Working the Concession Stand

Our good friend, Coach Cotten, who coaches the middle school football team, came to us a few weeks ago with an opportunity to sell concessions at the middle school scrimmage this past Friday.  What a great opportunity!  We had a lot of candy left over from Tommy's classroom to sell so I bought some drinks and pizza's and recruited 2 additional helpers and got to work!  There wasn't as many people there as a normal game but we still did ok and I got 3 additional t-shirt orders which is always a great thing!  Thanks Coach Cotten, Miss Dawn and Miss Hobbs for all your help! :)

The middle school boys getting ready for their scrimmage

My two helpers, Miss Dawn and Miss Hobbs

We had quite a bit of stuff, even some donated drinks!





A lot of the candy we had left over - plus the chocolate that we put in the cooler

Micah ate 3 pieces of pizza!  (I didn't make him pay :)  )

Cards and Coffee at The Red Berry

 Bethany Crouch at the Red Berry Salon in town is AWESOME!  She owns a really cute salon where I get my hair cut and she generously offered to have a table in her salon to sell my homemade cards and Ethiopian coffee by the cup.  I started making cards awhile ago, before we got married actually, so I have all the stuff to make them.  I just had to dig it out and thought that might be a little something I could sell along with the coffee to raise even more money.

So far, the reaction has been great!  I should've known to make a  lot of graduation cards but I only made 4-5 and dropped them off this past Tuesday - today they were gone! 

 Unfortunately, good ole' McMinnville doesn't have a place where I can buy any scrapbook or card stock (that I know of anyways) and Hobby Lobby is closed on Sunday's when we head to Murfreesboro for church so it looks like I'll be making a trip this Saturday!

I didn't realize...

I didn’t realize how in such a short period of time, how much this adoption would change me.  I have been preparing myself for the “hurry up to wait” process that I’ve read so much about.  The agencies that have sent me information that prepares adoptive families for this.  What I didn’t expect was how defensive I would become towards a little child who I have never met.  I didn’t expect to be a ball bag of tears in church almost every Sunday because our Pastor seems to be preaching to the hardships we are facing right now.

Not everyone will agree with our decision to adopt, not everyone will see our “vision” of adding to our family.  Not everyone has felt the weight on their hearts to add to their family this way.  So as my sister in law says W.O.W.  “With or Without” you, we will do this.  We will do this because this is what God has chosen for our family.  We will do this because for every 1 person that doubts us, there are 10 that lift us up in praise.  For every 1 person who doesn’t understand why we are fundraising, there are 10 people who give freely because they believe in us.

Nothing good comes easy or quickly, so I’ve embraced the time and effort my husband and I have put into spending every Sunday after church wheeling our giant cart through Sam’s to re-stock our cabinet.  And then driving to the school and unloading our loot to organize and be ready for the next week’s sales.  I’ve embraced scouring the internet for the best deal on bracelets and other fundraising ideas.  I’ve embraced emailing all of my friends individually asking them to purchase a t-shirt or just simply spread the word about what we are doing.  I’ve (grudgingly) embraced staying up late almost every night to bake, cut and package brownies for Tommy to sell in his room.  We’ve sacrificed our time away from “quality family time” to make this sacrifice for a little one who will join our family, who we’ve never even met.  If that’s not FAITH, I’m not sure what is.

And to the people who might not understand why we are so passionate about this but still choose to support us, I want to specifically say thank you so much!  Thank you so much to all the people who have sent me cards or wrote me notes that were included in their payment for their t-shirts or other things.  I read them often when I’m having a bad day, and I’m sure they will come in handy in the future while we sit and wait.

And to the people who don’t understand and don’t support or feel entitled to a piece of the pie…I will pray that God softens your hearts and opens your eyes to what an impact they could make!

Brownie Bonanza!!

If anyone wonders what I do on the weekends (which I'm sure they don't! lol) here is proof of my exciting times.  I'm not exactly sure what I put in these brownies but the kids in Tommy's class LOVE THEM.  I've heard that some kids buy them 3-5 at a time and if they come in and there aren't any brownies, they will walk out! 

I had taken a week off from baking because I was studying for my property and casualty exam, which thankfully I passed, and boy did I hear about it.  Every day there were kids complaining about no brownies!  We had gone to the carnival in town one night to take Micah on some rides and there were 3-4 kids that yelled out "Coach Johnson, what's up with the brownies!"  I took the hint, but geesh!!

We had a busy weekend but I was able to push out 90 brownies which were wrapped and boxed up for sale for him this morning.  We will see if there are any left after today, which I'm hoping there will be.  On a good day he has sold about 60 brownies at 75 cents a piece.  Last week was a fairly slow week but we went through about 200 brownies for the week.  I have a feeling this week is going to be a lot more.

**UPDATE** he sold 86 brownies.