Happy Birthday, Brian!

Yesterday was Brian's 29th birthday. We celebrated by going out for Mexican with some friends. Celebrating Brian's birthday makes me think about how blessed I am to have such a wonderful husband. We've been through a lot in the short time we've been married, but God has been so good and continues to bless our marriage. I truly married my best friend and can't wait to spend the rest of our lives together! Happy birthday, Honey!! :-)

In other news...

We got a surprise visit from some family this week. My aunt and three of my cousins were checking out a college near us, so they had dinner with us and spent the night. They just got back from India so we were very excited to see them. Can't wait to see you guys again soon!

On the adoption front...

We have now been waiting for our I600 approval for ONE MONTH! Sure hoping to hear something very soon! :-)

More Summer Fun

It's amazing how much more time I have to blog when school is out for the summer! This week I will be teaching "kindergarten boot camp"so I went in last Friday to get my room ready. And would you believe that I have terminates AGAIN this year?! So things were a little delayed and I was a little panicked, but it's taken care of and we're ready to go, right Anna?! :-)

I got to hang out with my cousin Angie this week which was a lot of fun. (Yes, we're at Chili's Annie Beth.)

Can you tell we are cousins? :-)

Saturday was my friend Nicole's baby shower. We are so excited for Nicole and Michael and can't wait to meet baby Cooper soon!
We also got to have dinner with our good friends Scott and Alicia this weekend. Alicia is an amazing cook and we get to try out her new recipes. She gave me some of her "Cooking Light" magazines this weekend so let's see if I can manage to cook like Alicia! :-)
Of course I can't post without mentioning Molly. She is 8 months old today. Happy 8 month birthday, Molly! Maybe we can get our I600 approval and she can spend her 9 month birthday with her parents!

Three weeks--but who's counting?

We have now been waiting on immigration approval for 3 weeks. Our agency said that we can go ahead and apply for our Visas so it looks like that's the next step. At least it makes me feel like I'm doing SOMETHING to keep things moving. :-)

We're three weeks closer to Molly!

God's Little Girl

Oh, little girl, your life was planned,

Right from the start from the Father's hand.

He fashioned your frame in ways so grand,

And loves you in ways you don't understand.

And though I've yet to hold your tiny frame,

You've captured my heart & I long to call your name.

I thank God for you, a gift so sweet and pure,

And pray for you to know His Son for sure.

And as you grow, may you always know,

The Lord is there wherever you go.

I promise to love you thro' all your days and hours,

But never forget His love is far greater than all of ours.
Our Father's Son He freely gave,

And all who believe he surely will save.

Oh, little girl, I've adopted at so great a price,

But as God's little girl,

you're adopted twice.

by: Paul W. Smith

Summer Happenings

Well, the first thing on the agenda for summer vacation was car shopping. Now I enjoy shopping--for clothes, shoes, furniture, and even houses. But I realized after the last few days that I do NOT enjoy shopping for cars. But a week and MANY dealerships later, I have a new (to me) car! Very exciting!Brian, Mom, and I went to Winston-Salem for Father's Day. We hadn't seen Brian's family in awhile so we enjoyed spending time with them.
This was my first Father's Day without Dad and it was a little sad. I know he's so much happier in heaven with Zeke than here on Earth, but we still miss him. Happy Father's Day in heaven. And OF COURSE we're getting ready for our trip to Vietnam and Molly's arrival. I've started purchasing gifts for the nannies at the orphanage, been sorting through orphanage donations, and working on some of our travel paperwork. Mostly just busy work while we WAIT on immigration to tell us we can go! It's been 2 1/2 weeks since we got our I600 receipt--hopefully we'll get our I600 approval soon!

Christmas in June!

We got SO many new pictures of Molly today! I had the best time sorting through the pictures and picking out the ones of her. It felt like Christmas! Thank you SO much, Jenna! These pictures are so precious to us. I don't know how you can love someone so much through pictures, but when you're an adoptive parent, you just do. Come on immigration--give us approval soon so we can get her home! :-)

I can't believe how much she changes in every new picture we get. She's getting so much hair and it looks like she has at least one tooth. She is so beautiful! Here are some of my favorites:

Here's to Summer!

We may still have three weeks left of spring, but apparently the weather man here in North Carolina doesn't know that--we've had a lot of really hot weather here! But hot weather DOES mean the end of the school year. Yesterday was the last day with my class--woo hoo! Don't get me wrong, I love those kids, but this was a LONG week and we're ALL ready for a break! I have two teacher workdays next week and then I'm off work until the end of June when Anna and I are teaching "kindergarten bootcamp"--a one week program for all of the upcoming kindergarteners who have had no preschool or daycare experience.

Nothing new to report on the adoption front. We've now been officially waiting for immigration approval for one week. I sure hope it comes fast and we can go get our baby girl!

Here's to summer!