Monday, September 24, 2012

The Price Tag Game

Before we let you in on our favorite little game, I want to show you something.

This is what is looks like in Friday afternoon in downtown Fort Worth.

What we thought would be a 10 minute drive, turned out to be almost half an hour.  John snapped the picture while I was sweating bullets we would miss our FBI fingerprinting appointments.  Oh well, we made it in time and all is good. Just another day in adoption....

Price Tag Game:  Our dear friends Ally, Mary Morgan, Kimberly, and Andrew have all participated in this game, and let's just say it's more fun with company.  Every once in a while I will go into a favorite store, say Target or Children's Place, and pick a price.  For this example our price was $3.  Then, I go through the baby/toddler section, followed by the boys and girls department, and usually ending in the shoe corner.  Anything that is $3 or less makes it into our cart.  (Okay, not anything.  I do not like skull and crossbones attire, so those items are not purchased.  And, if there are 20 t-shirts of the same design I usually just purchase 2, or one of each size.)  Here is a picture of our Price Tag Game finds from August.


I think the glitter blue flip flops are the best.  Needless to say, our "One Day Nursery" has a closet full of clothes, shoes, and diapers.  What do we do with them?  Well, we would like to send these to Hannah's Hope Orphanage in Ethiopia.  However, we all know the courts are moving slowly right now, so the family trips to Ethiopia aren't happening frequently enough to donate our stash.  So far we have made several donations to our local Gabriel Project.  One of the case managers from All God's Children suggested donating to a local foster care group.  We thought that was a great idea, and if you have any recommendations for the DFW area please let me know.

The best news of all happened last week when I was shopping at Children's Place.  (Not the outlet, just good ole CP.)  My purpose was not the price tag game, but our delightful almost-five-year-old niece.  The manager noticed I had a bag full of PJ's and shoes marked down to $1.99.  She asked if I was donating to a local charity and I explained my purpose. She told me they need a place to donate their $0.99 markdowns.  Something about random sizes and the time it takes to mark each item down.  Long story short, next time they do these markdowns she is going to call me so I can purchase them. (You know I'll bring my coupons to discount them even more!)  Then, I can store them for Gabriel Project or foster care, etc.  Isn't it amazing?

I know, to some this may make me pathetic.  Trust me, sometimes I feel crazy for shopping for the child/children we don't know yet.  However, since we are in the waiting stage of adoption, I tend to get a little stir crazy and want to do SOMETHING.

Lastly, here's a picture we took yesterday with Melissa, an Ethiopia case manager from AGCI.  We were so lucky to be a part of an informational session at a church not even two minutes from our house.  All God's Children is based in Portland, so we were really excited to have the opportunity to meet some of the people who play such an important role in our adoption process.

(I know it's tiny, but my shirt says "Expecting from Ethiopia." Love Cafe Press T-shirts.)

Please continue to keep our family and our child/children in your thoughts and prayers.  Oh, and let us know if you have a happy home for our price tag game finds!

Nicole and John

2 comments:

  1. I have a friend who works with foster children and is a case worker...I will ask her :o) and get back to you.

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  2. Rosewood did a volunteer day at Community Partners of Dallas a few years ago and I got to work in this Rainbow Room - they let case workers come "shop" for free to give new clothes, shoes, etc. to children they are working with. Here's the link! http://www.cpdtx.org/default.asp?contentID=21

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