The Prize

Day 155 Waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

All right, I think I've kept you all waiting in suspense long enough... for now.

The prize is going to start off with a $25.00 gift card to the vendor of your choice. Now I know what you're thinking... "what does she mean by: start off with?" By that, we mean that periodically, we are going to be adding something new and great into the pot to compile one GREAT grand prize. By the time October 1st rolls around, the prize is going to be pretty amazing. You'll just have to keep checking back to see what's next!

Now remember, if you haven't sent me your address yet so I can send you pass-along cards, you need to do so ASAP to maloneandbrittanyadopt@gmail.com. But anyone can jump in the contest all the way until the very last day! (For those of you who have already sent me your addresses, look for them in the mail very soon if you haven't gotten them already!) Just let me know every so often how many cards you have given away, and I will keep a running tally here on our blog so you can check out your competitors. Once you've given away all that we sent you, just email us and we'll send you more. We aren't afraid that any cards will be "wasted." We are perfectly happy to send as many as you'll give away!

There are also bonus ways to get "points" towards your total. If you add our adoption button (see the right side of our page) or if you blog about our story and our giveaway we will give you extra points. I am working on compiling "the rules" for you guys so this will be less confusing, but seeing as how this little game is still in the early stages, I'm still working things through in my head. :)

In other news, Malone and I will be attending the National FSA Conference on July 31st and August 1st. We're so excited to meet so many of you there! We've heard it's always amazing, so we're really looking forward to it. How many of you out there will be there?

Who will win?

Day 150 Waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

All right! Since Malone and I have decided not to use the matching agency again (at least not for now) we are going to have to be our own best advocates. That includes a big push to get our pass-along cards out there! So.... here's our new idea.... let me know what you think!

We are going to be having a CONTEST! We will send you as many of our pass-along cards as you want. Whoever can give away the MOST cards by October 1st is going to win our prize! And don't worry if you're just one of my blog stalkers and I don't know you in person... I still want you to participate too! So come out of those lurker closets, and send your address in an email to maloneandbrittanyadopt@gmail.com. Plus, when you blog about our contest, I will count that as an additional 2 pass-along cards to your final tally. Same goes for if you add our adoption button to your blog.

So... the big question is: what is our prize? Well...

You're just going to have to hold your breath and check back later for that one. I'm going to keep you all in suspense! Muahahaha! (evil laugh) But lets just say... you are DEFINITELY going to want to win this one!

Guess what? A must read...

Day 83 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

Yesterday was our yard sale, and we had some real success! (pictures to come) The results... We profited almost $400.00! I'm thrilled with how it went. Not only did we sell tons of the donated items, we also passed out at least 100 pass-along cards. Truthfully, that's way more important than the money we made. And here's a little testimony to the importance of being proactive in self-promoting your adoption.

Yesterday afternoon every time someone showed up, I would give them one of our cards and explain what it was. As I was talking to one guy about our card, another lady was browsing through our kids' clothes section. After the guy left, this lady came up to me and quietly asked, "Did I overhear you right? Are you and your husband hoping to adopt?" I said, "yes!" and started getting butterflies in my stomach. I grabbed a card for her really quick, and excitedly started showing her all of our contact information. She had some questions to ask such as if we had any kids or not (I explained a little bit about Gavin), what do we do for a living, if I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, etc... I answered all of her questions, and she said, "Well, I'll definitely take this card. My best friend's daughter is sixteen and pregnant. She's scared because she doesn't know what to do. I will definitely be giving her this card." Then I explained that LDS Family Services offers free support services to women experiencing unplanned pregnancy, regardless of whether or not they choose to place. I suggested this young lady take advantage of that opportunity no matter what. The woman had one more question for me right before she left. She wanted to know if Malone and I were okay with the fact that this young lady is from Mexico. Of course we said that was perfectly fine! The lady smiled at me, said thank you, and drove off.

Now, I don't know if this will lead to an adoption for us or not. But I can tell you, I never would have reached this woman if we hadn't been self-promoting our adoption. Plus, we had at least 3 other people take 2 or more cards telling us they had pregnant women in mind to give them to. Who knows? I have also been giving them out to family, friends, my coworkers, a lady at the bank, people at church, and other random people. We will also be sending the cards in the mail to all of you who aren't living near us! Maybe just one of those cards is going to make it into the hands of our birth mother. And if she ends up reading this entry, we just want to say to her: "We love you! We are thinking of you today on Mother's Day!"

Many thanks go out to Cessi, Jerilyn, Garth, and Laura for helping us sort, price, move, and sell all of our donations. That was a serious work load! You guys were real troupers, and we would have been dead in the water without you! Also, many thanks to everybody who donated, without you we wouldn't have even had this thing in the first place. Last but not least, thanks to my aunt Billie who allowed us to have this crazy thing in her front yard and to everybody who let us borrow their card tables.

Adoption cards and yard sale update

Day 67 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

We just got the proofs for our pass along cards, and we are REALLY happy with the way they turned out! We are ordering them through a company called Spaces For Faces and they have done a really great job with customer service and the whole process. Including shipping, it only cost us about $35.00 for 500 cards so they were really reasonably priced as well. I would DEFINITELY recommend them to anybody out there who is in need of their services (adoption cards, announcements, etc...) Anyhow, below is the proof. It shows the front side and the back side. What do you guys think?

Okay... about the yard sale location dilemma. Let me just say that my Aunt Billie is my HERO! I sent her a somewhat frantic email yesterday to see if she would let us borrow her front yard. She said yes, and so we now have a great location to use! Plus she said that she would like to donate some things we can sell which is so rad! Speaking of which, I really need to get that list of donors up... I'll get to it soon.

Whoa

Day 66 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. Our apartment managers just told us that we won't be allowed to have the yard sale on the yard next to our apartment building. Here's hoping my aunt and uncle will let us borrow their front yard!

I also just ordered 500 adoption pass along cards. Hopefully we'll be able to give them all away. Speaking of which, if you haven't sent us your address so that we can send you pass along cards, write us an email at maloneandbrittanyadopt@gmail.com. We appreciate all of your help! I think I'm going to try and get a bit of sleep before heading off to work bright and early tomorrow morning. Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday! I just wish we were going to go do something fun like camping... Oh well, another weekend!