I make stationery that I’ve sold at a local boutique before for $16 for a pack of 10 cards. In an effort to make some extra spending money for our upcoming trip to China (yea!), I am selling them now to whoever wants them for $15 with free shipping. And, I will give $1.50 credit for every friend you refer who buys some (just tell them to mention your name when they email me to order some).

Also, I have friends who are in critical need right now. Tony and Lily Zhang are Chinese and worked with the Church and missions for years. They have miraculously left China and are currently in Canada pursuing a seminary education while doing full-time ministry there with the Chinese and their Westernized children who have settled there. They are raising their own support but are in a critical situation as all of their connections are in China and are unable to support someone in ministry for several reasons. I will be giving 25% of the total sales of my cards to them. So, for every pack of cards sold, I will be giving $3.75 to the Zhangs. If you want to give an additional amount, the entire additional amount will go straight to the Zhangs. If you would like additional information about the Zhang family and how to support them, please let me know.

Here are some sample designs–I can do any of these with whatever wording or monogram you want. And, here is a picture of the Zhang family.

So, we got hit hard by snow this week. We’ve officially hit a cumulative snow amount this winter of over 70 inches. That is pretty much insane. This last storm was particularly massive. We haven’t left the house since Tuesday, and we’re all starting to feel it. We’ve kept busy, but this is getting a bit old now.

This is my van in our driveway. The car buried over there is our neighbor’s convertible. We think the roof collapsed. Why he didn’t park it in his garage is a mystery.

Our backyard where we used to have hedges. We aren’t sure if this storm killed them or not. They are nearly flattened.

This is out our front door, looking at the park. The snow was up to the bottom of the swings.

This was after Mark shoveled the walkway. We are happy to announce that a father of a friend of Ashlyn‘s came by on Tuesday night and performed a miracle on our snowblower only hours before the storm hit us. He is honestly a hero in this house and perhaps made Mark the hero of the block since he was snowblowing into the wee hours of the night last night.

And, how do we spend our time while we are stuck inside?

Drew enjoyed painting his own face to be an army guy.

Mark made a batch of whoopie pies. Pretty impressive.

I worked on yoyos for Lydia’s quilt, and the kids enjoyed sorting them by material and lining them all up. They won’t let me clean them up now.

And, we have finished up Evan’s robot Valentines which are pretty darn cute.

And, of course, we’ve played quite a bit of wii. This is our new favorite game.

Apparently, Drew enjoys role playing the host of the wii game more than playing the game itself. Ashlyn “decorated” him for the role and gave me quite a laugh today. Not a bad resemblance really.

No hold up with our adoption though–we got our Letter of Acceptance via overnight mail on Tuesday afternoon and signed it, got papers notarized, and returned it right away so that the snow wouldn’t impact that at all. Things are moving!

Kids lasted maybe 15 minutes out there. Had to include the picture of poor Mark. We have a new snowblower in the garage…it won’t start….still. This is the second snowstorm of the season that he’s had to shovel all the time knowing that there is a very expensive snowblower in the garage just sitting there. And, guess what? More snow is forecasted for Tuesday. Nice. Well, at least we know that Lydia is warm. High of 55 degrees in her hometown today!