How do we say thanks!?!?!?!?!

This past week, the warfare that has happened at our house has been amazing. The battle was harsh & constant it seemed & at times, this warrior was feeling VERY VERY beaten down! The Lord is always faithful! There were tears a plenty & LOADS of frustrations! There were times when that was all that i saw! Then i would get a couple of hours of interrupted sleep & wake up and see that there had also been MANY blessings!

If you didn't know, this past week had MANY early early morning hours, LOTS of work that was NOT my cup of tea & LOTS of prep for this morning's Boutique for the Orphan! We had a few VERY hard workers & one worker that blew my mind with her overwhelming generosity of her time, efforts & faithfulness, Holly. Holly was someone that i didn't even know that well but she was here EVERY day this week and two times she stayed until after 3am!!! She helped do whatever was needed! She slip stitched MOST of the 76 trivets, cut ribbons, bagged chocolates, listened, cut toffee, bought things i forgot to buy for what we were doing, brought gifts from her Mother-In-Law, and MUCH more!

Another person who was amazing was Bonnie! Oh my goodness! The ideas that that woman has! She was so generous in her helpfulness! She borrowed me MANY pans, gave our Catherine the "recipe" for the trivets (that explains how little i do anything crafty...i almost always called it a recipe but it is a PATTERN!), made the X's on almost all of the trivets, made our items more appealing with tags that had Ethan's picture on them & wrote what the trivets were made out of and much more.

We had neighbors who let us borrow quite a few items to help in the sale, our friends Bob & LeAnne (as usual) came on Friday night & worked their tails off! We had friends who would pop in to help or like Karrie would have an idea & instead of just telling me what would be great instead went out & bought the item & took care of it!

There were people who donated so generously....Angel, Krista, Bethany & her mother, Robin, Tammy, Marlys, Karri, Jacque, Katie, Jill, people i didn't know & SO many more that i am sure i know but didn't even know that they gave!!! The multipurpose room had MANY tables laden with amazing items. There were things that were made that were intricate & beautifully created by YOUNG children, middle age children, teenagers and there were wonderfully gifted women who brought their talents & amazed us with their gifts! There were others who generously gave from their home businesses. EVERYTHING HELPED!!!

Catherine went from 76 trivets down to about 25!!! They were a huge hit! The toffee was a HUGE HIT!!!! Pecan, Walnut or plain....all of them sold well!!! (Our five batches of fudge did not work....and we tried salvaging it in many different ways AND CONTINUE to be getting ideas of what to try!!!) I saw items selling like crazy all over the room! It was really wonderful to be able to share with others about adoption and about Ethan in particular! Our church was amazing to allow us to do this big of an event! We are so blessed to be a part of such a ministry!

We thank you SO much- all of you who helped in ANY way, whether it was letting us use an item, baking some goodies (even a gentleman did!), telling your friends about the sale, putting it on your FB wall, coming & buying, donating your TIME to help, your gifts or talents or donating money, or ANYTHING else!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! WE ARE SO BLESSED!!!! THANK YOU!!!!

SO, i suppose you would like to know what people gave????? The total was $1,790!!!! AMAZING!!! The sale was only from 11:30-2pm & i KNOW that MANY people weren't able to come and yet....LOOK at what the Lord blessed us with! WONDERFUL closer relationships, many hands being involved, MANY MORE coming out, and more people hearing about ADOPTION!!!! A wonderful day!!!
We are so blessed, Connie for the crew
PS the reason that i am just now getting this out is that as soon as the sale was over, we took everything that was left to sell to another room to get ready for another sale tomorrow morning for our homeschool group, Uplift! It will be at the parent room in the church (Calvary Community Church) from 9am-Noon;}) Anyone who couldn't make it today could join us in the sale tomorrow. There will be more items than just our table for Ethan's adoption too! Anyway, after getting that set up we IMMEDIATELY went to the baby shower that i had baked all of the goodies for & we just got home at 7pm! YES, we are ALL exhausted!!! BUT the Lord is ALWAYS faithful! We are so blessed to have friends like you all!