Tuesday, February 28, 2012

a new business venture: what and why,,,,,

because we are completely and totally crazy around here...what BETTER TIME than now to decide to become involved in a new business, right?? ((insert crazy/scary laughter here)) so......we are now new distributors for these products:
advocare is a debt~free company that has already been around for many years, and they make top~quality health and wellness products that are sold exclusively through their direct sales distributors.  One of their top~selling products is this:
the advocare SPARK energy drink is awesome. take it from someone who until two weeks ago was drinking up to 4 diet sodas a DAY.....it's GREAT!!!  you just add it to water, and it tastes great and provides me with lasting energy for my day.  I haven't had ANY diet sodas in over a week now.  and that in itself is amazing. because of my success drinking the spark and giving up diet sodas, i decided i wanted to try advocare's popular 24 DAY CHALLENGE:
i've had so many friends try this challenge and they've been very successful!  the average weight loss is 12 pounds and 11 inches, yall!  i'm presently on day 9 and i'm already 7 POUNDS DOWN......but better than that.....I FEEL AMAZING!! better than i have in a LOOONNG time....more energy...less fatigue. i'm extremely pleased to have found something that works FOR ME, and i've tried lots of different things to shed some extra pounds over the years. one of the things that impressed me most when i started researching this company was that hundreds of unpaid athletes use and endorse their products.  you can see these on their website.  chief among these is their now national spokesperson:


DREW BREES....quarterback for the new orleans saints. if you know anything about football, then you're probably aware of drew and the fact that the saints won this past superbowl.  did you also know that he had his entire team on advocare products the entire week BEFORE the game??  pretty interesting.

so why did we jump on board with advocare?  a couple of reasons:
~ i was truly impressed with spark and wanted my family to have a discount on the products.
~ i wanted to try the 24 day challenge because of the success some friends had experienced.
~i'm about to give up my preschool paycheck when we come home in 6 WEEKS OR SO with our baby girl from china....and i've been wondering if i could somehow make just a little extra a month to make up for that.

most of all.....we are about to get into the BIGGEST part of our adoption expenses,.....TRAVEL TO CHINA and BACK.  and honestly......i'm pretty nervous about it. this is ALOT of money,naturally.  so i worked up the nerve to talk to kevin about being an advocare distributor with the hopes that i could help with our travel expenses.....and maybe i could use advocare to somehow slowly pay back the portion of our adoption that we are funding through a loan.  that's it.  end of story.  i'm trying to help us physically and financially....and this looked like a way i could possibly do it.  now the tricky part about this is that i don't have a "pressure~you" type of personality.  i'll put the word out and then the ball is in your court....that's how i wanna do things.  probably means i won't be one of those who will get rich off this. ha!!  but that's ok.....i'll just take baby steps and see what God will do with it.

our website ((if you'd like to learn more about the products or just browse around)) is
~~~~~ www.raperadvocare.com ~~~
ps....we do presently have products available at our home if you live in the metro jackson area ((which would save you shipping. if you have any questions, you can email me at raperadvocare@bellsouth.net.   thanks yall!!!!!!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Happy 1st birthday, little one...

Dear Lane..

Today is your first birthday, little one. As you are on the other side of the world from me, I can only imagine how this day has been for you. I pray it has been different from the other days....somehow special for you. I hope you have been loved on today and maybe someone showed you the soft photo album with our pictures in it. Maybe you got a small taste of the cake that was ordered with love....from thousands of miles away. I hope you smiled and were whispered to and loved on. There is so much more I want to say to you, sweet one....but today is bittersweet. We love you, Lane, and you'll never spend another birthday without a family....

We're coming soon...

Love,
Mommy


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Saturday, February 4, 2012

One HUGE step closer!!

I realize this pic is sideways BUT...we got our LOA (letter of approval from china)!!!!!! This is a major step towards our sweet baby girl and we are just incredibly blessed by the fact that it came on DAY 49!!!!! Many families are waiting 90-100 days more for this PRIZED piece of paper. Once again....God showed out....and I'm so thankful!!


Seriously...I'm definitely giving Him all the credit b/c we did nothing to deserve the way things have been so smoothly proceeding. I've been meaning to put this info on my blog for a while now b/c the LOA was dated 1/20!!! Now our agency says we will travel in approximately 12 weeks from that date. WOW!!!!!!!

Soooo.....things are starting to fast forward around here just a bit. I'm beginning to make plans for Lane's room, and Kevin put the crib up. It was used by BOTH our boys....and I'm so glad we kept it!!



Can't wait to see her cute little self playing in her room. I'll post pics when it's all done :)

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