Christmas morning 2010

 Now here's the funny thing.... there was one present for Little Man under the tree.  As soon as Santa gifts were opened... that's the present they went for 1st!  Since that present was wrapped under the tree... they were so excited to open that one! So funny! So here they are, opening Little Man's 1st gift!

W and clean water.  2 GOOD THINGS!

Sparkly TOMS! :)

and a new coffee maker.  2 more GOOD things!

That was a fun Christmas morning!  It was a little sad that there were no toys under the tree this year... but I just can't help but think about how much FUN next year will be with Little Man!

Merry Christmas from the Cheathams!

May you receive our precious Savior's richest blessings this season and in the new year!

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

~Isaiah 9:6

Merry Christmas Eve!

On Christmas Eve day.... we had one more Christmas celebration in San Antonio.

fun cousin Samantha

 my sister Robyn and me

and then we drove back home in time for a little birthday party for Jesus at Nene and Grandad's!

sweet luke was our welcoming committee! He was so excited to see Halle Caroline! too cute!

Then we had the annual reading of The Night Before Christmas

Grandad with all the grandkids

Ellison and baby Will

 Ellison and sweet cousin Emily

Merry Christmas Eve from the Cheathams!!

And home to feed the reindeer

She even feeds the reindeer like a gymnast! ha!

And that's what we did on Day 74 of waiting for Little Man!

There may have been some bribing involved...and other Christmasy things

Well, I have been doing this for the last 13 years, so I wasn't planning on stopping now.  However, Brooks has turned into a teenager and for some reason he feels that he is a little old to sit on Santa's lap or take a picture with the big guy.  I have to admit, when I asked the kids what they were going to tell Santa as far as what they wanted for Christmas... and they replied iphones, I said, "maybe you are too old for Santa".  Anywhoo, I ended up having to bribe Brooks with some sort of controller for a game to get him in that picture.  But really, I feel that I got a 2 for 1 since he told me that he would take a picture next year with Santa barring that Little Man is here and in the picture as well.  fingers crossed.  So here's a little snapshot, it's not the real deal, because I don't have access to a scanner nor have I ever figured out how to use one.  But we do have the nice mall quality pic with Santa.

We are/or have been in San Antonio, depending on if you are a burglar ready to ransack our house.  Just remember burglars, just like we have told our kids, it's a small Christmas this year.. yada yada yada... so there isn't much to steal.... adoption budget, you know.

So while in San Antonio, of course we have eaten at some of our favorite places and done some of our favorite things...

Chuy's with Grandpa Don...

Making cookies at Gram Pam's

Chrismas at Gram Pam's

Halle Caroline and my sister, Robyn

And we saw Santa at La Cantera, where we always do...

And we shopped a little, we stopped in to Anthropology for Gram Pam to buy me a few lovelies... and my sweethearts patiently waited on the cozy Anthropology couch.

Well, I couldn't get Brooks to cooperate, but oh well.
That's a wrap for now.

It's weird that last year when we were down here at this time, God was doing a pretty good job at filling our heads with thoughts of adoption and we were in a state of "what in the world are we going to do???"  It's good to be past that..... but I think I may not be good, if we don't have Little Man home next year at this time.

WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!

Here is the video of the winner!

And the winning ticket....

Friends, we were just absolutely blown away with the love that everyone has shown us.... The way you bought raffle tickets and the way you spread the word about what we were doing and all of your sweet comments and emails.  Every little penny helps us to bring our sweet Little Man home.  We are so grateful and appreciative.  Our words cannot even do justice to the appreciation we feel.  Many of you are fundraising yourselves for your own adoptions, and yet you contributed to ours.  I could cry at the thought.  I just wanted everyone to be a winner, hate that we had to just pick one.  Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. hugs and kisses.

Thank you all so much for helping us on our journey to James 1:27!!!!!

LAST DAY FOR IPAD RAFFLE...and other stuff!

THE IPAD RAFFLE ENDS TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT!!!! 

