Scroll down...more families...more terrific items!

PLEASE SEE LINKS BELOW TO HELP BRING CHILDREN HOME!

Christmas is just around the corner...we will all spend money this Christmas, buying gifts for our family, children and friends. I want to encourage everyone to consider buying their Christmas gifts from the following families. All the families below are in the process of adopting children and are needing to raise money to help bring their children home. They have fabulous items that can be shipped quickly and inexpensively. Please browse the following links for those special people on your Christmas list! Not only will you be giving a great gift at Christmas - you will be truly helping children and families be united!

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LOCAL FAMILY HERE IN PEI - MITCHELL FAMILY - adopting from Ukraine. Come to the Eliot River Craft Fair THIS Saturday (that's tomorrow!) and browse this family's booth. They have made beautiful wooden decorations for Christmas and for children's rooms. Some of them say things like "Sweet Dreams", "I Will Always Love You", "Always Kiss Me Goodnight"...They are sweet and can be made in any color to match your house or child's room. They also have shelves and furniture and lots of lovely items. The craft fair is from 9:00-3:00 on Dec 1st at Eliot River School, Cornwall PEI. See you there! Below are some pictures of her "signs". The pictures DO NOT do them justice...these are antiqued and look so charming!

DALE & CASSANDRA'S FAMILY - adopting from China. Items for sale: soaps, Mary Kay products, and other fundraisers. Go to this link to read more about their fundraising products! http://toyfamilystory.blogspot.com/2007/10/while-we-wait.html

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SHAW FAMILY - adopting from China. Items for sale: Swarovski Crystal jewelry, cookbooks, entertainment books and lots of other neat things!!! Check out their blog at http://www.jodiandtomshaw.com/ and see the list of links on the left hand side!!

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BRANDT FAMILY - adopting from Russia - Items for sale: Arbonne skincare, bath products, lotions, makeup, lead free gifts for kids, Usborne books, kid kits, and puzzles. You will find all the products on the right hand side of their blog at http://www.russianblessings.wordpress.com/

Christine is helping 6 families to fund their adoptions! She is selling beautiful Chinese ornaments with 100% of the proceeds going to these families. You can find links to these families' blogs on her site at http://www.holidayadoptionfundraiser.blogspot.com/

MACINTYRE FAMILY - adopting a special needs child from South Korea. Please click on the links on the left hand side of their blog for items. Items for sale: Avon products, Usborne Books, Magazine subscriptions (everyone loves these - a gift for all year around!) Visit http://intladopt.blogspot.com/
This family needs the rest of their adoption money by Christmas!!

HUGHES FAMILY - adopting from China. Items for Sale: Adoption, Family & China themed bracelets, tupperware and magazine subscriptions. The bracelets are all complete and can be in the mail ASAP and under your tree by Christmas!! Go to the link on the left hand side of their blog at http://www.hugheschinaadoption.blogspot.com/

MONIQUE'S FAMILY - adopting from China (with the same agency as we used for Alyssa's adoption - Family Outreach International!!) Items for sale: Name meaning prints, hand made cards and items on e-bay. You can find her items and information at this link bringmaylinhome.blogspot.com. See the right hand side.

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BARKLEY FAMILY - adopting 2 children from Ukraine. Items for sale: sweet teddy bears and beautiful handmade stockings...click on the photos - they are so sweet! http://www.walkinginfaithforadoption.com/index.html

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SHRIVER FAMILY - adopting domestically in the US. Items for sale: scarves, crocheted baby blankets, no-sew fleece blankets, handmade purses, and name signs. Many of the items can be customed made to fit your style/colors. See the top of their blog for the many product links at http://www.freewebs.com/richelle78/.

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SOTO FAMILY - adopting domestically from U.S. Items for sale: home decorating items, kitchen accessories, christmas items...Click on the link for Dec. specials as there are some really great deals!!!

https://www.southernlivingathome.com/wbslah/skins/s01/index.aspx?repid=907915 (link takes a few seconds to load)

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RICH & SIG FAMILY - adopting a 10 year old from Azerbaijan. They have already adopted from Guatemala and have 6 bio children!! Items for sale: beautiful bracelets (sterling silver, swarovski crystals, freshwater earls & real jade). You can find these bracelets at http://www.familygems123.blogspot.com/. You can also visit their family blog at http://www.wayhomeforana.blogspot.com/.

