Yard Sale for Kareen

We had our yard sale for Kareen the past 2 saturdays. This was the first idea my girls had to raise money for the adoption when they learned that is what we were doing. So they have been going through their toys and clothes for months collecting things to donate to the yard sale and they were SO excited about it. I was super stressed trying to get everything ready the week before the yard sale because Kris was out of town all week (and really isn't around this time of year anyway, even when he is in town....10 days until we get him back) but friends and family stepped in and we pulled it off.
My friend Julie K. showed up with dinner and banners and we spent the evening making banners and signs and pricing the garage full of items.


We even figured out how to rig up this double sided banner and attached it to pieces of wood. Kris would have been so proud of us utilizing his tools!

The girls had been making bookmarks (which I am sick that I never took a picture of...I haave some video of them but no pictures). They were each hand drawn pictures of kareen and Adrie. and then Kyra joined in and they added homemade fans to their inventory. So they made this cute sign and sold their bookmarks, fans and drinks. They wanted to have a lemonade stand but it was REALLY cold so they sold canned pop instead...a little less help needed to do that!

They had their own cash box and were SO excited that they sold ALL their fans and bookmarks and made $100 for Kareen.

This was the girls cage when we had the bunkbeds that we were selling sitting in our living room the day before.

My cute friend Anna put together a fabulous bake sale to go with the yard sale and some of the neighbor boys had fun helping man the booth!
Bree found a big box to keep her entertained with the ipad!
When their was slow traffic the neighbor boys, Jaxon and Casey, wrote their own sign and went to the main road to wave it around. It said "yard sale...help adopt Kareen" So cute!

Kris had to work all day so his family and mine came to help!
Kris' dad enjoying the view of the yard sale! (Thanks Marie for all the furniture donations!! They were a HUGE help!!!!)
Some of my girls who I couldn't have done this without...or anything for that matter.

Me, Anna, Julie D., Julie K., and Jodi
Some of my family helpers...Chaly, me , mom, Lida and Bret

Once again we were overwhelmed by the love and support of others! The girls old librarian made a special trip to the sale just to buy their bookmarks and then donated more than the bookmarks cost, as did another friend/neighbor. Another neighbor was so touched and excited to help that she "hired" my girls to come organize doll clothes and make things for her classroom at school (and they HAD to eat treats while there) and she paid them $20 for Kareen and a few dollars for each of them. Another friend volunteered to organize a 5-K if we need.....it just keeps going and it never ceases to amaze us and touch us deeply. I remember when we were contemplating starting this journey and Lisa told me our lives would be forever changed for the better if we did, and we continue to see that be true!

We did really well the first sat. and brought in around $700 but still had quite a bit of stuff so we decided to do it the next sat too. It was actually kindof a neat experience because the second sat turned out to be a "pay it forward" sale. We had slower traffic and we were able to help out a few different families who came by. We met one lady who was here from New Zealand for our church's general conference and we loved talking to her and felt impressed to offer her to fill a garbage bag of clothes to take with her. She lit up and was SO appreciative! She loves to come here and get Old Navy clothes and we had SO many of them from there so she was in heaven! Another family came who were originally from Mexico and we started letting their daughter choose toys and things and they were also SO appreciative. It was fun to be able to pay it forward a little! So we gave away more that second day than we made but it was a good experience!