Author: crystalahollis

I am a passionate cook who is striving to broaden my families pallet.

a pile of paper work.

Posted on by crystalahollis

FullSizeRender

We have finished the paper work part of our adoption journey. Not to toot our own horn, but we broke the record for getting it all done in the shortest amount of time. We are pretty proud of our accomplishment, it was no small task. We are just waiting on our home study report to come in and then we will send everything to Austin to be authenticated and then it will all be sent to Colombia. It is such a relief to have all of this finished.

We have been praying for Ellie every night when we put Easton to bed. He now asks about “Sissy Ellie” everyday and talks about her before bed. I really believe he will be a wonderful big brother. He has such a sweet and tender heart and loves to share when his friends come over.

We are working on making our photo book to send to Colombia and the photo collage for Ellie’s bedroom, please send us a family picture for us to put into our book! If you bought an Ellie shirt, send us a picture of you wearing it. If you did not get one, order one here and when you get it, send me a picture of you wearing it.We are sooooooo close to reaching our fundraising goal, so please consider buying a shirt to help us!

This week please be in prayer for Ellie. We have been praying for protection for Ellie. This week I have really felt a burden on my heart for her safety. It is strange to love someone you have never met, have a child who isn’t growing in your tummy or in your arms and to wonder who is taking care of your baby. We already feel protective over her and like she is already ours. So, please be in prayer for her.

Thank you for joining us on this awesome journey!

Advertisement

A Big Week

Posted on by crystalahollis

This week was probably the biggest week we have had since we started this adoption journey.

Wednesday we had our first home study visit. I was nervous and wanting my house to look perfect. I baked fresh cookies Wednesday morning so the house smelled warm and inviting. Our social worker was super sweet and we really enjoyed having her over. She walked through our house and everything checked out A-ok! She came back on Friday to do a parent training course and go over some requirements that Colombia has. It was extremely informative and inspiring.

12963680_10156812266950704_1806574058993090264_n

Saturday morning was our garage sale fundraiser! People have been donating items to us for the past month and we were abundantly blessed! Some friends of mine also helped me bake some cookies for the bake sale we were having too. It was amazing! Easton loved it, he ran around and interacted with all the people who came over. At the end of the sale we had made almost $1400.00 and we have a couple of things people are coming to buy this week. Everything (which was very little) that didn’t sell was donated to Helping Hands.

13043364_10156812266900704_5667988484271090808_n

We got to meet a couple of other families who have adopted children. They had been right where we are and were such a source of encouragement to us. We got to meet their kids and see their happy families. One family had two beautiful little girls and they bought a couple of toys from us. About an hour after they left the dad and one little girl came back on their golf cart. The little girl had opened her toy and found $2 in there. She came back to donate it to us. It was precious and really blessed us.

When we first started this journey the financial part of the adoption was daunting and imitating, but God has opened doors and we have been very blessed. We have a goal of not going into debt for this adoption, so we have been doing different fundraisers. Each one we have done has been super successful too, thanks to y’all!!!!

Thank you all for all of your support, help, prayers, encouragement and excitement for us. We love you and appreciate you all so much.

 

a little dress

Posted on by crystalahollis

IMG_7259.JPG

I bought Ellie her first little dress to go in her closet. I remember the very first outfit I bought Easton, and it was always one of my favorites. I can close my eyes and see her wearing it, her hair in a braid with a little bow. Oh my! Having a little girl is going to be amazing! I am so excited for all the girly things we will get to do together. Oh boy!

Tomorrow morning, Cody and I are going to Austin for a psych evaluation that is required for our dossier (the huge file of info that goes to Colombia that shows we want to and are qualified to adopt). It was extremely difficult to find a doctor to do the testing that Colombia requires. We called 7 different doctors in the area and none of them could/would do the testing. I was getting overwhelmed and stressed out over it. Thankfully I was introduced to another mom who adopted her son from Colombia and she told me about the doctor they went to in Austin for their evaluation. I quickly called them, only to be told he wasn’t accepting new patients. I pleaded with the receptionist to talk to the doctor and let him know our situation. She said she would call me back after she talked to the doctor. Thankfully he agreed to see us, but we had to come this weekend and he would do the testing all day on Saturday. I am excited to be able to cross this off our to do list! After this, we only have our two home study visits and then we are finished with everything we have to do for our dossier! Woo Hoo! We are getting so close!

