Our Profile Book!!!

May 30th was the magical day that we entered the pool of waiting parents. We have a webpage on Lifetime Adoption's website you can check out: click here

We also have a profile book! (Check it out below!!)
There has been a lot of time and energy put into this book and we finally put our 50 copies in the mail today. This book will start getting dispersed to birth mothers and this is how they choose adoptive parents. If a birth mother likes our book/us, then she lets Lifetime know, who then lets us know there is someone interested. This doesn't mean we have been matched, but it gives us and the birth mother the chance to talk and see if it's good fit.

We have no idea how long we'll have to wait, but we'll keep everyone updated as things happen.

Fundraiser Totals

First, we want to say a huge thank you to everyone who was involved in our Garage Sale and Photo Shoot fundraiser. There is no way we could have pulled either of them off without your help, so THANK YOU! It has been a huge blessing to see so many people come together and we are so grateful for everything and everyone.

There have been a lot of people wondering how much we raised between the two fundraisers. Money is still trickling in for the garage sale because we're selling some items online, but here are the totals thus far...

Garage Sale: $5,651.64 (and counting)
Photo Shoot Fundraiser: $5,407.00
GRAND TOTAL OF $11,058.64!!!

With needing to raise about $30,000 for the adoption, we are amazed that the fundraisers brought in over 1/3 of what we need! Between the fundraisers, supporters and what we have put in personally, we are at about $23,000.

We are hoping grant money will help with some of the $7,000 we still have left to raise. Otherwise we might need to do another fundraiser. So if you have any good fundraiser ideas, please let us know.


YOU CAN NOW GIVE TOWARDS OUR ADOPTION AND GET A TAX WRITE-OFF!

We now have a profile with Adopt Together which is a non-profit that helps raise money to help couples adopt. We realize that many of you have already given and we are extremely grateful for that. For those that wish to give more or those who prefer to receive the tax benefit when giving, now's the time. Give at: https://www.adopttogether.org/veiladoption

Adoption Photos

This past Thursday, we had the privilege of working with Danica Donnelly (http://danicadonnelly.com) on our adoption photo shoot. She did an AMAZING job and we are excited to share some of the images with you!

One of the reasons we did this photo shoot is to celebrate this process we have been working on for the last 6 months. Many couples do maternity photos during a pregnancy to celebrate that process; this is our version of "maternity" photos you could say. With most of the paperwork done, we're excitedly moving forward into preparing to become parents.

Another reason for this photo shoot is to help fill our profile book with updated photos. The profile book is what gets sent to birth mothers to look through as they decide which family to place their child with. We've been told that many birth mothers make their decisions solely off of photos and we couldn't be more pleased with the skills of Danica Donnelly. Thank you SO much! Enjoy the photos everyone!

Garage sale was VERY epic!

The left-over items are packed and ready to be delivered to Salvation Army and the tents are coming down. It's no longer a FEMA site at Ryan's parent's house. The garage sale was a crazy success; lots of money was raised and there are numerous stories which will be shared over the coming days & weeks that left us feeling very blessed and loved by family & friends as well as complete strangers.

During the 3-day garage sale, $5,587.89 was raised. In addition to that, there are still several items of higher value that were kept aside to be sold later via Craigslist so that total will increase even higher.

We can't even begin to express our gratitude. The overwhelming support shown by people donating items to be sold and those giving tables/tarps/manpower to run the sale has been humbling and inspiring. The words "thank you" don't seem like enough, but seriously THANK YOU!

Here are a few pics of the madness known as Tent City

Garage Sale is SET UP!

After weeks / months of collecting items we finally started setting up for the garage sale! 6 carports, 2 tents, and about 20 tables later, we completely filled up the space and realized we only have about half of the stuff out! (And this isn't counting the garage full of furniture items).

We are really excited for the garage sale to start, when we were setting up earlier tonight, we actually had people come and buy things... the sale hasn't even started yet and we've sold items. This is crazy!

We seriously couldn't have done this without you! A HUGE thank you to everyone who helped us out today, it was extremely amazing and we feel so blessed.

