Project Baby Johnson Golf Tournament

Our "aunt", most of you know her as lolly, has been wanting to host a golf tournament on our behalf since the announcement of our adoption. She hosts successful golf tournaments every year for the Forney Chamber of Commerce. She is hopeful that if everything goes well, and we reach our goal with the amount of golfers, then this one event could put the financial part of our adoption behind us!

The tournament has been set for Friday June 27, 2014 at Buffalo Creek Golf Club in Rockwall, TX. It will be a four-person Florida Scramble. Registration is $100 per golfer/$400 per team. Registration includes Lunch, Green Fee, Cart, Driving Range, and Range Balls. Lunch 11:30am/Tee Time 1:00pm. There will also be raffles available for $5 each/5 for $20, Mulligans ($5 each), Buy a Drive ($20/team), and many more cash and prize giveaways. Beverage Cart will be available on the golf course. Golfers must register by June 23.

If you would like to register, or if you or your company would like to sponsor a hole please contact:

Laurie Barkham

(214) 649-1841

lauriebarkham@sbcglobal.net

We hope that you will be able to join us!!! We believe that this will give us an opportunity to meet and talk with people that have not yet heard our story. We are hoping that we get an assortment of supporters to join us, even if it's just over the love of golf. Please help us spread the word to as many golfers/supporters as possible, and help us reach our financial goal so we may spend our full focus on our long time dream of becoming first time parents!

Thank you so much for your prayers and support!!

Will Work For Baby

If you have been following us, then you know what an outrageous amount of money we have been able to raise so far. $32,600 has dwindled down to $10,225! Which includes the $3,500 left to make our next payment.

There is one thing you should know about us. We absolutely HATE asking for help with anything, especially finances. So with everything we have gone through the hardest part for us has been "asking for money". We found out that when it is for something this important, you just have to put your pride aside and ask for help.

However, in order to protect our egos we have come up with a different strategy so that we can get the rest of this money as fast as possible and get on with the good stuff like getting ourselves ready for this baby.

We are willing to pimp ourselves out and do your dirty work. We will perform any of the following tasks including but not limited to....
Babysit your kids, mow your yard, paint your house, wash your car, walk your dog, pick up your dogs poop, cook your dinner, run your errands, scare your in-laws, perform at your child's birthday party, sponge bathe your grandparents, yell at your boss, do your weekly exercise, tuck you in, sing you to sleep, pop your back, scratch your back, shave your back, or clean your house.

For a very generous donation I will shave my head, tattoo your face on my chest, or give you any one of my teeth or fingers.

If you cannot think of any jobs for us, but still want to help us reach our goal then don't you worry. I have ways to do that too.
You can still sponsor a puzzle piece(s) from our PIECES OF LOVE fundraiser. You can buy a PROJECT BABY JOHNSON tshirt that will be available soon. Or if you would like to make a tax deductible/anonymous donation directly to Gladney, you can mail it to:

Gladney Center for Adoption

6300 John Ryan Dr.

Ft. Worth, TX 76132

Just make sure to note "For Bram and Jill Johnson" in your memo line.

Thank you so much, and we look forward to working for you!

Our Successful Week

Just a quick update from last weekend's fundraisers.

We had another great turn out from the garage sale. We were able to sell almost everything, and there was A LOT. We still had quite a bit of clothes, kids toys, and home goods left. We were able to donate everything that remained to the Kaufman County Children's Shelter.

The karaoke night and silent auction was also a great turn out. Thanks to everyone that donated all of the silent auction items and came to show your support. We would also like to thank TimeOut for hosting and providing the DJ.

At the end of both days we were able to raise $3,000!!! It seems like every time we turn around, our goal is getting closer and closer.

We are only $3,400 away from being able to send out our profile book to birth moms, and only $10,225 left total.

It is nearly everyday that someone approaches us with questions about our adoption journey. You would think that we would be getting exhausted telling our story over and over again, but that's not the case for us. We love explaining in every detail how we got here (more than what anyone really wanted to know). All of you are the reason we get those questions. We never wanted everyone to share our story to get donations. We wanted to open as many people's eyes and hearts to the beauty and possibilities that is adoption. And all the intricate details of God's unfolding plan. With every step closer we get, the bigger the audience we will attract. And the bigger the audience, the louder the message. We started at what seemed like an unreachable goal, but will soon end with an innocent child in our home and all of our lives.

