Greetings from Flippin

That is right, we are in Flippin, Arkansas with the Flippin family. No really, that is where Chris's parents live, I'm not just being sarcastic. What a great name for a town, it is fun to drive through and take in the Flippin First Bank, the Flippin Walmart, and my favorite, the Flippin Church of God. The boys are having a great time, Ryan has fed the deer with Grandpa, the deer have come to eat the corn and Ryan has been spying on them, and we went to see Alvin and the Chipmunks, it is so relaxing here. It was worth the 10 hours in the car with the boys (who did very good by the way in the car).
Before we left, we had the privilage (I use that term loosely) to get fingerprinted at our local USCIS office. It was a very eye opening experience, and one I hope to not repeat any time soon. If you want to know more about it, just ask, but the details will be saved for a not public blog. So one more step down. Next we wait for our I-171H that says we are approved to bring an orphan back into the country. I think that when we get back from Arkansas, we are going to go ahead and get the rest of our documents together so that if things improve in Vietnam adoption world, we can be quick to turn our dossier in. We really have nothing to lose except maybe a little bit of our time, the money has already been invested and we can't get that back. I do feel like things are looking up in Vietnam, but the wait may be longer that we first anticipated, but that is ok with us, as long as it happens, we will wait.
So, if I don't post again before Christmas, enjoy your families, eating until you are sick, the magic of Christmas. I know that I will.

Preschool and the Baby Jesus

The boys love their preschool, and thus, I love it too. It really makes them so happy. Brandon is in the Penguins class. A couple months ago he started to cry on Fridays when I would pick him up because he didn't get the Buzzy, what is that? I didn't even know what it was, but every week he would cry because his teachers didn't pick him to take the Buzzy home. It made me really sad for him, but I told him it would be his turn soon (or I would schedule a little meeting with his teacher, just kidding). Anyway, his tears turned to joy today when I picked him up. He dashed to the car soooo proud holding what? The Buzzy, a little stuffed penguin. He gets to spend the week with it, and then talk about the fun they had in a little show and tell next week. The child could not be more happy, Buzzy has already gone swimming under our Christmas tree, had many a photo taken of him, fought the bad guys with Brandon, and played superheroes. If only everything made him this happy.

Both boys did a Birthday party for Jesus this week at preschool, one of the activities was to make a little baby Jesus out of rice and a nylon. Now, my friends with babies can tell you, Ryan is crazy about babies. He talks to them, he wants to pat them, he gets right in their face, it really is pretty cute (hey, he wants a baby sister too). Anyway, he was in love with his baby Jesus. He carried it around, he held it while he watched his movies, we had to make it a little bed so Jesus could sleep. Well, today tragedy stuck when the inevitable happened, a hole appeared in the nylon. Ryan carried his baby Jesus into me crying, "oh no mommy, baby Jesus has hole, rice fall out." Sure enough, a big hole is right in the middle of the baby, not in a place that could be repaired and rice is pouring out. So I say to Ryan, "we have to throw baby Jesus away. Go put baby Jesus in the trash." Forgive me, I have corrupted my son.

Oh, if you couldn't tell, no adoption news.

The Blog and Sweet Silly Boys Part 2

So before I had this blog, when the boys would do something funny, I would think to myself, wow that was funny. Now I think, I have to write about that on the blog. How has this happened to my brain in just a few short months? I don't know, but here is another funny story about my boys. We will start with Ryan.....Yesterday we were getting ready for church when things got a little too quiet. If you have kids, you know this is never a good sign, so Chris went looking for him. There he was in the pantry with a bag of rice. So Chris says, Ryan what are you doing. He responds with "I put rice in my diaper." What? He got into one of the bags of rice, poked a hole in it, and was putting rice down his diaper. He was so uncomfortable after doing this that he asked Chris to change him. Gee, why would rice be uncomfortable down your diaper?

Onto Brandon.....We have a Little People nativity out for Christmas that the boys like to play with. Today, Brandon decided to combine the nativity with the Little People airplane/vacation set. He put Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus in the plane and left behind the flight attendant and the tourist at the stable and Mary and the gang went on a little vacation. I thought this was pretty funny and creative of my four year old.

Also included in this post are pictures of decorating for Christmas, if the tree and the ornaments survive this year, it will be a miracle, the boys are obsessed with the tree. We'll let you know of any ornament casualties at the end of the season.