Yard Sale Success!

Yesterday was one of the most tiring days of my life. Especially since Friday had that title until yesterday. Yesterday we had a yard sale!

Over the past month we have been collecting donations from our community to sell. Everyone was really excited about it and willing to pitch in. All day friday was pricing and sorting and long theoretical conversations about the worth of a particular item. Signs went up about midnight and we fell into bed.

The sale started bright and early at 7am. We had a ton of stuff, big pieces of furniture, kid bikes, pottery barn pillows, electronics, toys, books, all the random nick nacks and more clothes than I think I have owned in my whole life. We started off slow but had a great late rush between 10 and 1 it was kind of wierd yardsale behavior but whatever they bought stuff. We also hung signs that said all proceeds to to the Baby Hoffman Adoption Fund. I think it made a difference, people like giving to a good cause.

Going into this Hubbs and I were hoping to make around $400. We need $900 to pay the bill for the Homestudy. We figured this would help and then we would save the rest over the next couple of months. Hubbs loves numbers and statistics so by 10 he knew that we would meet our goal if in the last half we sold proportionally the same every hour as the first three hours. I have no idea what that really means, I just smile and say, Sure Love! Throughout the day he would come and collect my big bills, so I really had no idea what we were making. Everytime he would ask I would have atleast one or two twenties, it was like they kept multiplying in my bag!

As things started winding down we started calculating our profit. I could have cried when Adam told me our pure profit was $750! What I did do was scream YEAH! and a little happy dance. God is so faithful. We had two families that gave us donations yesterday as well, so the grand total $900. I wasnt kidding about the God being awesomly faithful! We made EXACTLY what we needed. This is such a gift, to not stress about the last little bit to pay that bill. I am on cloud nine right now.

We have a class at the adoption agency on Monday and I am so excited to walk in there and hand them our Completed homestudy paper work and a big fat check.

Praise God!

Questions from the homestudy

I have been really surprised at the types of questions they ask on the home study. I expected it to be more theoretical about parenting, but it is way more practical. They want to know specifics! We kind of feel like we are writing out how we will parent for the next 18 years which just seems silly. Instead of asking how do you teach children healthy eating habits, or what are healthy eating habits, they ask, when is dinner time, are kids expected to eat everything, who decides portions, can kids make their own plates, what if they dont like the food and so on. I guess they are getting the same information, but Hubbs and I kind of stare at each other confused and confess that we have no idea who will decide the portions during dinner. So we talk about it for a minute and write something down.

I keep trying to remind myself that this is a tool for the social worker to get to know us, and make sure we are going to be healthy parents. I wont be repremanded if I dont pull the homestudy out in 5 years to make sure I am using the exact bedtime we said we would.

With that said, some of the questions have been kind of funny. Our favorite section has been on Potty Training. Here are the questions for your enjoyment.

Toilet Training

1. When would you being: With a boy? With a girl?
Remember we are adopting an infant, this really isnt on our minds yet

2. How would you accomplish it?
I have no idea!! we have never done this before, but I am sure I will read about it some day and have a great answer. I think we wrote something about talking about it with the child, setting a start time, and then asking them every 30 mins if they have to go everyday until they get it, and when they do we will throw a Potty Party with a toilet cake and they get underoos for presents. I would go to the potty for that.

3. When would you expect a child to be completely trained?
I hate setting expectations, they always make me feel like a failure in the end.

4. How do you handle accidents or bed-wetting? Soiling?
Hubbs' first response to all questions like this was "kick them in the head" He was kidding of course, it was funny at the time. If the case worker could somehow record our conversations as we filled this out we would be done!

5. How important are toilet habits to you?
What in the world are toilet habits?? this question made us laugh for about 10 minutes, we talked about, well I sing on the toilet, and hubbs reads, but our kids should not flush toys, or play in the toilet, I really am not sure what they are asking here, I think in the end we said something about wiping well and washing hands. They really should be a little more clear on this.

In the end I think we are doing a good job, but really I just want to write I dont know for almost every answer. It leaves you feeling a little inadequet and I am reading parenting books like a champ to try and figure this stuff out so we answer well. We are going to be the most prepared parents in the world!!

Sorry for the Silence

I have been such a bad blogger lately! I am sorry that I have been silent, I have been reading others blogs I just didnt have much to write about myself. Work is also really busy right now. It is good because great things are happening in our ministry, but it is a lot of work! I do want to post soon about some of the home study questions. I think it would be interesting to see how yall would answer some of the questions. We worked on it for 3 hours last night.
We are going to be superparents!

Dragon Parade

We went to the dragon parade on Saturday in celebration of Chinese New Year. It was awesome, lots of contortionist, acrobats, martial artistist, dragons and amazing food. I love Chinese food!! We had pork dumplings and chow mien and some pastry thing filled with I don't know what but it was GOOD!

Anyways I just wanted to share some pictures from out little adventure.

It is good luck to put money in the dragon's mouth so they worked the crowd, made me want to put on a dragon head!

Holy Crap, she is balancing on her collar bone, holding on with her teeth and spining those rug things.

Hanging out on some spears

Jumping through hoops, backwards, frontwards, spinning.


Dancing dragons in the parade


He started out laying down and slowly stood up holding her like this, never even wobbled.

Then she curled up holding her feet like a ring and he tossed her up and put his arms through her like a game of ring toss, she fell all the way until she was resting here on his thighs. I dont think I have that much trust in anyone.

So that was out day, a fun little adventure date out with the Hubbs. I think we are going to practice some of those moves for the staff retreat talent show.