The big winner!!

Hello friends and family!! I have had technical difficulties in trying to get this fun video to post here! I posted it on Facebook the night we did the drawing.

In case the video doesn't work (again) the winner of the bundle was # 603 Lane Crosno!!
We had an incredible amount of support from so many family and friends! God used each of you who participated to bless us in a huge way!!!! And we are SO thankful!!! Thank you all SO very much!!!
We set a goal of $2,000. It was a big goal big goal but we knew it wasn't too big for our God!
So, guess how much money we raised for the orphanage donation??????
Drum roll please!!!!!
$3,020!!!!!!
No, that's not a typo! We really did raise $1,020 more than our goal on this fundraiser alone!!!
We are SO grateful to God!!! And we are humbled by the support we received and the amount of love and encouragement poured out on us as we near the time to bring our darling baby girl home to her forever family.
We could never thank each of you enough and can't wait to share the rest of our journey to Khloe with you all!
Also, Thank you again for your prayers. They truly are what has held us up as we have endured life's storms that have raged around us in recent weeks.
Following God in faith isn't always the easy way--- but it is most definitely worth it. We keep pressing on toward that which He has called us to despite the difficulty, trials and tribulations that this world throws our way.
Why? Because He is worthy. Our loving and merciful God and Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are worth our obedience, service and any sacrifices made in His name. It is an honor to serve Him and live for Him!!
Because she is worth it. Khloe is a precious daughter of God and He has called us to be her parents. For us to be her family. WE are SO blessed to have received this call!!
Like I always say: Anytime the fire continues to get hotter..... God is getting ready to do something BIG!!!
And I can attest to the fact that it's been pretty warm in our neck of the woods....
So you know what that means????? Baby girl is coming home soon!!! :)
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!!
Thank you all again for giving so generously and blessing us so richly with your gifts!!!
May God richly bless each one of you!!!!

Amazing Adoption Raffle!! iPad mini Bundle!!!

Guess what?? We are only a couple months (or less!?) from being able to (finally!) bring our sweet little Khloe home! We are SO excited! Our sweet girl who has lived her whole life in an orphanage and without a family will soon be an orphan no more!

We praise God for her life and that we are being given the incredible opportunity to be her parents. We long for that day when we can begin to show her love like she has never known.

She is our little miracle. We know that early weeks of her life were very difficult. She not only survived, but she has grown and developed very well under the circumstances. She is a fighter and we are so very grateful!  

We have such an exciting opportunity for you!!! How would you like to win an iPad mini bundle?? I know I would!!!

How can you win??

It’s easy!!!

Today, we are beginning an Amazing Adoption Raffle!!!!

What’s in the raffle “bundle”??

All this!!!!

*A white iPad mini (wi-fi 16 GB) (valued at $329.99)

* A Targus Versavu iPad mini case (valued at $49.99)

* Apple Earpods with Remote & Mic (valued at $29.99)

* $100 iTunes card (valued at $100.00)

Total value of bundle: $509.97!!!

So how do you enter to win???

Here are the details on how you can win!

* Our Amazing Adoption Raffle will be open until Friday, February 22nd. Chances may be purchased until 7pm CST on 2/22. The drawing will be held after 7pm CST.

* Each $5 donation into our Adoption Fund gets you 1 entry into the drawing. $10 gets you two entries; $25 gets you 5; $100 gets you 20 and so on! (Just look on the top right of the blog for our paypal “Donate” button! It’s easy to donate with a credit or debit card this way. It’s easy and safe and there is no charge to you! You do not have to have a paypal account to send us a donation! We will have a record of each donation, the amount donated and the giver’s information.) (PS- If you are local, if you would prefer, you can just give your donation to us in person and you will still be entered!)

* After you enter the giveaway, post something about it on your blog and we’ll enter your name into the drawing AGAIN!! Post something about it on your facebook page (with a link to THIS post),  and we'll enter your name AGAIN! Just leave a comment on this post with the link to your post! That way we’ll know to give you another entry! And get THIS… if you do ALL 3 (buy at least one ticket, post about it on your blog AND post about it on your facebook page) we will enter your name AGAIN!!!  That’s right!!! We may be crazy, but we’re just awesomely nice like that! AND we could never make this fundraiser a success without YOU and your help!!! (If you share the post, just be sure to leave a comment on this blog post so I’ll know to give you another chance(s)!!