So, the fundraiser continues.  We have been blown away by the generosity of so many.  We cannot thank you enough for helping us reach our goal of bringing our Little Man home.  We can't wait to see who the winner is!!!

We've had crazy stuff going on this last week that I wanted to document...

First of all, on Friday night, I took the girls to open gym where Halle Caroline does cheer.  Brooks was just home doing nothing.  For some reason, I told Brooks to come with us.  He never goes usually, but for some reason, I just insisted that he go with me.  I thought we could hang out for an hour while the girls did their thing.  So, we are sitting there watching the girls, and someone walks in the entrance door behind us.  I didn't pay it any attention, but Brooks goes, "Josh Hamilton just walked in"  just as calm as could be.  I said, "Josh Hamilton????" He grinned from ear to ear and said "yes!"

Well there was hardly anyone in the gym, which is why we go to open gym on friday night.  So, I turned around and asked him if he would take a picture with Brooks.  Oh that guy just stood up and shook Brooks' hand and introduced himself.  I took a picture of him and Brooks which is horrible because momma may have been a little starstruck herself and it is so blurry. uggghhh.

And then we stood there talking to him and his wife for like 20 minutes.  I asked them about the orphanage he is doing in Ghana and they told me all about that.  All that to say, he and his family are just precious as can be.  He asked Brooks what sports he plays, and Brooks told him.... He just said to Brooks, "It don't matter what you play.... as long as you are playing for the Lord."  Precious.

After this encounter, I started to read his book that we received as a Christmas gift.  It is really good so far.  I recommend it!

And then on Sunday, Ellison had her first Level 5 gymnastics meet.  She did so good and we are super proud of her for working so hard.

Ellison and Cami Jo.  These two have been friends since birth!

And a few pics from Ellison's Christmas party at school...

Ellison and her sweet friends!

Can't wait to announce the winner of the iPad tomorrow!!!!!

A big fundraiser! Raffling an iPad!

All right folks! Just in time for Christmas!  A BIG FAT RAFFLE! Can you dig it???!!! We are getting a little antsy over here in anticipation of our Ethiopian fees being due when our referral comes for Little Man.  In order to raise some funds for these fees or for travel costs....

we are raffling off this.

Yes, an iPad!!! I'm serious.

This raffle is for a 16 GB iPad with Wi-Fi.  

Okay, so I have to tell you.  I have one of these!.... My sweet hubby and kids gave it to me for my 30th  40th birthday this past summer.  There! It's out of the bag....I'm as old as the hills. I know.  Anywhoo.... let me tell you... IT IS AWESOME!!! I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!!! Here are some of my favorite things about it... first of all you can read  THE HOLY BIBLE on it, you can blog hop on it, you can download your books on it, you can listen to music on it, you can download pictures, it can be your recipe book like it is mine, you can watch movies on it, you can do flashcards on it, and a million jillion other things.  And people.... I'm here to tell you... here's something else about me that maybe some of you don't know..... I'm a Flight Attendant.... and while I am flying around the friendly skies.... I see A LOT of gadgets... A LOT!  I talk to the the 600-700 people I might see in a day... and I hear what's good and what's not.... THIS IPAD IS GOOD! I gotta tell you that I see at least 20 + ipads on any given flight (purely my speculation).  It's hot people... and it's AWESOME.  It is being used by young and old alike... because it is so easy.  ALSO, if you travel, one of the greatest things is that you don't have to take it out of your bag to go through security - WHICH ROCKS!!!! Because we all know what a pain it is to go through security.  Those are just a few reasons why I love my iPad.  You will too!  You know you WANT ONE!

So.... here are the rules...

