Taking a Break

It is so hard to believe that it is already September 9th!  I sometimes feel like I blink and a few months go by.  Does anyone else feel that way??  All in all, life is good around the Wagner house.  Emma is settling in nicely to 1st grade and doing an amazing job.  She loves reading books and spells amazingly difficult words like “ice cream”.  Logan has settled in at A Child’s World and has every person there wrapped around his little finger.  Every time I pick him up one of them says what a sweet boy he is and how well he is doing.  I couldn’t be happier with where both kids are this year and that is an AWESOME feeling!!

On the adoption front, we are continuing to wrap up the homestudy (I feel like I’ve been saying that for a while now!!).  Our adoption agency is in the process of finding another referral for our family and once that happens we will move forward at a rapid pace.  Sometimes this whole process feels like a roller coaster ride to me.  Sometimes we wait in line and then something happens and we take off at a rapid pace…..then we wait in line only to ride the ride again.  It is worth every moment of this wait now run now wait again routine, but it sure can be tiring at times.  Since we are in a holding pattern, we have decided to take a break from fundraising (including “Tasty Treat Tuesdays“).  There will be a time in the not so distant future where we will need to raise funds again, but right now we need to focus on finishing up our adoption courses and paperwork.  Once all of that is done, we’ll resume fundraising.  We appreciate everyone who has supported us so far in either prayer or fundraising and ask that you continue to pray for us as we work on gathering paperwork.  We absolutely could not do this without your support!!!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful week!!!!

Tasty Treat Tuesday Time!

Since it is Labor Day, I’m a little late posting this week’s “Tasty Treat Tuesday” information.  We hope that you have all had a relaxing day and are refreshed to begin this new week of work.  For this week’s tasty treat, we are offering one pound of CINNAMON SUGARED PECANS!  These are so yummy and are great to give as gifts if you don’t want to enjoy them yourself.  🙂  I used to go annually to the Yellow Daisy Fesitval at Stone Mountain Park just to get this yummy treat.  Then, I figured out that I could make them at home and enjoy them any time I want.  If you’re interested in this scrumptious treat, feel free to place your bid on my (Amy’s) Facebook page or on this blog and bidding will continue until 3:00 tomorrow afternoon (September 4th).

Happy Bidding!

Mixed Emotions

We received some information Tuesday night that has caused some mixed emotions in our family.  Our adoption agency sent us a message to let us know that the child we had been pursuing to adopt has been committed to another family.  While we are saddened by this news, we are also thrilled that he will have a home and won’t be an orphan any longer.  It will take us some time to work through this and to grieve the loss of what we wanted, but we can’t be sad for too long when we know that there is one less orphan in the world and that God is leading us in different directions.

So….what happens now??!!??  We will wait, trust God and continue to move down the path of adopting a new son.  There are so many orphans in this world and we believe that God will bring us to the child that is to be a part of our family. We will finish up our home study as planned and then seek another child to adopt.

What can you do??!!??  Please continue to pray.

• Pray that God will show us His plans and will guide our steps.
• Pray for our child who is waiting in an orphanage somewhere in this world.
• Pray for patience (especially for me) as we move through this process.

God is so good and He has proven his faithfulness in every step of this process.  We are excited to see what happens next, so thankful that “our” sweet boy has a home, and anxious to see what happens next.

Thank you for your support in all of this!!!

“Tasty Treat Tuesday” is Back!

Good Morning and happy Monday morning!!  It has been a busy and hectic past two weeks with the beginning of school and my handsome nephew’s wedding.  Now we are starting week three in school and life seems to be settling into a new rhythm….so, it is time to bring “Tasty Treat Tuesday” back.  This week’s treat is for all of you peanut butter lovers out there.  We are offering up for bid 3 dozen peanut butter cup cookies. These are the gooey peanut butter cookies that have a miniature peanut butter cup in the middle.  YUMMO!!! 

Just a reminder that you can bid by placing your bid on this blog OR on my Facebook page.  Bidding will go until 3:00 on Tuesday afternoon and then the winner will be annouced.  Happy bidding and have a wonderful week!!!

And the winner is…..

Our movie ticket giveaway has ended…….and the winner is Joy Stallworth!!!  Thank you so much to everyone who supported our giveaway by sharing the information about our adoption and/or donating to our adoption fund!!!  We appreciate everyone’s support and look forward to bringing our new son home soon!

Time for a Giveaway!

Good Evening!  It’s time to let you know about our new giveaway.  This is something that EVERYONE can participate in even if you don’t live in the Atlanta area, so we would love for you to share this with anyone that might be interested.

So….what is it you ask….what are we giving away??  Well wait no longer….to one lucky winner, we are giving away FOUR free movie tickets to use at an AMC movie theater of your choice.  Here are the details about the tickets:  These tickets are good at any AMC Theater, AMC Loews, or AMC Showplace in the United States (sorry…Canadian theaters are excluded).  If you choose to use these tickets for 3D or IMAX…there will be a surcharge at the theater and special engagements (special engagement restriction is put in place by the motion picture distributors on certain films and are usually removed by the second weekend of the film’s release) are excluded from the ticket.

There are several ways to be entered in our giveaway.  You can either share our adoption story on your blog or Facebook page OR you can make a donation to our adoption fund (there is a “Reece’s Rainbow” donatation button in the upper right hand corner of our blog) OR you can contact us by email or Facebook to arrange for a donation.  On Sunday, August 19th, we will draw the name of one participant using the following entry scale:

Blog or Facebook share:  1 entry

$5 donation: 2 entries

$10 donation: 5 entires

$20 donation: 12 entries

Since we can’t directly track some of these items, please leave a comment to let us know what/how you’ve shared or donated so we can be sure to give you the correct amount of entries in the drawing.

