Great Time in Texas

The decision to go home to Texas for Christmas this year was up in the air for a while.  Leaving Jonathan for two weeks would be so difficult and the trip is usually pretty tough on the girls.  However, the thought of not seeing family and friends until the summer was more than we could stand and we are so, so glad we made the trip!

We started out in Waco with Samantha's family and had a great time!  We spent one of our first days working cattle and driving them into the pens so we could move them to another pasture.  Things got pretty fast and furious as we worked to get the last few cows in.  Caroline was riding in one of the trucks with Dan and after they stopped she said "Wow...that was like a roller coaster!"

We opened gifts on the 23rd and the girls got a Flip video camera from Boom Pa.  Hopefully you'll be able to see some videos on the blog in the near future.

We weren't sure how it would go over, but we got Brock an Ipod nano.  Well, he absolutely loved it.  We had loaded it beforehand with about 300 songs (mostly old country & western) and so we ended up spending the rest of the evening two-steppin' in their kitchen.

Cole & Cort got Dan good! 

One of the real highlights was the chance for to Dan to go duck hunting with his nephews.  Cole and Dan went out a few mornings on their own and talked it up so much that by the last day Cort and Doug joined them.  It was cold, icy but an awesome time!

From there we went to Houston and had another fantastic week!

A bonus this time was the chance to see lots friends that we had not seen in a while!  The trip home went well, but it definitely took a few days for the girls to get over the jet lag!

One More Makes Four

Okay, look closely at these pictures and you should notice fairly quickly that there is a new face. This a precious little boy that we have humbly been given the opportunity to care for since November.

There are things in life that you want to do, picture yourself doing at some point, wish you could do, etc. And then sometimes there are things that seem to come out of the blue and are unquestionably from God. Bringing an 8 week old infant, who had just undergone surgery for Spina Bifida, into our home was definitely not on our list of things to do while in China...but we very much feel that it was on God's and are so glad it was!

So, we are now serving as a healing home for this little guy and it's been quite a blessing and an amazing experience!

We are blown away by how welcoming and and loving the girls have been and how quickly they have adapted (much quicker than we have to 2am feedings again!).

He's doing great, growing fast and we can only imagine what the Lord has in store for him!