Christmas!

We just got back from our Christmas vacation visiting my parents in Texas. I had a great time and got to see all my siblings, including my pharmacist sister living in Kentucky, as well as my only set of living grandparents. I had a good time shopping with the sisters, eating lots of good food, visiting with my grandparents and listening to my grandfather talk about his time in the army, singing Christmas songs along with the guitar around the Christmas tree, listening to the Christmas story from the book of Luke, and playing Mexican Train. My brother had to work on Christmas eve, but was still able to come over on Christmas day and hang out. He also brought a yummy pie that he made, and some "real" Dr Pepper that he got filled in bottles in Dublin, TX. I got to spend a ton of time with my cute nephew Jaxon as well, who is now 10 months old and is crawling everywhere, pulling up on things, doing lots of talking that we can't understand, and getting into everything. One of Lindsay's friends had taught him how to "rope," so whenever someone asked Jaxon if he was going to rope or said what a roper he was, he would close up his hand a pretend he was swinging a rope. It was really cute. He also loved to clap for himself and tried to get everyone's attention so they would clap for him. Here is a picture of the whole family.



And a picture of us...




I also got to do some shopping after Christmas, and I got a new bookshelf for the baby room. I wasn't happy with the one I had because the paint was coming off of it, and we were going to have to anchor it to the wall because it would tip too easily in a baby's room. So...if anyone wants it we'll give it to you for free. I will probably put it out on the curb with a "FREE" sign pretty soon if no one I know wants it, and so far that strategy has worked for everything I have put out there. The new bookshelf is one of the "cubical" ones that has canvas cubes that can go in it. I put it together in 30 minutes tonight so I'm pretty proud of myself! As far as anchoring goes...does anyone have one of these and have an opinion on whether or not it should be anchored to the wall? It's a lot deeper and shorter than the other one I had, so I'm not quite as worried about it tipping, but I figure there are probably people who have first hand knowledge on this subject. Here is a picture of the finished product. The cubes are still empty but I'm sure they will get filled soon enough!



On the adoption front, with CFS (our first agency) we are just waiting for them to have a birthmother choose us. With Bethany we have everything turned in including a $500 application fee, and we're waiting on them to contact us for a face to face meeting at our home. This is to get to know us and update our home study so we don't have to completely re-do it. Hopefully we can get this done soon so we can be presented to birthmothers at this agency as well. Please pray a birthmother comes to one of these agencies soon looking to make an adoption plan, and our profile is exactly who she is looking for.