Family

Mark and I feel so blessed to have great families on both sides; it has been a lot of fun spending Christmas with family. We opened presents with the TenHakens last night and again Mark's parents were very generous. Both sides gave us a few things for the baby which was so thoughtful and only makes me that much more excited. I also got a box of clothes from my sister in law, Jill that my niece has grown out of. I can hardly wait until our baby will get to wear these adorable things.

This morning it was neat to see all of the TenHakens sitting in church together; that only happens about twice a year because we live so far away. Today we are enjoying a Sunday feast and then Mark's brothers will go home this afternoon. Mark and I will be here until Tuesday morning so we will have a day or so to spend just with his parents.

I have pictures to post but I have to wait until I am at home so I have the right equipment. More later....
Happy New Year to you all!

Christmas in Minnesota

We had a great Christmas with my family and now we are safe in Minnesota after a 10 hour drive last night. Mark and I were going to leave this morning but we felt good last night and since we were packed we just decided to jump in the car and go. It is easy to do that when it is just the two of us well three if you count Tiger- he always gets to come to MN with us.

We arrived here about 4:30 MN time and then we slept until about 10 and now are looking forward to a weekend of relaxing, playing games, hanging out with family, eating, eating and eating again :) It is good to be here.

I will write more later and I will post pictures of both Christmas celebrations... but for now this little up date will do. Merry Christmas! Hope this finds you all well!

Arabella's First Birthday

Arabella (my niece) turned one yesterday so we had a birthday party for her. She opened presents; she received a wagon, a comfy chair, a sweatshirt, blocks and a puzzle. After all those presents I think she enjoyed playing with the dog and the wrapping paper the most :)
After presents she got to eat cake with her hands and play piano with Mark. It was a fun night.

Play Tryouts

It's been a few days since I have posted- this is partly because I have been busy with play tryouts and partly because I wasn't sure if I had anything interesting to say :)

Life has been moving along quickly these days as we look forward to the holidays and a little time off. I finished coaching volleyball on Saturday and then started 8th grade play tryouts on Monday. I love co-directing the play, but it is always an overwhelming task to audition 50 kids for 17 parts in 2 or 3 days. We are making our final decisions and announcing the cast tomorrow. I would love prayers; it is always hard to tell students our decisions.

God has given me a peace about the adoption time line. A couple of weeks ago I felt very impatient and anxious about having to wait for awhile yet to get a referral. This week I have been busy and I haven't thought about it near as much. I'm sure that will come and go, but this week it was nice to have peace about the whole process. I keep reminding myself that it's God's timing, not mine... it just sinks in better some weeks than others :)

The Weekend

It's Saturday and I just got back from the 8th grade volleyball tournament at South Christian. We played well and were tied with Legacy for 2nd in our pool so we had to play one game to 15 to break the tie and they won, so we did not advance into quarterfinals. The girls played well and it has been a fun season watching them learn and grow as a team.

Last night Mark and I had a quiet night together which was great after a busy couple weeks at work for both of us. We did a little Christmas shopping (about an hour is all Mark can handle- but he did very well :) Then we ate at Russ' for some comfort food; I got cheese brocolli soup and he got a tuna melt- not too adventurous, but good. I am thankful for my husband and it was good to have a down night with him.

Things with adoption seem to be moving forward. Our paperwork is probably still being translated. We got an email from our social worker saying that things look good and the Bethany staff in Ethiopia is excited abour our papers being there. We will see what happens....
Have a great weekend!

Papers in Ethiopia

We heard that our papers reached Ethiopia yesterday! Now they need to be authenticated at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ethiopia, translated into Amharic and then verified and registered at the Ministry of Justice. Thanks for praying for those papers to reach Ethiopia smoothly! God is faithful.

Giveaway at 5 Minutes for Moms

5 Minutes for Moms is giving away an Insignia Shelf System to someone who blogs about it so I thought I would give it a try. Check out the system at Best Buy.