Three Christmas Celebrations

Kameron and I flew back to Spokane from Utah yesterday. We had a wonderful Christmas! We spent time at my parents' house, Kameron's parents' house, and at my brother, Tom's house in Logan. I was overwhelmed with gratitude to have three happy and loving settings where I could celebrate Christmas. I felt God's love so strongly. I am looking forward to this coming year--I know there will be much to look forward to!

My Inside Voice

Confession: I have a really loud voice. Especially when I am on the phone. I have been teased endlessly by co-workers who state they can hear my conversations from across the office. Kameron states that when I talk on the phone that there is nowhere he can go in the house where he can’t hear me. I take no offense and make no excuses—I know they are right.

I’ve tried to keep my voice down. When I worked in St. Louis I had a sticky note on my phone with an arrow pointing down to remind me to lower my voice. It worked if I remembered to look at it.

At my Spokane job, I forgot all about my problem until I walked into my office last week where my office-mate taped a sign above my computer that said:

INSIDE

VOICE

EMILY

We laughed about it. “Oh yea,” I apologized, “I forgot about that.”

Why the loud voice? I've thought maybe I want to sound more confident or that I don't trust the quality of a phone connection. I'm not sure, but I'm thinking it may also have something to do with genes. Sometimes, when talking to my family members, I step back and realize we are all practically yelling...maybe through natural selection we survived because of our loud voices. I'm not sure. And I'm not sure why I'm blogging about it. Probably because I constantly see my "inside voice Emily" sign. It may be finally sinking in...

Waiting...

Lots of people have been asking how the adoption process is going. And, please know, I don’t mind answering any questions. (Well, maybe not ANY question, but you know what I mean.)

As you can see from our little time clicker on my side bar, Kameron and I have had our adoption papers completed for about two and a half months. A lot of work goes into the approval process—letters of recommendation, an ecclesiastical endorsement, couple interviews, individual interviews, child abuse and neglect checks in every state we’ve lived in the last five years (which, for us, was three), FBI fingerprint checks, a home visit, creating internet profiles and endless paperwork. There’s a lot of hype and excitment getting it all done—and then you wait.

The way our adoption agency works is that birth mothers choose the family they want to place their child with (which is the way I prefer it to be). Consequently, that means we wait until either a birth mom picks us through LDS family services or until we find a birth mother on our own or through someone we know. There is no estimated time of when we will adopt—it could be six months; it could be six years.

Although it can get a little nerve wracking—-we are doing really well! We are happy still being the two of us—we have a great life together. We also have a calm, peaceful feeling that everything will work out great. There have been a few adoption leads and a few disappointments—-but we know that God is aware of us and knows what is best. It’s kind of exciting in a way to see what is in store for us unfold. So, please keep us in your prayers and keep us in mind if you know of anyone considering placing their child for adoption. We’d appreciate it!

It's Begining to Look a lot Like Christmas

Okay, so this post is mostly for my mom to whom I've been promising to post pictures of my house for months. I decided to snap a few pics of our Christmas decor...

Here's the alcove above our fireplace. When Kam's family was up, my mother-in-law, Nettie, painted the branches above our alcove (in about 1 1/2 hours--she's amazing). She also made the Nativity in the alcove.

Here's our Christmas tree...

Here's our cute Santa Claus Kam's very talented mother made for us. We also recently bought the painting on the wall-we love it!



Here is proof of progress in the bathroom. We (meaning mostly Kam) finished tiling and grouting--Wahoo! Now we just have to wait a few days before we can seal it and then finally start using our shower.


I hope you are all have a great Christmas Season!