Here are some pictures so far.

Hope to see you there, and please don't forget to spread the word!

THANKS
Ryan & Allie

Garage Sale: NEXT WEEK!!

The garage sale is less than a week away!

PART 1: COLLECTING
First of all, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to everyone who has helped us. We have received so many donations (see below)!! Our garage and four seasons porch is filled and we are finishing up the last minute details. If you have items you're still looking to get rid of, let us know. We are certainly still collecting items. 

PART 2: SELLING

1. Please help us spread the word! It has been really amazing to see so many people donate items, but it doesn't do much good if people don't show up to the sale. 
2. If you have tarps or tables that we can borrow, please let us know. 
3. We will be setting up this Wednesday (April 30), Garage Sale Thurs - Sat (May 1-3), and tearing down Saturday night. If you want/are available to help, let us know.

Details:
May 1-3
9am - 7pm
THE SALE IS NOT AT OUR HOUSE!!
2965 117th Ave NW
Coon Rapids, MN 55433

Rain or Shine, the sale will be happening!

Furniture, household items, books, baby items, a ping pong table, exercise equipment, AND SO MUCH MORE!

Learning about infants

A few weeks ago Allie & I had the opportunity to go visit our good friends Brent & Katie in CA. #thankyouforcreditcardswithmiles #freeflight Both Brent & Katie have been good friends of mine for 10 years or more. Brent & I stood up in each others' weddings and he was a huge part of the beginnings of Studio Veil. Now, that's reason enough to go and visit someone but there was yet another reason that stole the trip. In July, Brent & Katie were blessed with this little guy pictured below, Owen.

Allie & I had such an amazing time visiting with friends and getting to know Owen. His cry reminded us more of a sad dog who sees his treat on the counter top but can't get to it than it did of an upset child. It was so cute we had to stop ourselves from giggling to go find out what was wrong! We enjoyed several days playing peek-a-boo and snuggling with Owen. As we left to come back home, Allie & I both realized that was probably the longest single period of time we had been around an infant in our lives! Here are some things we learned....

1. no baby toys can hold a match to the simplicity of an empty gatorade bottle or remote control
2. a mother making silly noises in the back seat stops a child from crying (for a while)
3. Babys R Us is an intimidating store
4. home made baby food is easier to make than home made adult food
5. changing tables are a waste of money. Never once did Owen complain about not being changed on a table!
6. I'm not sure what's under area rugs but it's much more interesting than what's on top of them
7. sometimes babies don't poop for a day or two, and that's ok!
8. Target has great deals on diapers
9. baby swings don't just go back and forth anymore! They go side to side, diagonal, zig-zag, valley motion, and so many more
10. unrelated to babies but still something we learned, Yonannas turns frozen bananas into the consistency of ice cream but much to Katie's dismay, not the flavor of ice cream

All that is to say that we thoroughly enjoyed our time with Brent, Katie, & Owen and now more than ever we are excited to become parents. If only this adoption process didn't take so much time, energy, and money, we'd actually get to focus on preparing for a child more!

Ryan & Allie

Home Study Update

We are excited to say the home study is almost done! Our paperwork and background check were approved and we had our first meeting with the social worker on March 27th. We answered a bunch of questions about our personalities, our relationship as a couple and how we plan to parent. We have our second meeting on April 10th which will be at our house. No, we don't need to deep clean or anything, they just want to make sure we don't live in a box. After that meeting, the social worker will write up our home study and we will be good to go!

What does this mean? 
Well, first of all you have to have a current home study complete before adopting a child. So it's one more thing checked off our list. Also, having the home study allows us to apply for grants.

What's next?

1. Obviously, as I stated above, we will be starting to apply for grants. 
2. We are pushing our fundraisers that I'm sure everyone knows about by now. If you're interested in signing up for the photo fundraiser click here. We are also currently collecting (any) donations for our Mammoth Garage Sale which is May 1-3. 
3. The other thing we need to start working on is our profile. This is essentially a shutterfly book with pictures and information about us. These profiles get shown to birth mothers once we get in the pool of adoptive parents. (We'll get in the pool once our funds are in which will be mid June).