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MELISSA'S FAMILY - Items for sale: Gourment Cupboard products...These are the dry ingredients for recipe mixes that you just add a couple of wet ingredients to and they are delicious! All are handmade mixes. Check out the mixes for hot chocolate, sweet and savory dips, soups, meals, cookies, pies, even palydough for kids! Also, dog bones for your furry family members. Great ideas for teachers, bus drivers, coaches, etc... Visit Melissa's site at

.http://www.gourmetmixes.net/. Email her at mhameline@netscape.com to find out cost of shipping, etc...

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VALERIE'S FAMILY - adopting from China - Items for sale: custom tutus for little girls, size newborn to about size 6, bigger sizes are a little more. Tutus for dogs and cats, too! Businesses, she will sell these items wholesale as well! NOTE: Anyone buying for Alyssa - she would love one of these tutus for her dance classes (size 4) :-) http://www.princesskreations.com/

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SARAH'S FAMILY - adopting from Tawain - Items for sale: soaps of many different varieties. Check out her blog/store at http://alwaysnaturallyyours.blogspot.com/. Scroll all the way down to see soaps, etc... She will be doing up a new blog that will be easier to find items and she will also have many more items such as wedding shower and baby/adoption shower baskets and jewelry. All these items are created and made by Sarah!

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JENNY & RON'S FAMILY - adopting from Russia. They are raffling off many great prizes...keep checking their blog to see what they are selling tickets on!! Right now, they are raffling off 4 Flyers Tickets! Check it out at http://ouradoptionjourney-jennyandron.blogspot.com/

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DEBBIE & JEFF'S FAMILY - adopting from Poland. Items for sale: an awesome cookbook with recipes compiled from many different countries, animal gifts and items for families adopting from Poland (coffee mugs, T-shirts, etc...). Go to their adoption blog and look for all the links!! Scroll down through the posts and see the links for the cookbook, animal gifts and other items.

http://www.adoptingfrompoland.blogspot.com/

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SHELLY'S FAMILY - adopting from China - Items for sale: beautiful photo banners to be used for wedding, birthdays and "welcome home". They also do woven photo blankets, purses and wall hangings. These are really nice and would make fantastic gifts for grandparents, etc..!! Check it out at http://www.gotchaback.net/

Happy shopping everyone!
Tammy

This and that...

I couldn't download all the pictures from our Dinner & Concert so I'll post them tomorrow...

We were able to raise $1770 at the Dinner so that is great! It was a really fun night and the food and music was fantastic. We had so much food and everyone raved about how good it was! People from different countries (Korea, China, Iran, Belize, Kenya, Jamaica, Canada, Thailand....) offered their time and made delicioius "ethnic" dishes from their homelands. The musicians were great and they at least were able to get the kids up dancing! I think the adults had bellies that were too full :-(

A very special thanks to the MANY amazing people who helped with our event by cooking, the musicians (Scott Parsons and the Walter Young Trio, Joey Kitson and Ninth Hour) and to Victoria, Lucas, Kate, Peggy and all the guys who helped with set up and tear down and helping look after our children! Thanks to Dianne and Lynn for your help, too.

So, christmas is right around the corner...I haven't been feeling the Christmas spirit for some reason! I guess I can't actually believe it's only 4 weeks away! We decided this year that all our christmas gifts would be bought from families who are trying to raise money for their own adoptions. It's easier spending the money this way as we know we are directly helping bring other children to their forever families. Our friends are adopting from Ukraine and they are making some really awesome things for children's bedrooms. I'm going to get something for all my neices and nephews! I found another great website that is selling beautiful chinese ornaments and they will make special gifts, too! All procceds will go to 6 different families who are adopting. As for our own kids...Chris and I talked with the kids and explained we were trying to save money for their little sister's adoption and we asked them to try and think of gifts they would like that might cost around $20. This way, we could get them a few gifts rather than one expensive gift. They weren't sure how they felt about that. They want to help as much as they can but they are also thinking "But it's Christmas!!" My 9 year old gave me his wish list yesterday and his top 5 items were: i-Pod shuffle, PS2, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo Wii and a MP3 Player. Hmmmm, I don't think he got the concept!

More later....

Updating soon...

What a crazy weekend it's been!!! I will be updating soon with pictures and all the "exciting" things happening soon...just didn't want to leave you all hanging.... :-)

Hopefully tomorrow I can post and add some photos of our Dinner & Concert night and our Christmas Craft Night. I am really PRAYING I can post good news this week about our file being sent to Ethiopia. (Even though we are $2500 short to send it - I'm trusting God...)

Tammy

What's Up?

Well, I emailed Kids Link and our file is still in Ottawa. Let's pray it gets back THIS week so we can send it off to Ethiopia before the end of the month!!!

