ErgoBaby + Every Mother Counts

Today I wanted to share a bit about a cool little collaboration. Yep, that's Christy Turlington. She heads up an organization called Every Mother Counts and it's main purpose is to spread awareness and help find solutions for preventable pregnancy related deaths. Obviously this is a cause near and dear to us as it's possible that that's what orphaned my own son. I love adoption, but orphan prevention is what gets my heart beating. A super simple way to help out is to buy your baby carrier through the Every Mother Counts line by Ergobaby. We use our Ergo for hours a day (literally). In Adoption Land you get bonus points for wearing your baby all day long, and the Ergo is truly the most comfortable one we've found. So if you're in the market (you can carry a teenager in these, y'all), why not buy this particular one? A portion of the proceeds go to this awesome cause. Plus it features this cool African batik print. Even a husband could wear that and pull it off.

Day 2 Totals for the Seiferts

But Wait, There's More...

{My first go at Embrace the Camera. Well, let your husband Embrace the Camera and hope for the best.}

Good morning, guys. This is a totally random post. Kind of. See it's totally relevant to adopting (and also not). I don't know if you've had kids before or not. I'm learning how there are actually way more similarities than differences between adoption and the old fashioned way. And today I'm going to highlight one of those...

After you have a baby you lose your mind just a little. First you are in love and you stare and play with your little one all the time. For like a week. And then the sleep deprivation kicks in and you get emotional. Overwhelmed and exhausted might be theme words for this phase.

Following this is the 'breaking out' phase. This is where the drastic haircut usually takes place (though I fought the urge and was talked down by my stylist this time and merely went for bad-idea bangs. Far less damage done in the end). But anyhoo, this is where I am right now. The 'there's  more to me than babies' place. There's more to me than adoption, actually. And I just need to throw it out there, so here we go.

MY JOYS

• Baking
• Painting
• Chardonnay
• Target
• Fall clothes
• Photography (did you know I was once a very successful boudoir photographer, and I still miss it sometimes? I was awesome.)
• Christmas
• Crafts
• Once Upon a Time
• Businesses of all kinds
• Fredericksburg, TX

MY STRUGGLES

• I want to bake but I should diet.
• I want to shop but I should budget.
• I think high heels are so cool, but I can't wear them. My shoes are mostly frumpy and ugly and that's the truth.
• When I drink the chardonnay I suddenly think I'm skinny and that maybe I could do with some cream cheese laden snack.
• I obsess over Christmas, but always find myself last minute shopping and wrapping til midnight on Christmas eve. How did this happen when I started playing Christmas music in September?! I don't know. 
• I want to move to Fredericksburg, but I have no idea how people make a living there. Still working on that one every day. Anyone want to buy a painting? I could move to the Burg and paint you a picture while sipping on chardonnay...

Anyway, as you can see I'm in the throws of my breaking out phase. Soon I'll emerge a glittering butterfly, confident in myself and my parenting abilities and somehow merge my self as an individual with myself as a mom. Probably in a few more weeks. You'll be there too soon. I might laugh at you a little (as you are free to do to me right now). It's a comical phase. 

Now, ladies, I'm breaking out a bit. The adoption is complete, and now I'm moving right along to the business of leading my family, which means alot more crafts and life in general. You might like that and you might not. If you do, let's move that particular party on over to my personal blog, Artistic Domestic. You might want to follow it by email because I'm not super regular on that one. Just sporadic for kicks. If you totally do not care what's going on in my house, that's cool! Hang with me here and we're going to be back to your regularly scheduled programming. See you tomorrow for some African crisis relief.

New Week - The Seiferts

Hey guys! I hope you're having a good fall so far. I don't have much to talk about as I don't ever ever ever leave my house anymore, so I'm forced to chat about the weather alot. It gorgeous here in Texas. We only get, like, 6 awesome weather weeks all year and this is one of them. We've also been passing a virus around like crazy for the last two weeks. Let's hope today is my last sick day! Babies are not sympathetic at all. 



 Let's get started with our family of the week, shall we? The Seifert family have just very recently accepted their referral for a baby boy from the DRC. That referral fee is a whopper, y'all! Can we help them recover from that? 

Here's a word from Carly:

We began our adoption journey after two miscarriages and two years of failed attempts at getting pregnant.  We were dreading the long wait for a referral following our home study, but also realized we could use the time to save our money and had several fundraisers planned in the fall to help us fund our adoption.  Then, just three weeks after our home study was completed, we received a referral for a beautiful baby boy in the DRC!  We are scrambling this weekend to secure loans to make up the gap between hat we have saved/fundraised so far and what we owe so that we can send the funds next week and not lose any time with him.  We know we have many other large fees ahead of us, but we trust that God will provide for us and for our little boy, and take care of him when we cannot.

