Playing for Change...

I heard about this docucmentary tonight and immediately went to find out more. I love music and how powerful it can be. I love the idea of this organization Playing for Change bringing people together from around the world to share the joy of music. Their organization starting out making a documentary featuring musicians from around the world singing and playing together. In the process they were inspired to do more and are now also building music schools around the world. Their first school is in South Africa.

Their video of Stand by Me- (first scroll down to the bottom of this page and turn off the music)


An interview with the director Mark Johnson of the documentary with part of their One Love video at the end.


This organization also had a concert with musicians from around the world including Ghana. In the coming months, they will have music available to download.

I just thought this was such a fabulous idea. One of my favorite memories of Africa was when I went to church. I witnessed the joy the people had as they left their worries and troubles at the door and entered church to sing and rejoice. I love the way music can make you feel. It is a common bond that we all share no matter who we are or where we are.

Good prices come to all who wait...

I have been watching these clocks since summer for them to go on sale... the time has come



I am putting them side by side in the den- one with the time in Ghana and the other with the time here to always let the kids know what time it is in Selina's birth country.

If you want one too, go here. Don't forget to google "Pottery Barn Kids discount codes" to check for discount codes.

I will post all about Christmas very soon. I just wanted to post the clocks for all my adoptive friends! :-)

PS.. Now I just need to talk to my BFF Chalene who does vinyl wording in her free time to score Africa and USA!!!

Digital Scrapping

So remember how I told you about my first digital scrapbook page I did a few months back? Well since then, I have been having so much fun working on Selina's album from Africa!! I am going really slow and I keep playing with each page as I learn new things and find new pages and embellishments. I use the Creative Memories Storybook Creator Plus as my program but use pages and embellishments from outside places to decorate my pages.

What is so great about digital scrappin is...
* I don't have to take out all my scrapbook supplies and set them out and clean them up
* It is cheaper than traditional scrapping and there are millions of freebies out there
* I can do it for a few minutes at a time so I can get my "fix" whenever I want
* No scraps!!
* If I get half way through a page and don't like it, I can erase it guilt free

For my birthday and Christmas, I got a little laptop that will be devoted to me and my scrapbooking which will be nice as it will free up space on our desktop for the kids and TR to use. I was starting to really take up a lot of space on our old computer! It will be also nice to have for when I travel back to Africa in the future.

So for my friends out there that digi scrap (do you notice my name for it keeps getting shorter as I write this post?!), I have included a list of some of my favorite stores and sites for free stuff on my sidebar. If you have sites you love too, please let me know!

THANKfullness

I happened across the post I did last year around the holidays. As I read it, it just really summed up how I feel again this year and made me go back to a year ago and remember how excited I was about the possibility of a referral in the near future and finding out who our child(ren) would be. I am so blessed to be here a year later with everyone doing well and our sweet Selina so I thought I would share it again...

Since deciding to adopt from Africa, I have learned so much. Through this adoption journey I have had my eyes opened to so many things that I never would have seen. I have spent countless hours on the internet reading articles, personal stories and watching videos of life in other countries. What I have come away with is how thankful I really am.

I am thankful that I was born here in America to a family that was able to care for me and meet my basic needs. At that same time, another woman was born in Africa probably in difficult conditions and her life is very different from mine if she is still alive. Now that I have been to Africa, I know that she has lived a more difficult life while I have lived a comfortable life. I never was concerned about where my next meal would come from and I always felt secure and safe in my home.

I am thankful for my education. My grade school education, junior high, high school, my bachelor’s degree and master’s degree. I used to only be thankful for my college degrees. Now I understand that I am blessed to have been able to go to grade school.

I am thankful for my childhood. This includes dance lessons, violin, volleyball, key clubs, honor societies, badminton, band and my sorority. I was able to not only go to school but I also was able to enjoy any extracurricular activities that I wanted. I had a childhood that was carefree and joyful.

