Second place again!

My level 4 team at Premier Gymnastics had their last regular meet of the season on Sunday. We got second place with a respectable 109+ score. Alas, we were way outgunned by the first place team, Solid Rock Gymnastics of Lincoln. Next week is our state meet; my last meet for the foreseeable future! Tears! :(

Shout outs to Jessica H. for finally hitting that beautiful beam routine in a meet for a 9.45, our individual high score of the meet; Jaime C., the most improved all-around gymnast in level 4 and to everyone on bars... most improved event!

A Christmas tag

My friend Kristen tagged me in her blog. It's a Christmas tag! Here are the questions and my answers:

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hmmmm.... hot chocolate

2.Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Santa is too tired and lazy to wrap by the time he gets to our house. Wrapped presents from the family are under the tree, Santa leaves his presents in front of the fireplace.

3. Colored lights on house/tree or white?
Colored lights inside, white lights outside

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
No

5. When do you put your decorations up?
The weekend of Thanksgiving

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
homemade noodles

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
Going to see Santa at L.S. Ayres in downtown Indianapolis... they had a little train that the kids rode through a winter wonderland before lining up to see Santa. Very "A Christmas Story"-ish.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I think I was about 8 years old. It was in the summer, and other than that, I don't remember the details much. I think I just asked my mom.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
We used to open our present from my maternal grandma on Christmas Eve

11. Snow. Love it or dread it?
My distaste for snow and all things winter can't be expressed by mere words. Having lived in California for a few years, I can honestly say that the whole four seasons thing is highly overrated.

12. Can you ice skate?
Yes. I like to ice skate. Our neighborhood has a skating pond to discourage us from skating on the lake. Last year the whole family got ice skates for Christmas.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
My favorite gift is getting matched with our new twin daughters a couple of days ago. And maybe the stuffed Lassie dog I got when I was a kid in exchange for not sucking my thumb.

14. What is the most important thing about the holidays to you?
Just being with my family

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
My favorite is peppernut cookies, just because it's a family tradition from my mom's side of the family.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
I don't really have a favorite

17. What tops your Christmas tree?
Pierced brass star. Pretty, but needs polishing

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
Giving... it's a mom thing

19. What is your favorite Christmas song?
"O Little Town of Bethlehem" And all the Veggie Tales Christmas songs.

20. Candy Canes. Yum or Yuck?
Eh.

21. What do you want for Christmas?
Twins

22. Do you attend an annual Christmas party?
Yes, more than one. Mostly work related.

23. Do you dress up for Christmas Eve or wear PJ's?
I usually wear a nice holiday outfit to church on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day, I wear my pajamas all day long. We very rarely go anywhere on Christmas Day, it is just my immediate family.

24. Do you own a Santa hat?
Yes

25. Who do you normally spend Christmas with?
For the past ten years, we have gone to my aunt's after church on Christmas Eve and spend Christmas day at home. My aunt died recently, so I'm not sure what we'll be doing.

I'm not going to tag anyone with this, but if you're reading and you want to share a Christmas memory or tradition, that would be lovely. :) I would love to read them in my comments.

Prayers for Evan

We have some very dear friends who now live in Michigan. Seven years ago, the wife/mother of this family was killed in a car accident, leaving behind two young children and her devastated husband. She was a wonderful friend to me. This tragedy brought our families very close together. We just found out that Evan, who will be 17 years old this month, has a very aggressive form of melanoma. He has had surgery at the Mayo Clinic and is at home now. We love Evan as though he was a member of our family. Please pray for Evan that he will have a complete recovery. And also for his dad, our dear friend Bill, and Evan's beautiful sister Abbey that they will be strong and that together as a family they will make it through this crisis.

Matched with twins!

I am so thrilled to share that we have officially been matched with twin girls! We found out about them yesterday, and the match was made official today. They are 4 and a half years old, 36 inches tall and 27 pounds each. Of course they are beautiful. :) We don't know much about them yet except for their health histories. I have been lobbying for a sibling group for a few weeks, and Tom wasn't sure. He told me yesterday that he had decided that if a sibling group somehow dropped into our laps, that it would be a sign from God that we should adopt them. Well, yesterday these girls dropped into our laps via an agency email about "waiting children". I couldn't believe it when I saw their description... I emailed for more information before I even told Tom what I was doing! I was in love the second I saw their photos, and I think it took Tom about that long too.

Fun facts: the date on the medical report for the girls is the exact date our dossier arrived in Ethiopia. Also, their listed birthday is my mom's birthday. How cool is that?

Kenneth, Emily and Anna are very excited as well. Emily and Anna were at school when I got the news, so I woke Kenneth up to show him the pictures. He didn't even mind. He texted Emily and I drove over to Anna's school to show her the photo. Tom is in San Diego today, so I've been emailing and forwarding emails to him all day long.

