Another Year In The Books On Our Adoption Journey...

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!

We became an aunt and uncle to Miss Aubree in June!

NASCAR Race in Texas with our good friends.

Dinner in Tulsa for his parents anniversary

OSU Game with the Jeans

Family photos, special memory

Weekend in Tulsa with family

Fun day with Amy, Love her and thankful for her!

Love this puppy!! 

My beautiful mom! 

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.

 

Zoo Trip

Aubree's first Zoo Trip

The kid's first trip to the fair

Feeding the ducks

Graesun's first trip to the zoo

Fishing in the backyard

Love this boy

He loves watching Tv with his uncle Daniel and Gracie

She has uncle Daniel wrapped around her finger!

Batman!

First time at the Fly in Breakfast

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

 

Week 103

 

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/.

Thankful for Tacos

This past Friday we did an Indian Taco fundraiser. My cousin LeighAn has been wanting to do a fundraiser for us for some time now. We finally got all the details worked out and got it accomplished. My uncle Jamiel who worked at Head Country Restaurant donated all of the toppings for the tacos and the girls did the meat and bread. We did a lunch delivery and setup to sell for dinner.  My cousin's Laura, LeighAn and their good friend Troyce worked on making the tacos for the lunch deliveries while my awesome brother worked hard to deliver all of the tacos. He delivered around 66 to my school, Daniel's work, Carmart, Head Country Sauce Plant and Restaurant and Holiday Inn. My aunt Jennifer works at Carmart and they allowed us to setup in the parking lot Friday evening to sell the tacos. They even fixed us a sign to set out by the street to help get more sells. Cody, Star, Daniel and I worked on selling the tacos while Laura was the middle man delivering the bread that LeighAn and Troyce were cooking. We had people sharing our post all over facebook and posting pictures with the tacos they had bought. Some people that bought for lunch came back for dinner and bought more. We had such a great turn out. We eventually ran out of chili and only had fry bread left and we sold out of that quickly! By the time all was said and done we raised $1036 from selling the tacos and a few donations!! We are so thankful to the many people that played a role in helping with this fundraiser... LeighAn and Laura for helping get the meat & bread and all they did, Troyce for cooking the bread, Cody for delivering the lunch tacos and helping with dinner (I'm so proud of my brother for his help!), my uncle Jamiel for donating the toppings and all his help, my aunt Melissa for letting us use her canopy, Holiday Inn for letting us use the tables, all the businesses that bought tacos for lunch, Star and Jennifer for helping with dinner, Carmart for letting us setup in their parking lot, all the people who bought tacos and shared our post. I really hope I'm not forgetting someone!! Just know that this fundraiser was very much appreciated!! I've had SEVERAL people ask if we will be doing it again...I will let you know if we do! LeighAn got so many compliments on her bread, she should be proud!!

Our Bling Fundraiser raised $355! We are blessed that Jennifer Culp was able to do this fundraiser for us and give some of her profits out of her pocket. This is the second Bling Fundraiser we have done for the adoption with Jennifer. The first one we raised $275. Thank you ladies who came to the party, purchased jewelry or held a show! We appreciate your support!!


Our puzzle fundraiser is still going strong. We have sold a total of 808 pieces out of 1000! We do not have many left! Pieces are $10 each. We will write your name on the back and once all pieces have been sold we will frame the puzzle in double sided glass and hang in the nursery. More information about the puzzle fundraiser can be found here, Puzzle Fundraiser

Week 86- 808 pieces!

Graesun, hanging out in his cousin's room while I work on the puzzle!

We were contacted on Friday from our agency about a birth mother possibly looking at our profile. We would appreciate your prayers this week! We know in God's time we will have the perfect baby for our family. We are being patient and taking each day at a time.

Happy Birthday to this handsome guy!!! 

Expired...

August 7th came faster than we realized which resulted in our home study expiring after one year. To update the home study it requires another joint interview at our home, updated references, financial info, health forms, and another OSBI background check. The estimated total to update the home study is $750.00. Our joint interview is scheduled for Monday August 31st. It's so hard to believe that we started our adoption process over a year ago and we are still waiting to be matched. The time has flown by but at the same time seems like it's taking forever to be matched. We are being very patient while waiting for God's timing. We know it will happen at the perfect time and just trying to enjoy every day as it comes. We have been in contact with our agency throughout the summer as they wanted us to pray about certain situations with birth moms and if we wanted to be considered. We do know that our profile has been shown to birth moms in a few different states this summer. All times our profile had been shown this summer the birth mom picked a family that was closer to their state. Our agency says this happens often, so hopefully someone from Oklahoma will want to pick us! Soon! 