Karaoke Night!

Since receiving our acceptance certificate we have been non stop filling out our grant applications. We started with what seemed like an unreachable amount of $32,600 that we needed to come up with, and after a lot of pinching pennies and your charitable donations we are now only left with $13,125 to go.

With all the prayers being sent on our behalf I know we will get there before too long. Hopefully, we will be awarded a few grants that will help drop this amount significantly. But in the meantime we have a fundraiser that we have been looking forward to since we started this process.

We got the idea from a couple that did this fundraiser.  They said "It was so much fun, we can't wait until our next adoption just to have this event again".

It will be this Saturday, March 8th at Time Out Sports Cafe in Forney, TX. We will get started at about 7p.m. and keeping it going until close.

Feel free to come watch or sing with no participation required. However if you would like to join in, the rules are simple.

$5 to sign up a buddy, you pick the song
$5 for buddy to bring along a partner, or change the song
$10 for buddy to get out of the song and make you sing
$20 to completely buy out of having to sing all night

We hope to see you all there!

Garage Sale Success!!

We had tremendous success with our garage sale weekend! We had a great turn out on both days, even with the nasty weather on Saturday. Thanks to all of your help, we are $1,620 closer to our next payment!!

Thank you so much to my mom Tina, Stephanie, Laurie (Lolly), Maranda, and Adam for working your butts off all weekend for us! Also to all of you that donated, shopped, and just stopped by to show support! We were still getting people donating stuff as we were closing the doors on Saturday. Because of all of the new things donated, that we were not able to get rid of, we will be holding another sale in about a month. I will let you all know a date when we iron out the details. If you are still needing to clean out that closet, and would like to donate items to our next sale, please contact us at BRAMANDJILL@GMAIL.COM. We would be happy to come get it off your hands, and store it for our next sale!

Garage Sale!!

The profile book is underway, and we are getting ready to take our next step in our adoption journey! As soon as our book is complete Gladney will be able to start sending it out to our prospective birth mothers. Before our book goes out we must pay our next payment of 50% of our agency fees. We are just about halfway there, but in an attempt to narrow the gap we are having a HUGE garage sale!

Not only have we cleaned out all of our closets, cabinets, and drawers. But we have had multiple families donate some great things for us to sell as well. We have collected so many great things. I have had to keep a watchful eye on Jill to see that she doesn't try to keep anything! If you love shopping garage sales for great buys then you should stop by and see us. Also, if you or anyone you know have anything that you want to donate to the garage sale it would be greatly appreciated! Just send us an email at bramandjill@gmail.com and we would be happy to come pick up whatever you are looking to get rid of.

Our friends Adam and Maranda will be hosting the garage sale. They have a ton of space to set up our truckloads of stuff.

They are located off of 740 near I-20 at 11011 Glenn Cove in Forney (corner house). 
The garage sale is next Friday Jan. 31st AND Saturday Feb. 1st from 8 am to 4 pm both days. 

I also want to thank our friend Lesley for donating profits from her sales of ItWorks products last weekend. She offers a ton of weight loss and health products including wraps and supplements. See what she offers at http://lesleyjpenn.myitworks.com/ or get in touch with her HERE.

We look forward to seeing you next weekend!

Final Weekend For Shirts

If you have been contemplating getting a Love Is Waiting... tshirt or hoodie sweatshirt, now is the time!!

We need to turn in our collected order forms next week so this will be the last weekend. If you are interested in getting your Project Baby Johnson shirt, send us an email, and we will send out PayPal invoices by Monday. 

All shirts are unisex and are available in sizes Youth S-XL and Adult S-XXXL.

Thank you so much for all of your support!!!

Love Is Waiting....Adoption Shirts

We finally have our Project Baby Johnson designs for our adoption shirts! So now you will be able to support our adoption in style.

There will be three different shirt options to choose from.

The first is a sapphire blue T-shirt

Or a baseball style shirt with red sleeves.

Finally, for the upcoming colder weather, we have made available a grey hoodie sweatshirt.

