Order Your T-shirts Now!

In order to make the T-shirt fundraiser manageable, we plan to print and ship T-shirts every three weeks. We don't carry any extra inventory. We make each one by hand when it is ordered, and we just can't do it every single week....

If you would like your T-shirts to be included in our next shipment, please place your order by MONDAY NIGHT 10/19 at 10 pm. They will ship by the following Monday 10/26.

After that our next ship date will be Monday 11/16.

Thank you!

P.S. We've now sold $550 in T-shirts for the Dixon family. Woo hoo!

New Long-Sleeved Options

We have sold $380 worth of T-shirts in the last two days to benefit the Dixon family! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I feel even more excited to check the Paypal account now than I did when it was just to benefit our own family's adoption fund. This is so fun!

In case you have not yet had a chance to view our new and improved website, I thought I would give you a peek at our brand new long-sleeved apparel - perfect for fall and for CHRISTMAS GIFTS!



This is my handsome hubby modeling the new adult's long-sleeved T-shirt. These are Hanes Beefy T's, and they run just a bit large. They are a nice khaki/green color that blends well with the other brown and tan shirts.



And this is my precious girl showing off the white kid's long-sleeved tee. The sizes on these run pretty average. She is wearing a 2T in the photo. They're available in toddler sizes up to kid's medium.



I am most excited about this one - I LOVE wearing hoodies during the cold weather months. The light blue color matches the kid's short-sleeved T-shirt. So if you want matching "Go. Seek. Love." shirts for your whole family, then just put a white long-sleeved shirt under your child's blue shirt, and you can match in your hoodie. How cute would that be?

By the way, the hoodies run pretty big. I am wearing a small in the photo, and it fits generously. (I am usually a medium kind of girl.) If you are a truly small person, we can order a child's size sweatshirt for you. Just email us at family@duboisadoption.com, and we will work it out.

What do you think of the new cool weather items?

Go. Seek. Love.: The Next Chapter

I mentioned in a recent post that I would soon have an exciting announcement about our “Go. Seek. Love.” T-shirts. We have been so blessed through selling them. Recently our sales have picked up tremendously thanks to a few blogger friends who have helped to spread the word. We have shipped out shirts to 24 different states!

We’ve gotten positive feedback on our shirts, and we are reluctant to let a good thing die. We worked hard to prepare the website, to create the design, to build the infrastructure to run our own little business…. People like the shirts, and they are spreading a great message.

We have now raised all the money that we need for our adoption (Praise God!), and so we no longer need to sell them to add to our own adoption fund. But there are plenty of other adoptive families out there who could use a boost.

And so..... We would like to introduce you to the Dixon family.

Effective immediately, 100% of the proceeds from “Go. Seek. Love.” T-shirt and note card sales will benefit this wonderful family’s adoption of a baby girl from Ethiopia.



Duane and Jenny Dixon



Micah (4), Sophia (2), and Noah (9)

We are so excited to get to do this. It really is more fun to give than to receive. During our fundraising we found it hard to be humble enough to let other people give to us. But we learned that if you deny others to opportunity to give, you are denying them to blessing of giving, and of being part of bringing home your child and having their heart engaged with Africa, Ethiopia, and the needs that exist there. But now it's our turn! We get to be on the fun side of giving!

So check out our new and updated website: www.goseeklove.com And buy a T-shirt while you are there! You can read more about the Dixon family's adoption story on the website and on their adoption blog.

Also, please help us to spread the word by adding a blog badge to your blog or website. Just copy and paste the html below. Thank you!



<a href="http://www.goseeklove.com"><img src="http://www.goseeklove.com/images/goseeklovebadge.jpg"/></a>

Adoption Article

Check out this article in yesterday's Tennessean. What an encouragement!

Why I Love Publix

During the past several months while we have been fundraising, I have learned to take bargain shopping to a whole new level. I have discovered amazing websites like Southern Savers and Money Saving Mom that have helped me to find lots of free stuff at drug stores and incredible deals at my favorite grocery store – Publix.

I don’t want to bore you, but I just have to brag because I can’t contain my excitement. I had my best grocery shopping trip ever yesterday. I spent $16.48 and SAVED $47.33. That means that my total without coupons and sales would have been $63.81. Instead I paid less than 17 bucks!



I know, I know. I shouldn't have gotten the cookie dough and sugary cereal.... But it was practically free! You can see why I love to shop at Publix.

Fun Saturday

Here is a peek into the fun that we had this weekend. Saturday was absolutely beautiful. Sunny skies and crisp fall air. Perfect.

We started out the morning at a fundraiser for our local small-town library. They had a waffle breakfast and a book sale. Then we walked to the park about a half mile away and went to a craft fair that was going on. Small town fun!



Madeline had her first experience in a blow-up bouncy thing. We were there early, so she was the only one in there. Fun!



After walking through the craft fair exhibits, we strolled down to the pond to feed the ducks.



We went home for lunch and nap time. Then in the afternoon struck out to the Celebration of Cultures at Centennial Park in downtown Nashville. There were exhibits displaying a taste of the culture from countries around the world and lots of ethnic food and crafts. Entrance into the Parthenon was free for the day, but we got there right after it had closed.



I think the skies are more beautiful during the month of October than any other time of year. So blue and clear.



Can you tell who takes all the pictures around here? It seems like I'm never in a photo anymore... Oh well.

I hope your weekend was as fun-filled as ours!

Fundraising Details

It still hasn’t fully sunk in that we are done. That in 7 ½ months, God brought over $27,000 to our door. Wow.

I have been debating in my mind about how detailed to be in the information I share about money. For some reason we have the idea in our culture that financial information is supposed to be private. It is considered “tacky” to discuss one’s personal finances.

But I desire that my blog and our website to be as helpful and encouraging as possible to families who are considering adoption or are in the process of adopting. I don’t see any reason to keep these facts secret. I hope that by seeing how we raised our money, others will see how God has provided for us and be reminded that he can do the same for them.

I lean a bit toward being a nerd. OK, maybe a lot. I am an accountant by profession, and so, naturally, I have a QuickBooks file set up for our personal family finances as well as a separate one for our T-shirt sales and fundraising efforts. :) Consequently, I can provide precise data regarding where our $27k came from.

So here you go:

$6,050 Donations
$2,040 T-shirt sales (after deducting our costs)
$2,890 Yard sales (after deducting our costs)
$500 Gold party (friends sold their gold to a broker and I got a cut of the profits)
$900 Selling personal items on the internet
$500 Picking up trash at a community picnic (yes, we really earned $500 for one day’s work doing this!)
$2,130 Tax refund (thanks to the addition of Madeline - this was totally unexpected!)
$2,280 Insurance “profits” from our break-in in May (a great example of how God can use for good things that others intend for evil!)
$470 Unexpected reimbursement for a medical bill
$160 Change that I gathered from around the house, rolled, and deposited $4,360 Extra work that Sarah picked up
$1,360 Extra work that Daniel picked up
$4,050 Money that we saved from our regular budget by cutting everything that we could

I hope that this info will be helpful to someone out there. To those of you still fundraising: Keep up the good work! IT WILL HAPPEN. Keep praying and trusting God and working your tail off. I know that it is exhausting. But remember that it will be entirely worth it. God bless you!