David Crowder*Band - "How He Loves" OFFICIAL Music Video

Vote for Reese

Reese Is Entered in the Gap Casting Call

Gap is holding a nationwide contest to find the next faces of babyGap and GapKids, and Reese is entered into the contest. Check out Reese's entry here:

http://family.go.com/gapcastingcall/entries/crystalholder/392778526/

Go to the website above and vote for Reese. The baby with the most votes wins a trip to Disney World. You can vote once a day until November 17th.

Ask everyone you know to vote for Reese!

Party Time

If you didn't know, I love event planning. For sometime now I have been working on starting my own event (party/wedding) planning business. I have done several weddings and parties over the last couple of years. My next wedding is coming up in December and I am really excited about it.

Right now I am working on a baby shower for my dear friend Kelley. Yesterday I mailed out the invitations. I had a lot of fun working on them, so I wanted to share them with you. The pictures aren't great due to my camera. (The only white surface I could find was the blanket of my bed. Ignore the the edges.) You won't be able to tell from the pictures, but the pink and blue dots are raised off the page.

I am working on an event planning website, but if you or someone you know needs a great planner please contact me. My specialties are wedding and children's events. As soon as the website is complete I will share the link.

Adoption Update

In the last couple of months God has made it very clear to me that I need to pray differently concerning our adoption. Pray specifically, very specifically. Of course I have been praying for things to go smoothly and quickly, but that was not specific enough. You may remember that we originally had a court date scheduled for August. We never got a explanation of what happened, but that hearing had to be rescheduled. To make a long story short, after a long wait and finally praying very specifically, we got a new court date.

November 10th will be our pre-trial hearing. My understanding is that the birth mother will be appointed an attorney at that time and the judge will make sure that DSS has all the necessary paperwork in place to continue. Please join us in praying SPECIFICALLY that our caseworker and the DSS attorney will have taken all the steps necessary to move forward on that date and that we will be given our next court date at that time. The next date would be for the TPR (termination) hearing.

This is the HUGE one that we have been so anxiously awaiting. Most likely that date will be set for January or February, but what an incredible Christmas gift it would be to have it scheduled for December. December 22nd will be our 1st anniversary with our sweet baby and it would be so much sweeter to know that we were one step closer to legally making him ours!

Our monthly visit with the caseworkers is scheduled for this week, so maybe we will have more info then. Thank you for joining us on this journey and keep praying!

It's been too long!

Wow, I can't believe it has been a month since I have written anything. So much has happened and there are so many things to share. I guess there will be a lot of posts in November to make up for October.

Let's start it off with two tid bits on Reese:

1. Last night Reese saw a Fisher Price commercial on tv and discovered their "theme song". It was so cute. As soon as the lady finished singing he sang it right back to her, "play, laugh, grow". Play and laugh are a little hard to make out but grow comes out loud and clear. He has been singing it (in perfect pitch I might add) over and over ever since.

2. When I got out of the shower this morning I could hear Reese on the baby monitor. I put some clothes on and went to get him. As I walked through the living room the lights started doing crazy things. When I opened the bedroom door I found my 16 month old had pulled the remote to his fan/light off the wall and was playing with it. Somehow he has reprogrammed his remote to control the fan/light in the living room instead of his!

Are your hands full?

This week has been crazy and hectic. We have appointments today, tomorrow, and Friday as well as a wedding this weekend. Monday Reese started the week off with a bang and a good laugh. Check out the details here.

On my way home from work Monday night I was listening to the Billy Graham radio station 106.9. Charles Stanley or Chuck Swindoll was on (sorry, I heard both that evening and don't remember which was on at the time). He was talking about a book that he had read and quoted this line, "God can not pour His richest blessings into hands that are full."

This really struck me. I couldn't help but think of all the times I have held onto things and probably missed the blessings that God had for me. It was just one more reminder to me to LET IT GO! Let go of the grudges, let go of the hurt, let go of being in control, etc. LET IT GO and let Him richly bless your obedience.

Spaghetti up the Nose