Well, we all know that God will provide, indeed. But He doesn't generally make money fall from the sky (though it would be cool if He did). No, we know that we are the hands and feet and wallets. Let's see what we can do to help them in their journey to give a sweet baby a home.

I made a book!

My husband and I are off to Ethiopia at the end of November. Many of you who know our story may know we have been in the process of attempting to adopt a child we met in the orphanage in 2009. We have been advocating for her case for years and it's hard to find the words to explain the emotions I have experienced. What I've learned the most is whatever those emotions are, I have nothing left but to fall at the feet of Jesus and give it up to Him. What I have also learned is that there are few things in this adoption process that I allow myself to get excited about because of the letdowns we've experienced.

I can tell you, however, I am EXCITED! I made her a book! I was so excited, in fact, that I FaceTime-d a friend and read it to her. Although our little girl is a little older now, probably seven, and could probably handle a regular picture book, I thought it would be nice to create a type of board book for her. I did a ton of research and landed on a company based in Hong Kong. They have a feature where you can design your own photobook. The reviews I read were for the most part good, although customers repeatedly said they lack any customer service and shipping takes quite a while (although only costs $4, go figure), as in up to one month. It took me hours (many of them) to create a 24 page 6x6 book and cost about $26 which included shipping.

I just got the final product in the mail today (took about 3 weeks for printing and shipping) and I AM IN LOVE. It's not completely a board book but the pages are super thick, almost board-like but not. Does that make sense? Well anyway, the quality is really, really good. The pictures are bright, everything is really clear and I can't wait to give it to her. You see, pictures of yourself in Ethiopia are really important, and I'm not entirely sure that not only does she not own a picture of herself, but that she also has never actually seen what she looks like because there are no mirrors in the orphanages. Dr. Purvis talks about how important it is for a child to see themselves and know they are precious. I hope she loves it even a tenth as much as I do.

If you're looking to make a picture book for the child you've been referred, I would highly, highly recommend it. Our book is more about her and less about us because our future with her is uncertain, but I am so glad she will have something to cherish. If you have the time to play around with the software (it's not super user-friendly and takes a little time to learn) and the time for shipping, I'd recommend ArtsNow for the design your own books. The company that has the identical website but is based in the US is UrbanLoad, but I can't speak to the products since I haven't ordered from them.

You can certainly not appreciate the quality of the book from this picture, and the years are based on the ethiopian calendar (they are seven years behind us).

If you've have the opportunity, what have you sent over to the child you've been referred?

Newsflash: Adopting is Actually Parenting

Hey, you guys. I've had a bit of a revelation and I thought I'd share.

When we set out on this little adventure we did it for one main reason. Lots of people have lots of reasons, and lots of people don't like mine, but here's where we are... We adopted a child because we felt like there was enough room in our home and our hearts for one more. I'm going to say it out loud and mean it, too. We adopted as an act of mercy to give a child with no home a family. I know this angle is a bit frowned upon, but there you have it. I'm glad we did it. I'd do it again. I probably will. Because I feel like more people could do the same thing, but until more people actually do there are still millions upon millions of children that need families. 




So we "adopted" and all that entails. We filled out mountains of paperwork, had our incomes and our sanity evaluated, defended ourselves and our choices to family members and strangers alike. We met new and awesome people and were inducted into the community. We waited for the call. We called instead. We flew across the globe (twice) to be united with our son. We did it. We adopted. Done.

But then he got home, and wouldn't you know it, it takes a different act of mercy to parent. That's a far less interesting club. That's a bit tedious and thankless and messy. It's very much like parenting my biological children. Wow, it's actually exactly the same. I'm still frustrated when he wakes me up in the night and when he fights sleep and when he chunks a spoon full of chicken and apples across the room onto the freshly mopped floor. That's just the drill with parenting, right?

But the beautiful comes when I think that I'm there to rock him at night when he's wide awake. And scoop him up like it's the end of the world when he bonks his head. I love the fact that he's got a whole family, four people, who spend almost every waking moment trying to make him smile. That doesn't happen much in orphanages, and he's clearly loving that bit. We'll do any dumb thing to make him laugh.

Anyhoo, I just wanted to say that sometimes the thought of adopting can seem daunting. It's long and unpredictable and expensive and kind of bold. But when it's all said and done, it's really just parenting. As tedious and amazing as that is. And it's life changing for everyone involved. So if you're thinking about it and it seems huge, it is and it's not. And if you're new here, sorry, I don't write profound and inspiring stuff. I know that's disappointing. It seemed like I was really onto something there. 

Just A Quick Post...

To tell you that I can't post today! Sorry. My little people and my paintings have me so super busy. I've got awesome stuff in the works though. Would it make you feel any better if I give you a Jude smile?

I love you all. Give the Scotts some money and I'll see you tomorrow, ok?! Smooch.