Harder Family

Harder Family

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Family Traditions

Psalm 17:8 "Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings."

When we started having kids, we wanted to make sure that we made fun memories with them. As a child, some of my favorite memories revolved around family traditions and camping trips. We enjoy spending time with our kids and we have discovered that having these family traditions means a lot to the kids. One of our favorite family traditions is to go apple picking each year. Years ago we found a great place in Michigan called Tree-Mendus. The girls love this orchard! Last year we went somewhere else that is closer, and they weren't happy. They begged us to take them to the original orchard that we've always gone each year. The only downside about family traditions is sometimes you can't change things and you have to keep things exactly the same...year after year. So, this year we decided to drive the extra hour north to our kid's favorite orchard. One of the reasons they love this orchard is because they always have a horse or pony available for the kids to ride. The girls, especially Sophia, love to ride horses! They also enjoy riding on the tractor out to the orchard. The girls were disappointed this year because we didn't take the tractor. We still had a blast picking apples, riding the horse, and eating caramel apples! After I uploaded the pictures, I realized that I never got a close shot of Naomi. She was off on her own picking apples and I missed getting a picture of her.






























Update on adoption: Our dossier went to China 10/7 and arrived and was logged in 10/10. Now we wait 1-3 months (I think the average right now is about 40 days) to have our dossier translated, approved, and an approval sent to us. Once we receive that approval, we can let the boys know that we are pursuing them!! Based on averages, we are about 4-6 months from traveling to China to get our boys.

While we are waiting, we are doing a few more fundraisers to raise the last funds needed for the adoption. 

1) We are selling sheets ($35 for one or $65 for two plus $10 shipping, if you aren't local - see picture below); 

2) We are selling homemade chocolate fudge ($15/lb and $6.80 for shipping - priority flat rate box); 

3) For local friends, we are selling pans of homemade cinnamon rolls ($25 for a large pan or $14 for a small pan);

4) We have a few custom towels available to sell. A friend donated them to us to sell. They are $20 each plus shipping (see picture below). We have the following still available: monkey, Snoopy, Woodstock, My little Pony, Fear from Inside Out, and Wyldstyle from Lego Movie. 

5) I-Pad Custom Covers for Ipad 2,3,4: $40 (includes shipping). The cases come in two colors: pink and grey. You pick the color of the case, the state you are from, the country you are adopting from, red hearts or pink hearts. If you are adopting more then one child, we can also color more hearts in the country. You can also select whether you want "we are connected" (1st example) or just "connected" (see 2nd example).

For example: we are adopting two boys from China, so we have 2 hearts in China and we are from IL. $40 includes shipping. All proceeds will go to help us bring our two boys home from China!! If you are interested, please PM me.




Thank you for continuing to pray for our family as we take this step of faith. We appreciate all of your love, support, and prayers!!









2 comments:

  1. Do you have a GoFundMe page for adoption expenses?

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    1. We don't have a GoFundMe, we have a Pure Charity fund. https://www.purecharity.com/harder-family-adoption-2?aff=9reom&utm_source=9reom&utm_medium=widget&utm_campaign=harder-family-adoption-2

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