Good luck and thank you for supporting this giveaway!!

Taking a Break but Adding a Giveaway!

Hello!  This past week has been a little crazy with my return to work.  There’s nothing like heading into a new school and trying to figure out how they work.  Every school is the same in its curriculum and expectations, but drastically different in its methods and expectations.  It has been quite a learning experience as I’ve been moved to three different schools in the past 12 months!!

Since school is starting this week and my nephew is getting married this weekend (WAHOO!!), we are going to take a short break from “Tasty Treat Tuesday” for the next two weeks.  I will offer our next treat on MONDAY, AUGUST 20th.  In the meantime, we didn’t want to leave you with nothing to do….so, we’re going to do a small giveaway.  This is something that EVERYONE can participate in even if you don’t live in the Atlanta area.  Check back with us tomorrow evening and we’ll share all of the details about this upcoming giveaway!!

For all of my friends in Georgia who are meeting their new students tomorrow, I pray that you have a wonderful year!  I look forward to hearing and reading about all of the fun adventures of the next 180 days of school!!

“Tasty Treat Tuesday” with a twist!

Good Morning!  It’s that time of week…it’s time for “Tasty Treat Tuesday”, but this time we’ve got a twist.  For the past four weeks we have offered sweet treats for your bidding fun.  This week we thought we’d change things up a little!  In honor of my friends who are teachers who are heading back to work, I thought it would be fun to offer you one night without cooking.  So….here’s what is up for bid this week.  To one lucky winner, I will prepare a pan of baked ziti, a loaf of garlic cheese bread, a fresh green salad and a chocolate cake.  A complete dinner for your family will be delivered to your home so you won’t have to cook.  An additional twist is that if you win this week, you can choose the night that would be best for you and your family.  I can deliver the meal either Wednesday, Thursday or Friday afternoon/evening.

So….happy bidding and I wish all the best to all the teachers as they prepare to meet their students and start a brand new year!!

Ups and Downs

It’s been a while since we updated our progress, so I thought I’d take a few moments before the school year starts to let you know where we are in the adoption process.  We are definitely making progress and are working our way through the mound of necessary paperwork. Throughout the past month, we have made a lot of movement forward, but it has definitely been a path marked with ups and downs.

First the “ups”:

• We finished our third home study meeting and all went well!  Kelly has been amazing and has walked us through the whole process.  Now, we have a few more forms to collect and our home study will be ready to send off to our adoption agency for approval.
• We held a Pampered Chef Fundraising Cooking Show on July 21st.  The response to this was INCREDIBLE!!!  We had over $1000.00 in sales, so we will get 20% of the total sales to add to our adoption fund.   We are completely blown away by everyone and their generosity!  Thank you so much to everyone that supported this fundraiser!!
• We have done “Tasty Treat Tuesday” for four weeks.  It has been exciting to see the participation and interest in this.  So far, we have raised $140 with this fundraiser which we used to pay for one of our passports and part of the other one.  We are praising God for his provision and for the support of our friends!!

The “downs” (feel free to join us as we pray about these things):

• As part fo the homestudy, we (Mark, Amy, Dale and Sue) have to pass a local, state and federal background check.  At first, I thought this would be the easiest part of the process.  I found out that I was wrong.  All of us passed the local and state background check with no problem.  Then came the federal background check results.  Mark and I passed with no problem, but Mom and Dale were rejected because their prints were unreadable.  So…my parents had to be reprinted and we sent the new prints off to the FBI on Friday.  Hopefully, we will hear positive news about this by the beginning of September.  The “down” side of this is that it slows the process down while we wait for a “pass” or “reject”.  Please join us in praying that the new prints will pass and we’ll be able to move forward in the adoption.  THANKS!!!
• I’m heading back to work tomorrow (I know…all together….”awwww”!!).  This will make it challenging to complete the necessary paperwork as I balance school with home and adoption.  Like I said earlier, we are making good progress, so I don’t want to see us slow down.  However, I have to be realistic and recognize that there are only so many hours in the day and I will have to pace myself to get it all done.  Please, join me in praying for this upcoming school year. Pray that I will seek God’s direction in all things and focus on today rather than worrying about tomorrow.  THANKS!

So, there you have it!  The ups and downs of our adoption journey!  We are thankful that so many of our friends and family have come alongside us to support us in this journey.  We look forward to many exciting days ahead!

“Tasty Treat Tuesday”…Let the Bidding Begin!

Good Morning!  We had an exciting weekend filled with friends and fun activities.  It was so much fun!  On Saturday we had our Pampered Chef Cooking Show Fundraiser.  We laughed and ate great food…it was such a good time!  I’m excited to announce that as of this moment we are about $150 away from having a $1000 show.  IF that happens (our show closes on Saturday)…then we’ll get 20% of the total show donated to our adoption fund.  Isn’t that exciting??!!??  We are so thankful for all of you who have supported this fundraiser and appreciate each and every order!  Thank you…thank you…thank you!!!

Now….on to “Tasty Treat Tuesday” for this week.  One of my closest friends requested a special treat a couple of weeks ago.  So…in her honor…this week’s tasty treat is a pan of homemade cinnamon rolls! These are the kind that are made from scratch and it takes all day to make just because they have to be kneaded, rise for a while, be made and rise again all before they are baked.  They are worth every minute that they take to make because they are YUMMY!  I don’t make them often, but when I do my family gobbles them up in less than a day.  So….happy bidding!  I can’t wait to see how this week turns out!