All I want for Christmas...

Well, Christmas has come and gone in a blur of shopping, cooking, eating and opening presents.  My older boys are home for the holiday and I have to say that it has been wonderful.  I am very thankful for my beautiful family and thankful that we were able to share a great Christmas.  I have very few pictures of all of us together so I had my niece take a couple of us tonight.  So, here is my family...Christmas 2011.

We were missing one very special little girl this year.  I have been a little down in the dumps that Elise was not here with her new family for Christmas.   But things are progressing and we will be getting all of our dossier off to our agency on Wednesday if everything goes as planned.  It is a great feeling though to know that this is the last Christmas we will spend without Elise.

This morning I woke up to an email from Bethel, the school where Elise is living.  We had sent her a present and they sent us five very precious, very beautiful pictures of an incredible and beautiful Elise.  I am so in love with this little girl...it really does amaze me how I can be so attached to her and I haven't even met her.

Devin loves the jacket she is wearing.  I will be on a mission to find this jacket!!

She really knows how to tear into presents!  She is going to have so much fun here next Christmas.

I was told by one of her teachers that she loves to look pretty and loves her hair in pretty bows.  She looks like she is telling the office manager at the school "hurry up and do my hair, I need to look pretty"!!

Here Elise is with the new hair bows in her hair....well, not really bows, but rather these beads that hang...they look real cute on her though.  You can see the pajamas we sent to her on the right and the backpack on the left.  I don't see the toy we sent.  But I notice that she has discarded everything for the hair bows.

It looks like she is not all that happy that she had to put the backpack on.  And look at the grip she has on her new hairbows!!  She is not going to let those go for anything.

I am so thankful for the wonderful school that is taking care of Elise.  They have made it much easier for us to get through this long wait.  And I know that next year when she is with us our Christmas will be even more special....