I'm exhausted because I was too excited to sleep last night. I am so thankful for the miracle of these girls... we have only been waiting for a referral for two weeks. God is great; God is good.

So happy. :)

Deck the halls

Fa la la la la... la la la la.

We usually decorate our house for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Last year we moved into our new house right after Thanksgiving, and the only decor we put up was the Christmas tree. (We didn't even know where half of the things were packed!) This year I am putting up all of our stuff. So here is our family room ready for the holidays, complete with two dogs and one half of a dog. They always manage to sneak into every photo.

Next up, the outside decorations. I'm waiting for a relatively warm and windless day. That could be a while here in windy Nebraska.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all... we have so much in our family to be truly thankful for! We hope that all of our friends and family have a beautiful day appreciating all the many blessings God has given them as well.

Changes are hard

Nothing much is going on today. I had an emotional week. I turned in my resignation at the gym. My last day will be December 15. Most of the staff knew I was planning to leave due to the upcoming adoption, and also to free up some time to get Anna to and from her after school activities. It was just a matter of making a decision as to "when". I thought after the state meet would be a good time... but I am so sad! And I made little girls cry! I know it will be for the best in the long run, but changes are always hard for me. It is a great job and a wonderful part of my life. I will miss all of my little girls so much. So sad... :(

Miscellaneous News

In other, less exciting news, we got second place at our meet this weekend. Sigh. I had dreams of grandeur there for a while, imagining a glorious undefeated season to cap off this portion of my illustrious coaching career. Unfortunately, the balance beam had other plans for us. Still, I'm proud of my girls as always. And as I was reminded by Isabel, all of the girls got a trophy, and trophies are really fun.

Emily got the one extra point she needed on her ACT to boost her scholarship money up to $7,000 per year when she starts at Iowa State next year. Way to go Emily!

Anna and I had mother-daughter migraines today, but we are both feeling better now.

No major updates for Kenneth. Tom is in California.

No animals are sick. No cars are in need of repair. All is peaceful at the Spears household.

DTE!!!

That means "Dossier to Ethiopia" and what that means is that we are now officially waiting for a referral for our new little daughter. This is "official" waiting, as opposed to the unofficial waiting we were doing before. :)

Oh, happy day! Praying for a relatively short wait...

We're 2 and 0!

My gymnastics team, Premier Gymnastics Level 4, had their second meet of the season today. We got first place again with a fabulous score of 113.05, ahead of the second place team by .065. All of the girls were great today, but I would like to recognize and congratulate my top scoring girls in each event: Vault, Sarah L. 9.75 (highest individual score of the meet!); Bars, Brooke S. 9.3; Beam, Alexis H. and Brooke S. 9.5; and Floor, Madeline W. 9.55.

I'm very proud of the entire team and I'm looking forward to our next meet!

Lady bug, lady bug fly away home

My house is inundated with these little lady bugs. More accurately, I believe they are called Asian beetles. They were purportedly imported into the United States some years ago to control pests in soy bean fields. The local wisdom is that the soy bean harvest drives them out of the bean fields and into the houses of poor unsuspecting homeowners. Now they are pests in Midwestern houses. We have hundreds of them in our house. Every day I clean up their little bug carcasses, and the next day there are a zillion more. This photo is of one of the little beauties posing in a bowl of gourds on my kitchen counter. Sure, they're pretty, but they also bite! May they all die soon. RIP.

It's in DC!

Our dossier was sent to the courier in Washington, DC yesterday for authentication at the State Department. We are getting closer...

Just because they're cute

I'm putting these pictures of my pets up because they were victims of the accidental deletion. They're so darn cute and lovable that they deserve a spot on my blog. My doggies are Bridget, Bobby and Bruno. They are shown here cuddling in their dog cabinet, which is a crate I had built into our kitchen cabinets.

In the second picture, Bridget is lazing around with our two cats, Lucy (the black one) and Harry.

Here we are again!

Okay, so like an idiot, I somehow managed to delete an entire category of posts from my blog... all of the ones marked "family". Sorry family. :( So I'm going to repost some of the stuff.

We are the Spears family...Tom, Paula and our three teenage children Kenneth, Emily and Anna. We live in a rural area of Nebraska, near Omaha. We just moved here about 10 months ago after living in the suburbs of west Omaha for 10 years. We love our new house on the lake and all it's wildlife, but it is quite inconvenient in many ways and has been a big adjustment.

Some of the family interests are church, pets, marathon running, taekwondo, gymnastics, diving, reading, video games, cheerleading, shopping, jet-skiing and fishing. We don't all enjoy each of these activities equally. :)

I am a part-time gymnastics coach and a full-time mom. I'm thinking I should add some additional computer training into my list of interests so that I don't delete anything else.

Sigh. What an idiot.

Ack! I deleted a bunch of posts!

I just accidentally deleted about half of my posts. Major tears! If anyone knows how to get them back, please tell me.