Meet "Nanette"

How to Donate

Nanette's online donation button is in the upper right hand of the side bar of this blog. You can click here to donate via credit card or PayPal! If you would like to mail a check, please do so to the following address: Reece's Rainbow; PO Box 4024; Gaithersburg, MD 20885. Write "Nanette-Angel Tree" in the memo line! All donations ARE tax deductible.

Friday, November 30, 2012

GIVEAWAY FOR NANETTE!

Hello all! It is my absolute privilege to have my sweet friend Patti, momma blogger over at A Perfect Lily holding a $50 Target Gift Card giveaway for Nanette on her blog! Just click on the link and scroll down to the bottom of her post. Any donation amount to Nanette gets you an entry for the Target gift card! Once you donate, just go comment at the bottom of that post. A winner will be drawn and announced here and at A Perfect Lily! If you have been waiting for a chance to win something, here is your chance! :-)  Nanette is worth it!

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Thinking About You

Dear Nanette,
Many of the mommas who have blogs write to the children they are adopting in letter form on their blogs. While I am sadly not able to be your momma, I want to write to you today. I want you to know that each and every day, many, many times a day, I think of you.

My heart hurts knowing that you are in a new place where you do not know anyone, and no one knows you. I know your baby house was a loving place that was as much like a home as any orphanage could be, and I worry about where you are now. I have heard it isn't a terrible place, but an institution is no place for a sweet little girl your age.  It just isn't.  I also know that you must have wondered as your friends mommas and daddies came and visited, where were your mom and dad? I know that you have been held and loved by families coming to get their children, and I wish that I knew a family would come for you. I wonder if when your baby house director prepared you to move to the institution, did you think that she was preparing you for a your mom and dad to come visit? I am glad for all of your friends, held over at the baby house, waiting for their committed parents to come, but then I struggle with why you were not chosen. How, after all of this time, did no one's heart explode with love when they saw your sweet face?  I know I would come and get you in an instant if I could, but God does not seem to have that in the cards for me.

Nanette, I will keep fighting to raise your grant so that you can come home. I will keep working to ensure that you are not forgotten and that your story is heard. I will keep posting your picture and keep advocating for you as long as you still wait.

I am planning a few more things to try and reach your AT goal. We are just a little under $400.00 away from the goal. It seems like so much, yet so did $250, so did $500.00. So I just know we will get there sweetie. When Angel Tree is over, I plan to keep donating and sharing to help your parents find you.

Love you!
Your AT Warrior

Monday, November 19, 2012

Next Stunt to Help Nanette!!!

I have another crazy fundraising idea in cue!
I have to discuss it with my doctor....LOL, and be sure he is okay with it him. I am having minor surgery tomorrow, and I am not 100% sure I can do it at the end of Angel Tree due to incision healing.  However, if he okay's it, then I am totally ready for the next "crazy" stunt for Nanette!
Pies to the face was nothing compared to the next one. I am already shivering thinking about it....literally. ;-) Stay tuned. I should be able to talk to the doctor in the next few days. :-)

Sunday, November 18, 2012

I'm Listening

My friend Patti, over at A Perfect Lily, posted the other day about Nanette. I did not know when I emailed Patti to check in and see how she was doing that it would lead to her feeling a nudge from God to blog about Nanette. You can read more about it here A Perfect Lily - "I'm Listening"

I am so thankful that Nanette has reached so many hearts, and I am truly hopeful that we can meet her goal as well as find her a family soon!

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Failure-An Open Hearted and Broken Hearted Post from a Momma Who Met Nanette

Failure-An Open Hearted and Broken Hearted Post from a Momma Who Met Nanette
It is difficult to imagine being a parent who goes into these orphanages to adopt one child who stole their hearts and comes out loving so many. I can only imagine because it only takes their photos and stories for my heart to love them. PLEASE consider sharing Nanette's story. Please consider sharing her photo, her Reece's Rainbow profile, http://reecesrainbow.org/19203/nanette-15h . Her mom and dad are out there! Someone is this beauty's momma and just doesn't know it yet!

Here is her post from her blog  http://inmamasheart.com/2012/11/13/failure/

For the last two weeks, it has slapped me in the face every time I have opened the browser window.  It is a constant, painful reminder.

There is a blog entry entitled “Failure” in my draft folder.

For the last two weeks, it has been just a title followed by an empty box.  The emotions have always been there, but the words were missing.  I just couldn’t find them, so the cursor sat there blinking away and mocking me.

Failure.

Nanette.
Nanette wasn’t in Charlotte’s groupa at the baby house.  She was in the smaller groupa for children who needed more one on one support.  The director and therapists told us (and other families who came after us) that she had a “hard” form of Down Syndrome.  She was developing at a slower rate than the other children with the same diagnosis.  To them, though, it did not matter.  Nanette was who she was.  She was loved and valued—weak heart, cognition challenges, and all.
Nanette was transferred at the end of September, and sent nearly 50 miles across the region to an institution.  Everything and everyone that she knows is gone.

And I feel like a failure.

