Our Home Study

We had our home study visit! It went great. Why was I even nervous? The social worker was wonderful and patient with our active boy. We first gave a tour of our home then we sat for an interview. Who would ever think that we could be stumped when she asked what our joys of parenting are. I think it is hard to put such a huge thing into words. It is All a joy. (Don't worry, we gave a better answer than that!) We have some work to do while our social worker puts together our home study packet. I hope to have our home study done by the end of December! This feels a little like my first trimester. I'm counting the weeks until the second trimester starts. Dossier, here we come! The picture is one that we plan on sending to Ethiopia with our Dossier.

Give Thanks

We are thankful for this boy! This is his new favorite game. He brings "Blue" under the curtain and hangs out looking out the window and talking to "Blue".

We are thankful for family! We visited Mimi who is in a rehabilitation center after she broke her pelvis. My mom, Aris, and Grandad were there also. Mom, Aris, and Grandad came over later for dinner at our house. It was hard to have Thanksgiving dinner without Mimi.

We are thankful for our new windows! I'll show before and after pictures later. The new windows have completely transformed our house!

We are thankful for great food made with love. Thanksgiving dinner didn't exactly go as planned though. First, after an hour of cooking the oven got accidentally turned off. I didn't find out for almost an hour. Than after another 2 hours of cooking we realized our oven wasn't working properly. Yes, our oven broke in the middle of cooking a Thanksgiving turkey. Not to mention the green beans and stuffing that needed to be cooked in the oven. It turns out that the bottom element in the oven is broken. So, the oven wouldn't get warm enough. After a total of 5 and a half hours of cooking a 14 pound turkey we took it out of the oven. Thankfully the breast of the turkey was cooked enough to eat, but the rest of the turkey was pretty much raw. We were able to cook the other things on broil, but even that didn't seem to work too great. Oh, well. We still had a nice dinner. It is a funny story to tell, along with setting the green beans on fire 2 years ago.

We are thankful for our cat Billy too! You can't tell from the picture, but he is under the blazing fire.
We are also thankful for all our great friends and for our many other blessings. We are thankful for the opportunity to adopt and bring another baby home for next Thanksgiving.

One Big Step Closer

Our home study paperwork is done and sent in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Yes, that required several exclamation points.) Although we are still waiting on 3 of our reference letters...you know who you are! I hope to have the home study done soon and I hope that the Dossier isn't too tough to get together. I'm just really happy to have the paperwork all sent in and I thought I should post about it!

Happy Birthday "Baby" Elliot!

Happy first birthday "tiny e". We can't believe it has already been a year! We can't wait for your birthday party. This is our favorite picture from your first year. You really are tiny here!

We love that kid!!!!!! And his parents aren't half bad...

Rhett can't wait to give you your baby doll!

Rhett is...

LOGICAL

Rhett: I love you Billy (hug).
Billy: MEOW
Rhett: Why did Billy say "meow"?
Mom: I think Billy was saying, "I love you too."
Rhett: Billy said "meow" because he is a cat.

A SCHOLAR
Rhett: Why is it dark?
Mom: Because the sun went down.
Rhett: Why did the sun go down?
Mom: You know why...
Rhett: Because the Earth is spinning (he says "spinning" while doing the wheels on the bus motions with his hands).

A POET
Rhett to Mom: Hi honey bunny. You're so money.

Our Productive Weekend

We got a ton of work done this last week. Here are a few of our projects...

I couldn't stand the closet doors in the house for some reason. They just didn't look good and they never got closed. So, I thought they would look better with fabric curtains. I finished the shoe closet curtain with fabric from IKEA. I think it turned out pretty good...

Next is our bedroom.

Good-bye ugly ceiling fan and hello awesome School House Electric light! We love it...now what do we do about that awful wood stove?
Dan worked on replacing the light switches and installing a dimmer switch for our new light.

I painted most of the trim and the walls in our bedroom! It feels so clean and fresh now.

I'm also working on banners, banners, banners!

I hope to be done with the home study paperwork this week. This may be a little too personal, but I'm starting to feel a little hormonal. Yesterday while watching the educational dvd from our agency I started to get teary eyed thinking about holding our baby in a sling all day. And this morning there was a segment on the Today Show showing images of a growing baby in a womb and I thought about our baby growing in her mothers belly. This is a very exciting time for us. My hope is that we realize this and don't let the stress of all the paperwork overwhelm us.

Rhett's Third Halloween Ever

Here are this year's pumpkins. Mine is the one on the left and Dan did the skull. I think they both turned out pretty good. Dan's is way better than his last year's pumpkin.

Here is Rhett looking very "Village People" on our way to trick-or-treat at Dan's office.

Sadly, this is the best picture I got of Ruby and Rhett together. They really did have fun, I swear! We first went to Kennedy School, which was totally crazy. I thought I was going to have a panic attack! We walked around KS a little with my mom and our friends then we went to Monica and Greg's house. We had a great time hanging out with our new friends and all of their great friends last night. Rhett just loves Ruby.

Today Rhett wanted to take a nap with his "cute fuzzy spider". You could hear him saying, "Oh, I love you spider," as I walked out the door.

Well, it is over and I have to pack up all the decorations until next year. I hope next Halloween we have another family member!