Other news....

--I'm hosting a Christmas Craft Party tomorrow night (Friday) and I still have a few tickets left. We will be making 12 homemade christmas cards and an awesome whimisical wooden christmas tree (about 2 feet tall). We will have munchies as well! Cost is $40 and ALL proceeds will towards our donation to the orphanages in Ethiopia! If you want to come, just email me.

--Saturday Night at 7:00 pm at East Wiltshire school
Our big Buffet Dinner and Concert Event!
This is going to be so fun - we have Scott Parsons, Joey Kitson and Ninth Hour performing and they are so good!!! I hear the lead singer of Ninth Hour is really hot so I can't wait to see him perform!! (FYI - it's my husband! I'm not lusting after another man - ha ha!)
Tickets are only $15 for the dinner and concert! Email me if you would like to come or feel free to show up at the door on Saturday night!

CBC Radio is interviewing me tomorrow (Friday) about the event and our upcoming adoption so I'll post the link when I know it's going to be on.

Keeping our fingers crossed for our file to be back THIS WEEK!!! :-)

PS....skip over to our family's charity blog as we've had another orphanage in China contact us for help! I can't wait to gather the money to send to this orphanage and give the children new snowsuits and baby formula! www.twohomesoneheart.blogspot.com

Today is National Children's Day!

Visiting the children in Dominican Republic
Our own crew (Caleb, Nathan, Dylan & Alyssa)

FYI: Nathan is our oldest "son" who lived with us for 6 years. He is now "grown-up" and living on his own! He still comes back to visit and the kids adore him!

Precious children - they need us
Smiles of children - priceless!

Our little Alyssa when she was known as "Duan Li" - here she is in the orphanage!

Let's celebrate children today!!! What an amazing gift we are given when we experience the love and uniqueness of each and every child.

Each child deserves to be loved, cherished, adored and cared for!!

Not much to report...

I talked with Kids Link this week and our file has not come back from Ottawa yet. It will hopefully be back this week and sent to PEI. PEI requires our file to be sent here first and then they will mail it directly to Ethiopia themselves. Getting very anxious...still hoping we might see our daughter's face before Christmas!!!

We still need $3500 to send with our file when it goes to Ethiopia. This is for the country donation and the money helps other orphans (and our daughter!) with needs such as medicine, food, education, nannies, housing... We have $3000 saved and we still need another $3500. So, if you are able to come to our Ethnic Dinner and Dance on Saturday, November 24th, please join us! We are hoping to raise the remaining $3500 that night! There will be a buffet dinner and live music for only $15/ticket. Email me if you would like to join us at the Dinner or if you would like to help by donating to this part of our adoption expenses. Although this money is hard to find right now we are really happy it will be used for such a great cause - children in Ethiopia!!!

Email me: tammymackinnon@pei.sympatico.ca THANKS!

I would gather children...

I would gather children...

Some would gather money
Along the path of life,
Some would gather roses,
And rest from worldly strife.

But I would gather children
From among the thorns of sin,
I would seek a golden curl,
And a freckled, toothless grin.

For money cannot enter
In that land of endless day,
And roses that are gathered
Soon will wilt along the way.

But oh, the laughing children,
As I cross the sunset sea,
And the gates swing wide to heaven
I can take them in with me!


Thank you to the many friends and fellow bloggers who have emailed me, called me and prayed for our family. I truly believe God has chosen this time for us to adopt and no matter what happens with our own personal adoption, I choose to trust him and his timing. I'm certain he has a great plan for our family and we will go day by day as he reveals it to us.

We are still in the midst of a great battle and we feel a very real fear as our adoption proceeds so please continue to pray for our strength and for the many, many children who need to find their way home.

Broken...

Just when something positive happens, we are blindsided by events that break our hearts. There are some things going on right now that I'm not able to share on this blog but I would sincerely ask for your prayers. I feel like we are under attack - well, I'm under attack but it affects the whole family. Most of this is coming from my role as spokesperson for the PEI Adoption Coalition. I can't say too much, I just want to ask for your prayers. Please, please please pray this does not affect our current adoption.

Fun Day with the Ladies!

We had our Ladies Spa Day yesterday and it was so fun!! There were about 12 ladies who came for an afternoon of pampering. Everyone was there in support of helping bring our daughter home and that was so special for me! THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!
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Congratulations to Ashley on winning our gift basket!
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Here are few pics of the day - manicures, pedicures and facials! A special thank you to Nancy for catering the delicious meal, thank you to Peggy for hosting the Spa Day at her house, thank you to Michelle from Cocoon for a fabulous job on the pedicures, thank you to Debra from Abracadebra for her amazing manicures, thank you to Sara from Mary Kay for sharing her products with us and helping with the facials, thank you to Kate who came and pulled the whole afternoon together helping with everything and anything that needed to be done! And of course, to all the beautiful ladies who came and shared their afternoon with us!!!