* Don’t forget: This is a Win-Win Situation! Even if you don't win our Amazing Adoption Raffle you are helping us bring our sweet baby Khloe home forever!! What an awesome thing!!!

Let’s take a closer look at the amazing items that one very lucky winner will be able to call their own!! I would LOVE to have this bundle!!!! WOW!!!!

*A white iPad mini (wi-fi 16 GB) (valued at $329.99)

Brand new, still sealed in the beautiful little box :)

* A Targus Versavu iPad mini case (valued at $49.99)

* Apple Earpods with Remote & Mic (valued at $29.99)

* $100 iTunes card

Total value of bundle: $509.97!!!

Let me say it again… WOW! Who wouldn’t love to have this set?!?!

We are required to make a donation to our daughter’s orphanage when we travel to get her. For this fundraiser, we have set a goal of $2,000 to help with part of this expense.

I know $2,000 sounds like A LOT of money. And you’re right. It is. BUT… really it’s only 400 people giving $5 each! OR 200 people giving $10 each! When we all get involved and do A LITTLE, we can accomplish A LOT! I have 690 facebook friends… just imagine what we could give to this orphanage if everyone got involved just a little???!!!

THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! Thank you for your support!! Thank you for helping us to bring Khloe Xiao Mei home!! We are truly thankful from the bottom of our hearts and we could NEVER say Thank You enough!!!!

May God Richly Bless You and Yours!!!

(Each $5 donation will be emailed a receipt with your ticket number(s). The winner will be chosen using an online random number generator and we will provide screen shots of the entire process! So, don’t worry! Everything with this raffle will be conducted fairly and honestly!!)

To reward you for your patience in getting through this post, here’s some SWEETNESS!!!!!!

A never before seen on the world wide web photo of our precious one! Look how she is growing! We are just so in love with that little face already :)

(P.S. If you would like to help us but can't make a donation, please email me at jekennett at cox dot net (replace the words with the symbols!) to learn how you can still be a part of this!

Awesome Adoption T-Shirts!!!

Update:

We have blue shirts left in Size XSmall and Small.

We have red shirts left in Size XSmall, Medium, Large and XLarge.

THANK YOU!!!

I wrote this post back in the summer about our adoption shirts that we have for sale. We are so so very thankful for everyone that has purchased shirts from us!!! What a blessing to us!! We are truly humbled to have so many wonderful family members and friends who have loved us and supported us through this long journey. We could never fully express our gratitude!

I'm here today to get the word out about our t-shirts again!!

Why, you ask??

Because yesterday, an AMAZING thing happened!

We got our LSC/LOA. (Yes, more confusing adoption terminology :) )

This is the letter we have waited for since we submitted our letter of intent to adopt our Khloe. This is the official approval of our desire to adopt our little sweet pea!

And....

It means that we should be holding her in our arms in a little over 2 months! OR sooner if God sees fit to answer that prayer :) Amen!!

So... we have a short period of time left to finish raising the money we need to bring her home. We have a substantial donation that must be made to the orphanage as well as travel expenses for the 3 of us (Mamma, Daddy and Khloe) to get to and from China and to be in the country for 2 weeks. We have already completed the payments for everything else related to our adoption, but we are going to need some help getting to the end.

So... if you'd like to help us bring her home, you can buy one of our AMAZING t-shirts!

These shirts really are the softest and most comfortable t-shirts I've ever had. And I'm a total t-shirt girl. There's not much I like more than a cool t-shirt!

We have 2 different designs available.

The blue shirt is a thicker (maybe regular weight) but still super soft organic cotton shirt, material. The red shirt is a thinner material.
They are true to size- maybe closer to a men's size as they are not the fitted women's styles. If you like your t-shirts more fitted, maybe consider ordering a size down.

We have adult size XS thru XL available!

I know you will love either of the shirts! They really are great!
And you will be supporting a wonderful cause!!

 

The shirts are $20 each.

I will be glad to mail the shirt to you for an extra packaging and shipping cost of $5.

In order to buy a shirt, you can use our paypal button on the top right of our blog. Just include a message on your donation of the size and color of shirt you are interested in. You can also send me an email any time!
My email is jekennett at cox dot net. (of course, replace the words with the symbols... I'm trying to keep that nasty spam mail down!)

Thank you so very much!!! God Bless You All!!! And please keep praying our girl home!!

Spring 2012 Soccer Highlight Video

I FINALLY finished B’s highlight video for the 2012 Spring season. No, that was not the last season…. but the season before…. Hey—better late than never, right! That’s totally my mantra these days!