Our shirts are being made through Big Jay's sign and shirts in Forney. We will turn in all collected order forms in two weeks. If you are interested in getting your own Project Baby Johnson shirt, please click the email link at the side of the page. Just let us know the style(s) and size(s) you would like, and we will fill out your order form.  If you prefer to pay online we would be happy to send you a PayPal invoice, and if you are from outside the area we will mail the order to you as soon as it's ready!

Thank you so much for all of your support!!!

One Big Day!

First of all, a HUGE thank you to everyone who came out to support us for our big fundraiser day at TimeOut Cafe this past Saturday! Everyone keeps telling us how much fun they had watching a great game, while at the same time helping us fund our adoption.

There were so many great people that worked so hard to bring in the donations for the silent auction and organizing the football pots and raffles.

Grand Total... $3,349!!

We are just so overwhelmed with the love and support that we got from everyone there. Jill should have definitely carried around a UT bucket to catch all of her tears.

We are extremely happy to announce that we have received the funding for our first agency fees along with all of our home study costs!!

There are no words to express how incredibly blessed we feel!

The Big Game

Growing up in a football state, you are raised to look forward to the biggest game of the year, Texas/OU!  Well, we have been fortunate enough to become a small part of this years big game.

In our cozy little town, there is one place that all of the sports fanatics flock to for their favorite games, TimeOut Cafe.  Lagene, owner, took it upon herself to take one of her biggest days of the year, and turn it into a great opportunity for our hopeful family. She has been a great friend and tremendous supporter of our adoption journey. She decided to host a benefit on our behalf during and after the Texas vs Oklahoma football game this year.

This Saturday, October 12, will be no different for the local diehard football fans. The game will be the main focus of all of our day, but with an added bonus! TimeOut will be offering great game day drink specials, along with raffles, a silent auction, and an amazing door prize drawing! All of the proceeds from these tremendously generous giveaways will go to Gladney to help fund our adoption.

So if you are still trying to decide on the place to go watch one of the biggest games of the year, please consider spending the day with us.  It doesn't matter if you're yelling "hook'em horns" or "boomer sooner", we promise you a great time with great friends for a great cause!

Origami Owl Custom Jewelry Fundraiser

We have another awesome opportunity for you to support our adoption while purchasing some seriously cute stuff. 

We were so fortunate to have a very sweet girl, Belinda, come across our Instagram. She has such a huge heart, and wanted to join our adoption journey. She is an independent designer for Origami Owl Custom Jewelry. She offered to donate all proceeds for the month of October to our adoption fund.

I'm sure you have heard of Origami Owl, but if not, you will love it! They have the sweetest clear lockets that you can customize with different charms, and a ton of other fun stuff! 

It is simple to check out what Origami Owl has to offer, and when you fall in love with there jewelry it will benefit Baby Johnson! Just make sure you shop through Belinda's page by visiting http://www.blujan.origamiowl.com/, clicking the link above, or just click on the banner to the side of the blog.

Belinda made it super easy to make sure your purchase goes to our adoption. When you are at checkout there will be a Jewelry Bar (JB) drop down menu. Just click on it and select Project Baby Johnson!!!

We could not be more excited about this fundraiser, and when you browse through their jewelry you will be too! We owe a huge thanks to Belinda, and please check out her facebook https://www.facebook.com/Itsaowlthing

Football Fundraising

We are doing another football pot fundraiser for Sundays cowboys vs chargers game! It is $10 per square to participate. It pays $100 forward and $25 backwards per quarter.

Good luck! We hope you get to stuff your wallet while donating to baby Johnson!  You can get your square in the PayPal pull down menu to the side, or by finding Laurie Barkham on Facebook. We will draw the numbers randomly before kickoff, and let you know what numbers to look for during the game. Thank you all so much!!!

Pieces Of Love

We are so excited to share our Pieces Of Love fundraiser. This is the first "real" fundraiser we have put on our blog, and it is a way to have all of our friends, family, and supporters leave their mark on our new nursery.

