Reese's Rainbow Family Fundraisers

**SEE UPDATED LIST ON THE RR FUNDRAISER PAGE ^^

Do your Christmas shopping and help orphans at the same time! All fundraisers and giveaways listed below benefit adopting families or grants for specific RR children. Please see each individual blog or website for specific details on each fundraiser. I will try and keep the list as current as possible. 

Spread the word and share the list! But please LINK BACK to this list instead of copying it, so that everyone gets current information! Thank you!

Adopting Families:

*The Swerdfeger Family - Adopting Alyona
Fleece tie blankets

*The Plummer Family - Adopting Barbara
Hand-made bracelets and necklaces

*The Spring Family - Adopting Axel
Ipad giveaway

*The Dueck Family - Adopting Katya
Etsy store
Pampered Chef fundraiser through November 29th:
If you would like to order something, please go to www.pamperedchef.com , click on SHOP ONLINE. Click on items of interest--write down the item number and price. DO NOT ADD TO SHOPPING BAG.You need to send Shelley an email at sore1213@yahoo.com with any questions you have, or to place an order!!
 Please put "Katya" in the subject area of your email. In the body of the email, put the item(s) you want, along with the method of payment you desire to use, and your phone number. For safety, do NOT put credit card info in the email! You can give your credit card info to Shelley when she calls you to take your order. (Or if you prefer to call her, please contact Hope Anne via message for Shelley's phone number.)
Shelley has kindly offered some incentives: November Guest Special--Any customer spending $60.00 or more on products receives the adjustable measuring spoons FREE AND they can order the cookie press for $23.60 (usual price is $29.50). Also Shelley will give each customer spending $30.00 or more a FREE nylon pan scraper OR a FREE "Season's Best Fall/Winter Recipe Collection".

*The Carlin Family - Adopting Danil
Laptop Giveaway

*The Suttles Family - Adopting Ella
T-shirts
Mail-in Gold Party

*The Sader Family - Adopting Melanie
Girls' dresses

*The Bedford Family - Adopting Nika
(Cover)ed hooded towels

*Megan - Committing to a lucky little girl
Etsy shop
Quillows
Comedy Jam in Santa Ana, CA

*The Lane Family - Adopting Johannah and Ellee
Etsy shop
Make sure you put in LANE FAMILY when checking out!

Warriors:

*Melissa - Christmas Warrior for Nellie
Online craft fair

*Amy - fundraising for Vika (moved to an institution)
$800 Best Buy gift card giveaway

*Sarah B. - fundraising for Anastasiya(9)
Hand-made items

*Leah - fundraising for Celine and Quinton
Etsy shop
Smile Contest and 5 friends, $5

Get Hooked on RR

I have always had a passion for children, as well as those with special needs. Reece's Rainbow brings these two passions together, AND I even get a sweet little boy out of the deal! :) Now I am hooked on RR, and I am proud to say that I am getting others to be hooked too! One person is now a prayer warrior, and I am prodding two others to be Christmas warriors. (You know who you are...) I know that not everyone is in a position to adopt, but you can always pray, advocate, and support adopting families! Reece's Rainbow is just busting at the seams with children who have found their forever families. A large part of this is due to people spreading the word and advocating for the kids. I heard about it from another family who adopted a little girl, and now I'm spreading the word to others.
There are so many gorgeous children who need families. Some have down syndrome, some have HIV, some have FAS or CP or any other combination of letters. But they are all needing one thing: a family to love them and bring them home. If they aren't rescued, their situations are dire. Most never live past the age of 10. They die alone, in cribs, where they've spent their whole lives. The RR world was rocked recently when one of "our" kids, Anne Marie, passed away. She was only four years old.

Four.

