So many appointments...

Wow, where to begin? My inbox has been going crazy with emails and confirmations of appointments for all kinds of things. We received word that our case file for the Foster to Adopt license was opened on November 19, starting the 90 day clock ticking. A few weeks ago we went in for our mandatory physicals and are just fine, thank goodness. Then our social worker, Alexa, flooded me with requests for home visits and paperwork to finalize. Most of the paperwork is little things, like copies of our driver licenses and vehicle insurance. The other stuff we have to take time out to do. Tomorrow we go to be fingerprinted for the FBI/Homeland Security to make sure we aren't crazy people. Then in January we have our three-phase Home Study with Alexa. First, is my individual interview on the 4th, John will meet with her alone and then both of us together after that on the 19th. Each interview is about 2 hours. The dual interview will include looking over our home to make sure that we have met all the safety requirements for the age of children we will be getting (probably 4-8 years). We also need to go to the hospital lab and be tested for TB somewhere in there. After all that is done, we will wait for our license to process and then for them to match us with a child or two.

In the middle of all that, John will be flying to Bozeman every other week for the spring semester to teach a class at MSU. I am hoping to audition for the Seattle Symphony Chorale in January, although after 2 months I still have not heard back from them about scheduling. I am currently in two choirs, the Seattle Bach Choir and our church choir. If I get into the Chorale I will most likely drop out of the Bach Choir since three 3 hour rehearsals each week is kind of ridiculous! Also, Erin is coming to visit me (YAY!!) in February the week after I come back from DisneyWorld with Mom and Dad.

Ok, that's nuts! I was hoping to have some down time in the New Year, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. In the mean time, we are driving to Billings on Friday to spend Christmas with my side of the family. We will be home again on the 2nd, ready to start all this craziness.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Church Membership

John and I are now officially members of Bethany Community Church.

The weekend before last we stood with 50 other people and made a commitment to be a part of the church community and take on all the responsibilities that go along with that.

We have historically had reservations about church membership in general. It seemed to be a way for churches to keep tabs on you for giving or be otherwise invasive and our former home church in Pasadena didn't practice membership. Our new church, though, really focuses on the family that is the Church...helping, supporting, and praying for each other. In the months that we have been attending, we have found this to be true. It is a very safe community where we can be real and honest and is what we have been looking for since we had to leave Christian Assembly.

Our senior pastor also has a blog, which seems to follow his sermon topic. Here is the link if you would like to check it out and follow him.

CPR Certified

On Saturday, John and I attended our CPR certification class as one of the steps on our Foster to Adopt journey. It was long, about 6 hours, and covered so many topics that my head hurt by the end of it. It was a much better option, though, than driving downtown for 4 or 5 nights in a row. Basically, we are now supposed to be "experts" in CPR and First Aid. But please, nobody pass out, choke, or cut off any appendages around me!

I really don't want to have to practice what I learned.

Jesse's Quilt

Ta Da!

Introducing my best quilt yet.

(Modeled by Jesse.)

This Thanksgiving we were finally able to meet our oldest nephew, Jesse. I have made a quilt for every baby in our family and for most of our friends' babies, too. Since we had not met Jesse until now, he didn't have a quilt. That bothered me a lot; it seemed unfair. But, what is a cool quilt for a 13 year old boy? I looked through my (copious) stack of patterns, narrowed it down to a few and we finally decided on this one from this book. I took a chance by choosing fabrics with sparkles, but how can you replicate the night sky in fabrics without sparkles? Then I went to work and made the entire quilt in the one week before Thanksgiving. I locked myself in my sewing room all day, every day, for the whole week. It was fun and a challenge to do it that quickly. I did think I might go mad when I was sewing the 96 triangles together in one shot; it took me 2 hours and I don't think I changed position in front of my machine all that time. Needless to say, my legs were numb and I was ASU. It was totally worth it and I would do it all over again, especially when I saw Jesse using it and enjoying it so much. That makes it all worth it!

Here is a better, less fuzzy, view.

Gigantor

As soon as I had my Christmas houses set up, Icky was right in the middle of them. He knocked over a tree I had set up for the town square and took its place. We've been laughing at him because he reminds us of the giant from Mickey's Christmas Carole, strolling around saying "Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum", except this giant just says "Meow".

Thanksgiving 2011

We had such a fun time in Republic for Thanksgiving this year. For the first time in 10 years, John and his siblings were together at the same time, the last time being Joe & Josie's wedding in Three Forks. We couldn't believe it had been that long!

In order to take some of the load off of all that cooking, we divided up the meals and each made or brought food to share. It really helped and was fun to have everyone's input.

Audrey helped me make the pumpkin pies.

We finally got to meet Jesse and what a great kid he is! We also met Miss Dahlwinnie, who is now 18 weeks old, and Thomas was so fun to hang out with.

Audrey thought it was great fun to feed me fruit from one of her Memory cards.

Of course, our meal of choice was pizza. We really missed our pizza machete after only one week of use!

Friday morning we went over to Grandma & Grandpa Large's house to meet up with some of the rest of the family.

We had a great week with the family and so look forward to spending more time together now that we (mostly) live closer together. We love you all!