We are back in action

Wow I am amazed on how many people follow! Now the pressure is on to blog more often I guess you all really are interested in what I though was a boring little life Brian and I lead. As you all know we had our foster home study a few weeks ago, it went perfect, we just have to get a bigger fire extinguisher and reset our hot water heater so it doesn't get hotter than 140 degrees. Unfortunately we have to have someone come and do that for us since our gage is inside the water heater. After that's done, we have to have one more meeting separately. The called it a 'mental health exam' That sounds a little intimidating, but I am sure we will pass! Our home was approved for 2 kids but now that Brian is laid off he is getting the basement bedroom finished so we will be able to be approved for 2 more kids, depending on their gender and their age. We originally where not going to take kids over the age of 2 but as we got talking we decided that we would take children up to the age of 8. So it won't be long before we start to hear the pitter patter of little feet! Also I know that some of you have blogs that I don't have invites to, I would love it if you could send me an invite. jerlandson2005@hotmail.com

Changes

Some great things are happening at the Erlandson house. So I am going to be setting our blog to private. If you would like an invite please shoot me a email. I will not be setting it private next Friday. I will start blogging agian Friday when its set private and hopefully everyone has sent me their emails. You can email me at jerlandson2005@hotmail.com Have a wondrful Thanksgiving, we all have so much to be thankful for!

Happy Fall, Ya'll

Ok Ok I know I have been a HUGE slacker the past few months! Some good things have been going on to make September and October just fly by! First of all my wonderful sister got married in September in Lake Tahoe, CA it was beautiful! Here are some picts... My Grandpa, my hero, turned 98! And still is quick as a whip! He and my grandma decided to make a huge life change and they are moving back to MN...why from beautiful CA to cold MN...other than most of their grand kids are freeze babies...I'm not sure!!! :) On the adoption front, not much to share. But some other exciting news is that we have put in all our paper work for becoming foster parents. This is something that we have both wanted to do for a long time. We actually got all the paper work years ago but being that it was around the time our Invetro failed we both agreed that we just couldn't take anymore heart ache at that time. But we are ready now, and really excited for everything to get rolling with that. We had a meeting with the county social worker and said that we are really interested in the foster to adopt program, but of course we will take children that are not going to be eligible for adoption as well. We where able to put a age limit on the children and we said the oldest we would like would be the age of 3 although would consider older children if they where in a sibling group. Brian jokes that we could go from a quiet house of two to a really really loud house with lots of kids running around within months! Ahh that would be great!! We still have to get a home study done and that has to be through the county, but we scored huge, we already had all the paper work done for the adoption so we kinda slid to the top of the pile in the home study line since we didn't have to wait for letters of recommendation, medical letters ect. We don't have a date set for our foster home study but I will keep you posted! I hope you all enjoyed Halloween, I had a great time 'oohing' and 'aahing' over all the cute kids in their costumes!

Craft Fair....SUCCESS!

I am happy to say that our booth was the busiest on our strip! At times there was a line just to get in! We had a few girls who where most likly middle schoolers that came in and said "this is my favorite booth in the whole fair, I could spend all day in here looking at all the pretty bows!" And the kept coming back, and buying something different every time! The fourth time they came back we told them that they could all pick a free bow and holder for being such good costumers! I have to agree with them it was very appealing to the youngsters eye! Its all about marketing!!! We had such a good time, it was a blast! My mom came up from D.C., some friends from North Dakota came down to lend a hand, and of course as always, my sister was there as well. We had no idea what to expect from a vender's point of view. Knowing when I go to the fair I am usually just there to look, maybe steal a few ideas, and rarely ever buy anything. But we did great! We made just about $3,000! We are so happy about it. Our best seller was the little hair clips($2) that my dad made, and the baby snuggles ($50). We where asked from many of our customers if we where going to be back next year, and I am pretty sure the answer is YES! (unless of course we are out of the country meeting our little one! But even if we are my sister will man the booth!) I was talking with our vendor neighbours and they said that attendance and sales where majorly down this year, with that being said I am THRILLED with the amount we made! Here are some picts of the craziness...