The second week of June we did a Painting Party which helped us raise $220! It was a lot of fun! 

All the ladies minus two!

My Painting 

The last weekend in July we had another Bling Fundraiser with jeweler Jennifer Culp and we are still waiting to see what we raised from that. She is estimating close to $400.00. I will update on this once I get a total. 

Our Puzzle Fundraiser is still going on. We have sold a total of 806 pieces!! Only 194 pieces left! 

Week 73 sold 2 pieces!

Week 74 sold 3 pieces!

Week 75 sold 2 pieces!

Week 76 sold 3 pieces!

Week 77 sold 2 pieces!

Week 78 sold 4 pieces!

Week 79 we didn't sell any pieces. 

Week 80 sold 9 pieces!

Week 81 sold 2 pieces!

Week 82 sold 2 pieces!

Week 83 sold 2 pieces!

Week 84 sold 5 pieces!

Week 85 we didn't sell any pieces.

Week 85- we are getting so close to just having the heart left!!

Please continue to pray for us and share our story! We need all the prayers we can get! Thank you for following our adoption journey. I will continue to keep you updated as things happen. 

Spring Garage Sale

On March 7th, I posted to Facebook that we were accepting items for another garage sale to help raise money for our adoption. A week later we picked up our first load. Thirteen weeks later we had items donated from over 20 families and friends. That is double the amount of donations we had from the year before! Throughout those thirteen weeks I priced every single thing that was donated and sorted it as it came in, my loving husband helped pick up items and unload them. I sold a bunch of items on Facebook. Our garage was so full we could not park in it and even had items inside the house. We were still picking items up the night before the sale! At times I wanted to give up because pricing became so overwhelming. I sorted every piece of clothing and took most of it to a consignment shop where we would get more money for it. At one time I even broke my toe from running in the garage while it was raining because I had to park outside... my husband would love to tell you that story some time! ;-) During the two days we were open with the garage sale we had plumbing issues and couldn't shower or use the bathroom at our house, thank God for Daniel's dad who came to help with that! The city had also recently passed a new "rule" that you couldn't hang up signs for your garage sale unless they were on your property where the sale was being held. So all the signs we had posted were taken down. We were able to have the information in the paper and I also posted on a local community page about the sale and it got a lot of attention. In the end God made what seemed like huge difficulties look like tiny specks in the bigger picture. We were so incredibly blessed with this sale! Not only financially but friends and family that came to help, people who donated extra money, neighbors whom we hadn't met before offering to help pack up the left overs and help load it all up and the people who took the left overs as donations for other great causes. We are so thankful for everything this garage sale brought our way especially meeting new neighbors...maybe just not the broken toe (I'm not getting all my steps on my Fitbit anymore)!

The garage the night before

Left overs to be donated 

Left overs to be donated & my sweet neighbor in the orange helping!

Left overs to be donated, only half of what is on the trailer is our stuff.

Overall we raised $2435!!! That is almost double what we raised the year before!! We sold $905 on Facebook, on Friday we raised $1,015 and on Saturday we raised $515! Plus we sold 2 puzzle pieces!! 

Miss Bailey came with her mom to bring
more sacks and bought two puzzle pieces! :-)

We could not have raised that amount without the giving hearts of  people donating items, helping with the sale, coming to shop and donating extra. We do not take for granted how much God has blessed us with our adoption process. We have got to meet some amazing people along the way and will have some great stories to tell our future child one day. Thank you all for continuing to support our adoption and share our story. Please continue to pray for us as we head into month ten of being on the waiting list to be matched with a child. 