Before we met Charlotte, I had no idea that the staff and children who worked and lived inside those four pumpkin orange walls would latch themselves so firmly to my heart.  I just wanted to get my child out as quickly as I could.  Standing in the middle of Charlotte’s lesson on our second trip to the baby house made me realize that it wasn’t going to be as simple as “in and out”.  Love does strange things in adoption.  You come to love the children that are not yours just as fiercely as your own child.  Every time you walk through those doors, your heart ends up happy and broken all at the same time.  And you promise yourself that you can’t and don’t want to forget how that felt after the rusty gate clanks shut behind you and your child for the last time.
In March, I held Nanette close to my heart.  I kissed her and told her that she was beautiful.  I promised her that a Mama would come for her and that she would steal her Mama’s heart just like Charlotte had stolen mine.

September and the transfer committee came.

The rational part of me understands that adoption is complicated and heartbreaking.  Even fierce love and desire can’t slow the passage of time or change the rules as they currently exist.
But the not-so-rational part of me that feels like a failure is grappling with the notion that the only home that she had ever known—one filled with a staff that didn’t view children with special needs as broken or defective or wrong—is gone.  She is never going to find that place of total, unconditional acceptance again.

I cannot go back and erase what I’ve seen.  I cannot forget the laughter and contented smiles of the children I danced with, tickled, played with, and snuggled.
And I don’t want to.  For them, I risk failure…

Annalisa turns 4 in February. She will be transferred, just like Nanette.
Beckett turns 4 in February. He will be transferred, just like Nanette.
Diane turns 4 in April. She will be transferred, just like Nanette.
And failure is not an option.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Article About Down Syndrome

Here is a good little article written by a momma who adopted a son with Down Syndrome from Ukraine with the help of Reece's Rainbow. It is a short read with good information.

http://galvestondailynews.com/story/357854

If you are coming here interested in adopting Nanette, please do not hesitate to contact Reece's Rainbow for more information. The contact for new families or interested families is sarah@reecesrainbow.org. Contacting Sarah can help you find out if you will qualify to adopt Nanette or any of the other children listed with grants on Reece's Rainbow!

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Pies to the Face for Nanette!!!

Pie in the Face Number 1 Pie in the Face Number 2 And just for fun (and of course for Nanette), pie in the face number 3! Stay tuned for the next goal amount and just what I will do when Nanette's account reaches it!

Thursday, November 1, 2012

First Goal Met Already?!

You read that right! On day 1 of fundraising, my first goal for Nanette's Angel Tree account was met and exceeded. ;-)  Someone out there REALLY wanted to see my kids throw a pie in my face, and they will get that chance in the next day or so! I wasn't planning on things happening so quickly, so I did not purchase the stuff needed to get "pied". Just as soon as I can get to the store, I will get what I need and happily take two pies to the face to celebrate reaching the first goal for sweet Nanette!

Stay tuned for the video of the pie attack ;-)

Want to See Me Get Not 1 But 2 Pies to the Face??

Okay, so you would think with just two months to raise $1,000.00+ for Nanette, I might have had planned something big to kick off the fundraiser. Well...I planned something to kick it off.

We are going to start with the opportunity to see a totally embarrassing video of each of my children giving me a cream pie to the face! That is right! In the first two weeks of fundraising, by November 14, if Nanette's account is at $250.00 (or whenever it reaches $250.00 before that), I will fill two metal tin pie pans with large amounts of whipped cream, hand them over to my children, hand the camera to Steve and allow the girls to both "pie" me in the face. Ha ha!

This has been a popular fundraiser amongst some of the adopting families. I couldn't really figure out why at first, but then I realized that everyone loves watching a good pie in the face video. So, not only will I let them do it, but I will video it and post it here on my blog and on Facebook for all the world to see ;-)

If that doesn't motivate you to donate to Nanette, you just keep coming back to visit the blog. I am going to keep coming up with wild and adventurous and embarrassing things to do on video and/or in public. Other ideas have been hair color, rainbow hair, dressing in "decade" attire for a day knowing I will be going out into public on that day....

These wild, embarrassing things are not all I have planned to help raise funds, but I thought it would be a fun way to kick things off. Hope to post my pie in the face video soon!!

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On a more serious note, many people have said they do not believe that their donation makes a difference. Please know that ANY donation amount it absolutely, positively making a difference. One dollar or one-hundred dollars. Each and every single dollar matters. So please, even if all you can donate is a few dollars, if you feel led to donate it, do.  Each donation no matter how large or small is tax deductible, so you will receive the tax benefit from your donation.

To put the donation amount thing into perspective...
If 1000 people donated $1.00, goal would be met.
If 200 people donated $5.00, goal would be met.
If 100 people donated $10.00, goal would be met.
If just 50 people donated $20.00, Nanette's goal would be met.
If just 40 people donated $25.00, Nanette's goal would be met.
If just 29 people donated $35.00, Nanette's goal would be met (and each of those people would get her RR ornament. ;-)
You see what I am getting at? It does not take that much to reach this precious and very important goal for Nanette. And each and every single donation big or small is so important!!!  Please consider helping my sweet angel Nanette who was just transferred to the institution last weekend. She will find a family with a larger grant. I absolutely know it!