heading out

wish us luck.

six adults.

sixteen kids.

hotel.

water.

(remind me again why we do this?)

merry christmas

preschool christmas show...

absolute cuteness all around.
loved it.

don't say he doesn't get into the game...

just in time for christmas photos...
basketball proved to be a game of street ball yesterday. :)

nativity

lately,
brody's favorite thing to do is arrange one of the nativities we have.
it happens to be my favorite one,
because no one understands why there is a huge rooster,
or why baby jesus looks like a thirty year old man.




on this particular day,
i walked through the room,
and stopped.
maybe it was the way the light was coming in,
or maybe it was something more divine,
but at this particular moment,
there was nothing more beautiful.



beauty and light
all wrapped up
in one magical moment

a while ago

last weekend the kids lead worship...
it was adorable
and perfect
and made me remember how much i love kids,
everyone's kids.

it has been kind of white around here lately

before the outside fun, there was a heated battle between the african animals and the british... don't ask.



sledding with sara
i had to break out one of their christmas presents early.. the sleds.
just in case we don't get another big snow after christmas.
they were totally okay with that one.



i elected to stay inside.

this morning...

trekking to the bus...

so after church tonight*...

we finally got the christmas decorations out.



the kids did the whole tree by themselves



never far from my mind...



*technically it was last night, as i didn't finish decorating until about twenty minutes ago.... saturday night, contrary to what the date says. :)

i heart whitney.

so, today is my birthday...
my wonderful friends took me out to coffee,
and gave me the BEST GIFT.

then, i got a few orders for watercolor portraits,
so that made me happy...

but get this,
hannah's friend whitney wrote me a letter for my birthday,
and attached was TWO hershey's fun size chocolate bars (she must know how much i love chocolate)
if that wasn't enough...
here is what the letter said:

Dear Amy,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Hey Amy, did you notice that next year at this time you could have 6 kids?

Sincerely Yours,

Whitney Woepking

is that not the best? i love her. so, so blessed this year, with amazing family AND friends.

going out on a limb..

i have been fooling around with some cartoon type paintings lately,
painted one of our soon to be daughter and i,
one for a friend,
and one for another new friend, who has encouraged me to sell them for a fundraiser to help with our adoption costs.
totally out of my comfort zone,
but now that i am almost 35,
(like in twenty minutes)
i can stop caring about so much stuff, right?
okay.
good.
so, anyway,
i added a blog button to my sidebar, feel free to share it,
on blogs, or fb, or twitter, or wherever...

just dreaming...

about micah...

i read this today,
and it made me think of micah...
oh, micah.

"walking with loud giant steps while he can because he's already noticed that when you grow up, even if you do keep walking as big as you can, you have to be quiet about it, or other people get headaches" -- story people