33 years ago...

...my family welcomed me into the world!  I was born Christmas Eve morning, so the night of the 23rd my dad had to quickly put together the table and chairs that Santa was bringing my big sister.  She obviously got to see it, but had to leave it behind because they were taking her to my grandma and aunt's house.  We can't feel too sorry for her, though, because she got to open all the gifts under their Christmas tree from their students (they were both teachers).  Plus, she got me as a little sister that Christmas!!  The best present ever, I'm sure she'd agree!...right, Brenda?!

Now, 33 years later, it's come full circle and we are both going to be first-time mamas in 2010, as well as our little sister becoming a second-time mama!  The explosion of children in our family this coming year will be amazing...only hope the grandparents can keep up with all of them, which they have assured us they will.  Get your rest now!!  It's going to be a busy year!  But the best one yet, for sure.  Can't wait!!!

More good news...

... just keeps rolling in.  I called the National Visa Center this morning and they informed me that our paperwork is being sent to the Embassy in Seoul today!!!  That means we have made it through one government's hoops and are on to the next.  We do not know how long it will take before we get the travel call, but each day is one closer to that moment.  With the delays that the agency in Seoul has been experiencing due to decreased number of emigration permits their government has been issuing, and the backlog of children to come home ahead of baby J, we just don't have an answer as far as our timeline.  But that day WILL come!!  We will continue to get ready for him to finally be part of our family and, to that effect, more good news...the stroller we ordered came in and we picked it up today!  Chris' mom bought it for us; thanks, Grandma Mary!!  We're starting to accumulate more and more baby items.  Now, if only someone would like to loan us their child to get the dogs ready for the huge change ahead!!  Any takers?!?!

Hall*mark request

As mentioned in a previous post, we recently sent a recordable storybook from Hall*mark to baby J in Korea.  I had sent a thank you email to the store, I think from the receipt you could go on-line and write a review or something like that.  Anyway, when I got home tonight, I had a personal email (not just a formatted one) from a Hall*mark public relations person from the Kansas City headquarters...they want to use our story on their 100th anniversary website coming out in January!!!  Here is an excerpt from that email:

"Your message about how the Hallmark recordable storybook will help the
little one you're adopting become acquainted with his new mom and dad from
afar, has made its way to me. Actually, it has been shared with several
employees, especially those on the creative team that came up with the
idea, and I guarantee you, it has made everyone's day here at Hallmark's
Kansas City headquarters!

I am writing to make a request.  Hallmark will mark its 100th birthday on
Jan. 10, and one of the ways we are celebrating is to develop a centennial
web site.  One of the features of the site asks people to share their
"Hallmark moment" with us.  The site launches in January but I would like
to have some Hallmark Moment stories already on the site to help people get
the idea -- and your story is one of those I'd love to be able to post."


We are both so excited about this request!!  When I sent the thank you email and explanation about the book, I had no idea that something like this would happen.  This will be a great item to put in baby J's life-book scrapbook that I am making for him (so that he can follow along on his adoption journey, bringing him home, and his early life with us).  He'll know that we are so proud of his journey to us and to be chosen as his "forever" parents.  So don't forget to go to their website after January 10 to see our "Hall*mark moment" published for the world to see!


Merry Christmas, Baby J!!!  




ps - Not sure what happened to my font size here, after pasting the excerpt from the email...gotta love technology.  ;-)

Can't sleep...

Why am I awake at 12:30 am?!?!?!?  Well, I know why I'm awake (dear hubby's noisy nose!), but I just could not get back to sleep so decided to post some pictures.  Unfortunately, I also have to work in the morning, um, in 5 hours, to be exact.  After laying in bed trying to get back to sleep, obviously with no success, I uploaded some recent pictures.

Jinx and Lexi

Jinx rarely tolerates Lexi laying so close to her when she's napping, so I could not resist this picture!  As you can tell, they are used to me snapping photos of them close up...not fazed by it at all.