BIG Prayer Requests:

1. $30,000 is a lot of money to raise! We are really praying that we will be awarded grant money to help with the cost.
2. To piggy back off our first prayer request, we'd love prayer for our fundraisers. It would be amazing to see the photo shoot slots get filled, so if you know anyone that could benefit from professional family, kids, couples photography, please send them our way. And prayers for our garage sale, that it really does become "mammoth" and weather, details and everything else we aren't thinking of all comes together.

 We just want to thank everyone for all the prayer and support! It has been a crazy journey already and we have so far to go.

We are blessed.
Ryan & Allie

Adoption Info

Not everyone has significant exposure to the world of adoption. I think many of us have those Lifetime movies in mind where kids were adopted or switched at birth and some sort of crazy drama results. The truth is that most adoptions these days are OPEN adoptions, meaning the child knows who their birth mother is and sometimes birth father as well. Knowing their birth parents and understanding the adoption process from the beginning helps kids to not have those "who am I" feelings.

In our adoption process, we're expecting that the birth mother will want an open adoption. For us, that will likely mean that we send photos and letters from time to time and they may even come for a visit annually. Please begin praying for whoever that birth mother is. Pray that she would be at peace with her eventual decision to put her child up for adoption and for choosing us as parents for her child. Pray also that when that day comes, we would have a good relationship with her.

There's all sorts of assumptions and myths about adoption. Check out this graphic...

Photo Shoot Fundraiser sign-up is LIVE!

In case you've been under a rock for the last three months or just ignoring Allie & I, we're adopting a baby! The sad truth of the adoption process is that it's incredibly expensive. We have two fundraisers planned to help with that. One of them is this photo shoot fundraiser! It's taking place on Saturday May 10th and Sunday May 18th.

While we won't be using one of these cameras specifically, this is a great opportunity to get professional photos for a very reasonable price. We are asking a minimum donation of $60 and you get a 20 minute mini session with experienced photographers and retouched digital files print ready. This kind of session would likely go for $300 or more with many photographers. There are lots of time slots available and we'll be opening up more if we start to fill up.

Sign up for your time slot early so we know how many people we should expect.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS & SIGN UPS!

Thanks for reading. Please know that even if you aren't participating in this fundraiser directly, you can share this with friends, family, co-workers, etc as it's a great deal for anyone to take advantage of!

Ryan & Allie

The baby room....Well, kinda...

Now that our paperwork is in to the agency that will be conducting our home study, we've had a little more free time on our hands. Our excitement has started to turn to the BABY ROOM! Below is a before picture of the baby's room (currently known as the Lucy room).

As you can tell, it's not quite ready yet. Studio Veil is moving into a larger office this week. Then we can move a bunch of business related items out of the house and into the office. THEN, we'll have the space needed to turn this Lucille Ball shrine into a baby room.

While we don't know the gender of the baby, or when they are coming, or much of ANYTHING for that matter, we certainly welcome input on color schemes you've seen & liked, nursery ideas, brand names for baby items you recommend, etc. Leave comments below!

Fundraising Update

Just a really quick update on our fundraising...

Support Letters: We've had about $3,000 of donations from friends & family through the support letters we sent out in December. Thank you so much for your generosity! That will cover the expenses of the home study which we are going through right now. With our immediate financial need satisfied, we are feeling very relieved. The bulk of the expense is yet to come however...yikes! We have high hopes for our fundraisers (dates below) and grant applications but your help is certainly appreciated. If you'd still like to help us out financially, please do so through the Paypal link on our blog or by mailing a check to Ryan & Allie Veil, 2539 11th Ave, Anoka MN 55303

Grant Applications: As soon as a social worker signs off on our ability to be parents (prayers please), then we can begin applying for various grants. Some award money monthly while others semi-annually. Please pray that we will find grants that fit our adoption situation and that award decisions will be made quickly.

