Catch Up

We have been consumed with getting our house "in order" to be officially listed. A crazy amount of work has gone into this place in the past couple weeks and it is looking amazing! Hopefully someone else thinks so too! (local, and looking for a starter home that is CHEAPER than renting(2 bed, 2 bath, 1241 sq. ft.? CONTACT ME!)

We will be live on the MLS on Friday and prayers for a quick sell would be greatly appreciated. We have to sell(and buy) before we can continue on our journey to adoption. There are some great properties for sale in the area we are looking at, with UNBELIEVABLE prices. A lot of square feet for not a lot of money, and perfect for large, growing families. (I should mention the prices are unbelievable for our area, which is Ohio... if you live in another part of the country these prices would hardly buy you a shack. Actually I think it is less than a shack would cost in Vancouver, BC.)

Since we have been busy on mundane house stuff, I have been neglecting a few of my other duties a little more than I like, namely photo editing, and filling custom orders from our shop. But good news, I will be caught up tomorrow and items will be shipped out Tuesday morning at the latest. If you are waiting on an item from me, THANK YOU for being so patient! We have been so blessed with orders from strangers and friends alike. Those of you who are waiting just may be finding a little extra goodie in your box to make up for the delay!

And what is a post without a picture? (Which sadly too many of mine are without, I hope to remedy that!) Here is one of my favorites of a recent shoot that I just edited only minutes ago. For more go here. There is still time to fit in a holiday session with "rush delivery". I will even upload some favorites same day to your printer of choice so you can have your Cards delivered before Christmas! As always 100% of your fees go directly toward our adoption fund.


Is that not the most beautiful picture ever? LOVE IT, Baby and Momma snuggling after some nursing time, so sweet.

MBM(or tuesday...) {HE..}

GOT KICKED OUT OF PHYSICAL THERAPY!!!

(So not really kicked out as much as graduated... But I am one happy and proud momma to a perfectly on target little boy. Take that "may never roll over"!)

For part 1 of this story read here. We are linked up over at A Place called Simplicity, go and check out all of the awesome stories that make up "Memorial Box Monday" (or Tuesday in this case!).

Wildlights

Oh how we love our zoo. Love. Love. LOVE. It is huge, and consistently ranked among the top zoo's in the nation. Every winter they have Wildlights where they put up millions(billions? anyone know the number?) of lights everywhere. This weekend was the first weekend of them, and we took advantage of the not too freezing weather and went to check them out!

I also love this lovely baby-wearing fleece vest called a Peekaroo. It fits over most carriers including the moby, Beco, Ergo, slings, and mei-tais. I scored one at a local natural kids store at 75% of this spring, which made this picture possible. Those things aren't cheap!

So I stumbled upon this fund raising raffle and I thought I would share. Are these dolls not ah-maz-ing? It is taking everything in my power not to click over to that Etsy shop(which part of the proceeds benefit Ethiopian Orphans) and snatch one up for Lizzy. (although if anyone in the blog world wants to get her one I would not complain... she has requested the red hair one, "Just like me!")

Anyways back to the point. This family is raffling off one of these custom dolls (made to your liking) for a simple 5 dollar donation. So skip your Starbucks, enter to win this for one of your kids, or a special little one in your life, and help bring home an orphan.

Too much stuff!

5 bags of trash.

4 bins "curb alerted" on Craigslist.

4 larger bins packed for storage.

Just today.

And I feel like I haven't made a dent.

(side note we are looking for "helpers" this weekend for some projects... any takers?)

MBM {Sweet Words}

Week 2, aren't we all proud? Memorial Box Monday actually isn't up, the original blog has had some family stuff going on, so I'm guessing it will be posted late. Oh well, I wasn't going to miss week two of my new venture!

This week has been a crazy one. Getting our house ready to sell just seems like a daunting task, one that I feel like is being "taken advantage of," if you get my drift. It would be sooooo much easier to hang up our hats on this whole thing, give up, and stay put for a while longer.

But that is not what we are called to do, we are not called to be comfortable, but rather step out in faith. Even if the current "stepping out" is emptying "junk" and painting.(Anyone local want some junk?) But I digress.

In the midst of this week, my little girl decided that she needed to do a "picture time" (aka photo shoot) of her "Ack and Echo". So she proceeded to find a blanket, lay it out, pose her babies, and start snapping away with her little Nikon. (We teach 'em young around here!)

And in the midst of all of the action she looked up at me and said, "Mommy, your my best friend". Oh precious girl, stay this age forever!

Setting up her shot.

"Cheese" Got it!

They got a little cranky, time for a paci break.

Kneeling down, getting on her babies level. All about perspective!

Taken with my camera, using the view finder, holding it all by herself. Is Christmas too early to get her her first DSLR? :)

Another Christmas Link up

These are EVERYWHERE, and I am so very thankful that they are! This brings great traffic to our blog which means more prayers and more support! Wohoo! So if you are one of my faithful readers, forgive me for some of the redundancy, part of the rules are a new post :)

If you are new WELCOME! We are so glad you stopped by, and even more honored if you choose to do some of your Christmas shopping with us! We are a young family of four, just starting out our journey to adopt from Ethiopia. We cannot tell you how excited we are about this. For more information about us feel free to read the foundational posts up in the top left.

And now to the good stuff, our fundraisers! We have the norm, coffee, ordinary hero shirts (mention garrett family adoption in the memo), and hand adorned shirts(we are sporting these in our family picture up top!). We also have some that are a little more out of the box!

We have teamed up with Delcotto Designs for a Christmas Card Fundraiser. For more information about this and links to the company, check out this post that describes it in more detail. The product is amazingly cute, custom, and has very affordable options!

We are selling Shaklee products, they are green, they are safe, and they always work! If you have never heard of Shaklee check out the button on the right that says "Support Malot's Hope". Here you will find nutritional supplements, skin care, and amazing cleaning products.

And our "crown jewel" is our Etsy shop! Here you will find our previously mentioned shirts. Reusable "green" items(such as reusable snack bags, tissues, "paper towels", and baby wipes.) We also have great gifts for kids. Personalized hooded towels, wooden car sets, blankets and super hero capes! A great post with some pictures of our more recent items is found here!

So thanks for checking us out, and if you haven't already be sure to check out the other people linked up at the Road Less Traveled, we all have the amazing opportunity to help bring these children home with our Christmas purchases!