Before I sent the book to J that I wrote about in an earlier post, I was trying to find the Hangul (Korean alphabet) letters for Mom and Dad to write in it.  I came across a website (Zazzle) that sells Korean items and found this shirt...I could not resist it because it's so accurate:

the extent of my modeling career!

Here's a close-up:

I love this shirt!!  I wore it today (well, yesterday now) and we were out to lunch when someone came up to us, said they had noticed my shirt, and congratulated us on our adoption!  I will probably be wearing it frequently because I have to get good use out of it and once J comes home, we won't be "expecting" him anymore.  Yeah!!  Can't come soon enough!

Well, I am going to hopefully get back to sleep now.  Another 3 hours of sleep would do me well before working a 12-hour shift.  Maybe I'll get lucky and be put on standby so I could at least sleep in some.  Sweet dreams!

8 MONTHS OLD

I need to be getting to bed after a loooong day at work and meeting with friends to celebrate a referral for one of them (yeah!), but I just wanted to say that my son is 8 months old today!!  I leave you with a few photos of what I'm going to do now:

Another gift and Christmas trimmings...

We have had a chance to send another care package over to our little boy with a family going over to Korea to meet their son...thanks Audrey!!!  I found this gift at everyone's favorite card store and could not pass up the opportunity for our J to hear our voices for months before even meeting us.  Yep, you read that right: he is going to hear us reading a story to him!  :)  It is a recordable storybook where we recorded ourselves reading the pages; when he turns the page, the new page will be read to him...by us!!!  We're hoping that in doing this, we might be more familiar to him (at least by sound) and not be quite as much strangers to him when we finally meet and bring him home.  This will hopefully allow him to feel safer with us at a time that is going to be very stressful for him.

We spent Thanksgiving weekend with my family and celebrated Christmas while we were there.  Jason even had his own stocking that was stuffed full as well as a couple of gifts that will be waiting in his room for his arrival!  What a wonderful extended family he has.  Can't wait until he is here and can rip into his own gifts, instead of Mom and Dad doing it for him!

Chris and I spent this last weekend getting our house ready for the Christmas holidays.  We bought the tree, set it up, and decorated the tree, fireplace, and house (inside and out) with lights.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this season (and not just because it has my birthday in it as well, but that is a bonus!).  The dogs have actually been leaving the tree alone and I have only caught Lexi drinking from the tree stand once.  Here is our relaxing experience from Sunday night.  Don't you just love the smell of fresh-cut Christmas trees and a fire crackling away?  We do!

We just found out today that the USCIS has approved our paperwork and it will be on its way to the National Visa Center (NVC) tomorrow morning.  This is the last stop in the US before it goes to Korea.  We are hoping that it will be on its way over there by Christmas...what a great gift that would be!!  Then it's more waiting while it goes through a few processes over there, but maybe things will start picking up speed in January.  We still don't know when we'll be going to get him, but every day is one closer to the three of us finally becoming a family.  These holidays are hard because we know our son is half a world away, growing up without us.  But we also know that he is being well cared for by his foster family and they will have these holidays to spend with him making their memories that will last them a lifetime.  We'll have the rest of his life to make our own memories with him.  We are sooo looking forward to that!  That first day of making memories can't come soon enough!!!

More Pictures

Not much to say, but here are more pictures of Chris' big weekend and J's room, plus the end of the weekend.

My man bringing home the bacon, er, venison.

Here are more pictures of us putting the crib together, with some help from our little ladies!

Caught her sticking her tongue out at the camera!

Here's the finished product...can't wait to see our son in it!!

After a busy day, my family sacked out...

...well, except for one little girl who has to know what's going on at all times:

Happy Thanksgiving!!  I know we are thankful for many, many things this year!

Some pictures...

Just wanted to post a few pictures from the last week for you all!!

Here is a teaser shot of J's painted room...
it's kind of a pistachio pudding green.