2nd Fundraiser underway

As some of you know, during a moment of instability I signed up for a craft fair. Not any craft fair one of the biggest in MN. Most people work all year making product for this fair, but not us, we started just a few months ago. I just got a letter saying that 100,000 people go through the fair every year! Ugg what did I get myself into!!!! Luckily I have a VERY crafty and supportive family. My dad a very manly man, yet a very wonderful dad has jumped on the crafty ship and has made over 100 bow holders and 400 little girl clips. My mom, an amazing sewer has come up woth so many wonderful things and has been working day and night to make sure we have enough product to stay a float! My parents are coming up from D.C. to help man the booth, and some friends from ND, who I haven't seen since I was 14ish are making the treck down to help out as well. I can not wait to tell our little one how much and how many people loved him/her even before any of us know him/her. This child is going to be showered with love! If your going to be at the craft fair swing by our booth I woukd love to meet my loyal readers! We will be at booth numbe A 02. Hope to see you there!

Practice make perfect....Right?

Talk about a long time without a post! Man I am slacking'! Last weekend my heart melted...Zahria stayed with us for the weekend and what a great time that was. It is so much fun to watch Brian with her. There is nothing more heart warming when she takes his hand and they walk down the street, or when she is needing a little more attention and she walks up to him, throws her arms up and when he picks her up she snuggles right into his shoulder. Ahhh too cute! Although I am a little concerned because he is a major softy when it comes to her! Sweet I know but hopefully he'll get a little tougher when we bring our little on home...or not! :) I just got an email from or coordinator and from what I understood we are not allowed to specify gender anymore. I haven't talked to her yet so my facts may not be 100% correct. But even if that is the case no biggie. I have total faith that no matter the gender the child that is waiting for us will be the perfect child for our family. I will be sure to keep you all updated on that.

Garage Sale

Well it is FINALLY over! After weeks and weeks of thinking that we would not make it through the Garage Sale Extravaganza we are glad to report that we are all alive and well. As for our garage, the aftermath is not quite all cleaned up! We made a trip to the Salvation Army and are waiting for ARC to come this week and grab the rest. We ended up having to use my neighbours garage for all the clothes, shoes and purses. It actually worked out perfectly! We decided to open the sale Wednesday for 3-8 and are we ever glad we did. It was crazy busy we brought in $600 that night and were able to maintain that amount every day. We didn't open on Sat the weather was just to nice and Brian made some rounds to other sales to see what the traffic was like and there wasn't anyone out. They all must of headed up to their cabins! (I know that's where I would of been if I had the chance!)Brian and I where hoping to make at least $1,000 and we are happy to report that we have surpassed that goal and made $1,699.55. I threw in a some change right before I brought everything to the bank to make it an even $1700! Although there is still money coming in. I went out with some gals on Sat night and one of my friends called me to let me know that her aunt ( who was with us that night) handed her an envelope with Garage Sale written on it for Brian and I. People are so generous. We are now 100% focused on the Little Falls Garage Sale in September, than I will be able to breath again! Here are some picts of the sale...

It's about time!

After a lots of days and nights in the hot garage getting ready for our garage sale. Its finally time to open the doors and start the sale! I am super pumped, I am not sure if I am more excited for the extra cash for all our expenses or if I am more excited to get my garage back in order! As of today, may whole garage is full of stuff, my neighbour across the street's garage is full and their neighbour's house as well. We decided that we would have all the clothes,shoes and purses across the street and everything else at our place. With big signs that say MORE -> There was just to much stuff for one garage, it was way to overwhelming not to mention you couldn't walk in there! I do have a fear that no one will show up...same fear I have when I throw parties, I have no idea why I have this fear, but it always ends up being a success! I am worried about the traffic. We live in a neighbourhood so hopefully with all my bright signs, people will be mesmerized and follow them! A special thanks to all my friends and sister who has spent endless hours in my garage sweating their booties off to make this happen. One special thanks to my neighbour Taylor who would have much rather been hanging out with her friends all summer being that she is going into 9th grade. But she has been a solid consistent in the garage sale extravaganza! Thanks all!

