A new way to help out!!

Sitting in my garage is a huge tub of baby clothes along with several other pieces of baby gear that I had originally thought that I would hold on to and just give Carri when the time came that she either got pregnant or had a foster child lined up. Partly I did also just want to hold on to those teeny tiny precious little tangible things that I could pick up and picture how my girls looked in them those first few months of their life. Oh how I miss those days.... Anyway, it was a great sentiment I thought but just recently a friend of mine offered to give me a bunch of her baby items that I could either give to Carri or sell and give the money to her. After thinking about it I realized that obviously having the money would be a much better option. This way she can put it towards having a child which is the whole point! Duh!!

Anyway my friend mentioned that the JBF (Just Between Friends) Sale in Portland that is at the end of April would be a good venue to try and sell everything. I had no clue what it was so I googled it and found out that it is an enormous consignment sale for all things child and maternity related. SO I thought that there might be a few other people that have some stuff laying around that they might want to give away. If this is you and you would like to give your items for Carri's cause please let me know as soon as possible. Also if anyone wants to help out with the tagging process or watch my kids on April 25th between 12pm and 5pm when I have to drop everything off at the sale that would be AMAZING!!! :)

Here is some ideas of what you can give but for a full list please go here:

- Baby/kids/Maternity clothes **Nothing older than 5 years, must be Spring/Summer related (no winter clothing), and I'm limited to 20 pieces of maternity clothes

- Baby gear: bouncers, high chairs, monitors, baby carriers/slings, etc.

-Toys

Everything must be in good condition, no holes or stains please. And any extra hangers (child and adult) you don't need I could use as well since I have to hang all clothing items up. I have to admit I'm a little intimidated at this whole process, I've never consigned anything before but it definitely beats Craigslisting everything :)

If you're going to donate your items please plan on getting them to me by April 20th. Thanks Lindsay for the great idea!!

And just for fun I thought I'd dig up some pictures with my sis. I wanted to find some ones of when we were kids but I don't have any that I know of with me. So here's some pics of when my kids were born (or close enough).

Ayla was 3 months old when Carri got to see her for the first time. Carri was living in Florida when I had her.

Carri then moved to California and we got to go see her when Ayla was 8 months old.

 I'm about to have Macy here - could be why I'm forcing the smile ;)

Carri with Macy

And us on Lily's bday

And Carri with Lily

*If you would like to donate money to the Barefoot and Pregnant Fund just click on the "Donate" button on the right upper side of this page.

The word is out ...

The other week I got to have Carri all to myself (with the exception of my 3 little munchkins of course) for a little bit and I couldn't keep it in any longer. I figured that she might be glad to know what I've been scheming. She knew I was up to something when I had to ask her back in December for her driver's license number and original issue date but I begged her just to give it to me without asking any questions. She trusted me and I think she actually forgot about it. As I told her about the donation account and how much I wanted to help her, the tears instantly streamed down her face. She was completely shocked and grateful beyond measure. Even though there isn't much in the account at this point she was thankful to know that people care and it helped her realize just how difficult it has been for her despite her efforts to forget. I want to say thank you to those of you who have helped so far through prayer, financial donations, and craft donations. It gave me so much pleasure to be able to tell her and see her face as I did. Part of why I wanted to tell her was so that I could put my blog links on Facebook so more people could know about it. I'm hoping that this is just the beginning and that she will continue to be blessed by family, friends, and friends of friends.

This past month has been a little insane in my household due to the fact that Aaron has been working on finishing his thesis. His thesis was due this past Monday and I graciously stayed up with him until the wee hours of the morning several nights in a row as he finished. While he worked on his paper one night I decided to get crafty and see what new toddler hair clip I could come up with using some more of my Grandma's antique buttons and a stash of bias tape she had. I really don't know what bias tape is or what it's used for but I think I like the use I made for it here :) I have pretty much any color you can think of in my stash and check out the price on some of those packages! Have you ever been able to buy something for .13??? Crazy. Here are my new creations .... the purple one was my first try so that's why you can see all the glue, I got a little better as I went along I think.