The rest of the room is a bit of a mess right now,

so no shot of the whole thing until later!

Chris was going on a trip and this is Lexi's

subtle way of saying she wants to go too!

Also, not the first time she has done this; she will climb

in most any bag that has our clothes in it...too cute!!

Finally, I gave the dogs a lick of a lemon and it was sooo funny!

After the first taste, Lexi would actually run away from it if I put it too

close to her.  Jinx wasn't sure she wanted to taste it, but she also didn't

want to pass it up since it was something new.  So she was guarding it

from Lexi, who thought if Jinx had something, she should get it as well.

Come to find out, it was the dreaded lemon!!  What I didn't get a picture of

was her howling at Jinx-and-lemon from a foot away...what a character!!

A Little Bit Closer!!

Our SW received the second endorsement letter yesterday from DCFS!!!  This is a step that only IL families have to go through and usually takes a little bit longer because there is only one woman who does all these letters.  She was probably trying to clear  her desk before the holidays...yeah!!  It is not a huge step, but we are that little bit closer now.  Our paperwork will now go to USCIS, which is the immigration office here in the States.  I am hoping they will be done with their part before Christmas.  We are now at the point where I have an email address or phone number for these offices and I can pester keep track of where our paperwork is at, so it doesn't get lost.  I can feel like I'm a little bit in control of what happens, at least (even though I'm really not!).

Still don't have pictures of the room yet...haven't had time to download from the camera, but soon, I promise!!

7 months old!!

Dear son,
Today you are 7 months old...isn't that amazing?!?!  You're getting so big, I'm sure.  You will soon be receiving a care package that we are sending over to Korea with some friends who are going to pick up their son.  We hope you like the things we put in it and get some comfort from the blanket and pictures of your mama and daddy.  We are looking forward to bringing you home early next year (the earlier, the better!).  Your room is painted...thank you, Grandma Klein!!  Some of your furniture is in there, but we have to set up the crib yet.  It is really starting to look like a child's room and is just waiting for you to fill it with your smiles, giggles, and babbling.  It is so exciting to see it come together and it's becoming more real to us that this is actually going to happen.  We know you are being well cared for, but we are still missing you and cannot wait for the day that our arms are finally filled...with YOU!!
Stay healthy and happy, our darling boy.
All our love,
Mama and Daddy

(pictures of the room will be coming soon, I promise, Tiff!!)

It's the small things...

Most of the time when I go to a store or online to look at baby items, it is just assumed by the people/website that you are pregnant.  This really bothers me, especially when adoption is becoming more prevalent.  But I was soooo excited when I registered online at "Baby's R Us" that the second question asked was whether I was adopting!!!!!!  I was just so pleased to see that places are starting to realize that not all families are built the same way... it's the small things.  :)  [Although "Target" still gives newborn diapers out in all of their Baby Kit bags, without asking...:(  ].  Now I just need to find that perfect list of what exactly I need to buy to get ready for a 10-month old, rather than a newborn!!  I will take any and all suggestions!

Another not-so-small, actually a rather big, thing is that we are sending a care package over to Korea for J!!!!!! Another waiting family who will hopefully be traveling next week to pick up their son is graciously taking this gift over with them and will drop it off with the Korean social worker for it to get to J!!!  Thanks Shona and family!!  Safe travels.  Here are a couple of pictures that I took of what we sent to them:

