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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Our phone rang....

on November 21 with some very excellent news!!
You didn't think I could just reveal our last picture without a contest, did you? Leave us a comment as to whether you think our sweet, new addition is a boy or girl. We'll draw a name Friday morning from the winning guessers to win a new, not-sold-in-our-store yet "got love? adopt." t-shirt.

(If you already know the answer and want to be included...leave me a comment telling us to include your name.)

"Give praise to the LORD, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what He has done."
1 Chronicles 16:8

(The Nov. winner with the correct date guess was Brooke A.)

Friday, November 25, 2011

Small Business Saturday


Did you know that tomorrow is
"Small Business Saturday"?

Did you know that Minus 1 Project (-1) is a small business store?

Tomorrow is the last day to get your FREE t-shirt with $50 and more orders.
Leave your design choice ((-1) or got love? adopt.) and size choice in the comment section and we'll include it with your order.

A sincere thank you for choosing to invest in our small business but more importantly in the life of a little one an ocean away.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Tonight's menu.....

pretzel sticks, popcorn, jelly beans and toast.
It is our Thanksgiving Eve tradition to eat the above while watching
Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving.

Try it tonight...your kids will love it and your husband, well, he'll probably sneak upstairs to eat some leftover meat and potatoes! :)

But it makes for a very fun family time.

Be thankful.
Enjoy your family.
Happy Thanksgiving Eve.

Monday, November 21, 2011

WE'VE GOT OUR SALE ON. Shop with us: FREE t-shirt deal this week

I have been reminded by blogs, commercials, emails, and facebook walls that Christmas in right around the shopping corner.
Every store is pulling out its deal busters to get your business...including ours.

Let the sale begin.

Every order $50 or more placed on our store
starting today through Nov. 26 will receive a FREE t-shirt.

I know there is a shopping code for check out on the yahoo store BUT I'm not quite savvy enough for that and I have a sick kiddo so...

Place your $50 or more order and in the comment section leave me your size and design choice between (-1) and "got love? adopt."

We will include your FREE shirt in your package as a thank you for choosing to shop with us.

*Note: We will choose the color for the free "got love? adopt." tee from our in-stock colors.

Just hear those sleigh bells jingle....

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Let's clear the air...


I want to be sure that we are all clear on something. It was brought to my attention while reading an article on adoption. There was a line that read something to the affect that children do not want to be projects. Adoption shouldn't be viewed as a missions project.

Can you see where I'm going with this? Our blog title.

I want to clarify that from the beginning the "project" in our Minus 1 Project has NEVER been our child, but the means to which our family would work, sacrifice, save to bring our son/daughter/sister/brother home.

I sincerely hope that no one has come across our blog and thought otherwise.

If I had a dime for every time I heard, "We would love to adopt, if it didn't cost so much", well, let's just say, our fundraising would be complete. :) We certainly had financial concerns when starting this second adoption. I think most families do. That is when we began thinking of projects that we could do as a family to save and earn money to complete this adoption. A challenge, if you will, to show people you don't have to be rich and famous to adopt.

I started reading blogs and seeing what others were doing to fundraise. It was then that we decided to start a blog and try our hand at selling the idea of "got love? adopt.". Like every good blog, we needed a catchy title and that is when we came up with Minus 1 Project. Our blog would document all of our little projects, from an empty orange juice container for change to a neighborhood bbq, in hopes of inspiring other families to get up, get out and work some projects to make adoption a possibility for their family.

Again: the projects are what we have done to fundraise, not the little one our family's hearts are dying to see.

Over the last year and half, we have been amazed at how our project has grown. Our orange juice container still sits on our counter and collects our spare change
but we now have a inventory notebook and order log to keep up with. To say we are a bit amazed would be an understatement. We are humbled by the hundreds of people, many in the midst of their own Minus 1 Projects (adoptions), that invest in ours.

Through this post, I hope you see my family's heart for adoption. Adoption has changed us. It has changed our priorities and what we thought were our needs. This child, even though we have yet to see him/her, is the drive behind every project we do, whether big or small.

He or she--is worth it.

(And "Minus 1 Project" is a bit more catchy than Apisas Plus 1...although I'd love to have a blog title change in our very near future! :)

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Purchases with a Purpose

It is that time of year again.
Forty days until Christmas.

Most of us have gifts to buy.

I've got a bit of a challenge to hand out:
Try to make your purchases count twice. There are so, so many families out there working hard to create and sell items to raise money to complete their adoptions.
I have seen some wonderful-not sold in store-items that would delight any gift receiver.

Why give your money to Target, Belk, Walmart, etc....

Please take a few minutes to look over the links posted on


and hand out two blessings with every gift!

Monday, November 14, 2011

Last but certainly not least...

Ben's birthday!
Ben turned 11 yesterday.
He had to get to his swim meet before the sun was up so we decorated and celebrated later in the day.
He is already looking forward to his next birthday when he can sleep in.
(The big home swim meet is always this weekend in Nov. so last year he had to get up early, too.)
He was very excited to get a hiking backpack as he is looking forward to moving up to Ethan's Boy Scout Troop in March. He wants to hike with the big dogs! :) I'm excited for them to get to do that together.
Last week Ben said several times how great it would be if we got our referral on his birthday. He might be the most anxious of us all to see his sibling's face!
This boy has such a sweet and gentle heart when it comes to little ones.

