Can't sleep. may as well blog. We had two lovely days of rain last Friday and saturday. It was fabulous. I love the rain. We went to the dollar store and the boys each picked out an umbrella. They had so much fun walking in the rain with their umbrellas! it would drizzle, then pour, then drizzle, then pour, etc... I loved it! It is supposed to rain some more tomorrow afternoon. That would be lovely!.
Oh, and other big news! Our house sold. It was put on the market the day before Thanksgiving, so we didn't have anyone come look at it until the next Monday. We had an offer from the VERY FIRST FAMILY that saw it by that Wednesday, and a signed contract by the Tuesday after that. Not bad for 2 weeks work. In this market, that is incredible. We have felt over and over that moving is the right thing to do, and this was yet another sign! There are about 4 other houses on our street for sale that have been on the market a LOOOONG time. So we are excited to move forward with buying our new, huge house, and then promptly filling it with kids. I was going through our Christmas box, and putting up stockings for Landon, Luke, Aunika and Jacob. I realized we had a lot of extra stockings. I said to Scott "we have 7 extra stockings. I guess that means we need 7 more kids". He said "deal" then walked over and we shook on it. ;0)
I'm glad we are on the same page when it comes to adoption and family size!
well, maybe I'll try that sleep thing again now.

Christmas Tree Update. I love our tree this year. it is great big, and smells SOOOO good. We have never been able to resign ourselves to a fake tree, thank heavens. Anyway, the only Snafu so far, was when Scott cut off the nice straight branch at the top... you know, the one that would have been PERFECT to put the star on. He snipped it, and I about went into convulsions. I asked him why, and he said it was just a bare branch and added nothing to the tree. Men are so one dimensional sometimes :0). I reminded him about the STAR, but it was too late by that time. So we make do. And the rest of the tree is lovely. This is Landon's favorite time of the year. He loves decorating the tree. My new favorite picture of him is at the top. Luke was hilarious. he found one spot to put ornaments, and they ALL went there. Scott tried to move some, spread it out a little, but I wouldn't let him. I think it is adorable. That is the reason we HAVE kids. To make the Christmas tree special. I love our "bottom heavy" tree. To me it says "Hey, I have kids! Finally! look at at all the ornaments on the first 3 feet of the tree! My KIDS did that!" Here is a picture of Luke's "ornament spot". You can't see them all in the picture, but there are 10 ornaments all clumped together. and it is my favorite spot on the tree. Landon was pretty good about spreading his out. It seems weird to have some ornaments that still say "Terry" and "Abe". Oh, which reminds me-- Landon's bio dad did appeal the court ruling, so we are in for the long haul again. We may or may not have it all wrapped up by next Christmas. I REALLY wanted him to start kindergarten with Landon being his LEGAL name, but oh well.

STILL no word on Aunika. *sigh*. We really wanted her home for Christmas. But I guess it will BE like Christmas when we bring her home, no matter what time of year it is. The boys have been talking about her non-stop. They are so excited about her. And Jasmina is still going to try to talk the ministry into letting us bring home 2 children, but she insists we do not get our hopes up. It would be so Awesome if we could bring home 2! Sounds like I already have my hopes up. It would also help us feel like there was a reason behind us having to give up sweet Kasia.

Well, time to fix some lunch for the munchkins.

It's been a LOOOONNNGGG time since my last post. But no one is reading anyway, right? Holidays are still a bit hard. I miss my sweet Jacob. And we still have no word on Aunika. And Kasia has found another family. I don't even know whether to post a happy face or a sad face about that. I am so glad she has a committed, forever family. I'm just sad it isn't us. We have started pestering Serbia again to PLEASE let us bring home 2. Jasmina says not to get my hopes up. Too late.

On another note- one night last week right after bath time, Landon said "mom, I wanna be white". I asked him what he meant. He said he wanted his color to be white. I asked him why? He said because he wanted to be Superman. I assured him that it was OK to be a brown superman. Then we talked a little about colors. and Super Heroes. I told him we all (even super heroes) come in different colors. I happened to remember in the past few years, Green Lantern has been a brown man. So I showed him lots of pictures of Green Lantern (and guess what we asked Santa to bring this year?) and told him God made us just the color he wants us to be. He is such a beautiful boy. I don't ever want him to wish he was a different color. I don't want to start any sort of discrimination here, but I even told him White was boring, and that God upgraded him to such a nice color of brown. He's 5. we tell him what he'll understand. I attached a picture of him on Thanksgiving with Azlynn. In the summer, it is a toss-up for who's browner.

Also, we got new pictures of Aunika. THEY CHOPPED OFF ALL HER HAIR!! I don't know why. She is still adorable, but I have literally had dreams of running my hands through all her beautiful long hair. Oh, well. It will eventually grow back. Jasmina also told me she is smiling all the time now. I wish they'd send me a picture of that! I am glad she is smiling, and I said it was because she knows her family is coming for her soon!.

And now for the Thanksgiving update. Colton T. came down from NAU (in Flagstaff) for Thanksgiving. He got a ride with his roommate. It was so fun havin him here. He is such a little nut. and a very sweet boy. We also had him for his 19th birthday. Yay! He is studying hard, and is a smart boy. It was fun to have him and Colton R. together. Thanksgiving was nice. the food was Deee-lish! We went over to Darin and Misty's. Next year, our new house will be big enough to host. I have some pictures of our after dinner walk. I made everyone come. It was a lovely walk, a beautiful day.

AAAANNNNDDDD........

Colton R. got his mission call a few days ago. He is going to.... Drumroll please.....

Bahia Blanca, Argentina! A different mission than Scott served in, But still really cool to have him going to Argentina. He doesn't leave until March.

So I think that about catches things up. Time to go decorate the tree with the kiddos. Landon's very favorite activity!