My friends are rock stars!

First of all I would like to tell you all what wonderful my friends are! They are amazing! I sent out a email to all my gals the other day, asking if anyone would like to come over and help make aprons. Thinking one or two people would come over for a few hours but to my surprise I had 9 people show up. Some of them staying for 10 hours just trucking away at aprons! Although in the middle of the day we where interrupted by a tornado that took out the power for an hour. So we thought that would be a great time to break out the wine and martini's! We where able to whip out about 120! I am pumped! I was hoping to have at least 500 to bring to the craft fair, I was feeling that, that was a out of reach goal but after today, I don't think that is to much to do. Thank you, Liz, Jamie, Shelby, Darla, Angie, Christy, Stacy, Kelly, and Callie, you all are rock stars!

A week off

Last week I took a girls week. My sister, mom and I went out to CA to visit my grandparents. We droe out to Lake Tahoe to check out where my sister is getting married. It was amazing, words and pictures do not do justice to Lake Tahoe. Although our trip was not totally relaxing it still was nice to get away and lay at the beach/pool, and not feel like I should be doing other stuff. Although I was relaxing at the pool, my wonderful husband was busy doing all the things I would have been doing...faxing papers, filling out papers, finding tables to use for the garage sale, picking up items for the sale, setting up another bank account just for the adoption....and as you know the list goes on! Here are some picts of the beutiful Lake Tahoe...

What a week!

What a week! My mom who lives in D.C. has been visiting for about a week now and what a whirl wind its been! We have been getting ready for the Little Falls Craft Fair for our hopefully biggest and most profitable fundraiser. For those of you whom don't know, the Little Falls Craft Fair is the biggest craft Fair in MN. Around 30,000 people attend it every year. They pretty much close down the city of Little Falls and it turns into one giant Craft Fair. We are making Purses, Child and adult aprons, children's hats and burp cloths. So needless to say we are sewing our little fingers off! Here are some pictures of just a few of the thousands of aprons what we are making if anyone is interested in buying anything let me know! We can personalize everything. Brian my wonderful husband was busy all weekend picking up donations for out enormous garage sale that we are having at the end of Aug. I have had so many people donate to our garage sale that it is taking over 1/2 our basement and our third garage stall! We are thinking about pushing the sale up to the middle of July because we are running out of space to store it all! What a terrible problem to have, right! In between driving all around MN he ran and finished his first 5K run! I am so proud of him he ran it in just over 20 min, that's almost a 5 1/2 min mile. Yahoo My sister is getting married in the fall in Lake Tahoe, so we are taking a girls week and heading to San Fransisco and then driving to Lake Tahoe for a few days. We leave Thursday. What a whirl wind this week has been! On the adoption front, we are filling out the paper work for LMI and hopefully Brian will be sending it in while I am in CA. We have chosen Summit to do our home study so we have been tring to get everything in order for that. I hope you all have a wonderful and safe 4th of July!

Books

Brian and I went to the book store the other day and searched through the TINY adoption section. We purchased 'The complete book of international adoption' and 'Twenty things adopted children with their adoptive parents knew'. When we got home we searched the web for more and of course we found hundreds. Please let me know what books you have read that you thought where interesting. We are ready to start hitting the books!

O.K. now its offical!

Today, to much of our suprise(we wern't expecting it so soon) Brian and I got a letter in the mail saying that our application for the Kaz program was accepted! Horray! So here starts our adoption process...

Bloogers Unite!

I have been just blown away with how many wonderful supportive people there are out there! Thanks to Christy I have been befriended by so many other bloggers, its amazing. I enjoy reading all of your blogs, yes I am an official blog junkie, thanks Christy, but it is totally worth it! I have even been contacted by a few of you that don't have any connection to what I call the 'Christy Clan!' Its just wonderful. I am taking lots of notes from your blogs, great information for beginners like us we appreciate it. Brian knows my new nightly routine; quick run after work, dinner, wine, couch, check all 11 blogs that I am addicted to, fill Brian in on everything, than bed! How great, thank you all for the supprotive and insprational stories, I look forward to tuning in nightly!

