It's Christmas Time Again......

...........and you're not home.

This song, even though it was written about a family waiting for a child from China, felt like it spoke to every family waiting for a little one to come home. No matter where you are in the process of adoption, the holidays without that little one home are so difficult. Although I shed many sad tears while I listened and longed to have Nola home with us, those tears turned to hopeful tears at the end of the song. I'm praying this is indeed the last Christmas that we will spend without our little Nola home. And if you're waiting, like we are, just know you're not alone. My prayer is that 2011 will be a year of waiting families being united with their little ones in outstanding numbers!

I know, it's been a while........

......I just haven't had time to blog in what seems like forever! The last time I left you was just after the spider incident. Blah, I don't even want to let my mind wander back to that. Well, the car was repaired in about three weeks and looks as good as new! Kelsey was happy to have her wheels back and we have to give Dad a big Thank You for letting us borrow his truck for Kelsey to drive back and forth to school during the repair time.



Halloween came and went since I last wrote. Maria was a little butterfly. She enjoyed getting her face painted and Trick-or-Treating.

Audree was a little lamb, a very adorable little lamb I might add;)

Most of my time, the last several weeks has been spent on a remodeling project. We decided, with the crowd we were planning on having for Thanksgiving, we needed a place big enough to seat everyone. So we rolled up our sleeves and began finishing a room in our basement. Of course the job took longer than I had expected but turned out very nice.

Here is the before picture.

A during picture.

And the finished room.....complete with tables and decorations. It was so nice to have space to all be together and not be crawling on top of each other when we needed to move around.



We invited a dear friend of ours from Guatemala and her two children to be our guests the week of Thanksgiving. We thoroughly enjoyed their company! We didn't do a lot of extra things. They were just a wonderful addition to our family for a week.


Gloria giving Audree a snuggle before dinner.

Daddy carved the turkey as he traditionally does......and passed out samples to a lucky few who happened to walk by.


Gloria and Fredy posing behind the spread before we blessed the food and dug in! They were amazed at how much we eat!!!

Luis and Marcela and their kids were able to travel from North Carolina to join us. The Reyher clan was here too. We had a full house!

Gloria, Isa and Fredy helped us decorate our Christmas tree

Maria kind of stuck to Fredy like glue but he was a good sport about it. He even let her join in some of his soccer practice time.
We were truly blessed to be able to share such a special time with our family and wonderful friends!

We have so much to be thankful for!