 I can't believe that in the next few weeks, he will be seeing pictures of me and Chris for the first time!  My heart wants to be there with him so badly, I want to be the one to hold him when he sees those pictures, I want him to see our faces in person NOW!  We thought the wait to referral was hard, but I agree with others who have been in this situation, this is a thousand times harder!  Especially because we are going to miss his first Thanksgiving and Christmas; we want to spend his first holidays with him, not halfway around the world from him.  We are missing so much of his life already.  These holidays are going to be very difficult for us, since our family is not complete; one part of it is not home yet.  This care package will give me joy, though, knowing that J will be getting something soon that we picked out just for him.  He will be snuggling with the security blanket that I washed for him, along with a load of his clothes(...let me tell you, that was the best load of laundry I've ever done!  I've been looking forward to that one for years!!).  I'm hoping that this is something he latches on to and that it is sent with him when he comes home with us.  We are also hoping that his foster mother will take lots of pictures of him with the two disposable cameras we sent, in the hopes that we might get some of them when we go pick him up.  We would love to have pictures to show him of this time in his life.  The other green outfit are pajamas a friend of mine sent to us.  Only thing is, it would have been way too small for him by the time he got home, but I just loved the snuggly fabric, so instead of taking it back for a bigger size, I decided to send it over to him now.  It will definitely keep him warm and cozy!  (We don't even know what size he will be wearing when he comes home, so I didn't want to return it and have it possibly still not be the right size.)
We also sent a small gift for the foster mother, a scarf and some stationery that we hope she'll like.  She's doing a job I could not do, caring for a child who she knows is going to be adopted by another family, and she will have to let him go.  She has an older son and daughter of her own, but it still has to be hard on their family.  I give thanks that she/they are loving him and caring for him until it is time for me and Chris to take over.

Next week, while my DH is gone for work, my mom is going to come help me paint J's room so that we can start getting things arranged...and rearranged...and probably rearranged again!  I am really looking forward to finally seeing that room turned into a nursery.  It's so exciting!!

My mom is also dying to get her hands on the quilt!  I know she would much rather be working on that next week instead of painting, but she said she will do whatever needs to be done (and probably secretly hoping that we will get the painting done so we can get on to the quilt!).  I am still waiting on a few squares from people who have said they are doing one, but I am also eager to start on it, so if I don't have yours (or haven't received a verbal promise of one), please please let me know very quickly so I can leave a spot for you!  Here is a view of all the squares I have in the tentative order on the quilt.  It will not be this big when it's finished.

I have two more squares that are not shown here from a good friend (thanks, Dodger!) that I am going to be making into a long pillow or two throw pillows; I haven't made up my mind yet.  These squares have the words "family" and "love" written on them in Korean.  I cannot cut them to the size I am cutting the others for the quilt, so I'm using the same backing for them that I'm using for the quilt in order for them all to coordinate.  I cannot wait to get started on this project!!

So those are the small and not-so-small things that are happening now.  Stay tuned...

Celebrate!

My friend, Sue, and I went out last night to celebrate the very good news of another adoption friend who received the referral for her daughter yesterday!!!  We are soooo excited for you, Kara, and decided to go out and celebrate with some chocolate!  Here's some pictures of our night:

We definitely enjoyed our Almond Joy martinis...yum!!!

I bought this baseball chair for J's room; it's just adorable, isn't it?  I thought it appropriate, as Chris and I love watching baseball.  Hopefully, our son will as well!  And from his very own chair; that is, unless he's using Mom or Dad as his chair (sigh, I can't wait!).

LEGALS!!!!

Our social worker received J's legal papers!!!!!  These are the papers sent from Korea that are needed for everything else in the process to now move forward.  We are so excited...we are one step closer to bringing our son home!  This step happened so much quicker than we had thought it would; we were expecting to wait another 3 weeks at least.  The SW will now send the legals to DCFS for the second approval letter; let's all hope that the one woman who does all these letters is not sick or on vacation!!

We bought J's crib and changing table over the weekend from friends in town.  The crib is still in pieces, but the changing table is set up.  I cannot wait to put the crib together and clean it to make that golden wood shine for our little boy!  First, though, we need to make room in the nursery to put the baby furniture.  I can't wait to get the room painted and all set up with all his little clothes washed and put away and his toys sitting out, ready for him to come home!

We're off to celebrate with some ice cream tonight!!!  Yum!

October 14, 2009

Our son is six months old today!!


Remember that picture frame we bought months ago, just waiting for our referral picture...well, it's filled now!  And what a cute little guy he is!

