WE'RE NEXT!!!!

I stopped by our agency today to drop off some paperwork and talked to our Family Advocate and he said that we will not get our referral in this month's batch expected out any day now, but we'll be getting our referral next month. Whoo hoo. At least we know that this is the last batch before us. We're really almost done with the wait. I can handle anything for a month.

I finished painting the kitchen this past weekend so all I've got left is the front room/stairwell/upstairs hallway. So I'm going to get that done this month so the entire interior of our house will be painted before we get our referral...and then we can be completely focused on getting things ready for the baby. Yippie!

The nursery is painted!

Some people (my mother) never thought I would get the nursery painted...well HA...it's done. Well, painted at least. We still need to assemble the crib and the glider rocker and ottoman, hang the window valance and then decorate. But, we're off to a good start and I love the color. It's bright and cheery and it looks great with the pink, purple and yellow in all the decorations. I'll post new pictures as soon as it's all done.

Trying to decide between painting the walls yellow or green.

Green wins!

All painted!

Katelyn's cute chair that I painted to match her room.

Oh the water!

This morning Josh threw in a load of laundry and then was doing something else. When he came back into the kitchen (our laundry area is just past the kitchen) there was an inch of water all throughout the laundry area, kitchen and half bath. So after using EVERY towel in our house we got most of the water sopped up, Josh turned the valves at the washing machine to turn the water off and take the hoses in the back off to try and figure out what the problem was...it was at that point that bad got worse....We found out that the hot water valve switch is broken as water came JETTING out and of course at that point you can't get the hose back on...so we are frantically trying to find and get to our water main shut off. Josh saved the day and turned the water off for the whole house (I know how to do this now too.) But unfortunately our bad situation got worse and after cleaning up the one inch of water...we now had another two....UUGH...So I drove VERY fast to the Walmart, looking oh so lovely (because I got out of bed to this whole situation), and purchased the last five gallon shop vac. I think we probably disposed of a good 40 gallons of water today.

So we aren't sure where the problem is. We thought the drain might be clogged but our free (thank God for something today) evaluation from Roto Rooter left us thinking it's most likely our washing machine that's clogged somewhere (oh blessed pets and and all their hair)...so the appliance repairman will be here tomorrow afternoon.

The joys of home ownership!

On a sidenote...Josh was GREAT this morning and held up perfectly under pressure. He didn't yell or anything...He just took care of things. I was a very proud wife!

All those kids

A family that lives in our neighborhood has five kids. They range in age from 7 years old down to 10 months. All five of the kids are part of our children's ministry and the difference that I see in them from summer until now is amazing. The family is more stable and the mom and dad are at church every week. They are building relationships with others in our church and everyone seems to be growing.

Recently these parents shared that they were pregnant. Of course my first thought was "Really God, can I please have just one child?" Then my second thought was, "Gesh, they can hardly handle the kids they have, what will they do with another one?" It makes me sad that selfish responses were the first thing that came to my head. And at the same time, I'm sure that I wasn't the only one to think these things about this family's situation.

The other day this mom almost miscarried her baby and is now on bed rest. At first I had thought that it would be really sad if she miscarried her baby but at the same time, she has five others. And in the same moment I knew that wasn't true. A mother doesn't love child number six any less than child number one. If she had lost her baby she would have lost a piece of herself. I'm really glad that she didn't lose her baby. I'm glad we'll have another little one in the nursery. I'm glad that as a church we now have another way to love on this family and serve them as they continue to care for five kids with mom on bed rest. I pray that during this time I get to know this family better. And I really hope I get to hold the baby!

7 days of people in front of us...

Referrals are coming out for the early January batch and it looks like China only referred 5 days worth of log in dates. This is not good news. It's looking like they got through 12/19/05 and 12/20 is a HUGE day with lots of families logged in. China only sends out referrals when they've completed a day so it's possible that they got through matching part of the 12/20 families but didn't have enough paper ready babies to complete that day. This is what I'm hoping. They would have to get through 8 days of referrals for us to get ours next month. They haven't gotten through that many days for quite a while and with the 12/20 group being so big I'm just not feeling optimistic. It's anyone's guess. I'm so tired of thinking we're just about there and then having the rug pulled out from under us. In 2007 China only referred three months worth of families. That's insane!!! I can't even believe there are two years worth of people waiting after us. I wonder if they understand how many years that could possibly take. So...never thought I'd say this (which is my mantra these days)...but it could be early March before we get a referral now. I know, I know, I'm hearing your collective sigh. Please continue to pray for our wait. With each month we grow wearier. If we weren't so close I think we'd say forget it. But then I think of that little girl at the end of the journey and I know that in God's timing all of these extra months are just a drop in the eternal bucket. Soon....we're almost to the front of the line.

Christmas at the McD's

Christmas was fun for us all. As usual, we were all spoiled by our friends and family who blessed us with special gifts. The kids had a blast and this year they really took the time to see who the gifts were from and to see what they were before moving on to the next one. They really are getting older. Not having the baby home yet was hard but this really is our LAST Christmas without her here. I took down all the Christmas stuff yesterday. I was ready to put the house back in order in anticipation of the new year. Our rule is that Christmas and birthday presents never get put away before an equal amount of stuff leaves the house so I took a car load of stuff to the thrift store yesterday. Here are some pictures from Christmas morning...

The kids waiting anxiously to open their gifts.

Josh's new movie. (He loves the TV show.)

Melissa's new embossing stuff. Yeah, I can get in touch with my crafty self.

Brandon and Ashley's new game...I'm not sure anymore if I'm smarter than a 5th grader.

Josh's mom, Mona with a picture of her and Josh that my mom took in October.

Cousins, cousins everywhere

This weekend, Josh's Uncle Jim, Aunt Donna and cousins Zoie and Bill came for a visit. The kids were of couse thrilled that they got the ultimate sleepover all piled into Ashley's room and then got to open a couple of their Christmas presents early.

Josh's brother Clif and his girlfriend Judy spent their vacation in Lexington last week. They live in Wisconsin and have three boys (Adam, Keith and Andrew) between them who are all 10-12 years old. So Brandon and Ashley were SO excited to meet their cousins (although Ashley did say, "Oh man, no girls.") and had a good old time. Josh's dad was excited to see them all together and I was pretty pumped to be Aunt Melissa. I've never really gotten to be an aunt before. Josh loved getting to see his brother after many, many years and Judy and I went shopping together and hit it off really well.