Fundraising

Now that Brian and I have started this amazing adventure we have been brainstorming some fundraising ideas. We have gotten lost of great ideas from you all and the tallies in! July: Book sale! We are going to have a big book sale, what doesn't sell we are going to sell them online, who doesn't love cheep books, I am a sucker for them! So what we are asking for is if any of you want get those old dust collectors off the shelf and make room for something else we would love to take them off your hands! August:Garage Sale! So if anyone has anything that they would like to donate to our sale please let me know! Thanks Aimee for all your left over garage sale items, great start!!! We don't want to make anyone fell like they have to contribute to our fundraising efforts but I though I would let you all know what we have decided to do in case you want to contribute something. Thanks to all for your support!

Well its offical...well kind of!

Brian and I both where feeling a little overwhelmed with everything, having to find an agency shuffling through 20 different packets from different agencies, doing research trying to decide what country was best for Brian and I. So Friday night Brian and I went to our friend Christy's (who also happens to be my employer) to talk adoption. Christy was able to answer a lot of questions that we had. Still feeling overwhelmed but than all of a sudden I looked around and saw her daughter playing an the floor coming over to Brian and I for random hugs and bounces it was wonderful. Werid to think we may be doing that with our child this time next year! So, today Brian and I have officially mailed out our adoption application! Hooray after a long night of filling out the application and answering some tough questions we finally brought it to the mail box at 10:00pm! We decided to go with Little Miracles Adoption Agency. It seems very surreal at this moment. We have been through so much just to get to this point and now we are here...so here we go!

So little yet so big!

Isn't it weird how god works in mysterious ways??? As you all know six years ago we bought our first house, your probably all wondering why the hell I am talking about that...well, isn't it weird how god works in mysterious ways... this is where it all began... 2003 Brian flipping through a house magazine one night he decides to make a few calls to mortgage companies to just see what we could get approved for, he comes across a few different companies and puts the calls in, only one person called us back, Glen (Brian was pretty excited and mentioned that there was a pulse, the realtor that was associated with this company was pretty hot! Well little did we know that the hot realtor was going to play a major role in our life years later!!! Jumping ahead 5 years... Our "hot realtor" (Chirsty Simon) ended up moving just down the road from Brian and I. We got back in contact and she and I started to play on a volleyball team together. During one of our team get togethers she mentioned that she had started adopting a little girl from Kaz. Side note As you all know Brian and I have been going through some major infertility issues, during this time we have always had the thought of adopting in the back of our heads. Although we never thought that it was going to get to that part, we thought we'd do invetro and it would work and poof, everything would be perfect and we begin our family and our lives would be perfect! Well...we all know that didn't happen! After we found out that the invetro didn't work everyone was coming to us suggesting adoption...like we didn't ever think of it! Like I said Brian and I have always thought about it but never really talked about in detail because like I said we didn't think that it would get to that. It was so hard to talk about because it was almost like an ending to the dream of having a biological child of your own. So we avoided the topic at all cost with one another. When people would ask we would people would ask us individual,y we would act like we where totally OK with it and it would seem to them like we had our stuff together although we where so far from that. We finally stared talking about with one an other and came to find out that we both where on the same page for once...we both had major hesitations with adoption, what if we couldn't bond with this child, what if later in life the resented us for it, how would we handle it when they said they hated us and wished we weren't there parents, trivial things yes, but defiantly things you think about. People who are not in our situation makes it seem so easy, that adopting in so simple and they don't think of the emotion that goes into it. Our friend Chirsty (the hot realtor) was now over seas getting to meet her child for the first time. She did an amazing job blogging her every move, and emotion be it happy or disappointed, Brain and I followed her bolg religiously. 2 months later Christy called Liz and I to see if we wanted to come over and meet her daughter Zahria, of course we where very excited to meet her, we went to her house one afternoon and she was amazing, beautiful, healthy but most of all happy. Christy and I got to talking and she mentioned that she was looking for a daycare but having a really hard time finding someone who she could trust with the most precious thing she had ever had. I had mention that I was looking in to quiting my job and staying home. We vagley talked about how great it would be if I was Z's nanny we both kind of thought the other one was joking, little did we know that this conversation would change Brian and my life forever... A few weeks later I quit my job, and I started to nanning for Zahria. The first day that I was there I was hooked...all I could think about was how silly I had been thinking that I was not going to be able to accept a child that wasn't biologically mine. I had only been with this child for a few hours and was ready to give my life for her, I was floored with amazement on how this child in just a few hours could steal my heart and make me 110% ready to adopt. It was amazing. I went home that first day and was talking up a storm about how resilient she was and how wonderful she is adapting to her new life, how Christy seems so fulfilled with life. It was so amazing how this little girl filled Christy's life with so much joy in such a short period of time, it was like they where meant for each other. You always hear how you just know when you are adopting that when you meet your child you just know she's was meant for you. I never really understood that and I don't think that until I am in that situation I will fully understand, but I seeing Christy and Z together I just know that, that statement is true. One day Brian came over after work to meet Z and she was so taken with him, she would let him hold her, she would smile and laugh at him. It was so funny. Brian came over a few times after that and the two just where smitten with easchother! (I think she has her first crush!!) A few nights later Brian and I were on our way to dinner and out of the blue he looks at me and says...I think I would be ok with adopting, Zahria is really amazing, I know that the child that we adopt (if it comes to that) would be different in so many ways but she really has opened my eyes and I really think that I would be ok now. The biggest smile emerged from his face and I couldn't help but hug and kiss the crap out of him. We have both finally gotten to that place where if indeed adoption is our way that that we would be absolutely ok with it. We have finally reached that point and we owe it all to a little angel named Zahria Alia Simon. I can't help but think where we would be if Brian didn't find that "hot" realtor! LoL Isn't it weird how god works in mysterious ways?

