Outside decorated for Christmas

Outside picture of our house decorated for Christmas...I absolutely love it!

Tree topiary on the front porch
(looks like a post card to me) hehe :)

Metal present stakes my mom bought this year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! :)

Christmas house pictures

As I described in the previous post, here are some pictures of the inside of our house this Christmas! :)

Our little tree, smaller house so we opted for a small tree! :)

TV stand and front door.

My sleeping Christmas puppies! I knitted their "scarfs"

End table, top shelf has our "Delafuente" Christmas poem on it!

Hutch in the dinning room.

Outside to come...

Hello Christmas...

It's that time again! The most wonderful time of the year!

We had a wonderful thanksgiving with my side of the family, both my mom's side and my dad's side come to my parents for Thanksgiving, we had around 25 people this year! We enjoyed turkey, ham and all the trimmings, a plethora of desserts and good company.
IT was good to see my cousin from England and the newest additions to the family, Emma Kate and baby Ben. Cousins only months apart.
The day after thanksgiving the men went quail hunting. Every time they go on a hunt they always have fun and exciting stories to tell, and pictures from Mike, (shoots more with the camera than the gun. hehe ) I was able to re-teach my sister how to knit, after many holes I think she's got it! :)
That night we have our "Sumrall"(Dad's side) family Christmas gift exchange (Don't get to see that side for Christmas) this was very fun this year. Everyone was shocked to see that I stole from my Grandmother and Joseph stole from my Grandfather, hehe...all in good fun! :)

The Saturday after Thanksgiving is the day Joseph and I decorate for Christmas. We keep most of my families traditions. A neighbor helped Joseph do the outside lights while I decorated the inside, then we headed to get the Christmas tree. While decoarting the tree we played Christmas music and drank eggnog (Bordens of coarse.) I wore my brothers old sweatshirt (not hoody) that is bright red and says "Fa la la la la." Classy!
I'm proud to say I absolutely love this house decorated for Christmas. It is by far the best looking we have had since we have been married.
We do not have a fireplace in this house, which is disappointing but we are managing and being inventive with our stockings.
Picture of the house to come!

We are thinking and hoping this will be our last Christmas with out our son! I cannot wait for next year! We have received our fingerprinting appointment, it will be Friday morning Dec 17th! :)

Do's & Don'ts

While going through my required Hague training. One of my required reading is entitled "Cross-Cultural Adoption: The Do's and Don'ts for Grown Ups" I absolutely loved it! I want to post the link for any of my friends so you can be a little more educated along with me!

http://www.adoptvietnam.org/parenting/cross-cultural.htm

Hope you feel a little more equipped! hehe! :)

I600A in the mail

We finally received our notarized "official" Home Study packet in the mail on Friday the 5th. There are 4 copies, 1 for our records, 1 to submit in our Dossier, 1 for America World, and 1 to submit with our I600A.
The I600A is a form you submit to the immigration office to set an appointment to get fingerprinted and to be approved to bring a non US citizen into the country to become a citizen.

Joseph dropped it off at the post office today! Another step done! :)
Once they process our paper work they will set an appointment for us to come get fingerprinted. After that is finished we wait for them to process the fingerprints and approve! This process takes around 6 to 12 weeks. Hoping for 6...
This is where we are now and I will keep you posted!