The Christmas Season

The last couple of weeks have been a blast for Allan and I.  We officially finished our adoption profile and are now waiting to be certified.  It should be any day now.  It is a relief to be done with the profile.  It's amazing how difficult it can be to just choose a few pictures.  Knowing that there will be birth families out there that will look at our profile...or not...just by the picture, is very intimidating.  But ... we're done.  (Huge sigh of relief)  We have begun to hand out pass-along cards as well...but just know, if you have one our profile isn't online yet.  We'll let everyone know when it is.

For Christmas we took a trip up to Utah to see Allan's family (and got to see half of mine as well!).  We really had a lot of fun with everyone, and everyone was actually there.  It started out a bit rough - Allan got food poisoning from the food he ate at the airport, and I came down with Allan's cold two days before we left - but by the third day we were feeling well again and had some good family time.  We really enjoyed playing with our nieces, playing the Wii's Just Dance and a bunch of other games with our siblings, and eating all of the yummy food Allan's Mom made.  Allan got to play basketball with all 6 of his brothers and his Dad.  It's pretty rare that all of them are available at once so that was a really special treat, and Allan was so thrilled.  We even got a tiny bit of baby time with the newest nephew in the family, after the cold went away.

We had a lot of fun with my family as well, eating more yummy food and playing the traditional game of Canasta - in which I thoroughly kicked everyone's trash!  (I really did too!)  One of our nephews bought for Allan and I this year and we loved his gift!  My sister made a cute bag and our nephew (who is 5) filled it with ... feather boa's and parachute army men!  BEST GIFT EVER!  His mom told us that she asked him what he wanted to get us, and he said very firmly, "Boas".  She tried several times to suggest something else for us, but he wasn't having any of it.  As soon as they got to the store he went right over to the feather boas and picked out one for me and one for Allan.  Then he went and got the army men so that it would be a bit more manly for Allan.  He also drew us a picture of a Christmas tree and some boa constrictors to go with our boas.  Here we are in our awesome boas.  Don't we look fabulous!

 Allan and I wanted to get a wheat grinder, so for Christmas all of our parents donated money to the cause.:)  Our WonderMill will be here any day now!  Woohoo!  I make all of our bread, and I am so excited to have fresh wheat flour! 

Since we got home I survived my first Sunday as Jr. Primary Chorister.  It went pretty well, but only about half of the kids were there, so we'll see how next week goes.  I also still had a froggy voice left over from my cold, so singing was a little interesting.  Every time my voice would "croak" a few certain kids would look at me with this look of concerned amazement.  Hopefully my voice will be back to normal next week, or I might scar them for life.  I just have to say that I am so grateful for Sugardoodle.net; that website (and all of the wonderful people who post on it) is a lifesaver!

Hope all your Christmas's were just as merry and that you have a great New Year!