New Years Thoughts & Christmas

Well the craziness of Christmas is over and we are embarking on the New Year.  For it to be 2011 makes me feel rather old, even though I’m not that old, but the number 2011 just seems so strange.  We Kelleys are hopeful and excited to see what God has in store for us in 2011.  My mind could go in a million different directions just thinking about what all may await our family this New Year.

Top 3 Things I Am Most Excited About For 2011:

#1:  Hands down, meeting of our third son. I thought about him and his possible family in Ethiopia a ton over Christmas.  We have so many things up in the air this time around and so many things God has pressed on our hearts about the process to getting him home.  We know time may be greatly different than Sol’s.  We feel God has placed on our hearts things we never even thought about with Sol’s adoption and we want to make sure we act accordingly to what God is leading us to do.  We anticipate seeing just how God will unfold his story and everything in between.

As I mentioned in the last post, we do 3 gifts for each kiddo on Christmas.  This year I knew I wanted to find them each a kid backpack.  I absolutely fell in love with these and snagged them at an awesome price:

So on Christmas Eve when we pulled their presents out I actually cried because I had forgotten that we had gone ahead and bought a fourth backpack for our next little boy.  Josh just smiled at me when he noticed I was tearing up and gave me a tight squeeze.  I just cannot wait to have him home and let him sport this around.

#2 Our church’s carepoint in Swaziland with Children’s HopeChest. The launch date has been set for February 20th at our church and we received all the kids profiles right before Christmas.  82 kids that need to be sponsored and development projects like a kitchen, wells, bathrooms, chicken coops, etc are awaiting us.  If you live in the area and want to join us on February 20th please do.  To read more about this and see if this is something you or your church may want to be apart of CLICK HERE.  There are so many opportunities available.

#3 Going back to Africa.  We are hoping to make it to Africa at least twice in 2011.  Once to Ethiopia to bring our boy home and at least once to Swaziland to hang with and love on our sponsor kids.  This makes my heart super happy.

And I hope everyone’s Christmas was fantastic.  Ours was too much fun.  All the kids are just at that super fun age.  Even though they don’t look it, except Sol, they were really excited Christmas morning.

Harper LOVED her doll bed.

Hud was thrilled with his motorcycle and tool set.

And Sol couldn’t get over his firetruck to make it to his other presents (notice his 2 snowflake packages in the background).  He was in love and Harper and Huddy were done before Sol even made it to his other presents.  This made us laugh.

Also it turns out I may like the day after Christmas even more than the day of Christmas.  All the festivities were completed and we just stayed home and enjoyed being with just our little family.  The boys TOTALLY cracked us up sporting their silly bandz and head lamps from Aunt Jen.

I pretty much took several days off from crafting, but did finish up two projects.  This 8×24 canvas was for our friends at church, Stacey and Kurt, who are about to bring home their son Jonah from Ethiopia.  I couldn’t make it to their shower, but knew I wanted to make Jonah something.  Stacey said she would love for me to use his Ethiopian name and with that, I couldn’t wait.  I love how it turned out and Stacey did too.  Praying that sweet boy is home soon.

I also finished up another giveaway camera strap for Facebook.  This will be up for grabs tomorrow, January 31st on my Facebook page to welcome in the New Year.  If you’re a fan on Facebook check it out tomorrow and enter to win.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has an awesome New Year.  Thank you so much for all the business this year and assisting in bringing our next little boy home.  2011 is going to be insanely great!