We have purchased and put together the 550 piece Ellen Stouffer Noah's Ark puzzle. This is a beautiful puzzle and will be the first thing to go up in our nursery. The idea behind Pieces Of Love is to allow everyone interested to "sponsor" a puzzle piece for $10. When you sponsor your piece, your name will go on the back of that puzzle piece. When we have all of the puzzle pieces sponsored, the puzzle will go in a double sided picture frame, and be hung on our nursery wall. You will essentially be leaving your lifelong mark on our family. We will be able to turn the frame around and see all of the love and support given to us to help fulfill our beautiful dream.

If this fundraiser is as successful as we believe it will be, we will have all of the money needed for our first agency fee and our home study. After our home study we can submit our requests for adoption grants, which we believe we will be perfect candidates for.

There are three ways to sponsor a Pieces Of Love puzzle piece. You can make a $10 donation using the PayPal donate link to the side of the page, or you can mail your donation to our P.O. Box listed on our profile. If using these two options just include what name/names you would like on your sponsored piece. The third option is to sign the piece yourself. If you are close to the Forney area and would like to sign your puzzle piece, there will be pieces available at Hair Shaft II on Broad street, or just contact Laurie (Lolly) or Tina to get your piece/pieces from them.

If you would like to increase your real estate on our nursery wall, feel free to sponsor more than one piece. Since the puzzle is already put together you are more than welcome to sign or leave a message on connected pieces.

Finally, we have to share a sweet coincidence that happened to us with this puzzle. We do not assemble puzzles very often, as a matter of fact, never. So after spending a day and a half putting this beautiful puzzle together we found ourselves missing ONE PIECE. We only had the puzzle in the living room, so naturally we tore it apart looking for that one piece. We moved rugs, furniture, tables, everything, and the piece was nowhere to be found. We ended up just ordering the exact same puzzle, so when that comes in we will have 549 extra pieces. Now could our precious Marley have mistaken this one puzzle piece as a snack....it's possible. However, I could not discount the symbolism to our current situation. Just like tearing up our entire house looking for this missing piece; we have taken every measure possible searching for the missing piece to our family. It only makes sense that on our first adoption fundraiser that we put together ourselves, that we would be one single piece short of a perfect puzzle. We don't know how long it will take, but we know we are on the right path. Soon enough our missing piece will be found, and our family will become whole.

Help Yourself While Helping Us

We have a great deal to share with everyone today. We have been set up with Coupaide, which helps with fundraising for families going through adoption. They have given us our own direct website linked to a great deal. If you are not familiar with restaurant.com, it is a website where you can browse through over 18,000 restaurants and purchase coupons to any participating restaurant across the united states. How it works is you go to our website http://coupaide.com/johnson-adoption-fund   or click the link to the side of the page. When there you will receive a $50 gift certificate to restaurant.com for only $20 and can use the gift certificate for as many of the participating restaurants as you would like. For every gift certificate sold we get $10 for our adoption fund. So its a win/win for everyone! Be sure to pass along the link above to anyone you think might be interested in a deal like this.

We have also shared our story through Go Fund Me; a fundraising website to get our story out to a broad range of supporters, and also keep track of how far we have to go in funding. Please feel free to visit or share our link through social media.

http://www.gofundme.com/3wj3mk?preview=1

Enough about fundraising. We met with our physician on Thursday for our physicals for Gladney. We had to do the full physical, but we at least got to do it together and at the same time. We had normal reflex tests, neurological tests, EKGs, chest x-rays, blood work, and yes even the turn your head and cough test where Jill just had to make the "can I take a picture of this" joke. Its ok, after you go through some infertility tests, that was breeze. We also got caught up on all of the shots needed when the baby comes home like whooping cough, etc.  We were told we were both healthy as horses and they already submitted our physicians papers to our caseworker at Gladney. So even though it was a small milestone, it was milestone none the less.

Also I would like to thank our very sweet sister-in-law for coming all the way out to us to take some pictures for our profile. They turned out great even though we only had about thirty minutes of daylight left and everyone was pouring sweat. She is a real trooper and we couldn't be more grateful. You can check out her work and even book a session, through her facebook page HERE It turned out to be a great day with just a few members of our huge family. We got to chase around two of our nieces and nephew and were able to get great pictures so we can remember everything special through this experience.

Thank you so much for stopping by. We will have more news soon!