Wonderful Christmas Time

I had a lovely but wistful Christmas. Shared my video from Haiti with my family. It was wonderful to watch it again and to have them share in my sweet baby boy. My mom had wrapped a gift that said to Julie and Elliott - our first Christmas gift! Inside was the sweetest little brown baby ornament and a little snowglobe with the letter e inside. I love snowglobes! So precious to have my baby recognized at Christmas. They all enjoyed my Christmas card too:) Wish I could figure out how to post it here.

Missing my boy. Waiting for more paperwork. Trying to finish painting and moving out some furniture to have Elliott's bedroom all ready. Missing my boy. Wishing he were home. Waiting is very, very hard. I am trying to keep busy. Doesn't really help, though!

Blessings,
Julie

Christmas Baking

I had the appointment from you-know-where today and was in a tizzy. So what do I do when I'm in a tizzy? I call my older sister and ask her to come over and bake cookies for Christmas. We made sugar cookies and peanut butter fudge. We also made the dough for these delicious Chocolate Crinkles I found a new recipe for this year. I've also tinkered with it (of course) so they are a bit more dark chocolatey. They have to chill overnight so I'll bake them in the morning. It seems like we made more than that! My kitchen is a disaster and it smells soooooo good in my house.

I can't wait until next year to bake cookies with Elliott. I hope he likes to bake. I wonder what cookies will become his favorite? I've also wondered if he'll like hot chocolate with marshmallows. His cousins Danny and Travis love it so it will be fun to have the three boys together drinking hot chocolate. I wish I could send him a whole box of yummy Christmas goodies. I know we'll have lots of years to make Christmas memories and I'm looking forward to it!

Blessings,
Julie

Such sadness

My heart breaks for this couple. It is the fear those of us who have children in orphanages far away that the biological family will return and try to take their bio child back. Please pray for them.

http://countdowntohomecoming.blogspot.com/

It's almost Christmas

and I miss my boy. I've been trying to focus on enjoying school and friends and family but not always successfully. Before I went to Haiti and met Elliott in person, I thought about him quite often but now that I know him, I think about him all the time. ALL THE TIME. I wonder what he is doing, I worry about his health (Elliott has just the usual illnesses of kids in orphanages- a cough, tinea, dry skin), I think about how fun it would be to have him here doing whatever I'm doing at the time. I am trying hard to get another paper filed that should have been filed awhile ago and very worried it will make things slow down.

So those are the hard things. Here are some of the wonderful things: remembering holding him in my arms while he slept. Listening to his giggle on the video. Looking into his eyes in the pictures. Remembering the feel of his little, tiny hand in mine as he would pull me along to show me something. Happy that he didn't want to share me with the other kids. Looking at bedding and trying to decide how to decorate my son's room. Thinking about how fun it will be next Christmas to share baking and wrapping and decorating with him. Absolutely grateful for the blessing of having a son. Being a mother is amazing.

Blessings to all!

Haiti 11-09

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Haiti 11-09

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