He Knew

This was written by Christi while on our 1st trip to Kazakhstan- Nov 19,2010...we wrote our family and close friends while we were traveling and are going to post some of those entries on here for all of you to experience.

We were playing Yahtzee this afternoon and Brandon said "Wow, we're really here. Can you believe it?". We've been talking about that a lot. How we have been praying and planning and thinking about this moment in time for so long, and now that it's here, we don't want it to slip by without us taking it all in. Besides being in a foreign country, we are here to adopt 2 little precious girls. Girls that were only imagined before. We thought we knew what to expect. We thought lots of things.

But God knew.

He knew these girls would fit our family perfectly. He knew that I would sit and watch them color and just cry at the fact that they will be my daughters. He knew that we would talk to our 8 yr. old son on the phone and instead of telling us how much he missed us (which we know he does), that He would ask how the girls are doing.

He knew.

He knew this was our journey. Our path. He picked girls across the world to be a part of our family. Just like He picks us to be a part of His. How cool is that? It's truly amazing to see the picture He has painted for us. We are placed on the canvas at just the right time.

I love our Lord. Most of all I love that He knew and yet He waited until we could handle it before He shared with us His masterpiece that is now the Donaldson family.

~Christi~

To Daddy, From Ethan

Here is a note Ethan wrote for Brandon tonight. Brandon is on a mission trip in Ecuador but will be home tomorrow. I included E's precious punctuations too...

From:Ethan To:daddy

I missed you sick!! :( so I want to play with you.but! I know you are tired. so I want to cuddle with you! that ends it so thanks!

He is so precious. I'm sure he will get his "cuddle time" with Brandon this weekend.

~Christi~

A month in pictures- Blizzard/Christmas 2009

We were hoping for a white Christmas. Guess we got our wish. We didn't get a "dusting" as some weathermen first mentioned. We got a blizzard! The snow was blowing around so hard that visibility was terrible. We never lost electricity so it was wonderful to be inside in the warm house. We ate like Kings for Christmas eve. We had bacon and toast for breakfast, homemade pizza's for lunch, and taco salad for dinner.

I think the total reported for our area was 14.1 inches. That is a record for Oklahoma! It's weird to not be with my immediate family for Christmas. It really doesn't feel like Christmas at all. But, we are all safe and that's the good thing. We are planning another time to get together and celebrate Jesus' birth! Here are some pics from today. Merry Christmas!

This is a lot of snow!

Sitting on the snow drift

We are watching a friends' dog and him and Lincoln are having fun together

Making snow angels

The finished "Angel"

A month in pictures-cookies w/the Stewards

(the kids watching "I want a dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown)

We had Tony and Mandy and the kids over to make some sugar cookies. Funny thing happened too...I had bought the pre-made packaged dough but when we took it out, it was too moist to really cut out any shapes. We knew we needed some flour. I didn't have just plain white flour. I had whole wheat flour and then some white self-rising flour. We thought the wheat would make the cookies taste funny so we went with the self-rising, knowing that we would just need "a little" of it.

The kids cut their shapes out, we had trees, elves and stockings. We put them in the oven and when they came out, they were one big puffy cookie! Apparently, the "little bit" of self-rising flour made a big difference :) They decorated them with many colors and they tasted great!

A month in pictures- Edmond Christmas parade

We went to the Edmond Christmas parade for the 1st time. We've lived in Edmond for many years but never seemed to be able to catch the parade. It was SOOO cold! We were not dressed warm enough (so good thing it was fast). One of the things I love about Edmond is although it's considered a big town, they make it feel like a small town by having many community events.

A month in pictures-Tapestry Project

We were fortunate to be able to serve at the Tapestry Project. We helped in handing out coats, scarves, and food. We also got to sing along with the kids and teach them some Lifekids.tv songs :)

Unloading the truck

Merrick rockin out to Lifekids.tv music

Ethan handing out blankets. He gave them out until they were all gone.

A month in Pictures-M's music program

Merrick had a music program and they sang all kinds of rock -n-roll songs. It was called "Rock and Roll forever". He did a great job!

Merrick and his 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Kennedy

Halloween 2009

Better late than never, right? Here are some pics from Halloween...

Father and Son Ninja's

Spiderman practicing his Spidey skills

Strike a pose, there's nothing to it

Spider-tastic!

We had a great time. We went to a fun indoor event in Norman. We also did some trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. We still have candy leftover. I've only had 1 pc...I've been good, huh?

~Christi~

Quick update

Friends, we obviously have not been good about keeping up with this blog.There are a ton of things I have thought I'm going to blog about and then never sit down to do so.