We can't wait to bring you home!!

Ergo fun

We finally got our Ergo in the mail yesterday and I just had to open it and try it out.  I had wanted to have it last week so I could put my nephew in it when we met my family for the Notre Dame game, but it wasn't meant to be.  Soooooo, next best thing to try it out with is our dog, Lexi, who weighs about 23 pounds...perfect size!!  (She thinks so, too!)

And I made Chris try it too so he can get comfortable with it.  :)

Lexi was just hanging out and loving it.  This dog loves to be held and snuggled, so she was a perfect guinea dog for our new "toy!"

I think we're going to love our Ergo...now we just need our son to put in it!!!

I'm a Mom...

...to the most adorable little boy ever!!

...who is deliriously happy about our referral on October 2 at 9:33am!!!

...after going through five years of countless fertility treatments.

...with a loving, supportive husband as the father of our child.

...who wants the best for her child.

...who cannot wait to hold my baby in my arms for the first time and forever!

...who is nervous about being a first-time mom, but...

...who cannot wait to be a first-time mom!

...who has been staring at my baby's picture to memorize it for the last week.

...to Jason Gerald Taylor.

...finally.

Our busy week...

Well, one week ago this morning on October 2, I received "the call" from our social worker.  I was watching "Gray's Anatomy" on the computer since I missed it the night before, when my phone rang with the special ring that I had set for our adoption agency.  I think I stared at the thing for a full five seconds before it hit me that this was IT!!  This was THE call!  We knew we were #1 on the list for a boy for a couple of weeks, but I woke up that morning thinking we wouldn't hear anything that day since we thought the Korean government had had Friday off.  But as I listened to that ring, I started shaking.  I couldn't find the stupid button to stop the episode on the computer!!  Finally, finally, I did and I opened my phone with unsteady hands...

"Hello?"
"Hi, Rita, this is Diane, from Lifelink.  How are you?"
Ohmigod!  How AM I?  SERIOUSLY?!?!
"I'm okay?" I say ask.
"Well, I think you're going to be more than okay in a few minutes.  This is it.  I have your referral."

By this time, I'm crying as well, but have to calm down and try to write down the information she is giving me about our son.  I think I asked some questions.  She asked if she should email the pictures and information to Chris as well as to me, but I said just to my email; I wanted to surprise Chris at his office and open the email there so we could be together when we saw our son for the first time.  After remembering to put the dogs in their kennels (with a big treat for both of them), I was carefully pulling out of the garage when my phone rang again...this time with Chris' ringtone!  I wanted to tell him in person and was somehow able to play it very casual while talking with him, but inside I was screaming and jumping up and down!!  He had no clue that he had just become a dad and me a mom!!!
I finally made it to his office and walked in while pulling a card out of the bag I had with me.  It was addressed to "papa" which he didn't get at first, but after reading the inside where I informed him that we were parents, we just held each other.  This has been the first joyful news we have had in five years during our struggle to become parents and we are finally nearing the culmination of that journey.  It was very surreal, even before we opened the email and saw sweet Jason's face for the first time!  We are so very, very happy, excited, ecstatic, nervous, thrilled to have him for our son and cannot wait until the time we get to bring him home!!!

I then pulled out of my bag a gift for Chris (which I had bought last week along with the card).  It is a WillowTree statue of a father, mother, and child.  Titled "Our Gift", "Our bright, joyful gift"; there is not a more perfect "gift" I could have given to him.

Here's to our gift, our sweet baby J, our little boy...be happy, be safe, be loved, little one, until we are finally brought together as a family!
Love, Mom and Dad

Something To Pass the Time

I saw this game on Sue's blog. I decided to play along since I could use a good distraction. :)

Rules:
You can only use one word.
Pass this along to 6 of your favorite bloggers and alert them you have given them the award.
Note: I'm new to the blog world and I'm pretty sure every blog I follow has already been tagged....so, I'm just going to share!

