Santa Baby!

Not so much.

Sydney was not a huge fan this year.....

The boys were all prepared with their lists.....

And apparently Ash and RayVen were too...

State Banquet

This past weekend we had the honor of attending the MSHSAA All State Volleyball Banquet.  It was so fun.  All the players and their families were invited to Warrensberg to celebrate being named All-State for the 2009 season.  First, scrimmage match was played, but only the seniors were allowed to play.  It was mainly to help seniors sign with collages, but I still wish our girls could have played.  We had 3 of our players named, 2 Juniors and 1 Sophomore.  Then we set down to a catered banquet.  It was so yummy!  Then they had an awards ceremony to give medals and certificate to each player. 

It was a sweet day.  The girls are haveing a hard time switching to basketball after such an awesome volleybal season.  Their hearts just have not been able to engage yet.  They even cried the first few practices.  But it is getting a little better and it's been a good teaching opportunity about the valley always following the mountaintop. 

Ornaments Found

I found the ornaments I was missing. 

Well, technically, they were right there on the tree, but hey, it's my blog! 

Anyhoo. 

These are the ornaments we bought to commemorate expecting Sarah in '95.

Also, the funeral home who took care of us when we lost Derrick this year held a memorial service for all the families that lost loved ones during the year.  They gave Hannah a gold ornament engraved with Derrick's name.  They gave other family members these ornaments.  One is an angel and the other is a teardrop.  I wanted to get something to commemorate his passing, but I didn't know what to get.  So this was such a blessing.

Here is the finished tree before Sydney got to it.  Now the bottom 2 1/2 feet of it is pretty sad.

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas.....

....at least inside my house.

We got our tree put up.  It is a new tree this year.  The last one I bought on sale, the day after Christmas the second year we were married.  I figured after 16 years of service, I had gotten my $17 worth out of it. 

This year I bought a slender pre-lit tree.  The girls were, um, less than excited about the tree.  They have referred to it as the Charl*e Brown tree. 

But we have a very small living room.  When Wayne & I designed and built this house, we had 3 girls living at home and sharing Christmas morning with us.  This year however, we will have a total of 11 kids and grandkids having Christmas here.  Wayne is chomping at the bit to add on an additional living room and turn this room into a big dining room, but I just can't start that yet.  We still have alot of money to save and raise to complete Abbey's adoption, so I am a bit leery to tackle a big construction project right now.

Anyhooooooo, on to my tree.  I like it.  And it fits our tiny space very well.  I thought I would share some of our sentimental ornaments with y'all.  I get a bit misty looking at some of them and remembering all the things we've done together.  I love having that history on our tree.

Here she is in all her skinny glory. 

Hey if I can't manage to take off a few inches this year, at least my tree will. 

We'll call it circumference envy...

A fellow adoptive mom got me this one to commemorate Sydney's adoption.

Grandchild's first Christmas for Bryce. 

Hannah was still living here with him on his first Christmas in '03.

He was such a bundle of giggles!

My brother sent me this one while he fought in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

We bought this one the first Christmas we were married in 1991. 

Why Mickey Mouse? 

Because I was all of 19 years old, that's why.

My sweet baby Sarah's first Christmas ornament.

Oh what I wouldn't do to kiss those baby cheeks one more time....

Brandon's first Christmas ornament from 1985. 

It is so frayed, but I love it.

Hannah's first Christmas ornament from '84. 

She pulled all the letters off of it,

and the hook too,

so we just stab a branch through it!

We bought these in 1992 while I was pregnant with Ashlyn.

We have some for '95 too, when I was pregnant with Sarah, but I just realized they aren't

on the tree.

Hmmmmm????

This is one I had personalized for Sydney's first Christmas home. 

I didn't want to get her a baby's first Christmas one because she had spent one

Christmas in China.  So I had this one personalized for her.

Ashlyn's first Christmas ornament from '93. 

It has a cute Preci*us M*ments figure on the back.

We spent Christmas 2003 in Germany visiting my brother who was stationed there.

We bought this one over there and somehow managed to get home

with it in one piece.

We spent some time at Big Cedar L*dge in Brans*n in '05. 

We rented a log cabin and ate until we almost popped!

What I always remember when I see this ornament is that Bryce set our living room carpet

on fire while we were gone.  Seriously.

A Cracker Barrell ornament.

I have absolutely no idea why.....

This one is from Summer '05.  Wayne had a job to do in VB so we tagged along with him.

We pulled our camper out there instead of renting a room and stayed nearly a month.

It was just Wayne, Ashlyn, Sarah, and I and it was the best summer of our lives.

The girls and I laid at the beach all day and basically did nothing.  It was the summer before Sydney came home so I was pretty wrapped up in all the adoption emotions.  It was such

an unplanned trip that was totally planned by God. Several times since then when we get crazy busy, one of

us will say, "Don't you have a job at a beach you need to do?"

I love our tree.  It is new but it feels familiar too.  And the girls are coming around to it.

Now if only Abbey could see it.....

LID

We received a call from WACAP today stating that we were officially logged in

to the CCAA on November 30!  One step closer!  Our dates so far:

LOI 7/02/09

PA 8/5/09

DTC 11/18/09

LID 11/30/09

Busy, Busy, Busy

I am on the run this weekend!  Today I am taking the youth group on our annual Christmas shopping trip.  We will leave early this morning and probably come home pretty late.  Tomorrow, I teach in the morning, then worship, and then we have a performance at another local church.  Our youth group will be playing our Christmas bells and performing one of our human videos.  I will post pics of all this craziness later!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The last few days have been filled with family gatherings!  We visited with my family first and then Wayne's family.  It was good to see everyone together, but I also had a bittersweet feeling because Abbey is missing Thanksgiving.  Does she even know that this is Thanksgiving weekend?  I highly doubt it.  God-willing this will be the last Thanksgiving that she will miss.  Here are some random pics from our gatherings:

May Need Backup

Ever feel like you're losing the battle?

~sigh~

Piddling Around

I used to scrapbook like a mad woman.  I could spend hours cutting and pasting and creating beautiful photo albums.  I remember having all my stuff spread out all over the place, and me just happily snipping and glueing away.  But the older my big girls have gotten, the busier I have gotten.  And that is not even considering the wild Asian tornado in our house now.  I can't even remember making a decision to stop scrapbooking.  It just kind of happened.  I do remember messing around a little bit with digital scrapping before I quit.  I really liked it.  My family really liked how I could work on it during the day and they still had a dining room table to eat on!  I have been reading and studying how to tweak up some of our family photos.  Nothing major, just a little brightening and smoothing.  With my creative juices flowing, I decided to plant them onto a sheet together, and well, here is the results:

In both layouts, the top pic is the original.  In the closeup, I was trying to even out my complexion and hide a few wrinkles character lines.  I didn't quite get the results that I've seen from others, but you gotta work with what ya have.  In the bottom one, I was basically trying to lighten it all up.  But I think I got a little yellow-happy.  Oh well, it's a work in progress and I really had a good time piddling around with it.