T-Shirt Fundraiser - Adoption Bug

Our 2nd fundraiser has begun....to help raise money for our orphanage donation.

Buy a T-Shirt (1 of 6 designs) and we will receive between $7-$8 per each t-shirt sale.

Click on link to view our t-shirts:  www.adoptionbug.com/journeytofaith

Only one more day...

for the flat $0.84 shipping on orders $30 and more at our Regal Gift fundraising.

We've already raised $67 (in only 5 orders) towards our orphanage donation AND we've hit our 1/2 way mark in our goal of $5000.

Original post:  http://journeyoftofaith.blogspot.ca/2012/07/regal-gifts-fundraiser.html

Shop at http://faith.shopregal.ca/MySite/Story.aspx and all items will be shipped directly to your address.

Thanks for all who have participated so far!

HALF WAY there...

TODAY...we reached 1/2 way to our fundraising goal for our orphanage donation!!

YAY! 


Thanks to all those who have helped out!!!

Regal Gifts - Fundraiser

Hi Family& Friends.

Our next effort to raise an orphanage donation (our goal is $5000 and currently we have raised $2200 so far), we have decided to work with a couple of fundraising organizations to help raise the remaining funds. All efforts will help our daughter, Faith, come home!
First, we are working with Regal Gifts.

Through your online purchases at Regal Gifts, we will earn 30% of all merchandise sales.

Important Points

1. Regal has designed our own website for safe and secure ordering – www.faith.shopregal.ca. Please read all the details on the homepage.
2. The website can only be viewed using Internet Explorer or Firefox entering the website address, do not search through Google or Google Chrome it will not direct you to the website.
3. You can start placing your orders immediately and all orders must be placed by September 30th, 2012 (assuming we travel in September which is our hope). If we do not travel in September, all orders must be placed by November 30, 3012. Should this happen, we will advise!
4. After placing your order on our web store, the products are delivered directly to you. In stock items generally arrive within 7-10 business days.
5. To ensure your order is delivered quickly, we need you to either enter a physical address (not PO Box) or include your phone number when asked during the order process. For speedy delivery we recommend including both.
6. Regal has a low shipping rate - only $5 per order under $124.99 or 4% of the order total if your order is $125 or more. ( plus taxes)
7. Our Organization earns at least 30% on every order and up to 35% if we all buy more!!
8. Product Exchanges are done directly through Regal’s Exchange Centre – www.regal.ca/exchangecentre. Refunds can be requested through the Centre as well as long as your campaign is open. After the campaign closes you will only be able to receive an exchange.

If you do not wish to place a credit card order online, I am attaching a Fundraising Order Form that you can fill out and submit to me with your cash or cheque payment. Once I receive enough orders, I will gladly submit the order myself on our credit card.

If you have any questions, PLEASE call me 506-473-6858 or email me at tara.morin473@gmail.com.

If you can not participate by purchasing any items, would you kindly forward this to your family and friendsOne more thing, could you forward this to YOUR friends and family? The more people we make contact with, the more successful our fundraiser will be.

Thank you so much for your help and support!

The Morin Family

Jacques, Tara, Noah and (soon enough) Faith

xox

Fundraising, Fundraising, Fundraising

I've decided to ramp up my fundraising efforts to help raise our entire orphanage donation of $5400, of which we are already $2200 to our goal.  This is a required donation, and our fundraising efforts will bring us one step closer to bringing Faith home!

Praying our efforts pay off....SO....

Keep your eyes open...and let the fundraising marathon begin!

FoR SaLe - Canon Rebel XT and ALL you could ever need!

If you are interested, please feel free to email me tara.morin473@gmail.com

Package includes:

Camera KIT:
Canon Rebel XT kit - with 18-55mm lens

Extra Lens:
Canon 75-300mm (paid $280)
Sigma 18-200mm (paid over $500)
Canon 50mm, 1.8 (paid $125)
Canon 35mm (paid $340)

Flash:
External Flash Speedlite 430EX II (paid $375)

Battery:
Extended battery pack (paid $150)
4 batteries
Charger

Carrier:
Lowepro Backpack (paid close to $150)
Note: holds all equipment included

Extras:
All lenses come with either a safety or UV filter to protect the lens
Extra filter, lens cap, flower cover (for shooting in sunny weather)
2GB memory card

All these items purchased are worth close to $3000, asking $1500 OBO.