1.  For every $10 donation given through the "chip in" button... it buys you raffle ticket for said iPad.  So  you get 1 entry for $10 you donate or 5 entries for $50, etc. (no, there's not a bargain there, just explaining)

2. After you have donated $10 or more, you can get more entries by Facebooking or Twittering or any other social media about this raffle... that gives you 1 more raffle ticket entry (1 entry per social media)

3. If you Blog Post this raffle... that gives you 1 more raffle ticket entry

4.  I can only ship within the United States

5.  Please comment on this blog post letting me know if you bought a raffle ticket, or if you facebooked, twittered, blogged, etc., since clearly I won't know if I'm not "friends with you on Facebook" or "follow" you on Twitter.  You can email me at  heathercheatham at yahoo dot com.  

More details:

1.  All entries must be in by midnight December 19th (technically that would be December 20th)

2.  We will have a video drawing of the winner posted on this blog on December 20th.

3.  I will put it in the mail on December 20th if I have your information!  

I hope I have covered everything.  If you have any questions please email or comment here!

So here it is!  I had to wait until one of my cute kids got home to take a picture with it!

And here are the fancy swancy tickets that we will write names on the back of and put them in a bucket to draw.... It's a "Good Times Ticket"... so appropriate because an iPad is "Good Times" fo sho!

I hope you are a 

winner winner chicken dinner!

This little one is Derek's shadow anytime he is doing a project, whatever it may be.  Derek loves it... evidently he was the same way and followed his dad around when he was doing projects.  Well, turned out... it worked out because Derek is pretty handy around the house himself.

Tonight they were putting together an outside heater.  (Thank you Gram Pam for the early Christmas present!  It came today!)  While putting in nuts and bolts.... the topic of discussion between the two was walking little Ella down "the aisle"... Oh!!! Hurt my heart!

And while they were doing this....

this one....

had her FIRST babysitting job!!!!! Oh hurt my heart AGAIN!  Growing up too fast!

And that's what we did on day 53 of waiting for Little Man....

Depraved Indifference

I have to admit that sometimes I still can't believe that God called us to adopt.  Even after the Good Lord beat us over the head with it 14, 356,322 times or more.   I think it's just because I NEVER saw adoption coming on our little family's life roadmap.  (or it's just Satan, whichever one).  But watching this.... it spurs me on during this long ordeal of a wait.



I am thankful for Eric Ludy and whoever put this together.  It's amazing.  If people only knew.  Just normal people like I was 2 years ago.... just not knowing any better.

"...once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know, and holds us responsible to act."

Proverbs 24:12

Dube Bute

Okay.  It is no secret that I am not really great at retelling stories. I usually leave half of the most important stuff out... Here's my quick attempt at retelling this AMAZINGLY AWESOME STORY.

Our friends, the Alexanders, they are the ones that put adoption from Ethiopia on our life road map, or God, whichever one.  Anywhoo.  Their 2nd child that they adopted from Ethiopia is named Eyasu.  He is from a village called Dube Bute.  Yep - that's the picture over there on my side bar.  Go ahead a click it, if you want to see something amazing.  Anyway.... The Alexanders have been given the incredible privilege of helping this village where Eyasu's family members live.  The Alexanders have partnered with A Glimmer of Hope to build wells in this village, build a health care center, build new school rooms for the children, and build a vet clinic for the animals. (I think that's the list of everything).

Well.  Here's a video that tells it better than me.  And... I dare you not to cry.


Hope For Dube Bute from Kurt Neale on Vimeo.


And they are trying to raise $284,000 to make all this happen.  They have raised a lot of this money already.  I love it when God challenges us to PRAY BIG and THINK BIG.  The Alexanders have done this and WOW!  LOOK WHAT GOD DOES!!!!!

" Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."  Ephesians 3:20-21

Thanksgiving 2010

Day 45 waiting for Little Man.

Crazy fun day as it always with us. So thankful for all of our blessings!

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations. Psa. 100:4-5

Cousins caught together!

Cousins getting some "Will time"

Ellison loving on baby Will

Thankful for these 3 blessings!

Hopefully our last Thanksgiving Day picture as a family of 5!

Oh! And I think the quote of the day was...

"Halle Caroline!!!.... there is entirely too much going on in this kitchen for you to be doing high kicks in here right now!