Woo hoo! The puzzle is looking good!

Thanks to two more donations on Friday we were able to add 24 more pieces to the puzzle! It really is fun. I haven't put together a whole puzzle since the kids were smaller - and a 25 piece puzzle is a lot easier than one that is 550 pieces :) I think our new daughter will enjoy looking at the pictures of the progression of this puzzle when she is older!

Thank you for the donations - from our wonderful piano teacher and from one of my cousins, which sent the kids scrambling to add the pieces. I'm not sure we like the face on the second picture - just doesn't look happy, like it was having a bad hair day :)

In His name,

The Burgess family

The kind of sisters our new daughter will have

And then there were 14!

What a great day! The children woke up this morning to find that a kind old friend of mine had donated some money late the night before - and how excited the kids were to put together some of the pieces of the puzzle! Their fingers had been just itching to do it since we got it in the mail. The kids even offered to take the puzzle apart once they had it all put together :)

Carissa is the one responsible for putting the heart shape around the pieces in the picture - and Tyler is the one that originally suggested using 6 sets of chopsticks in the very first puzzle picture - he said it was because soon there will be six of us. I thought that was so sweet.

We decided to include chopsticks in each picture that we take of the puzzle. We'll see how creative we can get - it could prove to be challenging!

My folks added in a donation for some of our family members who have passed away. I know all of them would have enjoyed our future daughter, and I thought it was a very kind gesture to make. We will definitely make sure their names are on the back of the puzzle pieces and tell our new daughter all about them.

In His name,

The Burgess Family

The Puzzle Fundraiser Has Begun!

Thank you for following along with us during our puzzle fundraiser! We just received the puzzles in the mail a little while ago and are so excited to get started online!

How does it work?
You can make a donation for the adoption through our chipin button on the left - it uses paypal - or you can mail a donation (our address is below). Any amount is greatly appreciated. We decided to make each puzzle piece "worth" $5.00. When both puzzles are complete we will have raised $5,500 towards the expenses. As donations come in, we will write the individual's or family's name on the back of the puzzle piece(s), take a picture, and put it on our blog. When a puzzle is done, we will hang it in our future daughter's room and tell her of the wonderful support we had in helping to bring her into our family.

Thank you!

Kevin and Karen
Carissa, Tyler and Laurel Burgess

P.S. We received an email today letting us know that we have been added to our agency's list for a waiting child! This means that at any time we can receive information on a little girl from our agency who could be our new daughter!

Puzzle Fundraiser coming soon!

Our next fundraiser is coming soon! We are just waiting for it to arrive in the mail. I'm pretty excited about it, which is why I'm posting now instead of later...

We have ordered two puzzles - one that has 500 pieces and one that has 550. I really like both puzzles, so I'm not sure which one we will start with - maybe we will let the children vote. The purpose of this fundraiser is to raise money by "selling" the puzzle pieces. Each piece of the puzzle will be worth $5.00. When someone "purchases" a piece of the puzzle we will write their name on the back of the puzzle piece and connect the pieces together. As pieces of the puzzle are connected, we will update the blog with pictures so that everyone can see the puzzle being put together. When the puzzle is complete, we are going to glue it together and hang it in the girl's room for their new sister. When she is older, she will be able to take the puzzle down and look at the back. She will see how important she is to the many, many people who helped bring her home.

Rather not donate over the internet?

If anyone would like to donate towards the adoption, but would rather not do it over the internet, you can send your donation to:

Kevin or Karen Burgess
P.O. Box 456
Plainfield, IN 46168.

We will be sure to send you a thank you letter letting you know that we received it.

Would you like to donate towards the adoption and write it off on your taxes?

When our home study is complete we will be able to apply to a not-for-profit program where any money donated towards our adoption will be tax deductible for the person who donated. We will let everyone know about it as soon as it is set up.

Thank you to everyone for helping us bring a new daughter into our family and especially for helping a little girl find a family to call her own.


Sincerely,

The Burgess Family

Who's timing is perfect?

God is amazing, isn't He? Two weekends ago when we went to Michigan for our annual Minthorn family camping reunion, I kept saying to Kevin that we were going to get an offer on a house that he had listed. I was sure we would get an offer over the weekend - I told Kevin that many times! Well, the weekend ended and we didn't get an offer... but, on Monday we went to our doctors to get our medical paperwork completed. Kevin had to get bloodwork done (mine was still good from a previous appointment), and three of us had to get tested for TB (me, Kevin and Tyler - the girls had been tested before). In the middle of the appointment, Kevin received an offer on the house! So who's timing is perfect? Gods! By allowing the offer to come through while we were at the appointment for our adoption, He was reaffirming to us that we were in His will by adopting a little girl from China.

One of our next steps is to get all of the documents that we had to get notorized, certified. Because we were born in Michigan, we have to send the documents that originated from there to the "Office of the Great Seal" in Lansing. It may take two weeks for us to get them back. All of our other documents can be certified here in Indiana - in Indianapolis. Tomorrow we will get the Michigan ones sent out and try to get to downtown Indy to get the rest certified.

We are hoping that our social worker will be able to get our home study finished this week so we can get it to our adoption agency for review. Then, hopefully, we will be finished with any and all revisions by the end of next week.

Until next time,

The Burgess family