On a budget...

...talked to our agency today and got the final numbers of what we owe by September (assuming we travel then).  It was ALOT....more than we've already paid! I mean I kinda knew how much, but kinda dug my head in the sand about it - getting all carried away with looking at our beautiful little girl!

That said, it's ALL good...we just have to 'pull up our socks', 'cut out the extras', 'go on a budget' or as my grandmother used to say 'go on an austerity program' from now until September to make this happen.  It's going to be ALL worth it the first time I squeeze my lil' Faith girl!!!

aus·ter·i·ty/ôˈsteritē/

Noun:

Sternness or severity of manner or attitude. Extreme plainness and simplicity of style or appearance

Thankfully, we have almost everything we need for Faith in terms of clothes but the only toys we DO have are very young in age for her.  They WILL have to be enough until Christmas - when I'm pretty certain a little Birthday/Christmas princess will get a tad spoiled!!!  I'm sure she'll find some fun with the pots, pans and Tupperware cupboard until then!!!

As for clothes, we've been focusing on size 2 for the winter.  We have a few Capri's for our travel to China and mostly size 3 dresses (which will probably be big - but should fit next summer as well).   A friend brought over a little guy yesterday, who when measured, ended up being 'almost Faith's size' - and to my surprise, he had size 18 month shorts on that were falling off!  YIKES.  Well, at this point, we'll just have to wait when we travel because if I buy anymore clothes my husband and both sides of the family will SHOOT me - oh and because we are on an austerity program, remember!!! 

This week, Jacques is out of town and Noah has been at an Entrepreneur Day Camp....and I've been having some fun!!!

I've been sewing up a storm for my sweet girl!  In total now, I've made 9 dresses (1 for a friend's daughter) and 1 ring sling for when we travel! 

How did I get so lucky...

...updated pics that is.

We sent her orphanage a cake party, that included a cake for her group, a disposable camera (which we will get when we travel), a translated letter (with a letter to her and questions to her nannies), a panda teddy (mom and baby), candies for the staff and kids, a photo album with 20 pics of us, our home and her bedroom.

They said that 'she liked the panda her parents gave her' - oh melt my heart! And...that she could say 'mama' (assuming they were pointing to the pictures of her family when teaching her)!

I just want to squeeze our little cutie pie - I can't wait....so excited!!!

Without further wait, here are some updated pics!

This picture makes me so sad, her sitting there all alone with her cake :(

I just wanna jump in the computer, swoop her up and squeeze her tight!

The little boy (in the blue, just on the right of Faith) captures my heart

(check him out in the picture below walking in the back ground - what a little ham!!!)

This little guy....what a cutie!

Check out Faith just sitting there waiting patiently!

"Hi baby girl...we are coming soon?"

IT'S A G-I-R-L!!!!

I can hardly believe I am writing this, but we got our referral/child proposal for our little girl on July 3, 2012.

The announcement card says it all....so excited!   She is just perfect for our family! 

Hopefully, we'll be able to squeeze into our agencies September travel group. 

Will (obviously) keep our blog updated with our travel plans.

Up next....we need our LOA (Letter of Approval), this is the common term but for us Canadian's it's called an LSC (Letter Seeking Confirmation).  This takes about 30 or so days to be approved, then we need to get it in the snail mail from China - which could take up to 3 weeks.  SO you see, we are really pushing a tight timeline to travel in September!!!

Our little man was pretty excited too: Check out his reaction

As part of the plan when we one day received our referral, I had a party in a bag - all ready to put out to surprise our biological son! 

Happy CANADA Day

This year we for to celebrate Canada Day, not only in our nations capital but also with our adoption agency, Family Outreach International and other adoptive families (both waiting and experienced)!!

What a lovely day and what a lovely spread FOI out on! We really lucked out with an AMAZING agency who
genuinely cares about all their clients and mostly the children!

When we arrived - even though we were not the only family, Bob took us and showed us all around. The live and work from their penthouse on the 13th floor. Bob talked to us about our upcoming trip about what to expect, about the price of items, how to negotiate, the hotels and what to
expect etc.! He also showed us all through their place, the office where all those families have been made, engaged in a decent conversation with Noah and answered all of his questions! He really made us feel welcomed and special!

We headed down to celebrate Canada Day downtown then came back to watch the fire works from their place!

It was a nearly perfect day!