Last Weekend Garage Sale = Complete!

WooooHooooo! I am so happy to say that we are finished with Garage Sales! Aaron even made up a breakup song about garage sales (I'm pretty sure he borrowed most of the lyrics from Taylor Swift). I am also happy to announce that we added another $836.28 to our adoption account!! Praise the Lord!

Our thermometer over to the left of our blog is now up to $14,982!!!!!!!!!! I know I have said this a million times, but we are so greatful to all the people who have donated their stuff, time, and money to help us bring our son home. We are also extreamely greatful for all the prayers and support we have recieved during the past year. Garage sales have been the best fundraiser. We have raised over $10,000 just by working four long weekends this summer.

Although, I think the best part of having garage sales was sharing our story with everyone that came to score a deal. After trying to sell a nice man some items, I'm sure he didn't really need, we got to talking and told him our story and what we were doing this for. He right there gave us a $20 bill. He was so generous! Then as he walked away he found a small cooler that had a $3 tag on it. I told him just to take it, but he refused and handed me a $5 bill. I went to get him change and he just left. He yelled from his truck that he hoped our day was great and he was glad he could do a small thing to help us bring our son home! I'm am so in awe of people's generosity. I love having these stories to share with our son someday. He wont have a baby book, but he will have a Life Book and these stories of generous people will fill the pages!

Hopefully soon we will have some news to share about possible travel dates. I think the waiting and not knowing anything is killing me! But it's all going to happen in God's perfect timing! I just hope that's sooner than later.

Love, April & Aaron

Another Awesome Garage Sale!

At the last minute we decided to have our Garage Sale in our Yard. It was crazy! Our house is quite small and our neighbors thought we were selling everything and moving out. Our yard is small and it was packed full of stuff. We took over parts of our neighbors yards as well. But in all reality it was great to have it at home. We were able to share our story and meet all kinds of neighbors we hadn't met before.

Our grand total for the weekend is $1998.19!!!!!!!!! I have already added it to our thermometer on the main blog page. We have raised over $14,000. Wooohooo!!!! Thank you everyone! We are truly blessed with wonderful family and friends!

We are so thankful for all of our family and friends who came to help us out and who donated to our sale. We continued to get items all weekend and actually ended up still having about as much as we started with. Crazy Right???? We couldn't fathom just donating all of the stuff left, so we packed it up and were going to another 2 day sale this weekend. I know we said this would be our last sale, but with everything that was donated to us we knew we had to try to earn a little more money. We're going to set up our sale on Thursday and do it Friday and Saturday at my sisters.

Hopefully we can make another $1,000 or more towards our goal. After this one we are really done with garage sales, we are exhausted!

Love, The Marvin's

(The entire side of our yard is full of stuff, plus stuff in our basement and more to come from friends! )

A little something to get to know us....

This week some time (and may our small care package should be getting to our son in Africa. Another family was gracious and took our ziplock bag full of treasures on her trip to get her child. One of my favorite things we sent was a little t-shirt that was Carson's not very long ago. I'm hoping to get a picture of our son in his new shirt to judge his size a little better. I know the shirt won't stay his and that's okay, but I hope that he enjoys getting something for just him for a day. I also sent stickers, bracelets, cars, balls, a small book and a photo album of our family. I hope he enjoys sharing his treasures with his friends. I tried to send enough stickers and bracelets for him to share with all of the older kids.
I'm so excited that he will see photos of our family. I hope he enjoys seeing Carson playing and our extended family's photos. But in reality I know this is a very scary thing for him. The initial excitement (if he has any) will wear off and he will be left with so many questions and concerns about his life. In his little world we are going to be strange people coming to take him away from the place he has called home, from his "family" at the orphanage and his friends. I pray for all the strength, patience, and compassion in the world to help him heal from the trauma he has already faced in his little lifetime. I so am looking forward to our time in country to bond as a family. During that time I am sure I will be missing Carson like crazy, but I know how powerful the time will be spent focusing completely on our youngest son. Carson will be in the best hands while we are gone (Thanks to our Family!) and Aaron will come home to him after a few weeks and I'll stay in country until the adoption is complete. I'm pretty scared to be in country without Aaron and to travel back on my own, but I know God is in control. Please pray for us as we begin planning our adventure to Africa. We received some excellent news this week about our vaccinations.  We thought they would cost about $2000 and with our new insurance most of the vaccines are covered!! Woohooo!! Also, we're having our last Fundraising Garage Sale this weekend.  We are having it at our house and it's a crazy out there! Hopefully we can bring lots of people in to our sale, even though our house is not in the best location for a sale.
Thanks to everyone who have donated to our adoption fundraisers! We really couldn't be doing this without you.