I am thankful for my freedoms as a woman. This includes the ability to decide when and who I was going to marry. I was not forced into marriage. I am in a marriage in which I am an equal partner. My opinion counts (a lot!) and I am happy and in love.

I am thankful that I chose my profession. I decided what I wanted to be when I grew up. Not my parents or the government. I was further fortunate that my options were not really limited. I always felt that I could be whatever I wanted to be. Now I understand how liberating that really is- to contribute to your community in the way that you want to.

I am thankful for the freedom to create my own family. TR and I are allowed to give birth to as many children or adopt as many children as we would like. Our government is not going to tell us how many children we will have. When we decided to adopt, we were able to follow our hearts and find our children whether they were near or far.

I am thankful for my health and the health of my family. Working in the special education field, I have first hand knowledge of a variety of disabilities and I have met with hundreds of parents no different than me that are living with children with disabilities. I have attended the funerals of some of these children. When some women are pregnant they make the mistake of focusing all their energy on if their child is going to be a girl or a boy. A special education teacher knows that a healthy child is such a blessing.

Also, doing the 3 Day Walk for two years, I have come to be especially thankful for my health. I was able to put my shoes on and walk for sixty miles without aches, pains or any other condition (besides a few blisters)! I walked with women who have cancer and have had cancer. I have lost an aunt to cancer. I walked part of the walk last year with a coworker with breast cancer who passed away from it five weeks later. I used to complain that I wasn’t the size I wanted to be or wished a part of me were smaller or bigger. Those days are over. Thank you God for my health. I will never take for granted the ability to wake up and go to my day free of any ailment.

This year I add the blessing of Selina. I am so thankful that we have been entrusted with her as she is a gift from God to our family. She is such a stong, strong little girl who has overcome so much in her short life. Not only are we thankful for Selina, but we are also thankful for the opportunity to get to know about her birthplace. We will forever be connected to Ghana, a country of kind, spiritual and beautiful people that I have had the good fortune to be able to interact with and connect with during my month in Ghana.

Thank you God for opening our hearts to adoption and for being with us on this journey and for such a blessed year.

jOy: Our Celebrating Adoption Shoot...

Oh my goodness! I am so excited! Yesterday we did a family photo shoot with Maggie McDonald. It was so much fun. Seriously, pictures have always been something that ended up being stressful in the past. I have some bad memories of mall photo stores. I haven't even gone to a photo place in a few years because it is easier to just take pictures at home.

There is a fabulous program out there called Celebrating Adoption.
It started in 2006 and it is now an organization in which photographers from across the country donate their time to celebrate life..love and adoption. It is available to familes that have adopted and have brought their children home within the last year. The photographer donates the photo session setting fee and gives up to 20 proofs to the family although familes are able to purchase more pictures if they choose. For a family that has just gone through an adoption which we all know is not inexpensive, it was so helpful to have that portion of the session donated.

When I heard about the program, I was so excited. I went through all the photographers in this area and chose Maggie because I loved that she really captured the personalities of the children and because her pictures were outdoors. They just looked so fun!

If you want to see a sneak peek of our photo shoot, go here...

Thank you Maggie! :-) We had so much fun with you yesterday... After a long year and a half going through the process to bring Selina home and settling in, it brought tears to my eyes to see my children all together beautiful and happy. Thank you for making a difference and for valuing adoption and supporting it in this lovely way...

143,000,000 Orphans

I just found this on Maria's blog and had to immediately copy it. You may have heard that there are 143,000,000 orphans but it is such a hard number to grasp. I think this video helps.



I think of Selina who used to be one of those numbers. I look at how special she is, how much love she has to give and how she has blessed our lives. It is overwhelming to try to figure out how we can make a difference to those 143 million but I don't think that should detour people to looking at how they can help ONE. Maybe it is through adoption, sponsoring a child or helping to improve conditions at one orphanage. It may not make a difference to all orphans but it will mean the world to that ONE.