We have been consumed with the adoption process lately. We are finally on the homestretch and it feels so good to be on this end. Throughout the next couple of weeks, I'm going to write about some things that God has been doing in us.

So, I'm going to try and get this thing updated a bit more frequently and am hoping I have a little more time for it:)

Thanks for sticking with us!!

~Brandon and Christi~

Disney's Christmas Carol Train Tour

This past Friday was a lot of fun. We were fortunate to be able to spend the day with Becca and Rodo. We have known Becca for a long time and she was our babysitter for almost 8 years! She is pretty much part of the family. Rodo is the special man in her life:) Becca now serves with Back2 Back ministries in Mexico. You can follow along on her journey HERE. Here are some pics from the day:

We had lunch & then cruised over to Pink Swirls which is a frozen yogurt place (yum!)

Then, we picked up the boys from school and headed to downtown OKC for the Disney "A Christmas Carol" Train tour. We weren't sure what to expect but it was fun. It was completely FREE too so that rocked! They had several train cars full of costumes and footage from the set. There were Christmas caroler's and even a snow machine! They are on a 44-city tour and this was their 22nd stop. To see if the train is coming through your US city, click HERE.

This was everyone right before the 10 minute 3-D sneak peek at the film. It was really cool. We plan on seeing the movie when it comes out Nov 6th!

OKC Redhawks baseball game

We went to a Redhawks game this past Monday night. The boys had earned FREE tickets by completing some reading goals this summer. It was super packed (which I liked because it gave it more energy)

We ended up sitting in the outfield since it was shaded. We had a blast because some college students sat by us and they kept giving the left outfielder a hard time. He was a great sport about it and kind of teased them right back. He made us laugh just as much as they did. The boys were on screen a couple of times when they were dancing. We also had a homerun ball hit into our section at the end of the game (a guy a few rows back from us got it). It was a great night!

Ethan's 7th birthday!

Ethan with his cousin, Jacelyn

Ethan had his b-day get together a couple of weeks ago. We had family over for mexican food and cake. Ethan has been wanting to get a Nintendo DS so bad so he saved up his allowance all summer. Most of the family knew about this and so they contributed money. He was super excited to have enough for one! Brandon took him to the store that night to get one since we were leaving to go out of town the following day. We are so blessed to have such a great family!

Ethan's "Bolt" cake....it was yummy :)

Zoo day 2009

We went to the OKC Zoo a few weeks back. It was Free admission day & we just couldn't pass that up :) We were thinking it would be very hot but it turned out to be a nice day with a cloudy overcast for part of the day. We love the OKC Zoo! Here are some pics from the day...

The boys always want to go into the area where all the snakes are. It still gives me the creeps even though they are behind glass.

He's growing but not quite up to the Eagle's standards

Um- this one just made us laugh

The boys cooling off in the mist fountain

The bears were very playful.They kept swimming and then later were wrestling with each other

4th of July pics

Merrick and Ethan July 4th, 2009

This was our 4th annual trip to Seminole to spend the 4th of July with my side of the family. We had a great time shooting off fireworks, cooking out, and then hunting spiders. Our brother in law Rick taught us how to track spiders with a flashlight. It was freaky and cool at the same time.

Just one of the many fireworks

Me and my parents

Merrick lighting some smoke balls. That is their favorite thing!

Ethan being crazy rocket man :)

Brandon and my parents

Sparkler time....Mom, Wendy, Rick, Brandon and Jaden

Swim day

Last week we had a cookout at Mandy and Tony's house. Tony cooked up burgers on the grill and Mandy made some fabulous side dishes. Daniel is the newest Church online team member and this was the first time he met our families. His brother, Luke, was also able to drive up from Texas and hang out. It was a great day filled with smiles, sun, and swimming.

Playing ball

Brandon and Ethan

Mandy and Christi

Brandon, Daniel, & Tony

Happy Father's Day, Brandon!

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Mini-vacation

Brandon and I took a short trip down to Southeast Oklahoma last weekend. We were celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary that we had last month. We arranged the boys to stay with family and were all geared up to "get away" and just relax. Well, turns out I had sun poisening from a couple days before and ended up really sick. We still made the most of it and saw lots of scenery and played some scrabble too. I didn't realize our state was so beautiful :) Here are some pics from the trip...

Brandon and I at the river

On the Talimena drive

Brandon checking out the river

An owl at the nature center. I don't think I've ever been this close to an owl!

Some fly fishermen that caught our eye. Brandon was itching to get out there and join them.