Mammoth Garage Sale: Our garage sale is going to be May 1st, 2nd, & 3rd and will be at Ryan's parents house: 2965 117th Ave NW, Coon Rapids. Mark the date on your calendars as we'd love to have you stop by and/or spread the word to all you know. ALSO, we are actively seeking donations of all kinds for the garage sale (baby clothing, other clothing, sporting goods, electronics, kitchen & house wares, games, toys, movies, furniture). Contact Ryan to arrange a drop off/pick up. Anything not sold at the garage sale will be donated to other good causes (vets, salvation army, etc).

Photo Shoot Fundraiser: We've received overwhelming response & interest so far for this. The dates are May 10th & 18th. We'll be putting out the sign-up website in early-mid March as it sounds like many are ready to start signing up! Remember, this is also something that your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors can join in on. Please spread the word once the sign-up is released!

Thanks again for your support and prayers. This process would be much more difficult without it

Ryan & Allie

Setback, Praise, Relief

In 3 words....Setback, Praise, Relief.

About 3 weeks ago, we started noticing a pattern with the organization we were working with for our home study. They weren't returning our phone calls or emails in a timely manner (or at all). While this organization was the lowest price we could find, the service was terrible. There's lots of paperwork and we didn't want to mess anything up that would slow down our approval but they were completely absent when we needed support. Setback.

We decided to move on and seek out another home study organization. We quickly found Adopt MN (aka Wellspring Adoption). Someone has answered the phone each time we called and emails are replied within a day or so. They have been great and even though they cost a little more, we know this was the right decision. Praise.

Now, two weeks after starting over with a new organization, we are sending in our home study paperwork packet! It's taken far too much time and sweat equity to get this stuff done but we're so excited to be done with this phase of the adoption process. Here's to hoping we pass the background checks! Relief.

Fundraiser dates announced!

Fundraiser Dates:

Garage Sale: May 1-3
    -we are opening the flood gates and accepting any and all donations you may have for the garage sale. Contact Ryan via email below to arrange a time to exchange any items you'd like to donate. Whether you have a pile of stuff to get rid of now or later as you do Spring cleaning, let us know. We'll gladly accept everything (toys, clothing, furniture, electronics, home decor, electronics, movies, games, tools)

Photo Shoot: May 10 & 18
   -we're VERY excited about this fundraiser. We've gotten TONS of interest from friends & family but remember that these photo sessions are open to everyone and your help spreading the word will be greatly appreciated. In a month or so, we'll provide a website where people can sign up for a time slot. As a reminder, these will be 20 minute mini sessions with a professional photographer for a suggested minimum donation of $60. The digital files will be emailed to the email used on the signup website. We have multiple photographers on board, 2 days of shoots, and a great location in mind so once the signup is open, there will be lots of time slots to fill and make this fundraiser a success!


Ryan - ryan.m.veil@gmail.com

Paperwork...and more paperwork!

About a week ago we started all the paperwork for our background check and home study. They want to know everything...even the dogs medical records! So it has been fun and draining to get all the necessary paperwork together but we are over half way done! Once all the paperwork is in and processed, we will meet with a social worker. So we are making good progress!

As far as the fundraisers...we are almost ready to announce the dates for the Mammoth Garage Sale and Photo Shoot Fundraiser. I think it is safe to tell you that they will be sometime in May.

Continually amazed to see God's hand in this,
Allie & Ryan

Support Letter

As part of our fundraising process and to keep everyone informed, we sent out support letters. We may not have had everyone's addresses so we're posting it here.


Dear family & friends,

On Thursday, December 12th, we (Ryan & Allie) embarked on a new adventure. We made the decision to move forward with adopting a baby boy or girl! Since before marriage, adoption was always part of our plan for our family and over the last four months our excitement around bringing a baby into our lives has grown. We researched several organizations online and decided to work with Lifetime Adoption. (lifetimeadoption.com)

The first questions we’ve been getting from people are “are you not able to have kids?” or “why adoption?” Our decision to adopt has never been influenced by our ability to have kids; in fact we discussed it prior to getting married as something we were both interested in. We have several friends, family members, and co-workers in our lives that have adopted or were adopted themselves and it’s something we feel compelled to be a part of. The idea of caring for a child who is either unwanted or unable to be cared for by their birth parents is a very real way we can live out the love we feel we’ve been called to live out in our faith walk.