Our garage sale donations have been awesome! We have so much stuff! We have been so very blessed by friends, family and complete strangers. So many little details have come together to make this adoption possible, it is so obvious that God has his hand on this. For example, the day we joined our church, Lake Pointe, we met a lady who knew a woman  who had adopted her son from Colombia and she gave her my email address. She is the one who told me about the doctor in Austin, who knows how long it would have taken for me to find him. Another blessing was a very nice lady donated a coffee table and some blinds for the garage sale, she is from Colombia and offered to help us in anyway she could. It is truly incredible.

Our T-shirt fundraiser is going great, if you haven’t ordered a shirt yet, click here to do that now. I want pictures of everyone in their shirts to put in Ellie’s Life book. Also, I am going to make a picture collage for her room with everyone’s picture in their shirt. I want her to be able to see how many people helped bring her home.

Thank you all for your prayers, support, encouragement, love and excitement for us in this awesome time. We love each of you and appreciate you!

One Step Closer

Posted on by crystalahollis

IMG_6894

Today has been a wonderful day. We finally became members of our awesome church Lake Pointe after attending together for almost 4 years. This afternoon Easton got to go on his first Easter Egg hunt with all the kids in the neighborhood. While I was watching him gather eggs, my heart got excited that it is a real possibility that next year we could have two little kiddos hunting eggs. We cannot wait to have our family completed!

Tonight we finished signing and sorting all of our papers for our home study. We are one step closer to having our baby girl home! On our weekly call with the adoption agency on Friday, we found out we have broken the record for getting all our homework finished and our online training courses completed. Woo Hoo! Go us!

If you haven’t checked out our t-shirt fundraiser click here and order a cute shirt. We want to get pictures of all our friends and family in the shirts to add to Ellie’s life book and into the book we send to Colombia to introduce ourselves.

Thanks for all of your support and encouragement on this journey!

 

Learning to Breath…

Posted on by crystalahollis

Before we started this journey I had been told that the dossier process was stressful, overwhelming and a ton of paper work….I had no idea it would be this crazy. I feel like I have gone a million miles an hour every day for the past two weeks. This week (since Monday) we completed 10 hours of training courses with tests, got our FBI fingerprinting done, filled out countless papers, took pictures of the exterior of our home and sent and received 100s of emails.

This is a much different journey than being pregnant was. When we were expecting Easton, we got ultrasounds, check ups, my belly grew and we felt him moving around. I am trying to make this journey as special, although different than the first one. When I get stressed out I try to close my eyes and picture the moment when I see my baby girl for the first time, when I get to hold her in my arms for the first time. In that moment all this stress will fade away, much like those sleepless nights did with Easton.

On a more exciting note, today we launched our T-Shirt fundraiser! We receive a portion of each of the shirts sold. It will run for 21 days, so if you like t-shirts buy one from us! Click here to check them out. We will be having more fundraisers and if you want to help out with them it would be fun to have a cute shirt to wear!

Thank you each so much for being along with us on this journey to bring our Ellie home.

400x400_131967-1

 

180 pages

Posted on by crystalahollis

12042705_10156594392740704_361384586575551380_n

We filled out, signed, notarized, prayed over 180 documents that are the first step in bringing Ellie home. Along with those documents our first large check had to be sent in. Oh and Easton threw up on the floor in the post office while I was addressing the envelope, never a dull moment with kiddos.

I really can’t believe that this is really happening now. Adoption has been on my heart for years and I feel so very blessed that God has opened the doors for this journey to begin.

We are having a garage sale next month and all the proceeds will be going towards the adoption. If you have anything you want to donate, please let me know. Also, if you are lucky enough to not have any spare junk in your house and you would rather make a tax deductible donation to our agency, here is a link where you can do that.

Thank you all so much for supporting us, praying for us, praying for our sweet Ellie, and for being cheerleaders for us as we go on this journey.

 

 

Giving a Name

Posted on by crystalahollis

 

When I first found out I was pregnant with Easton, I couldn’t wait to start thinking up names for him. Now that our sweet daughter is growing in our hearts, we wanted to give her a name.

We decided to give her the name Eleanor “Ellie” James Hollis. Eleanor means Bright and Shining one and James is in honor of Cody’s Great Grandfather who was an amazing WWII veteran and a man who loved his family and his community. I had the honor of meeting him a couple of weeks before our wedding and he asked Cody and me to start working on his 5th generation as soon as we were married. I wish so badly he had gotten to meet our kiddos.

It is great to have a name to think of and pray for. Please join us in praying for our sweet Ellie.