The Fanning Four

It's been a pretty good year! Lots of changes and craziness but a fun adventure for sure! Little Miss turned 2, started talking up a storm, potty trained, fell in love with Peter Pan, went from baby to little girl, was diagnosed with asthma, went to the circus, rode a camel, saw sea lions in California, started preschool, transitioned out of her crib, and brought her parents so much joy. Hubby turned 33, was a lay director for Chrysalis, led a mission trip to Nicaragua, stood up for something he believed in at work and made a big difference, bought us a new house, joined a men's small group, and loved his family well. I turned 30, had a wonderful girls' weekend with friends, helped lead the Nica trip, moved us from one house to another, cried on B's 1st day of school, played in the PC Pops Orchestra, spent hundreds of hours on adoption paperwork, and loved her life. And somewhere thousands of miles away, a little boy was born and a family made the heartwrenching...

Our dossier passed the FL inspection and now has the Great Seal of FL on each document! Now its headed to Houston, TX to receive the official stamp of the Chinese Consulate. Folks, that's the last step before China!! So, in three weeks, guess where that dossier will be? CHINA!!!! So, we're looking at about three-four weeks from this point. Now, excuse me while I go throw up......er, uh, I mean jump up and down with excitement! What a mixture of emotions this journey is! We had a great Christmas with family and friends. Always a great time with my family and I met up with some college friends and laughed til I cried. Whole fam was sick but we're on the mend. Bethy's going to have adenoids out in January- I am relieved and hopeful! Here's some Christmas day highlights: Happy Birthday Jesus!!  Caleb got a blanket made by Grandma! "My bicycle, my bicycle", she exclaimed!

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas!

Had our second ENT appointment today. The ENT got to see Bethy in full "sick mode". And based on B's medical history, we made the decision together to get those adenoids out of there. It's a quick and fairly painless surgery but does require general anestesia. We'll schedule it sometime after Christmas in the first few weeks of January. The ENT hopes this will make a huge difference in quality of life for Bethy and we hope so too. So, that's the news... And now on to enjoying Christmas with my family! Merry Christmas all!

If you are a church person and have ever even slightly thought about volunteering with youth, you should do it! Even if you haven't thought about it,  you should try it, just once, and you might be hooked! Teenagers in mass can be quite scary, but get to know them and they are a delight (most of them anyways). I have been blessed to work with hundreds of youth over the years and it remains one of my favorite things to do. And just to debunk some rumors about what makes you a good candidate to work with youth I will say that: 1. I am not cool. Not at all. Not even a little bit. I play the oboe for goodness sakes! 2. I don't dress cool. Not at all. Not even a little bit except for the scarf I got recently which my girls thought was cute. And even then, they probably were just being nice because I "tried" to look cool. 3. I am a Mom. End of story. 4. I don't have the Bible memorized. Yeah, I went to seminary but it was for counseling and I barely passed the Bi...

Yesterday in the car, Bethy says, "Momma, watch out, hurry, baby bear Mickey Mouse is coming to town. Faster, faster!" ENT appointment tomorrow. I'll update once we know more.  : )

Have I said enough times yet how much I love our new agency? They're so on top of things and they email me whenever they do something. It's really helpful to neurotic people.... Just saying... So, I got an email from our agency today that they shipped our dossier to Tallahassee today to receive the Great Seal of Florida. Again, this just menas that our notaries are legit. I hear through the grapevine that FL has a fast return rate on these things but it is Christmas time so we'll see. We did have the option to drive over and take them ourselves but we have enough other things going on that we passed on that option. So, Yay for progress! Today at Bethy's Christmas party she was done eating and starting to get tired so I told her it was time to clean up and leave. I did give her the option to keep eating but she chose not to. I said, "Do you want to take those Teddy Grams with you?" "No thanks", she replies. So we walked to the trash can and she du...