We had a lovely holiday season. We didn’t like that we did not get to see a lot of our families this year as we stayed here to save money but we were busy. First we drove a little ways to KY to spend Thanksgiving with Mark's Aunt Jackie. She's in an assisted living place and her son, Denny, and his family are spread out all over because both parents are in the military and not at the same location. It was really good to get together and visit with her. We saw his cousin Denny and his family the day after X-Mas as they were visiting his mom in KY and drove here to see us. Denny will probably be deployed to Afghanistan next - we're hoping not back to Iraq. It was really good to see them and are keeping our fingers crossed that he doesn't go anywhere.
We had Christmas dinner with my friend Adrienne, her husband Dave and all of her family that was in from out of town. She and Dave have two little girls and they really made the magic happen this Christmas. Their 2 and half year old daughter Casey has started calling to talk to us and when I see her always wants to know what Mark is doing if he is not with me! Her extended family is getting to be like our extended family, not just to me as I've known them forever, but to Mark. New Years we went over to the friends of ours that hosted our wedding, Malinda and Doug, and they had a murder mystery themed party with us dressing up in costume and playing parts and trying to solve the whodunit. Great fun!

Mark had some much needed days off and I've been working a couple of extra jobs at Baby Gap and Pottery Barn Kids to earn some extra pennies to put towards the baby. With the holidays it’s been BUSY. I think it will calm down in a couple of weeks and the Baby Gap job will end for the season. I'm excited though because I talked Pottery Kids in to hiring me permanently not seasonally! It will be great to know I have a summer job and an evening and weekend job to help out over the first few months when we get back from Ethiopia and I can't work during the day. As far as the adoption we are moving closer to being on an active waiting list. We are almost at the 6 month mark from when we turned in our dossier and referrals have been coming in on average from 6 to 10 months out from the dossier.

Our gift from Santa this year was an adoption baby book and we have started filling that out. The baby room is all patched and the trim was sanded, the ceiling painted, the walls primed and the first coat of trim paint is on. My mom went to lots of garage sales and Jon dropped off everything on his way down to meet her in Texas for the winter. She had knee surgery and had to fly. We have some great toys, clothes for our girl at the ready for when we travel and bring her home, a stroller and car seat, and the most beautiful hand-knitted-by-grandma baby blanket.

Court is slower in Ethiopia right now so I pushed the referral age of our child back to 0-8 months. We need to be sure that she will be able to come back on the visa paperwork that says 0-12 months. I've sent out more note to folks in the Ethiopian adoption community and asked them to forward the idea of starting regular get-togethers. There are a couple of mom's here that get together regularly in my neighborhood that I need to contact. I'm focused on Ethiopia but am going to suggest that we have an open to all in adoption event as well as I am still in touch with families that have adopted through all of the myriad of possibilities that one could choose. I'm excited and hope to set up the first get together by the end of January.