Sorry it's been so long since i've updated here... i started a blog more specific to our adoption journey, and i guess i have just not blogged a lot lately. The website for the other blog is
http://harderfamilyadoption.blogspot.com/

I hope you've all had a great Christmas. Ours has been pretty good.

Jonathan was officially (or unofficially?) done his job at the farm on the 25th (well, the night milking, so technically that would've brought him to the early am of the 26th ~ lol)... and his new job doesn't start until Jan. 2, so we had he's had a few days off which has been WONDERFUL! He did a night shift at the farm on the 28th, and he's agreed to doing a few Friday or Saturday nights in January... not sure how long that will go on, but I think it'll be ok.

The whole job thing has left us (or me anyway) with some mixed emotions. Since giving his notice at the farm, they clarified that they had given him a raise the previous month, and offered him (i think have given him for December), another raise (to encourage him to stay??). Why did it take so long? Truth is, at this point, his new job will now be a cut in pay. However, we anticipate a raise at the new job fairly quickly too, so we are confident it'll all work out. And we ARE looking forward to the regular day-shift hours with ... um, weekends off?? Lol... eventually. Jonathan hasn't agreed to Sundays though, so if he's only doing one day or shift/week at the farm, it's not bad.

Christmas eve, the kids wanted to open the gifts they had bought for each other. We don't emphasize Christmas gifts, and we don't buy them for the kids... but it's fun to see them thinking of and buying gifts for each other. They had a few gifts for Jonathan & I too. In particular, one of their gifts just blew me away... they collected cash (probably Darwin's idea, and he contributed the most) and did up a note saying the money was for our adoption fund. It's a significant amount of cash for our children (they don't get much from us), but Darwin gave generously from his hard-earned work money. It blessed me SO much! Does that tell what they think about adoption? It's almost hard to accept money from my children... but how can you say no? And really, I don't want to rob them of the blessing God wants to give them for their thoughtfulness and generousity.

Christmas day i didn't feel great in the morning ~ woke with a headache and my tummy was a bit yucky. So I didn't go to church. We kind of left it up to the kids if they wanted to go with Jonathan or not, and they all stayed home. That felt different... normally if there's church, they would've just gone. But for some reason, i felt like Christmas morning often has too much emphasis on the gifts everyone got, and it was just easier to let them decide rather than try and have them get ready on time. My headache lingered until late afternoon/evening when i was helping Darwin make dinner. (He wanted to make Christmas dinner, but it was a bit much for him to do alone). When Jonathan got home, we had a lovely meal together. Then we watched The Sound of Music on tv. Jonathan had to leave again for work by 9 or 9:30, and the boys ended up trying out a new computer game (Oregon Trail), but Janique & I watched the movie to the end. I love that movie every time I see it.

On the 26th, Jonathan & I went shopping. We had been waiting for this day to hopefully buy a bed at a great price. It was a long day, and by the time we came home, we had actually "bought" two beds... we ended up cancelling the first one because the second one was a better deal. That's an interesting story too... when we went back the next day to cancel the one from "store 1," i was curious what their Sealy beds were selling for ~ just to compare with the deal we got at the other store ~ so we went to look. The sales rep saw Jonathan holding our bill/sale (which we were about to cancel) and was curious... when we told him about the deal we got, he said that was such a good deal he wouldn't be looking anywhere else. Basically "unheard of." (But being a sales rep here, in his words, "i didn't tell you that.") The cool thing was, i was able to tell him "we prayed about it before we went shopping for a bed, and God must have led us to the store (store 2) at just the right time. We thought we were done shopping, but happened to be in the area of "store 2" and remembered that store had crossed our minds earlier... so we thought we'd just check it out. We were there right about 5pm, and they just happened to be having a one hour sale ~ half price on all their clearance items in the back ~ from 4-5pm. Then when the bed we decided on seemed to be sold (no longer available in their computer), she offered us the same bed, but a "new" mattress for just $100 more." It was so neat to be able to tell this guy how God had directed us... he said "God bless you."

Hmm, it's getting very late... lol... why i don't blog often ~ i'm too slow at it because i spend so much time thinking through what to say and how to say it. I have more to share, but it'll have to wait...

good night.