With Lifetime Adoption, we are pursuing a domestic infant adoption which means we will be presented to birth mothers within the US who are currently pregnant and know they are going to put their baby up for adoption.

The two main reasons we decided on Lifetime are 1) because there is no loss of time or money if Allie were to become pregnant during the adoption process. Other organizations make you start from scratch and forfeit all monies paid. and 2) because they seem to have a very long track record of successful adoptions and service the entire US which means there is a higher chance of being matched with a birth mother quickly once we are in the waiting pool of adoptive parents.

We’re writing you hoping that as our family & friends you might be willing to support us in this journey. Prayers and encouragement are very much appreciated as this will likely be a journey filled with many emotions, praises, and setbacks. Additionally, we’re asking that you might consider supporting us financially. The total costs of this adoption will be around $30,000. While that is a very large number, know that ANY amount you might be able to give will go a long ways. In addition to asking for direct support from our friends and family, we hope to find funding through adoption grants and fundraisers.

PLEASE NOTE: There are a couple nuances to financing our adoption. In order to begin applying for adoption grants, we need to have a Home Study done. This costs about $3,000 and takes a month to complete. Our immediate goal is to raise that amount as quickly as possible and complete the home study so we can begin seeking out additional funding via grants. Also, Lifetime will not begin showing us to birth mothers until their fee is paid in full. For these reasons, we’re asking that if you plan to give financially that you would do so by January 31st. It will also help guide us in our decisions for additional fundraisers in the Spring. However, support will still be appreciated after January as well. How do I send money? If you choose to support us financially...sincerely, THANK YOU. This is a huge undertaking and we appreciate your support. To give by check, please make them payable to Ryan & Allie Veil and send to our home at 2539 11th Ave, Anoka MN 55303. You can also contribute by credit card via PayPal on our blog VeilAdoption.blogspot.com. You can enter any amount and you don’t even need a PayPal account to do it. (by clicking on Continue under the “Don’t Have A PayPal Account?” heading on the left side of the page.)

How do I keep up to date? We have set up a blog at VeilAdoption.blogspot.com. On the right hand side of the screen there’s a place to enter your email address so you will be notified every time there’s a new post. Don’t worry, it won’t be every day

FUNDRAISERS: For those of you who are local to the Minneapolis/St Paul area, please look over our upcoming fundraisers. We’ll be relying on you to help spread the word and help make them as successful as possible.

1) Mammoth Garage Sale To End All Garage Sales: Friends of ours hosted a similar garage sale to raise money for their adoption and raised $4,000! We hope to duplicate their success and we need your help. Throughout the Winter and as you begin Spring cleaning, please remember that we have this garage sale coming up. ANY and ALL items will be accepted (clothing, games, toys, furniture, electronics, tools, cookware, etc) and we can even pick up from your home. Spread the word to your friends and coworkers that if they’re looking to get rid of things around the home, here’s a great way to do so. It’s going to be epic!

2) Photo Shoot Fundraiser: Sometime this coming Spring, we’ll be hosting a photo shoot fundraiser. For a suggested minimum donation of $60 you and your family, pets, kids, etc can get a 20 minute photo shoot with one of Studio Veil’s professional photographers! We’ll also touch up the photos and then supply the digital files to you to print wherever you like. There will be a specific location (a park most likely) and a specific 1 or 2 days the shoots will take place. Closer to the Spring, we’ll provide an online signup for specific time slots and ask that you help spread the word to everyone you know. For only $60 (regularly over $300), this is a GREAT deal for anyone AND you’re helping us in a significant way.

There are so many details that can’t fit into this letter and I’m sure you have questions as well. Please feel free to contact either of us via Facebook, email, or phone.

Sincerely, Ryan & Allie Veil

Ryan - (651) 238-6761 Ryan.M.Veil@gmail.com
Allie - (763) 670-2119 Allison.Veil@gmail.com