girly Girl Bowtique: $20 Gift Certificate 
(this was something I WON last Fall when I gave my VERY first donation to an adoption fundraiser. WHAT A BLESSING to include it as a prize here!!! My prayer before checking to see if I had won THAT give-away was that God would use the winners to answer deep prayers from the heart. Wow. God is SO cool!)

10.) Junk Posse (Tracy): a gorgeous "China Necklace," valued at $70.00! 

Jewels of My Heart (Daleea): 2 packages of 5.47" x 4.21" notecards

11.) "LuLu Friendship Note Cards" and 

12.) "Sophie Friendship Note Cards." 

13.) Debbie Gentile: "Sisters" Photo, matted 8x 10 black and white photo ready for framing!

14-28.) Heather: FIFTEEN! ultra-funky camera straps. 


29.) Heather: a $50.00 gift certificate to Amazon.com! 

30.) Ruffled Feathers (Valerie): $25 gift certificate from RuffledFeathersCompany.blogspot.com

31.) Rufflestiltskins (Melanie): a gift certificate for $50.00 toward anything through her website,  rufflestiltskins.com

32.) Wheat and Wildflowers (Kimberly): a $50 gift certificate to anything in her store of the winner's choice. 

Molly

33 and 34.) Two handcrafted and designed, beautifully-beaded wrist-watches. 

Ruffled Feathers (Valerie)

35.) a little painted chair. 

Dimensions are 23"h x 12"w x 12"d

Wit & Wisdom Interior Lettering (Valerie)

36.) $30.00 gift certificate toward a custom designed vinyl wall art saying from Wit and Wisdom Interior Lettering. 

SewShay (Sharon):

37.)The Rainbow Roll

http://shopsewshay.blogspot.com (Valued at $18)

 ella bella designs

38.) Adoption Announcements Pkg.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ejstoll

39.) Sara (donation by her from Jewels of My Heart):

a bracelet of the WINNER'S Choosing from Daleea's 3,000 Bracelets Campaign to bring her daughter home!

http://orphaned-no-more.blogspot.com/

Baby Be Blessed Dolls

40.) a gift certificate of $56! Enough to cover a PERSONALIZED doll including s/h!

THANK YOU for the GENEROUS donations from:

Mei Faith Jewelry

It's Poppy Dip

Kay Bratt

Heather

Scarlet Threads

Girly Girl Bowtique

JunkPossee

Jewels of My Heart

Debbie

Rufflestiltskins

Wheat and Wildflowers

Firefly Photo Jewelry

Wit and Wisdom 

Ruffled Feathers

SewShay

ella bella designs

Sara 

The Home Study Visit

This has been one busy week! Not only was our social worker here, but on the last day she was here, some guests from out of town arrived. They called me the day before and said they were coming to New Day and wanted to visit us at our home. Then even the same day, later in the evening, we had a very important Skype call to the US for paperwork. Sooooo, our social worker is here all morning doing interviews, our guests arrive during that time and have to wait until she is finished, then when they leave that evening, we are busy doing the important Skype call!! Oh and one more thing that day, as it it wasn't enough!! It was the girls first day back to school! So we're also trying to home-school them and shuttle the others back and forth to New Day for preschool and Serena to her new Chinese teacher. Needless to say, it was difficult for the home schoolers (Shawna, Elise, and Elizabeth) who had little help from us that day! Shawna and Elise work well on their own with questions here and there so they did fine. Elizabeth (who does an English program), however, is only in the first grade which pretty much requires a full-time parent. Whew!! What a day! I was glad that day was over!! But a little more about our home-study visit.

On Tuesday, our social worker arrived to begin our home-study. We had several hours of interviews and a home inspection. She was here 2 days. She interviewed Shawna and Elise, boy were they nervous! I kept telling them not to be nervous, just be open and honest. When asked how they felt about all the foster kids, Shawna said she said it was good but hard sometimes. I told her that was a good, honest answer--nothing wrong with that! They did fine. All went well to our knowledge and we just have to get our hands on a few pieces of paperwork before it can all be finished up. Although we asked, we really didn't get an answer to when it would be completed. She definitely did not want to be pinned down to a time-frame. Our agency quoted us a 6-8 week time-frame if memory serves me right. We still need to get our physicals done for the whole family. Since we can't go to our local doctor as if we were in the states, we have to locate someone here who can do fill out the forms in English and run all the required tests. Hope it's not too difficult a task! All this needs to wait until Randy returns from the states. I'll locate the place and make an appointment while he's gone. As soon as he returns, we can get it done. There's also a couple of documents we have to get, other than that, we've already given her most everything else. It's always a relief when one more step is accomplished in this journey! We will rejoice together when the home-study is complete and in our hands! Until then, just keep it all lifted up. By the way, as soon as we have this, we will be able to begin to apply for grants.