1. Where is your cell phone? table
2. Your hair? up
3. Your mother? understanding
4. Your father? supportive
5. Your favorite food? pasta
6. Your dream last night? none
7. Your favorite drink? pop
8. Your dream/goal? closer
9. What room are you in? bedroom
10. Your hobby? reading
11. Your fear? loss
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here
13. Where were you last night? home
14. Something you aren't? patient
15. Muffins? cranberry
16. Wish list item? children
17. Where did you grow up? Ohio
18. Last thing you did? read
19. What are you wearing? green
20. Your TV? off
21. Your pets? sleeping
22. Friends? genuine
23. Your life? happy
24. Your mood? relaxed
25. Missing someone? always
26. Vehicle? Subaru
27. Something you're not wearing? shoes
28. Your favorite store? Babyland!!
29. Your favorite color? green
30. When was the last time you laughed? tonight
31. Last time you cried? tonight
32. Your best friend? knows
33. One place that I go over and over? Sue's
34. One person who emails me regularly? family (I know, not one person!)
35. Favorite place to eat? ElTorero

Garage Sale Success

So, before we get to the garage sale, Chris and I went camping - with the dogs - a couple of weeks ago. This went pretty well. Our older dog, Jinx, has been camping with us before and takes everything in stride. Loves being in the car and outdoors and adapts to new situations very easily. Lexi, our younger dog (who just turned two with a Frosty Paws treat thanks to Grandma Klein), is most definitely our princess. She is more anxious and doesn't make transitions well, but usually follow Jinx's lead (after a while), thank goodness! Of course, I forgot our camera AGAIN during this trip, so I have no pictures to show of them. After the first day, Lexi got more comfortable...or maybe she was just worn out from the 3+ walks they got daily and also being outside the entire day with us. It was beautiful weather, so we were only inside the camper at night. We may take them again, but next time, we should have our baby with us since it won't be until next spring. :( don't think we'll try that first trip with our child AND the dogs at the same time!!

Now, for the garage sale...it was a HUGE success!!!!! Even more so than I had imagined and, I think, much more than Chris had thought it would be. I had two friends who helped me sort, organize, and price items for a few days prior to the sale. They were unbelievable and I could not have done this thing without them!! Thank you sooo much, Sue and Theresa! Before they showed up on Tuesday morning, I was definitely feeling overwhelmed and like I had bitten off more than I could chew. These two ladies were my saving angels (or unicorns! they know what I mean) this past week! I really don't have the words to express how much they did, between the two of them, to help me out and keep me less stressed than I would have been otherwise.

Sue was also the one that helped me during the sale on Thursday. It was supposed to start at 3pm and we decided to start putting the tables out at 1:50; by 2pm, we had people starting to look through stuff, even though we continued setting up until 2:45, when we did our first sale and it did not let up the entire evening! We had gorgeous weather the entire week. My parents were able to come up and help out on Friday and Saturday and brought another table, which we needed! Chris had to be out of town on business until Friday evening, but he was back for the final day and tear-down of the remaining items. We had a lot of stuff left over at the end and have already taken half a truckload to a Goodwill/Habitat for Humanity-type organization, which they were thrilled to have. We will take more to Goodwill, baby clothes to the Crisis Nursery, and the books to the library. We have been so blessed by everyone's support and donations and want to pass this goodwill on to others who need it.

I will leave you with some pictures of the preparations and finally, the left-overs from the sale:



This is our front room the morning of the first day of the garage sale. I had to leave a pathway to get to the front door!




To this side of the front room, everything was piled up. Kept the clothes and most of the toys in here rather then storing them in the garage.




This is "appliance row." I did not have any way to get through the garage at all during this time. We had table after table jammed into the space and there wasn't much room left to get around.




This is a view of the garage from our garage door, the night before the sale started (this does not include the large pile we had outside under two large tarps that would not fit in the garage!)...




