Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Starting to sell on Ebay for Adoption

Yard Sale season is coming to a close for the year and I knew I had to learn how to sell on Ebay to keep the cash coming in for the adoption in the winter months. I kept putting it off and putting it off because I was afraid of the unknown. Well, Finally I met with the Post Master of our local Post Office and inendated him with question after question regarding how to figure out the shipping cost (since the shipping cost has to be listing in the listing of the item before it's sold). He was nice enough to walk me through utilizing the Shipping Calculator that is listed on their website http://www.usps.com/ as well as ebay's website under the Sell tab.

I stayed up multiple nights until the weeee hours of the morning after Andrew went to bed so I could concentrate on learning how to list and sell, pack and ship our items. We listed a few barbie dolls that were still in their original boxes and to our surprise we made about $100.00 on a couple of barbie dolls for the first week of sales. Not bad. After I sold them I was remarkable surprised at how easy Ebay makes it for you to send an invoice, connect with Paypal and print off shipping labels. I didn't know what I was fretting about because it is easier than I thought.

Since we've been going to auctions and purchasing large lots of items we are well stocked up for the winter to sell on Ebay. Christmas is right around the corner so it will be intersting to see what kind of activity we'll have selling on Ebay.

If anyone would like to check out what we are selling on Ebay and possible get in on the bidding on any of our items here is the link to what we are selling http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/getitnow1013 Happy Bidding!!

Monday, September 17, 2007

Our Home Study is Completed

We are so excited to see the next step in our upcoming adoption come to pass. Our home study is completed and we have just sent it along with the application and fee to the Department of Homeland Security USCIS in the state of New Jersey to receive our approval to allow us to bring back into the United States our recently adopted child. This approval also gives our child immediate citizenship once we reach the USA upon our return.

We hope to receive this approval quickly since that is the last thing we are waiting for before we send our dossier to Ukraine for their approval and invitation to come to Ukraine to complete our adoption.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Happy 2nd Gotcha Day at Sesame Street



I can't believe it's been 2 years since we've been home with Andrew. Wow, how time
flies. We decided to do something special for our second Gotcha Day (the anniversary of when we officially became a family) and go to Sesame Place to celebrate.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Andrew get so into the rides...even the rollercoaster. He just made the height requirement to ride the mini roller coaster with an adult, therefore that was the first ride he wanted to go on. Robert and I looked at each other as if to say "hum...He's either going to back out at the last minute or ride the rollercoaster with us and just as it's slowing down to let us off he'll be saying"Again, Again". Well, he LOVED it! and was yelling just as we thought, "AGAIN....AGAIN!! So we rode it one more time and he was wanting to ride it AGAIN. But that was enough for Robert and I so we distracted him to move along to see the rest of the park.


We had a ball riding the rides and Robert even crawled through the tunnels and netting with him. He almost got stuck trying to keep up with Andrew. Andrew really needed someone to go through it with him since there were areas that he needed assistance climbing to the next level as well as it being huge....that we didn't want him to get lost. Here is a picture of Robert trying to keep up with Andrew in the netting tunnel. Too funny.



In the heat of the day we made our way over to the water rides. There was this one huge family tube ride that had a big rubber ducky at the top. The line took about an hour to wait through but it was well worth it. We all loved it and got soaked and screamed with delight especially with the last drop off in the slide.



After the water rides we took a break and went over to find some of the characters from Sesame Street. Andrew was so cute when we saw Ernie from a distance greeting other children. He stood a distance away from Ernie and peered around the corner in awe that he was so big and real. Too cute. We also met Cookie Monster, Elmo and Oscar the Grouch. Andrew was so adorable at the end of the day when we were all waiting for the parade of characters to come down the street on their floats. He had this look of anticipation and he was waiting so patiently but when they approached him he hid behind Mommy.