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Our next fun event is the Christmas Craft Night! Scheduled for Friday, November 23rd - email me to reserve tickets!

Our file is being translated RIGHT NOW!

Kids Link emailed me to let me know our file was sent to Ottawa 2 days ago to be translated, legalized and authenticated! We are so thrilled!!! Let's pray for a very quick turn around in Ottawa and then it can finally head to Ethiopia!!!

Waiting very anxiously for our sweet girl!

Also, please head over to our charity blog at www.twohomesoneheart.blogspot.com to read about our upcoming "Sharing Our Love" Christmas Gala event!!!!

Pick up your tickets!

Tickets for the Dinner & Dance Event can be picked up at

85 Belvedere Avenue, Charlottetown (across from the big Superstore)

Only $15/each - buffet dinner and live entertainment!

Adoption News:

We heard from our agency, Kids Link, this week and there were a couple of our documents that were not notarized properly so we had to redo those and send them back! Frustrating! We lost another week. They now have all our documents and hopefully it will be sent tomorrow to Ottawa to be translated. They are saying it could take 2-3 weeks for this but one family got there's back last week and it only took 1 week. Let's pray ours moves quickly as well!!!

Another family using Kids Link requested a child up to age 3 (same as us) and they just received their referral and it only took 2 weeks. How exciting for them! I'm praying our referral will be here before Christmas - I can't wait to see my daughter's sweet face!!!

Plan to come!

I know it seems I've been "harrassing" my readers with fundraising events but this is a great one and we would love to have people come!!!

Chris' mom and aunt decided to organize a Dinner and Dance event to help raise some of the funds for our $6500 donation to the Ethiopian orphanages. I've been helping them with the event and it sounds awesome!

Enjoy food from all around the world...we will be having a buffet dinner with main course dishes, biscuits, desserts and drinks (non-alcoholic)

Get a taste of Asian, African, Thai, Canadian, Belizean and a few other ethnic foods!!!!

Besides all that, you can dance or simply enjoy live music by Scott Parsons, Joey Kitson and Ninth Hour! It doesn't get more exciting that that! (By the way, my husband, Chris, is the lead singer for Ninth Hour)

Date: Sat. November 24

Time: 7:00 pm

Place: East Wiltshire Jr. High School, Cornwall

Cost: ONLY $15 per person - includes your dinner and the live music!!! No better deal anywhere!

Please email me to reserve your tickets. And, please pass this on to all your family, friends and co-workers!!!! Can't wait to see you there! tammymackinnon@pei.sympatico.ca

NINTH HOUR (Chris is the cutie in the middle)

Scott Parsons

Joey Kitson

By the way...the size of the pictures has nothing to do with the best band or who's the most popular - it's honestly the way they saved on my computer. All three of these bands/singers are amazing and will be awesome entertainment!

Posting Comments

OOPS! I had set my "comments" section to only registered users could comment. I had a few people tell me they were trying to leave comments and couldn't so I've changed it so that anyone can leave a comment. And please leave comments! We all love to read them and it will be a nice keepsake for our little one.

Tammy

Getting butterflies already!

I remember when we were going through our first adoption I would always get butterflies in my stomach thinking about how close we were to finding out who are daughter would be. Well, our file is not even in Ethiopia yet and I'm already getting a daily dose of butterflies. I just can't believe we are actually adopting again and it's moving along so quickly this time. Last time, it took 12 months for our file to finally arrive in China (from the beginning of our homestudy until our log-in date). This time it has only taken 2 months so that's a huge difference for us. Usually referrals come very quickly for toddler age children so we are hoping to see our new daughter's face in the next month or so. (this may be a bit optimistic but I'm holding on to it for now!)

So, knowing our daughter is in Ethiopia somewhere right now and we are so close to knowing who she is gives me major butterflies. So far, I'm still sleeping very well at night but I know from our last experience there will be weeks of such excitement and emotion that I won't sleep at all. It's so exciting....

Our file has left the building!!!

Yes, you heard right...our dossier has finally left PEI and is with Kids Link, our agency!!! Only 2 more weeks and it should be heading to Ethiopia. Can you say EXCITED! Wow....

Tammy