Now THAT'S sketchy!!

After posting the kids' Santa pictures, I had to share this....

A friend shared it with me on Facebook, and it cracked me up--and made me very thankful we didn't go see some of them! No wonder some little kids are terrified! Enjoy!

Santa 2009!

We had a successful visit to see Santa today. The kids were great! They were really interactive, and Reagan was a gem this year! Hooray!

Compare this to last year and you will see why I am so happy! (Although, I still LOVE this picture!)

Christmas Treats and Fun!

Here are a few pictures of our recent Gingerbread House and Christmas Cookie-Making Fun!

Rush even got to help some!

This is what Reagan tried to do most of the time....

Rush putting his special touch on the back...

There it is! It's a perfect choice for this Hokie Family!

Showing off their handiwork....Reagan is pretty excited as you can see!

There it is!

Time for cookies!

I love Christmas....so many chances to make sweet little memories with the kids!

A Very Liberating Feeling

I made a decision this year that I didn't think I would ever make. It's trivial in the scheme of things, yet, I still struggled with it quite a bit. Here it is....

This year,

there will be no...

Middleton Family Christmas Card!

Ahhhhh, I feel better just saying it. You see, I LOVE Christmas cards. I don't know why, but I do. And for the past 5 years, I've loved making Christmas cards of the kids. But, I've also realized how difficult it can be to get that "oh so perfect" picture (or not so perfect), how annoyed I get at the kids while trying to capture that picture because they would rather fight and make silly faces, picking out the right design, price shopping, addressing, deciding who to send them to (or not), etc, etc. So, this year, we're not doing it. And I will fully admit that I am a tiny bit sad about it....but the bigger part of me doesn't care. It's one less thing to do, one less thing on my list, one less thing to stress me out during the holidays, and one less thing to pay for!

So, please know, we still love you all...just not enough to send you a card! :)

In other news, we got notice that the government received our updated paperwork to extend the Immigration Approval for our adoption. We're just waiting on an appointment to get re-fingerprinted. And then, we'll wait some more....and some more....and some more. That's it for now!