Just married...a year and a half ago!

We celebrated a wonderful joy in the family as my sister had her wedding last night. Everything was beautiful. I loved the deep red color with the black tuxes and Kristina's white dress. It looked absolutely gorgeous!! Kristina was a beautiful bride and we're so happy to have Steven as part of the family. Everything went off without a hitch. We had a great time at the reception and danced the night away (especially all the little girls who were dancing their hearts out!) :) Below are some pictures of the wonderful event:

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

It's over!
:( After all the preparations for Christmas, it's always a bit of a disappointment when everything is all over. Just looking around the living room and seeing the wrapping paper and bows all over and piles of presents here and there. And then of course I think that I should be so joyful for all the many gifts; I have a wonderful family who'll get together and eat as much as we can; we have the luxury of buying gifts for each other and seeing the joy on others faces when they open them; we have a nice warm place to celebrate in each year. There are so many "gifts" that can't be given, or taken back :), at Christmas time! Thank you Lord for each gift from you throughout the year. Following are some pictures from our family. It's the first year EVERYONE was here for the holidays! :) YEAH!!

The Hahns

Hahns/Bergers/and Clarks

The dads show off their new flashlights! :)

Girl Time

What a wonderful blessing it is to be able to spend time with girlfriends. I had the pleasure of doing this last evening with Jessica. We went to see P.S. I love you, which if you ever decide to see it, you should bring plenty of tissues! A total girly movie, which was fun. Then we went to eat at Panera...mmmm! It was such a nice time to be able to catch up with her. Even though we work together, we don't get to talk near as much as we did when we worked right beside each other! :) It's so nice just to be able to sit and talk and laugh. And I am totally blessed to have such a wonderful co-worker and friend. Merry Christmas all!

Elfis, Elfis, Elfis

No, that is not a typo, but the main character in my students' Christmas musical. It was about an elf (Elfis) who had many similarities to Elvis and his many elves and reindeer. Absolutely adorable. The kids did such a great job, which everyone was relieved about considering their practice the day before was less than stellar! The joy on everyones' faces was priceless, before, during, and after the concert. It was so neat to see the students' take pride in a job well done. Congrats on a great performance! Can't wait until next year.

Two letters

We got notice from our adoption counselor that two birthmothers had requested our letter to read in November. Again, not the high number we had hoped for, but it's a step up from 0, which we had in October! I check the website every day and we usually get hits from 2-3 people. So, people are looking...but which one will choose us? We have yet to know, but it is nice knowing that that decision is not in our hands. Thanks for praying for us! Love ya!

Getting older...

Happy Birthday (I realize it's a day late!) to my wonderful husband who turned 30 on the 4th of December. With our crazy schedules, we didn't get to see each other until 9:30 that night so luckily we had planned ahead to celebrate last Saturday. I surprised Matt with a dinner at Red Lobster where both our parents, the Frye's, Jenn, and the Stuckey's met us to have a wonderful seafood dinner (except Amos who ordered chicken! ;) ) Then we came back to our house to enjoy opening gifts and eating monkey bread, ice cream, and cookies. We had a nice night and were even pretty nice about not mentioning the big 3-0 very much! :) I asked Matt if it bothered him to be turning 30, and he said not really! :) Hopefully I will be as laid back as he was when it's my turn next year.
I was just thinking about getting older and I don't really think the day by day turning older bothers me, but I am quite bothered about being really old (ya know like 70 or 80) and not being able to do things that I can do now. But luckily I've got a long time to worry about that and we'll just take each day as it comes.
Happy Birthday Matt!