My Joyful Hallelujah!: A VERY Merry CHRISTmas!!! (Adoption Update)

Merry CHRISTmas!!! I hope your time with family, cherishing the Savior's birth, and eating lots was amazing. Ours was!

Our FAVORITE gift was an email from our social worker with THE ARTICLE 5 LETTER!!!!!! Hallelujah!!! It's here!!! Now, we are JUST waiting on court dates!!!!!!! It's REALLY happening!!! Hopefully this time NEXT MONTH we will have a kiddo AT HOME!!!!! O praise the Lord!!!

It's funny though... all throughout this year I kept thinking that all the paperwork would be done on certain days. Jacob's birthday? Definitely not! My birthday? Nope! Eric's birthday? Almost... Jesus' birthday? OF COURSE!!! We received the email on Christmas Eve!!! That's soooo like our great God!!! I didn't expect anyone to be doing any work on Christmas Eve... but of course... our God was working on our behalf and delivered the best Christmas gift EVER!!!

Jacob asked me what I am going to do when we get the email with the travel dates. I said, "I will most definitely pee on myself!!!" I cannot wait to go get our Eric!!! What a great day that will be! So please pray that those dates are set QUICKLY and that I'm not in a public place when I get the email! Haha!

My heart is FINALLY ready to buy, decorate, and get things looking like he is COMING!!! We went on a massive shopping spree the day after Christmas. We spent lots of the gift cards Eric got for his birthday - so thank you all who gave!!! We got to buy him games!!!, clothes, undies, socks, laundry basket (you know a teenage boy needs his own), headphones, skateboard, shoes, and much more! It was so fun shopping for our kiddo! We can't wait for him to be here and play/see/wear everything... we'll probably help out on some of that playing!

So here's some pics from our Christmas... hope yours was just as festive:

First stop - Christmas Eve at my grandparents:

Here are my 2 favorite men in all the world - my PawPaw and my hubby! Can't get better than that!

Here are some of my favorite women - my auntie M, Mom, and Nanny!!! Love it!

Me & my cuzzy! We've been besties since we were babies! :)

Some of my cousins!

This is a family tradition - Dirty Santa! We play every year! It's super fun.

This year was pretty vicious! Presents stolen all over the place! Jacob and I actually walked out with the presents we wanted!! woot woot!

My cuzzy's kiddo got a cape!!! Some might call that extra-large Superman underwear. Nope... it's actually a superhero cape! BOOM!

Fun times.

Here's the grandparents and the kiddos.

Love these people. They care for each other like a family should - sacrifice, working together, fixing issues, and making sure their parents are taken care of.

P.S. - I hope I still look at Jacob like my Nanny looks at "her man." Even though she doesn't know what's going on a lot of the time... she loves her man. She always thinks he's cute and sweet.

My family.

Third stop (second stop was Christmas breakfast at mom's) - Christmas day at Jacob's parents:

We got the parentals hand-painted ornaments with their grandkids on it. Mom's says "We love Grann" with Walter, Jubi, and Eric on it. Jacob's parent's says "We love Grammy and Big D" with the faces of Johanna, Kylie (will be born in January), and Eric on it! Love them!

Jared and Ashley got me an ornament with Belize on it. LOVE THIS! Belize will ALWAYS have a special part in our lives! It's already hanging on my tree, which will be up until Eric gets here!