WE ARE GOING TO CHINA!!!!!!!!!

It has been even busier than usual at our house, but we wanted to let everyone know that we are headed to China on January 3rd to meet and bring home both our babies!  We are amazed by how quickly Reese's paperwork has been processed on both the Chinese and American sides.  God has proven over and over again His power and love.  We are excited to tell our story and will do so when we have more time!  Thanks for the continued prayers! 

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Today is Tim's birthday!  We celebrated with homemade chicken alfredo pizza, grandma's salad, and cheesecake for dessert and a few presents for our China trip.  The girls love to make a big deal out of birthdays, so we had fun making a "fancy" dinner with candles and special glasses.

I was really hoping to be able to post our travel dates, but we got word today that there is no way we will be leaving on December 27th.  I am so bummed.  I felt like we were getting so close with less than a month.  I sat in church yesterday and counted the Sundays left of peace and quiet during the service.  I started feeling giddy just thinking about bringing our babies to church.  Now the soonest will be January 3rd that we will leave.  Even though it is just a week, it seems like an eternity.  It's one more week that Ethan and Reese are orphans and that is too much.  Not to mention the tax credit will not be a possibility for another year and that is only if the bill gets passed.  So frustrated and tired of waiting.

We have been working on Reese's room.  It was kind of a last minute decision to redecorate, but I absolutely love it and am so glad we changed it.  Her room was Ryleigh's original room when we built this house when she was 2.  It was cute and would've worked, but we felt like our baby deserved something new.  I'll post pictures when it is all done.  We did zebra stripes,  pink, and black. It is super adorable! 

Ryleigh and Reagan had their Christmas program at church last night.  I was blown away by how awesome it was!  We had been practicing for so long, but it was not coming together at all until this weekend and it turned out to be an amazing show!  There were over 600 people in the audience.  I know many were blessed by the kids' performance!  It's sad to think it's Ryleigh's last play since she will move up to youth group next year.  Not sure Reagan will ever want a big part like Ryleigh always has. 

 

We were very proud of Becca's basketball team for starting the year off winning the Waynesville tournament!  Becca played great defense and scored some points, too!  They are a great group of girls!

 

 We celebrated our Family Day (Reagan's "Gotcha Day")with our tradition of the girls getting new pajamas.  This year it was quite complicated to find matching ones, so I ended up (after spending waaaaay too much time at Wal-Mart) getting the three older girls matching and Reagan her own.  It will really be complicated to add 2 more!  (But I can't wait!) 

 We found a beautiful tree at the tree farm.  It is the perfect fit in our living room!  We also let the girls get a short chubby one for the basement!  I love real Christmas trees!  And I love walking around the tree farm trying to pick the perfect one! 

 

That's pretty much what has been going on!