Hi Y'all!

Is anyone still reading this and checking in with me? I doubt it but if so, hi and thanks! We have been running wild with the notaries of the New River Valley getting every paper known to man notarized, stamped, signed, sealed, delivered, etc! It is weird, we are very excited about this adoption and yet very hesitant all at the same time. It seems so bizarre at times-we are going to be going halfway across the world, be handed a baby, and be expected to keep it? Like, FOREVER?? What?! And then other times, it just seems like of COURSE we would do that, why wouldn't we?? Like I said, weird. Plus it is a full time job to keep "our eyes on the prize" so to speak-it is hard to see a tiny sweet baby on the other side of a mountain of paperwork!!! But God is so good, He is handling everything in His perfect timing, as always. So we are just plowing through this process, at breakneck speed because that's the way I roll, and should be ready to wait for our sweet little one sometime at the end of June/early July. Yup, be ready to wait. That's the name of the game right now. But it is ok-we need the wait, too. Thing 3 is entering a hurricane phase of toddlerhood that is just exhausting the whole lot of us and is delightful yet exasperating all at once. Thing 2 is a reading machine and daily laments that she is not at school-what a cute little nerd! I just love her :) She has such a sweet and gentle personality-such a blessing. And thing 1, my oldest, is just becoming such a tall, beautiful, intricate and intriguing girl-she is all at once fascinating, hilarious, brilliant and exasperating! Why are my babies all growing up so fast?! My knitting has all but shriveled up right now-I have been plodding away at the same silk lace scarf for several months, snatching bits of time here and there to get in a few rows. I think when it is done, it will be my memorial of a season of my life in which I kind of made a "momamorphosis"-I am not the mom of little tiny tots only anymore, I have 2 school-aged children all of the sudden, my "last" baby is on her way to becoming a big sister, we are going to be a "big" family now, we are going to be a transracial family now, the days of doing laundry in one day a week are long gone, and my knitting is the last thing on my mind most days!! What a difference a year makes. It was last summer when God planted the seed of adoption. We've come a long way, baby! Anyway, this was just a checking-in post 'o randomness so if you still ever cruise by here, give a shout out to let me know! I will leave you with some pictures of our trip last week to the beach-Hilton Head Island, SC-which was AWESOME! We go every year and it's just our family and it is a extremely important week for our family to just connect, make memories, laugh ourselves silly, eat junk food, throw the schedule out the window, play on the beach, look for alligators, and just love each other. This year was no exception: Here is Thing 3, on the attack. Hey, is that a movie star? Why, it's Thing 1!! Look at that little surfergirl-Thing 2 is a cutie patootie!And here's our whole family, minus one little "deeply tanned" cutie who will be joining us next Spring and be in our next beach pictures, for sure!! (and yeah, I don't do make up on vacation nor give a flip about my hair-and I'm ok with that :) )

Thanks for stopping by-I'll try to keep the posts a bit more frequent these days. I miss my bloggy buddies!!