I learned a while back, that when I compile the season’s pics and video clips into a highlight video, we are much more likely to watch and enjoy the videos throughout the years. It’s not nearly as fun to look back through a bazillion separate short video clips.

I’ve actually been working on this off and on for the past couple months. There is probably at least 6-8 hours involved in making this 20 minute video. In any given game that I video tape (almost all of them, but not all of them), there might be more than 50 video clips that I have to watch and sort through. There might be 2 highlight clips in all of the clips from the game… or there might be more than 10-15+. I just never know what I’m going to get when I’m taping. So the editing part is what takes the longest. But, he is so happy with the video and thanked me so much for finishing it for him. And he reminded me that I need to get last season done before next season starts and we get the baby home. These things will be much harder to accomplish once I have a little one running around here!

Without further delay—I present the Spring 2012 highlight video!
(Warning: It’s a little over 20 minutes long. I’m sure only family and close friends would want to watch a highlight video of my boy that’s this long… so it’s posted mainly for them!! The music is all songs selected from his pre-game warm-up playlist. It’s a great, fun playlist! It even gets Mamma pumped up and ready for the games!) Enjoy!

PS- you can click the “Youtube” button at the bottom of the video, then click the full screen video to watch it on a bigger screen :)

KC Trip for US Soccer

Back in October, we took a trip to Kansas City for another soccer game. But this time, it was a US Men’s soccer game! It was the World Cup Qualifier vs Guatemala. We bought tickets as soon as we found out the game was on the schedule back in August. We were really looking forward to it! And Meme and Papa came with us too!!!

We left early on Tuesday morning.

Ready for our ROAD TRIP!! We LOVE a good road trip!!

After arriving at Great Wolf, we let the kids swim and play for a few hours, then we headed back to the room to get ready to head to the Stadium.

Like any good National Team soccer fan, we had to have team shirts and face paint!!

We walked over to T-Rex Cafe to have dinner together before the game.

Meme and Papa

Meme and Papa with the kids

Our family

We made it to the stadium!!

Go USA!!

We had amazing seats! (2nd row!! behind the box seats that is…)

Tim Howard! Heading into the locker room after warm-ups

Gracie had been running a fever for a few days before we left and she was still running fever anytime her medicine wore off. After not feeling well, the long day and all the walking, she was having trouble staying awake!! Poor thing!

Next thing we knew, she was sound asleep!

Actually, at one point while she was still sleeping, Mom started laughing and then started to tell us what happened. While she was sleeping a good play happened and everyone started cheering.  All of a sudden, she picked up her head, started clapping, and then laid her head back down. The girl has been drug to soccer games since she was a baby, so she can cheer for her team in her sleep!! :)

After a 10-15 minute power nap, she woke up ready to go. And really enjoyed the rest of the game!

Panorama

 

Game time!!

After the game—we won!!

Hercules Gomez

Clint Dempsey

Tim Howard

We stayed in KC until dinner time the next day hanging in the water park and doing some other fun things in town.

One of the things we did was check out SkyZone. Wall to wall trampolines. Jason and the kids did it and had a blast!

Here is Rhett jumping.

Our jump time ended around 4pm and then we headed home.  We had a wonderful time.This trip will go down as one of life’s greatest memories!!!

We have a baby!!

I am so pleased and happy to announce that we were matched with our sweet baby girl in China yesterday!!

She is 13 months old and BEAUTIFUL!!!

It was 3 years and 1 month ago that we began our adoption journey. It was a long 3 years of waiting. Sometimes we waited well. Sometimes it was ugly.

But in the end... Just like we suspected... She was worth the wait.

I still feel like it's not real. Like I'm dreaming. To think that this waiting-to see her face-phase of life is finally over just seems to good to be true.

God is so good. He is faithful. His timing is perfect.

When we first started this adoption journey, the first country we inquired about was China. I just knew thats where we needed to be. We were sad to find out that we didn't qualify for the program because we were too young and did not meet the income requirements.

So, we found a program that we did qualify for and began the process to adopt from Ethiopia- A process that was "supposed" to take 15-18 months. Over 2 years later as we were still waiting with no end in sight we felt like we were not supposed to wait anymore. It took a few months for us to follow through with what we felt like we needed to do because we had already become so emotionally invested in the Ethiopia program. We were very much looking forward to adopting a child from Ethiopia for a long time.

