Here’s the thing: I think 2010 (and possibly the following couple of years) is going to be full of patience-trying obstacles and frustrating bureaucracy.  I’m trying to prepare myself because being ready for it takes away the initial sting if not the full ache.

And now I know some of you are totally scratching your heads and wondering what the hell I’m talking about. So here it is. 2010 is the year our family begins the journey of adoption. We have been discussing and planning for this for years.  We intended to start the process years ago but, as you know if you have been following me for a while, we started moving across the country, south to the states and there was no way for us to begin without being settled in a location for the foreseeable future. Well, now we are settled and have done our initial research in choosing a country and learning more about the process and we will be submitting our first application to the government in the next week or so. That is the beginning of the waiting.

The waiting is what I am both trying to prepare for and realizing there will be no preparing.  All you can do with waiting is try and distract yourself. But you still have to wait. You can expect to hear a lot about the waiting here.

I haven’t yet decided how much I am going to say about the process yet, or if I’m going to talk about the country we’ve chosen or other aspects of the journey. I may share all the details or only some. But I am really excited to finally be taking steps to bring a third child into our family and I wanted to post about it here.

And here are a few pictures from Christmas because I know everyone likes a little bling and I am not always good about posting pictures.

The tooth fairy FINALLY visited our house. Avery was thrilled!

And then the tooth fairy was back for a second tooth not long after. The tooth fairy is going to have to take out a line of credit. Avery is quickly learning that loosing teeth is a fairly lucrative business!

Avery’s look of horror upon opening the big box she thought contained a piano only to discover the wine glasses and umbrellas daddy had hidden inside.

The kids on Christmas Eve, dressed in their Christmas best. I love Kieran’s hat. My uncle called him Hinz Giesbrecht (a really menno sounding name) at our family gathering because he thought the hat was 100% old school German Mennonite. I still love it.