Life Change's

I was reading a friends blog today and stopped and thought about mine. I was thinking that I don't have much to say these days. But than it dawned on me...Brian and I have had a major 'life change' and there is so much to talk about. So here we go! This summer I started feeling that I need a different way to let out all of my stress and so I started walking which turned into jogging which is gradually turning into running. I have set a goal that this summer I will run at least 2 marathons. In all of this running I have lost just about 40lbs. I have found that this is a major stress reliever for me and I get to do what I love best SHOP more!!! Recently, Brian has joined the gym with me, and he is looking mighty svelte. But even better Brian has begun acupuncture treatments. He goes to a little Chinese lady's house every Saturday morning and gets his treatments. He laughs because she doesn’t speak very good English if any, so he is not quite sure if she is actually treating him for infertility or something completely different. I personally think she is putting the needles in the wrong place because he's sexual drive has shot up 400%. I am not sure how I feel about this!! LoL :) She actually specializes in infertility so we know that he is getting the correct treatment! He also is taking herbal supplements given to him from the Doctor. So twice a day he mixes up his 'potion' it looks very similar to seaweed and dirt! Brian says that seaweed and dirt would probley taste better. But like a champ he chokes it down every time! Another wonderful life change that Brian has made is he has stopped drinking. He has not had an alcoholic drink since the beginning on the year. I am so proud of him. The doctors say that alcohol plays a huge factor in infertility. We have been doing so much research on what else we can do to help his sperm count, we found out that Yoga is extremely good for infertility, because yoga massages your organs. So yes, Brian and I have purchased our yoga mats and ready for class to begin. We are looking into one more possible treatment that we may do. But I am not going to talk about it yet because we are still gathering information and searching for the perfect doctor. But I will let you all know more about it later. Hopefully with our new life style we will have some positive results. If it doesn’t improve anything fertility wise at least Brain and I will be in good shape and know that we have done everything to get our bodies in the best shape they can be in