Through a very neat series of events in those months, God just kept confirming to us that our child was not in Ethiopia, but a child with special needs in China.

When we remembered that initially we felt like China was right those years before, it was a sweet moment.

You see, God had to keep us "occupied" somewhere else to get us to the China program at just the right time.

6 months ago, we began the paperwork for our China dossier. Yes, we now met all the necessary requirements that we didn't meet before.

Then we finally saw her face. She wasn't even alive for the first 2 years of our adoption journey! When we started our dossier she was 7 months old. We got our log in date the end of October. She showed up on the list in December. Whew! The timing had to be pretty perfect for us to be united, huh?!?!

See, I told you God is good!!

I can't say that I was free from fear, doubt, depression, worry, anger, and anxiety in the last 3 years. I wish that I could, but it's just not true. There were certainly sweet times when I was totally ok and truly realized that God was in control and everything would be ok. But there were certainly dark days of doubt and feeling like God was ignoring my honest pleas. He wasn't ignoring me. He was right there holding me up and getting me through all of those emotions. He knew the wait was hard. He knew how badly I wanted another child to love and raise and call my own. But he knew what was best. He knew who my daughter was. And he was working things together for our good to bring us together at the right moment.
And the week of Christmas? Well, I couldn't think of a more special time to receive such happy, long awaited good news.
I don't take for granted how blessed we are. And as I suspected I would feel at this point, I wouldn't undo the last few years. I have learned so much and have a much stronger relationship with the Lord through it all.

We can't wait to get our hands on her and smother her in snuggles, hugs and kisses. She's had to wait far too long to have a family to love her and care for her. I know that in a perfect world, she would have never been left alone and in need of a family. But this world is far from perfect and we are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. God called us to adopt and this was part of his plan for us.
Yes, we've had to wait to fulfill the calling that He placed on us and she's had to live in an orphanage and wait for a family-- and neither seems fair. But the wait is almost over!! She has had a Mamma, Daddy, 2 brothers, a sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and countless close friends that have longed for her and loved her since before she was born!
She has a new bed, toys of her own and a closet full of clothes already ready for her too. (Don't judge-- I've had 3 years to accumulate stuff that I just couldn't resist! And now that I know all about her-- almost everything I bought is going to fit!!!)
We pray that the remaining paperwork would go smoothly and swiftly and we will be bringing her home soon!!! (average is 4-6 months)
I will share more information and pictures here when I can (probably in a few months).
But just trust me-- she is beautiful. Wonderfully and perfectly made. And somehow actually resembles our biological children in many ways.
I can't wait to introduce myself to her...tell her I'm her Mamma...and tell her how much I love her....tell her how much Jesus loves her...

Oh, if they'd let us, we'd have been on the first plane to China today!! :)

Thank you to all of you who have followed along on this journey and have supported us unconditionally. Thank you for your prayers. Please keep praying her home!

Halloween circa 2012

Once again, I’m behind on blogging :)

We had a very fun Halloween this year! We had several friends get dressed up and come walk the neighborhood with us for some trick or treating. Super Fun! Except that Daddy was sick and laid up in bed so he couldn’t join us. **We later found out that he had a bad case of pneumonia! :(

I got some pictures for him and to share with everyone too :)

Pippa was a fairy. She was supposed to be a fairy princess b/c I had bought her a gold crown to wear also but she HATED the crown b/c it had to go around her face. So, she was just a plain ole’ fairy :)

I bought G a Merida costume at her request and she’s been so excited. I bought this costume at Rhea Lana’s last week just for her to put with her other dress up clothes. BUT—she loved his one SO much she decided to wear it! She made a beautiful Jasmine. My sweet friend Rachel did such a great job on her hair. I forgot to take a picture of the back of her hair. It looked just like Jasmine’s! Only a few shades lighter… :)

The kids got in the car at school pickup and were so excited about dressing up. They asked me what I was dressing as. I told them I wasn’t going to dress up and I told them that I wasn’t planning to dress up. I got the deer in the headlights and the “What?!” So, I pulled a little something together last minute :) I had brown freckles all over my face, although you can’t really see in this picture.

My Ninja boy. He even looks scary with those crooked eyes :)

Rasta Man. He had some sweet facial hair but he forgot to put it on until later in the evening. If you’re friends with me on facebook, you can see the photo I uploaded from my phone of him with the facial hair. So cute :)

What a fun night!