Now that Christmas is over and we have started a New Year I feel like I finally have time to blog. December was incredibly busy but a good busy. We had a lot of fun with our family and friends and John and I even had the chance to get away for a long weekend the week before Christmas!

This year I am going to borrow the title of a book I read for the motto of my year, RADICAL.

I know many of you have read it and if you haven't and you desire to live your life differently and make a real difference for God's Kingdom then you should. I begin leading a Bible Study on the 10th on this book and I am so excited about it! God blessed me with a wonderful group of ladies that started meeting in my home last October. Being a busy mom I have trouble finding time to spend with other ladies and this Bible Study group has been an answered prayer for me. God place the perfect 5 ladies together and I am so excited about leading them in this study.

Anyway, I want this year for me to be RADICALLY different than how I have lived in the past. Some things are for me personally and others are all about helping others. The first thing I am going to tackle is unnecessary shopping. This is a big problem for me and something I have got to stop. I have tons of clothes I don't wear and things I never used because they seemed like a good idea at the time but I don't really need them. I want to use my money for more important matters like bringing home our daughter from China in 2011. So no more "I'm just killing time in TJMaxx" purchases anymore.

As for the adoption not a lot going on there. Just waiting on the US government to approve us and give us a fingerprint appointment. It should be soon because I got a letter from them yesterday saying we were being processed and would soon get an appointment. That is after of course they sent our I800a back twice. Once was my omission of some important info and then again because they raised the fee and requested 60 more dollars from us. I'm surprised I'm not overly discouraged because I had hoped to have a referral in January but that isn't going to happen! I know God is in control and I guess having gone through this before I know it all works out just fine. I just can't wait to see that little face and get excited about going to China to get her.

And another RADICAL thing I am doing is losing weight, Ok maybe it's not so radical but for me if I do, it will radically change my life. I know I said I was going to do this last year and lost some but gained it all back. I'm really making a commitment, I am tired of being ashamed of my weight and want to be more healthy! So I started back yesterday to working out, today I am trying something new so I better go before I lose motivation and find something to distract me.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!