Adoption/Fundraiser Updates

My plan was to have this blog out to you at the first of May, I had it typed and ready to go except I just needed to add photos. While I was waiting to add photos  I sent our agency an email early in the week just asking how things were going and heard back from her towards the end of the week. She said things in the office have been busy for them since they have merged with another agency. She said that our profile had been shown the week before but the birth mother picked a family that she felt a little closer to her physically....which is a bummer but if I were in the birth mother's shoes I might have done the same thing. The next week we received another email from our agency so then I was waiting on news so that I could add it. I was hoping it was going to be major exciting news but at this time we are still waiting to be matched. Our agency had contacted us and was wanting to show our profile to an African American birth mom in KY who was due with a baby boy in September but wanted to make sure we were still open to our decision of any race/gender of a baby. Of course we said "yes". We feel that a baby is a gift from God no matter what the race/gender is of the baby. So our agency mailed our profile book to the agency in KY because they were suppose to be meeting with the birth mother the following week. However the agency in KY met with the mother before our profile book arrived and she chose someone else. Since then I've been working on updating our profile book from Shutterfly and plan to have five more copies made and send to the agency so that they will have a copy at all five locations since their merge with another agency. It's been a month of lots of emotions!


Our agency is getting ready to launch a website that can be used by friends and family to donate to our fees that will go directly to the agency in our name. This would be another way for people to help with our adoption and know that it is going to the agency. Once the website is up and running I will post a link.

We are still working like crazy to get things ready for our adoption garage sale. I've been selling stuff on facebook that will make a little more money. I try to price and sort items as they come in. We have so much stuff that neither of us can park in the garage. This is a good thing! :-) So far we've made $465.00 from selling items donated for the garage sell on fb. We are so grateful to everyone that has donated items so far.

Last year we did a canvas painting party and raised over $300. I've had several people ask me about doing another one so I contacted the lady and she agreed to do another fundraiser for us. The event will be held on Saturday June 13th at 6 o'clock. The cost is $40 with 50% going towards our adoption. Money is due a week before the event. If you are interested in joining us or have any questions please let me know.

We still have our puzzle fundraiser going on. We have sold 770 pieces! Only 230 pieces left!! That's not many!! Pieces are $10 each if you would like to buy one. We will write your name on the back of the piece. Once all pieces have been purchased we will get the puzzle framed in double sided glass and hang in the nursery. I can't wait!! :-)

Week 65- 2 pieces sold!
Week 66- 0 pieces sold
Week 67- 5 pieces sold!
Week 68- 4 pieces sold!
Week 69- 2 pieces sold!
Week 70- 20 pieces sold!
Week 71-2 pieces sold!
Week 72- 5 pieces sold!

Week 64 vs Week 72!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers! Thank you so much for all who have been a part of this journey with us. I will continue to keep you updated!!

Waiting...

Probably one of the hardest parts about adoption is the waiting game. Waiting for someone to look at your profile, waiting to be match, waiting to hear from your agency.... I'm not a very patient person and like to know every detail and plan- that doesn't work out so well for me ;-)

As most of you know from previous posts, our adoption agency does not normally tell us if someone has looked at our profile unless there is something to consider about the birth mother. A couple weeks before spring break I had contacted our agency to let them know I had sent the papers for Gracie to be included in our profile. We talked for a few minutes on the phone. She let me know that our agency had recently merged with another agency who had offices in different states. This would allow our profile to be shown to more families. We talked about how we are close to our one year with the agency (August). After the one year if we have not been matched we will have to pay a "small" renewal fee. She mentioned that she had recently come into contact with a mother who was looking for a single family and a closed adoption. She said would plan to show her our profile because her requests met our profile. She said normally she would not tell us but since she did we would hear something in a couple weeks of the mothers decision..... a few weeks later and we haven't heard anything. This could mean the birth mother chose a different family or maybe she is still considering her options. Either way, we are still waiting.

In the mean time we are still working on our puzzle fundraiser and gathering items/pricing them for our adoption garage sale this coming June. We have sold a total of 730 puzzle pieces in 64 weeks! We are thrilled we continue to sell pieces.

Week 60- 2 pieces
Week 61- 4 pieces
Week 62- 5 pieces
Week 63- 5 pieces
Week 64- 4 pieces

Only 270 pieces left! If you're interested in helping with our puzzle fundraiser you can read more about it here, Puzzle fundraiser. You can also donated on our gofundme account just click the link, gofundme


We are still accepting items for our garage sale. So far we have had donations from 12 people! We still needs lots more items! If you or anyone you know is interested in donating items for our garage sale please let us know and we can come pick them up. Our adoption garage sale will be the first weekend in June.


Although I hate the waiting game on getting news of a baby I know that all things are possible with faith. I know that in his time we will get the most perfect baby for us. It may not happen today or tomorrow but I know he has a perfect plan and is allowing us more time to prepare for the arrival of our precious gift from above. We would really appreciate it if you would continue to pray with us. Thank you so much!!