The Aforementioned Announcement.

Howdy!
I am *just a little* giddy writing about this today.

mmmk. Did you remember that I have an etsy shop??:). I don't talk too much about that on here lately....mainly because this year has been full of little lives, and new life, and not-so-little moves across the country. However, I do still have my shop and I've been pleased to keep it stocked and to fill orders every now and then this year for typography prints as well as invites, custom work, etc. It's such a fun project for me!

Did you also remember that last year I filled my shop with Christmas cards and sought to use these designs to provide affordable, cute cards while simultaneously assisting adoptive families in fund-raising??
WELL, I'm excited to announce that I'm going to be continuing these efforts again this holiday season and expanding to design for Life Made Lovely Designs! I know you probably are not thinking about Christmas yet (I don't blame you), but you still have to go and check out the Life Made Lovely shop (which has been totally re-vamped as of today!) and meet Heather. There are lots of great products there!This year, 70% of the proceeds from Consider Lilies holiday card sales will benefit adoptive families, so keep this idea in the back of your mind for when you take that awesome Christmas photo that you decide to send to everyone you've ever met.

One last thing....if you are adopting or know someone who is adopting that may want to benefit from this, please contact me at laura.considerlilies@gmail.com.

Meet the Families!

Wow. This post was fun to put together. I hope you enjoy checking out each of these families and that your faith is BUILT in God's mighty, active hand. After putting this together, I am clearly affected by one thing: these people aren't rich, they're not noble, they don't have it all together....but they are filled with FAITH and a conviction that God loves adoption. I sure hope this little project blesses them in some way, but I'm a blessed girl just getting to ponder what they are doing! This is good stuff, faith meeting sacrifice. Orphans brought home. And all because we've been welcomed into God's family ourselves!
Beautiful. Families!


The Anderson Family!

This endearing not-so-little family is adopting a little girl from Ethiopia. I totally stole this from their hilarious blog:

mr. anderson and i always knew we would adopt one day.

but we honestly thought we'd adopt a little chinese girl...she would fit right in our little family.

never, in a million years, would i have said ethiopia.

but after watching that video...and reading those statistics...my heart really moved.

and so did mr. anderson's heart.

"how could we not adopt?" were his exact words.

so, with a 6 year old, 4 year old, 2 year old and 5 month old, we started the paperwork to add one more to our family.

even still, as i type this, it sounds crazy.

we have so many children already.

will we have enough room in our house?

we will most likely need a new car. (5 kids in car seats---duggar van, anyone?)

travel to africa, twice? i hate to fly.

financially, it seems impossible.

but, we know God will provide.

these are His kids, and we feel honored that He has chosen us to take on one more little person.

half a world away.

The Graves Family!

The Graves family are part of my church family! They are adopting a little boy from China's waiting child program, and are actually set to get a referral any day now. I respect them so much for what they are doing and how they are adding this little guy to our church family....and their own family, of course:).

Check out their honest testimonies for why they are adopting here:
Chris
Anne




The Myers Family!

One of my closest friends sent me this sweet family's info the other day, and upon reading their candid post about starting the adoption process (which they have just begun), I was in tears. (I know I'm pregnant, but my face was WET.) The Myers have two little boys and live in Missouri . Check them out here, and be sure to read that first post titled "Beginning."









The Carr Family!

Unfortunately, I don't have a pic to share, but the Carr's are part of my local church family as well! They were matched with two children (Lydia and Leo in Liberia) in October of 2008, and have been waiting for 25 months so far in this adoption process. (Shortly after their match, Liberian adoptions were closed by the Liberian government.) They have been able to support the kids enough to have them moved into a foster home and are able to provide enough support to them to allow them to eat three meals a day, attend school, buy supplies and give a stipend to the foster mom for other expenses. They are still working with the state and waiting for a way to bring these kids home. You can follow the Carr's and support their efforts here.


The Heldt Family!

These folks are in their twenties, have five kids under 6 years old, and they are in the process of adopting two more girls, each with down syndrome! I am so inspired by their love of the Savior and the high value they place on kids!
You can read a great post about their thought process in moving forward with their current adoptions here. Although I am newly "acquainted" with Brianna and her blog (via the internet), I'm so inspired by her humble example! What a beautiful family, huh?


The Brockman's

The Brockmans are another family that go to my church! (It's so fun to see these families in our church body walking through this process!) I don't have a picture to share of the Brockman's, but they are in the process of adopting their first child domestically.

To support a specific family's adoption, please note their name in your Christmas card order in the "message to seller." Worthy causes, folks!

Here's the Thing.

I've been listening to Christmas music. Only just this one favorite gem of a Christmas album, but Christmas music nevertheless. Have you heard Rosie Thomas? I really, really....really love her.

But, as you may have gathered the other day, I felt I had a good excuse to pull out the festive tunes because I've been making Christmas cards! I have had such a fun time designing these and putting this whole little project together.
The thing is....my husband and I have had growing hearts for adoption for several years now. I used to work in foster care before we had kids, and we've both loved learning more about the doctrine of God's adoption as it relates to us and what a privilege it is for us as Christians to demonstrate His love by caring for orphans.
Soooooo, since we are not currently adopting, I got really excited earlier this year when I sensed God giving me the idea to do this little project in an effort to raise some funds for those adopting around me.

The idea is to provide a quality, cute card at an affordable price and share half the proceeds among several adopting families! (I'll introduce you to them all soon, but you can cheat and find out about one family today here!) To see all the cards, go here.

I have no idea what to expect, but I'm praying this gets a few orphans a little bit closer to home....that'd be thrilling:).

And guess what? Today is Orphan Sunday....check it out here.