Well the year didn't end as we had hoped. We thought that
2015 would be the year that we became a family of three...
Even though we didn't get to start our own family in 2015 we
spent lots of time with our family and friends making memories. We welcomed new
babies to our family, said goodbye to loved ones, enjoyed a NASCAR race with
our friends, celebrated birthdays, cookouts with family, built stronger
relationships with family members, welcomed new people into our lives, made lots of memories as an aunt and uncle, celebrated another anniversary, had to update our home study, got invited to go to two OSU football games,
did not take any days for granted with Gracie, made each other laugh till we
cry, loved each other more every day, talked about our hopes and dreams for the
future and much more!
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| We became an aunt and uncle to Miss Aubree in June! |
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NASCAR Race in Texas with our good friends.
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| Dinner in Tulsa for his parents anniversary |
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| OSU Game with the Jeans |
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| Family photos, special memory |
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| Weekend in Tulsa with family |
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| Fun day with Amy, Love her and thankful for her! |
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| Love this puppy!! |
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| My beautiful mom! |
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| Celebrating dad's 60th birthday! |
Over the past 5 months we have been blessed to be able to
help my brother out. He needed a place to stay and my amazing husband has a
heart to help others and offered the idea of him staying with us so that we can
help him get on his own. With the help of my friend, my brother had a part time
job the first week with us. Two months after that Daniel's mom helped him get a
full time job with benefits! He is doing great at his new job and likes it. He
has grown so much of the past five months and I couldn't be prouder of him. We
have helped him save money, he is able to provide for his kids on his own, he
was able to throw Graesun a batman birthday party and get his kids Christmas.
He is working on saving for a dependable vehicle and then finding a place of
his own. During all this we have been blessed to get to spend time with the
kids every weekend. We love having them here making memories with them from zoo
trips to playing in the backyard.
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| Zoo Trip |
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| Aubree's first Zoo Trip |
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| The kid's first trip to the fair |
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| Feeding the ducks |
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| Graesun's first trip to the zoo |
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| Fishing in the backyard |
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| Love this boy |
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| He loves watching Tv with his uncle Daniel and Gracie |
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| She has uncle Daniel wrapped around her finger! |
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| Batman! |
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| First time at the Fly in Breakfast |
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| He is such a great dad. I'm so proud of my brother! |
Fundraiser Updates:
One of our biggest fundraisers of 2015 was our garage sale.
It was a lot of work. We started collecting stuff at the beginning of the
year. We raised $2,435 from our garage
sale, almost doubling what we made the year before. We were blessed by everyone's
generosity in donating items, helping with the garage sale, sharing information
on face book about the fundraiser and extra donations during the sale.
We also had another painting fundraiser which helped us
raise $220. We are grateful for the ones who were able to attend. All the
ladies had a great time.
My cousin did an Indian Taco fundraiser for us. We raised
$1,036 from this fundraiser. This was probably one of my favorite fundraisers
we did. LeighAnn has such a big heart for others and had been wanting to do
this fundraiser for us for awhile. Everyone to this day still raves about how
good her Indian Tacos were and asks if we are going to do another fundraiser.
:-) maybe in the new year! ;-)
We also had another Bling Fundraiser in the fall this year which
helped us raise $355 for our adoption. We made almost another $100 extra than
our Bling Fundraiser that we had 2014.
My aunt also did a Pink Zebra fundraiser for us November
7th. It was her first party and she did great. We raised $100 from this
fundraiser.
We are still continuing with our Puzzle Fundraiser, the
first fundraiser we started with our adoption journey. We ended 2014 selling 689 puzzle pieces. We
are ending 2015 selling 874 pieces! We have 126 pieces left until the puzzle is
complete and we can get it framed in double sided glass and hang in the
nursery. One of my favorite memories is having an old childhood friend and her
husband stop by during Christmas break to see the nursery and getting to visit.
They have been dedicated in helping with our puzzle fundraiser since week 5 of the
puzzle fundraiser. Words cannot even express how thankful we are to have them
in our lives. We cannot wait until the day when we can take our child to
California to visit them! A huge thanks to everyone who purchased puzzle pieces in 2015, especially my uncle Jamiel and aunt Erin who continue to buy pieces each pay check. Between them, my mom and Becky they will all have half the puzzle or more with their names on it! ;-) If you don't know about the puzzle fundraiser you can read about it here,
Puzzle Fundraiser
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| Week 103 |
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| Graesun loving on his uncle Jamiel and aunt Erin |
God may not have blessed us in 2015 with a baby but he defiantly
blessed us in other ways. We are grateful and thankful for everything that
happened in 2015 and wouldn't change a thing. One good thing that did happen in
2015 was that our adoption agency merged with another company and now has more
offices in other states. This change has allowed our profile to be shown more.
In the month of December they were working with 12 birth parents in different
stages of the adoption process and had 39 families waiting to be matched. Please continue to pray for all the
birth parents and families waiting to be matched. We appreciate everyone's
support and prayers during our adoption journey.
This is a link to our profile on our adoption page
https://www.nightlight.org/daniel-chelsey/
This is a link that you can donate directly to the agency
http://adoptionbridge.org/families/wilks-adoption-journey/.
