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.

 

DTC

DTC 11-18-09

This means that our dossier, or the packet of papers that represent us to Ch*na, has been sent to Ch*na!  We should hear our official LID, log in date, in a few weeks.

Yippee Jesus!!

Honors!

Guess what?!? 

Ashlyn was named 2nd Team All-State!

This is voted on by every coach in the state and is based on players performance all season.

We also had Taylor named 1st Team All-State and RayVen named Honorable Mention!

(Ashlyn serving during Championship game)

(Taylor going up for another KILL!!)

(RayVen serving during the final set of the Championship game)

Way to go girls!!!

Where' s Sydney?

You just never know what to expect when Sydney gets quiet.....

Although we have made major budget cuts to save for Abbey's adoption, we do still have blankets in the house.  I promise!

The Angry Princess

Once upon a time there was a self-proclaimed Princess of the Woods.  She loved to spend hours coloring herself with ink pens.  This did not make the Royal Giver of the Bath happy, since said Giver was too old to be bending over scrubbing like a maniac to get the stupid ink off of her worried about the Princess's image.  When faced with this difference of opinion, the Princess stormed out of the main quarters and fled to her chambers to find comfort in the solitude of her closet.

The whole kingdom held it's breath as the Princess tried to whine her way into getting her way handle the stress that was pressing down on her.

In her fragile and desperate state, she thought she would close the doors forever.

But then a ray of light surfaced across the plains when the Princess noticed something a few feet away!

Could it really be?

She had to get closer to see if it really was......

A LADYBUG!  She couldn't believe it was right by her royal hand!

Her spirits lifted!  She felt peaceful.....

The kingdom rejoiced that the drama was over....

.....for now....

My girly tomboy

Sydney is such a sweet tomboy. 

She loves climbing and hiding. 

She love bugs and cannot keep her hands off of them. 

She let them crawl all over her arms, it just grosses me out. 

But she is also a girly girl who loves to dress up.  She is always wearing princess dresses and tutus and swimsuits! 

At church this past Sunday, she received a makeup/nail polish set as a reward for attendance. 

She painted her nails and all the other girls in the youth group too. 

She even painted mommy's! 

So cute!

A Sweet Side Trip

While we were at the state tourney, we had a break on Saturday afternoon.  We know a family, through our blogs, that recently came home with their sweet daughter from the same orphanage as our Abbey.  Well we just could not pass up the oppurtunity to meet up with them!  So Lori directed us to a Panera Bread Co where we visited for an hour or so.  They are such a cute family.  It is amazing how 2 adoptive families can meet up and talk like they have known each other forever.  I cannot wait to visit them again, especially after Abbey gets here.

Sydney showing Macy her cup of ladybugs.  So gross!

Sydney is still too captivated by her bugs to smile.

Here is a precious picture that Lori sent me a couple months ago after she returned from China.  It was taken the day that Macy returned to Louyang to say goodbye to her friends.  This is Abbey hugging Macy.  Oh if they only had only known.......