More Malea...

Just thought I'd put a few more pictures of her on here. It seems like she's changing EVERY day. Her cheeks are getting fuller and you can see her pretty eyes in these. :)

This pictures is after her first bath. lol

Love you all.. We hope we get to come home Soon soon soon!!!

Cheryl, Chris, and Malea.

SHE'S OURS!!!

Here are some more pics of our beautiful new daughter. We were able to bring her "home" (back to the hotel) this morning. Words can just not express what we feel right now. We are just totally in love with her and can't stop staring at her, touching her, talking to her.

We are so thankful and humbled by this amazing blessing.

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers through this journey.

Love you all...

Enjoy the new pictures!!!

MEET MALEA!!!

Here she is!!! I wanted to post some pics here but please do not share them on any other site yet or copy them to anywhere else. We'll give the go ahead when we are comfortable with sharing her with the rest of the world. Thanks!
Chris and Cheryl

Winter 2009!!!

I just downloaded all of the pictures off of our camera and wanted to share some on here.

Last night we drove around Saint Paul and took in parts of the winter carnival. (I mostly enjoyed it from the car!) But Chris was brave enough to trek through the parks to take some pictures for us. :)

These first one's are from Rice Park and the ice sculptures....

These next pictures are from the state fair grounds from the snow sculptures...They weren't done, but Chris took some fun ones....

Chris spent the day at the cabin with Vicky and Tigo... You can see how much snow there was on the roof!!! It's a good thing that they got there to clean it off!!!

Updates....

Ok, so pretty much I'm the world's worst blogger. :( We've actually been pretty bad at taking a lot of pictures lately and with the cold weather we spend most days at the YMCA or home here trying to stay warm!!! So there really hasn't been much to really tell about.

But... I'll try to give a quick update. :) and even a few pics from our Christmas card photo session with Steven. (He did SUCH a great job!)

We're all doing well. Life has continued on as usual with a few bumps in the road and many joys.

Tigo continues to make us laugh pretty much every day and fills our home with life as we wait for our family to grow bigger.

The adoption stuff is going well. We're in the "book" and waiting for someone to choose us. We came pretty close last week. Our social worker called and let us know that our homestudy was looked at by a birth family. Ten profiles were sent to another agency and out of those 10, they chose two homestudies to review. Ours was one of those two. The crazy thing is that the birth mom was due in ONE MONTH!!! That would have definately made things a bit more interesting around here. lol

People have asked me if I was sad that we weren't picked. I'm really not "sad". It would have been AMAZING should they have chosen us, but they didn't. It wasn't our time and our time will be perfect with it is here with the perfect child meant just for us. We're trying hard to let life continue on while we wait and rest in the fact that God has a plan for our family and that plan is perfect. We really want to keep living life so that we're ready emotionally, financially and in great health so that we can be the best parents possible when we are blessed with our little one.

God is good, eh? :)

Here are some pictures from our Christmas card "photo shoot" with Steven. We were so thankful that he was willing to go out on such a SUPER cold day to help us out! Just thought you might like to see a few that didn't make the Christmas card cut. :)

It's been so long since I've blogged, I almost forgot my password!!! How terrible is that?

:)

This is going to be short, sorry, but I wanted to post some pictures of my parent's new home.

We helped move them a couple of weeks ago and it's SO GREAT!!! I love knowing that they are in a warm and cozy home! We can't wait to go see them soon!

Here are the pics!!!

(sorry Tricia that it took me so long!)

(Just remember that we were in the process of moving them when these pics were taken)

Obviously, the kitchen. Mom's excited about having more cupboards. :)

As you walk from the kitchen into the HUGE living room....

The other side of the living room....

LONG hallway....check out the great carpet!

Bedroom #1, Mom said this is HER room.

:)

If you can't tell, this is Dad's room and the 2nd bedroom.

Huge bathroom, with a shower and bath.


Such pretty woodwork!!!

That's it for now.. I look forward to all the other great pics I get to take of all the fun we'll have at Mom and Dad's new home!!! :)

Iowa Family Picnic!!!

WHAT a beautiful day! We all go together again for a family picnic in the park and had a great time! The weather was perfect and the park was great! I really don't think the day could have been better. I love getting together with my family and spending time with my nieces and nephews. This year was SO much fun as we had several little ones who have joined our family. I don't get much of a chance to see them and it was amazing to see how much they have grown!
It's getting late, so this has to be a quick post as I want to attach some pictures before we head to bed.
Here you go. :)

(All of the neices, nephews, great neices, and great nephews that were able to make it)


(Pyramid fun)


(Some tired little sandy toes-SO cute!!!)


(Some of my gorgous neices)


(Look at those smiles!)


(and these smiles!)


(and this smile) :)


(No smiles, but they're having a great time, really!)


(Little Miss Chloe!!!)


(and last but not least, the newest member of our family....
BABY JACKSON!!!)


"What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories." ~George Eliot

Blessings to you!