I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We have a lot to be grateful for this year! We had a great Thanksgiving. I worked the night before Thanksgiving so I was able to get first peak at all the "After Thanksgiving Sale" ads before Ryan woke up. ;) ... I didn't think they were really good sales... but I made a short list of stuff I wanted. I got off work early (around 7 a.m.) and went to bed. Slept till 11 and then took the dog for a walk
After the walk, Ryan and I got ready to go to my parents house. It was just going to be us this year (Me, Ryan, parents, siblings..). It was a lot of fun. We had an excellent Thanksgiving meal (I really really really love those green beans with those crispy things on top!!). We all missed Steven a lot (he's on his mission) then we rushed out to see a movie. Seeing a movie on Thanksgiving day has been a tradition on my side of the family since I was little. We saw Enchanted and I LOVED it. Ryan put up with it ;)
After the movie we drove up (a 40 minute drive) to Ryan's parents house. There were about 35 people there (Ryan's dad's side of the family) and we had soup and desert. We were way excited to spend the holidays with family. It's so nice not to live out of state anymore.
Anyway when we got home I slept for about 2 hours and then had to work again. (Perhaps this graveyard shift is preparing me for when we have a baby :) ) I got PTO (Paid Time off) from 4 a.m. on so I could go shopping with Ryan. We had a lot of fun. We got a lot of gifts and I can't WAIT till Christmas. I wish we had unlimited funds to spend on everyone.
Friday night we watched the twins and the little girl I used to nanny for. I hadn't seen them for three months. It was so good to see them again. The boys are talking now. It made me miss them so much! The end of last year I had three jobs. I nannied for two families both of whom had twins, and then I worked part time for "the airline". It was an awesome learning experience for me. Anyway- the little girl was all over Ryan it was really cute. I have never met a girl under five who has not fallen in love with my husband!!

Moving on- Ryan is decorating our front yard for Christmas.. it has been a long process. I'll post pictures and you'll see why. Three times now- by the time we get the lights hung they stop working and we have to take them down again.

Finally, the adoption update:
So our background check went through. Our case worker called us Monday morning but I was sleeping since I worked the night before. When I got home from grocery shopping Ryan told me she had left a message and told us that our background check went through. I was SOOO excited. ...But then I felt really bad.
Why? Well... a couple of weeks ago I had been praying about the adoption. I received a really strong prompting to make sure everything was in order so when our background check went through we would be able to immediately get on the list. I had every intention of heeding the prompting, I told myself I needed to let Ryan know.. yadda yadda ... but with the business of the day I totally forgot about it. It wasn't until Ryan told me that the background check went through that I remembered the prompting I had received. I'm a little mad at myself (Really MAD!), but I'm glad for the learning experience and from now on I am writing down every prompting I receive!
Anyway- we're not on the list yet... This is what we're trying to get done as soon as possible:
_ A letter from our doctors saying we're in good health (This is the hardest one- Ryan doesn't have a doctor- and mine is out of town!! :( )
_ The Birth Parent Letter (We're almost done with that... it's taken 2 months to write!!)
_ Our photo collage (I just sent them to costco to be printed.
_ Marriage License, Sealing Certificate, and Birth Certificates (I have these- I just need to drop them off with the letter and the collages)
As soon as I get the letters back from the doctors we'll be on the waiting list. So HOPEFULLY sometime next week?