Art time!

Glitter glue is 3 dimensional in our house- how about yours?

Christmas Cards that make a difference!

Here's a great idea! You are going to buy Christmas cards anyways, so why not support Ethiopian women that would otherwise have a difficult time taking care of their families. This project provides the women with a living wage and you with beautiful, handcrafted Christmas cards. What a wonderful way for you to honor Anna and her homeland this year! Check out Jimma Banana Art for more info.

On another note:

Thanksgiving is coming up. What were you doing last year? We had a great time joining in the huge festivities at Aunt Traci and Uncle Tyler's house. We found out late that day that Anna's first court date was not successful. We waited a few weeks to find out that her second court date was a success. By December 16th, we were on the plane, traveling over 30 hours to meet her. We feel so blessed this year to celebrate Thanksgiving with her in our arms, along with Ernie and our extended families. We've so much to be thankful for!

The biggest thank you

We feel so fortunate to have had such a smooth road to Anna's adoption, and owe so much of it to those who supported us. Thank you again to all who gave emotional support, wrote references, babysat Ernie, gifted baby items, prayed, painted, decorated, and in so many other ways made our journey such a blessed one.

The support and love did not end with Anna's arrival. Our most recent blessing has been that stemming from the website Celebrating Adoption. Through this service for recent adoptive families, we found an amazing photographer Cindy Yen, who donated her time and beautiful photographs to our family. There are so many great things I could say about the experience, but just take a look at these pictures to see what happened.

So today we just want to thank Cindy for these beautiful photographs. If you are an adoptive family, rush to the Celebrating Adoption website. Many professionals are waiting to photograph your wonderful family. And if you have kids, check out Cindy's website. We absolutely love the pictures and can't wait to get them framed up on the wall!

Final note: Anna's re-adoption was finalized on Friday! Hooray!

Warning- Bragging Mama Ahead

Hey, everyone. I just wanted to share what a brilliant boy we have! Ernie is learning to read and loves to spell things out. We've been forced to abandon our super sneeky method of spelling out words we don't want Ernie to hear. We're on to spelling backwards. Can anybody say M A E R C E C I ? He's only four, folks. What happens when he's twelve?

Anyways, here's a pic of Ernie in the bath the other night. He wanted to write the word "water", and this is what he came up with.

He's our little smarty pants.