...and this is the same view on the evening we finished. We had already taken some of the leftover items away by the time this picture was taken. I cannot describe how many donations we had from people...it was unbelievable and heartwarming!

Again, we are so thankful for all the help and donations that we have received in the past 5 weeks and 3 days. Yes, that is how long we had once we decided to do the garage sale until it was over!! We are hoping that this brings more good news in the next couple of weeks...like the call that will increase our family of 2 to a family of 3 (plus the dogs, of course). We'll post here when that happens!

Stay tuned...

Garage Sale!!

First of all, no, there has not been any news about us moving up on the list at this point. There have, however, been a few travel calls for some of my on-line friends to go pick up their children!! Congrats to all of them. We are all hoping that this means more activity in the whole process and more referrals coming in!!

As the title of this post suggests, Chris and I are planning on having a garage sale in mid-September to raise some money for the adoption. I am really looking forward to it!!! Many friends, family, and co-workers are donating items to us to sell at it and we cannot thank them enough for their support. If anyone else is interested in donating items or helping out, we accept!!!! It's going to be crazy busy until then, getting ready for it, working, and taking another camping trip, but we're up to the challenge! :) I'll update on this project closer to the time.

Speaking of camping, our last trip was great!!! We had friends come with us for the first part of it and then Chris' dad and nephew were there for the end. This is the first time we have had more than me and Chris "living" in the pop-up camper and it worked out well, as far as I could tell. They all seemed to enjoy themselves as well. The weather was perfect the entire time we were there and it was pretty relaxing for us.

Wedding Weekend

This past weekend, my older sister got married to the man of her dreams!!! We had a great time getting ready for it and spending time with the extended family as well as meeting my new brother-in-law's family. He is one of 7 kids and is a twin as well!!! The wedding was beautiful; they did such a good job with all their preparations and it was all perfect. (If anything did go wrong, you couldn't tell at all. Kudos to you, Brenda and Nathan!) It did pour down rain before the wedding while we were getting dressed at the church, but it let up a little for us girls to run outside in order to get to the back of the church (no, there was no way to stay inside and do that unless we walked directly through everyone there!). It was thundering during the wedding ceremony, but by the time it was over, there was only a little mist and she was able to get the outside pictures that she wanted. The wedding was lovely, the bride was gorgeous, the groom was handsome...and I now have another brother!!!!!
(Most of my pictures from the wedding itself did not turn out great because they were way too dark...guess that means it's time for a new camera! And I was too busy dancing and partying to take many during the reception. I'll have to wait until I get some from family before I can put a good picture of the bride and groom up here.)

My younger sister's son, Caleb, was such a ham the whole long weekend. He just loves the attention and boy, does he ever get it!! He's adorable to begin with, but when he smiles and says "Peeease!" there is just no saying "no" to the kid. And does he like to eat. I think he ended up with three cupcakes at the reception (cupcakes instead of traditional cake, looked really neat, tasted awesome) and two chocolate-covered spoons! He definitely ran off all the sugar, though, while his dad was chasing him around. The cupcake table was low enough and they were close enough to the edge that he made off with that third cupcake before anyone could stop him. I think he was just getting them for the frosting, though...



And then his Uncle Chris and dad thought they could imitate him...what cuties!



During some pre-wedding shopping, I saw this cute Cleveland Browns football jersey that I just had to buy for our child. I grew up in Ohio and am a Cleveland Indians/Browns fan and you just cannot find that apparel living in U of I country!






Finally, some other pictures from the weekend...





Caleb and Jimmy at the rehearsal dinner having some fun together.










Like I said, the boy likes to eat!!!












Becky and me after the wedding ceremony... Brenda picked very pretty colors (pewter and pale pink) and we all looked great!













Becky and Jimmy at the rehearsal dinner.













Me and Chris at the rehearsal dinner.






This is Caleb at a family get-together this summer, smashing his nose up against the screen door. He would do this, pull away, laugh hysterically, and do it again. What a little goof!!