A Candle for Hope

This first week in December brings us into the first week in Advent.  This time of preparation seems ironic since I feel like we've been preparing for one thing or another for over a year now.  My prayer for my family and yours this season is that we remember this time of year as Advent and as a time of preparation.  So many people skip straight to Christmas and focus more on the gifts, decorations, cooking, baking, and the like.  I pray that we can all keep our minds and hearts on the incarnation of God himself.  The birth of Christ needs to be our priority above all of the hustle and bustle that our society has decided is the priority of this season.  So with that I wish you all a Happy Advent!

It's an exciting time around our house with Advent, but also with all of the new experiences as a family of 6.  Checkout what we've been up to . . .

Miss "T" has decided that one of her favorite cereals is Cheerios.  She's actually eaten (and enjoyed) some vegetables as well.  Kevin has been more than amazing instilling the "one-bite-rule" with our youngest kiddo. 

The girls have had a lot of fun playing with one another.  

"M*", "S", and "K" have been absolutely wonderful big sisters!

We took our first trip to the store!  Everyone was a great helper!

"S" helped her Daddy rake the yard!

 . . . and after raking the girls just had to jump in the pile!!!

"T" had a great time playing on the playground at her sister's school.

We celebrated Kevin's birthday.

"T" saw her first glimpse of snow.  There will much more in her future!!!

Miss "T" finally made friends with our cat, Thor.  When "T" first came home she was terrified of him.  He's basically a 20 lb docile lump of fur!

We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Berg grandparents.  It was a nice week!

We celebrated "S" and "M*"s 8th birthday!  We have some new budding musicians in our house.

"T" and "K" are definitely buddies and "K" is trying to teach her so many things.  It's really cute to see her be the big sister she's been looking forward to being!

As we continue to prepare throughout Advent we can't help but thing of the other preparations we still need to make for "M^" to come home.  We are still waiting for her paperwork to make it's way through the Ethiopian court system.  We are also waiting for our new homestudy to be completed.  Our hope is that we'd be able to bring her home in April or May.  It can't come soon enough!  

I look forward to sharing with you our continued journey as a family and our continued adoption journey!  Happy Advent to all!