Merry and Bright!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of our friends and family...a little belated! 

I want to start by giving everyone an update on our adoption....

Contrary to the title of this post, we have no new movement on our case. We are in exactly the same spot we were in back in September. We are currently waiting for the state to approve a new RIPA (read: agency representing international adoption cases) for our case. While the wait is frustrating, we are feeling very blessed. We have received a new update that has let us know our baby girl is being very well cared for during this time before we can bring her home. She is a very happy, giggly, little girl. We also received new pictures! Cora is so beautiful!! And her hair is gorgeous and thick and maybe curly! It's a good thing Santa brought lots of hair bows!

Cora's Christmas "haul"! Special thank you to Aunt Traci for the hand-made teddy bear!

A precious hooded blanket from Aunt Sarah and Uncle Will!

It is especially hard to be so far away from our baby during the holidays, but we are taking this time to prepare our home and our hearts for the day that we will finally get to bring her home. There are days I feel like part of me is missing, but being able to spend precious holiday time with friends and family has been a great comfort.

Christmas Eve picture with Jason's family (fur baby included!)

We spent Christmas week with Jason's family who we only get to see once or twice a year. It was a great week with lots of family time. Jason and I both thoroughly enjoyed getting to spend some time getting to know our 16 month old nephew and spoiling our nieces (8 and 11)!!

My next project during this waiting period is to get Cora's room completely finished. More pictures to come soon, but I'll leave you with tonight's project of getting her shelves set up and filled with stuffed animals and some awesome Braille books that were donated to us!

We hope everyone has a blessed and safe New Year!