And just as the saying goes: All good things must come to an end....Our birthday celebrations are over and now we are on to a week of check ups. From birthday cakes to booster shots!! I'll spare you the pictures and blog posts.

Have a great week!

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Hoodie orders




Our first HOODIE order is being placed on Monday.


Come on, make my day, order a hoodie.

You, me and a little one across the ocean will be glad you did.

Friday, November 11, 2011

A Teenager in the House!



As of yesterday, we have a teenager living in our house. I'm trying decide which birthday was harder to except: My baby turning 5 or my oldest turning 13. I think it is a toss up!

We aren't big birthday party throwers but we felt like 13 deserved a bit more attention, so we planned a surprise party for Ethan last Sunday. He returned home from swim practice to 6 of his best buddies and a 29 gallon fish tank!!

Here they are waiting for Ethan to get home. (We cracked up at how the girls were just hanging out in the midst of all these boys!)
The boys all gifted $5 toward Ethan's fish tank fund. (They wrote their name on a fish and attached their gift.) He has been asking for a big tank with cabinet for a while now. You can imagine my excitement when about 2 months ago my neighbor mentioned that her father, who lives locally, was getting rid of his. SCORE!!
He was definitely surprised!! and extremely happy, too!!

Now, to yesterday, his actual birthday: Good Morning, Teenager!

Ethan brings so much adventure to our family. He is always looking for the next outdoorsy thing to do. I have come to be very thankful that he is home for school, giving me many more hours with him than I would have if he wasn't home schooled. They really do grow up fast and I am realizing what a privilege, all be it hard sometimes, to spend so much time together. I've come to appreciate his maturing conversation skills and sense of humor!



Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Lucille is...

5

Yesterday was Lucy's fifth birthday.

I remember being so uncertain when we found out we were expecting. Our paperwork had been in China for over a year and, silly us, we thought we would be seeing our Chinese daughter's photo any day.

I was shocked and thrilled...but so afraid that it would disrupt our adoption. My heart was so in love with a little Chinese baby girl I hadn't seen yet. The miracle of adoption: I was completely devoted to my daughter a ocean away.

I wasted the next few weeks feeling guilty over not being thrilled with my pregnancy and fearful our adoption would never be complete.

As God's timing would have it, the Chinese program continued to slow down, our agency approved our desire to continue with our adoption and our sweet Lucille was born!

Eight months later, we boarded a plane to meet our second daughter.
And we have the privilege of raising our "virtual twins" born 3 months apart.


Moral of the story: God's timing, period.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Blogger's Block


The past couple of weeks I've had some blogger's block.
I'm going to attribute it to the anticipation in my heart in seeing my fifth child's face! My curiosity is on overload: boy or girl, chubby or thin, hair or hairless, age, etc... I can only equate it to the last days of pregnancy when you wake up wondering is this the day?

We are also working on updating our fingerprints and homestudy--thank you, Korean government for the delay so we could have some more fees and paperwork! :)

And since my mind is occupied with our referral...I'll ask you to join me!

For our end-of-the-month give away, I ask you to take a guess as to when our referral will arrive. (Actually the day of "the call" as we will receive the referral packet with picture the next day.)
I'll start a chart of names and guesses--the correct day guessers will go in a hat and a winner picked at the end of the month. If we don't receive our referral this month then we will just pick a name at random to win a Minus 1 Project fundraising item.

Next week begins our Birthday Craziness--3 birthdays in 5 days!
If you don't hear from me, I'll be buried in birthday decorations crashing from my birthday cake sugar high--
as if the bags of candy corn I've consumed isn't enough!!

(new necklace with or without earrings, just added to the store)
A great gift idea...the kind that gives twice!

Bring on the guesses--more importantly, bring on our referral!!
Secretly, I'd love for this game to end by Monday, lunchtime! :)



Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The Roberts Six

Thanks to the blogging world, my path has been crossed with a sweet family that work with Samaritan's Purse International Relief in Nairobi, Kenya. They brought their son home from Ethiopia this past summer and work tirelessly for the people in and near their village. I wanted to share a recent post of hers and ask that you consider a donation--of any amount.

Before reading: picture your children as they play in and outside of your home. Think of their comfort and safety that you are so blessed to be able to provide for them.

After reading: seriously consider if you could make a donation for this real need. You can find all of the Roberts' contact information on their blog, The Roberts Six.

When you donate--any amount--leave me a comment or email letting me know (I don't want to know the amount) and we will enter your name in to win a "got love? adopt" or (-1) hoodie. Let's all pitch in to help and bring a bit more freedom and peace to the children and caretakers!


We Need Help

Many of you know we work with an orphanage in Kenya. We have been trying to raise money to put a fence around the building there. The fence will cost about $3000USD, and we have about $1000USD so far. We just received an email this morning from Rosemary about the urgency of this need. They have had hyena and a leopard in the yard at night. The night guard is scared and won't come out of his building. Who wouldn't be scared of them?! A hyena actually came in the yard just the other day during the day. It scared the housemother, she couldn't go out of the home to use the bathroom, and was scared for the children coming back from school. The children are not able to go out of the home to use the outhouse either. So, they have to use a bucket inside. This is a real need. And we need help. Can you help? Please email
us if you are interested.