She died without a family, without the medical care that would have saved her life.
All of us Mama Bears are fighting hard so that this does not happen. Please fight with us. Look at their faces and try and tell me it's not worth it. I dare you.
Pray for the kids, become a Prayer Warrior. Pray for the adopting families, it is a very tough process.
Get the word out. Tell people about adoption. Tell them about the mental institutions that suck the life out of little children. Tell them they can help.
Support adopting families. Give financially, or give an encouraging word. Support the waiting children by donating to their grant funds. If adoption were free, there would be no waiting children.
Thank you for helping.
Click on Joshua's picture over there somewhere --->
or visit www.reecesrainbow.org

Always.
Rachel

Brennan's stats

Short, chubby, with a big head! That's the way Brennan has been since he was born. Today he was:21lbs 7oz ~ 23%
28.5 in. ~ 8%
Head circumference I don't remember, but it was around the 25%.
So, he's doing pretty good! He's finished his "catch up" growing and now he's growing on his own curve! And, with the possible exception of his eating habits, he's caught up to his peers! Last week he had a fever and wouldn't drink any bottles, and since then he's eating about 8oz a day instead of 25-30. I had planned on feeding him formula until his due date, but I guess he's ready to be done! So we're going to try him on regular milk, like a big boy! 

We had our final homestudy appointment today! Our adoption worker came to our house and it went well. She needs one more piece of information (that she didn't tell me about until this morning, of course!) and then she'll give us our official approval date! I'm happy that we will at least have that part done. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but Joshua's country closes to new dossiers in November and will reopen in February. So, we won't be traveling until spring, but there's plenty of paperwork to do in the meantime! Once we have our homestudy in our hands, we'll review it and make sure everything is correct and phrased the right way (so important!), then send it in to get USCIS approval. In the meantime, we'll be gathering all the paperwork needed for our dossier, getting in notarized, approved, apostilled, and ready to send overseas! I'm hoping we will be one of the first families submitted in February. There's only a few (3-4) that get submitted every Thursday. There are many, many families who are leaving soon or are already there, and I'm really happy for them, but it's hard to watch and know my little guy is still waiting! And we all know I am not the most patient person!

Not a whole lot going on here. Just trying to catch up on my multitude of chores and projects!

My little big boy

How do people find time to post in their blogs every day?? I keep planning to do it, but it keeps getting bumped down on the priority list. Like this week, I've been sick (still sick!) and I had to work Wednesday - Sunday. I'm lucky I even got the laundry done, let alone blog! Moving on...

I'm a mommy to a one year old!
It's hard to believe, especially since I can still hardly believe that I'm a mom. It's something I wanted so badly, and now here we are. Lying in bed on a Saturday morning with a toddler crawling all over us. Tripping over toys on the floor, climbing over safety gates. Doing anything to make that boy laugh. And soon there will be TWO little boys! I feel like I'm dreaming it all.

It's a little less dreamlike when I have a cranky, tired baby who won't take his nap!

Brennan's birthday party went well! He LOVED the attention, of course. He was not interested in opening his presents, mostly because his cousin was playing with his toy! Ken made a delicious trifle and Brennan loved it! I think it was a little too much for him though. His digestive system is still closer to his corrected age, so all that dairy didn't sit well with him! One of the birthday presents I got him is a shirt that says "Little Brother". Too cute!
Brennan is walking all over the place. He can even turn around and go a different direction! He averages about 6 steps before he falls down, but he can make it all the way across the room. He's also trying it out more, and walking away from furniture. When he's not on carpeted floor, he knows it's slippery, so he won't walk on his own! He likes to stand at the baby gate that's in the kitchen, and when he wants to go somewhere, his little legs walk in place but he won't let go of the gate! Instead of being a nice mommy and helping him out, I just laugh until he figures it out. Now he *carefully* walks along the gate until he gets to the carpet.
Brennan has some weird tastes in toys. Lately his favorite things are socks and empty skittles wrappers. He gets excited when he sees one! If I'm eating skittles (when I'm low) or packing them in my purse/diaper bag, he MUST have one too! Same with socks. Silly boy.

We finally got the good news that all of Ken's background clearances have come back! We were waiting on one from Indiana for awhile. Now there is just one thing that our social worker needs before she can do our final homestuday visit at our house. I am going crazy being very patient.

Brennan and I are going to visit my sister in Missouri this weekend. It's Brennan's first out-of-state trip! Not really sure what I'm going to with a baby in the car for 7 hours, but we'll survive!