Updates

We had Anna make her own Advent wreath.  She obviously doesn't understand Advent yet, but she had fun making it! 

 

We have an children's Advent Activity book and one day the activity was to make an angel ornament.

Our good friends came home for Christmas.  We hadn't met their son Matthias yet, he was born in September (on my birthday!) after they moved to Pennsylvania.  So here are the birthday buddies :-)

 Anna got her first drum lesson from her Uncle Joey :-).  She was watching intently!

 

Anna loves presents.  But she doesn't know they're supposed to be opened yet.  So instead she enjoys pushing them around... 

 And since she's walking now, carrying them around...

Oh what fun it is to crawl under the tree...

And here's a picture of Anna with her first pigtails.  Her curls are now long enough to get into pony tails.  I still have quite a bit of practicing to do to make them look nice, but looking at her face, you can tell she thought they looked pretty cute! 

And in just two days, our friends Jon and Justine and their son Theodore (our godson), as well as our friends David and Stephanie and their son Matthias are staying with us for our 3rd annual New Year's party.  I know, it's not New Year's yet, but we had to do it when everyone was in town.  But since Advent is the Church's New Year, it works, right? 

Anyway, last year at our New Year's party, the three of us women spent a lot of time talking about infertility and the struggles, as we were all in similar boats.  Little did we know at the time, but God had three very special babies for us.  Stephanie found out she was pregnant very soon after that.  And Justine a month later.  And we got Anna a month later!  So by March, all three of us had babies either in the womb or in our arms.  What a wonderful blessing to be able to celebrate the end of a fantastic year and the birth of our Lord with such great friends and their beautiful babies! 

Words cannot express how blessed we feel to have Anna this Christmas.  We cannot wait to celebrate with an abundance of family and friends!  And we especially remember Anna's birthmom and keep her close in our prayers and thank God for her each day.  I'm sure this time of year will be challenging for her and I cannot express enough how much love we have for her.