Christmas Eve and Christmas Eve pasts

Every year we get the kids new Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve and then I take a picture of them by the fireplace. Here are some pictures that are very special to me:

Dec. 24, 2008

Micah is 5, Samuel is 3 1/2 and Mary Kate is 20 months old. At this point we had been in the adoption process for 14 months. This is the month that we updated our file to accept a child with a special need. I remember spending a lot of time during that Christmas season wondering if our daughter had already been born. You can see in the picture that Samuel is holding a Chinese doll to represent our unknown daughter. Hope was born 23 days after this picture was taken.


Dec. 24, 2009

Micah is 6, Samuel is 4 1/2 and Mary Kate is 2 1/2. We were still waiting to hear any news about our daughter. We hung a stocking for her and all we could do was pray that she was being taken care of. On Christmas Eve we had the kids write letters to their baby sister in China.




Dec. 24, 2010

Micah is 7, Samuel is 5 1/2, Mary Kate is 3 1/2 and Hope is almost 2. Our family is finally all together!!

I love this picture too:

We went to church, came home and ordered Chinese food (by the way, Hope was literally giddy as we were serving her dinner). After dinner, the kids opened their pajamas. I wanted to take their picture and of course they were silly about it. I just love how Hope joins in with them. It's so good to have her home!

First Snow

Today we had our first snow of the season. The kids were all really excited about it. I took the girls sledding in our side yard while the boys were in school. I wasn't sure what Hope would think, but she really liked it for about 30 minutes and then she was done. But the three of us had a lot of fun for those 30 minutes.

Decorating for Christmas

We decorated for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Although we don't cut it down ourselves, we always get a live tree. We try to get a 12 foot tree, but we had trouble finding one this year. We finally found one at the third place we went. Phew. Another tradition we have is giving each of the kids an ornament. The goal is that they will each have a nice collection of ornaments they can take with them when they are grown that adequately represent their childhood. Here they are with their ornaments:

Micah with his X-Wing Fighter from Star Wars


Samuel with Luke Skywalker


The boys together


Mary Kate with Cinderella


Hope with an ornament we bought in China


And here is a picture of our finished product:


Not bad, huh? We love it!

Nighttime Party

When Hope first came home, we co-slept with her. We did that for about 4 weeks before we finally moved her to the pack 'n play. At first the pack 'n play was right next to our bed, but we have slowly moved it further and further away. Mike and I have a sitting room attached to our bedroom and that is where she sleeps now. At some point we will move her in with Mary Kate, but that is still a little while away.

Last night it took Hope almost 1 1/2 hours to fall asleep after we put her to bed. That is pretty unusual, but since she wasn't crying I didn't check on her. We could hear her jabbering happily through the baby monitor. She did eventually fall asleep. When Mike and I went up to bed and checked on her, this is what we found:



Her pack 'n play is near our bookshelves, but we thought we had her positioned so that she couldn't grab anything. We knew she could touch some things, but we didn't think she was at a good position to be able to actually grab anything.



Apparently we were wrong. She managed to get her hands on a folder full of information and she pulled the entire folder apart. Mike and I laughed so hard at the image of our daughter sleeping among all those papers. We cleaned out her pack 'n play and moved it a little further from the bookshelves to hopefully avoid having this happen again.

Lost Tooth and Pacifier

Yesterday was a big day for Micah. He finally lost his first tooth! He turned 7 in July and was very aware of the many children who were younger than him who had lost multiple teeth. He was anxious to join them. I sent him off to school yesterday with basically no loose teeth and he came home with one tooth gone and another one hanging on by a thread. Apparently he was goofing off on the morning bus and took a girl's mitten and put part of it in his mouth. She grabbed her mitten and yanked. Out came a tooth. It was BARELY loose... meaning, if you tried really hard, you could make it move a tiny bit. He said it hurt, but he didn't cry. He also said it bled, but he just swallowed his blood. Nice. Last night he put the tooth under his pillow and this morning he found $1 and The Tooth Book by Dr. Suess in it's place. My children don't believe in Santa, tooth fairies or Easter bunnies, so he knows it was just Mike and I. In fact, the first words out of his mouth this morning were, "Thanks for the money and the book." I was pleasantly surprised by his manners.


The past couple of days, Hope has been really fussy. I can't pinpoint anything that's causing it. My only thought is that she is probably dealing with feelings of insecurity caused by the adoption. She is wanting to be held all the time and she is being very sensitive. We have had periods like this before and they always pass. In the meantime, she discovered a pacifier that belongs to a babydoll. Apparently she knows just what to do with it because she has been doing a lot of this lately:


What a nut!! At least it's providing us with some moments of peace. :)

Halloween

We took the kids trick-or-treating tonight. We went to a local college that opens up their apartment buildings for kids to come through every year. I love this option for three reasons: 1. It's easier to stay warm 2. It's safer (no fear of kids getting hit by car) 3. It's quick!!! Trick-or-treating started at 6, we were home by 7:10 and all four kids were sleeping by 7:30. Beautiful!!! Sweet Hope was the highlight of my night. She was not timid AT ALL. She made herself known and pushed herself up to the candy bowl at each apartment door we came to. It was as if she had been trick-or-treating all her life. It was so cute!!!! Here are some pictures of my munchkins:

Group Shot


Batman (aka Micah)


Superman (aka Samuel)


Cinderella (aka Mary Kate)


Frog (aka Hope)

Pumpkin Carving

We spent the evening carving pumpkins. Daddy did all of the work, although Micah really wanted to be in on the action. He was allowed to help with clean up. :) We were hoping to watch our Charlie Brown Halloween DVD tonight, but we ran out of time. We will have to do that tomorrow night. Here are some pictures of our finished products:

Fall Fun

Here are a few pictures of the kids helping daddy rake the leaves. The pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes are from when we took them to Boo at the Zoo.

Apple Orchard

The day after our unfortunate Pumpkin Patch experience, we took the kids to an apple orchard to go apple picking. We had gone last year with one of Mike's brothers and had a wonderful time. It never crossed our minds that the peak harvest of apples might be over. Unfortunately, when we arrived, we were told that there was no more apple picking for the season, but they were allowing the public to go tomato picking. So that's what we did. Who doesn't love a good tomato in the fall?

Pumpkin Patch

A couple of weekends ago, Mike and I decided to take the kids to the pumpkin patch one Friday evening. It was about a 25 minute drive to get there. We arrived at 5:55pm only to notice that we didn't have any shoes for Hope and that the pumpkin patch closed at 6. What a disappointment. However, the owner was really kind and let us take a quick tractor ride out to the patch to pick our pumpkins. Afterwards, we were able to hang around the farm and enjoy the farm animals and play area, even though the farm was technically closed. So, it all worked out OK. Even Hope didn't mind being barefoot too much.

Goggle Eyes

Hope is always trying to do what she sees the bigger kids do. Earlier today the boys were having a war with their nerf guns. The rule in our house is that if they are going to shoot at each other, they have to wear goggles so no one's eyes will get hurt. Hope didn't want to be left out. So, when the boys were finished with their war, she had me put some goggles on her. She walked around the house for about 20 minutes with them on. It looked very uncomfortable, but she was pretty proud of herself.

Pumpkin Patch

We had a busy day today. We started off by going to the early service at church. We headed home and gave Hope a quick nap. From there we headed back to church for a potluck with our church's Orphan and Adoption ministry. And then we finally headed to Meijer Gardens to check out their pumpkins. There were also some Art Prize exhibits that we were able to check out. It was a perfect fall day.

All four kiddos


Our family


Hope


Samuel


Mary Kate working hard to eat her apple

Art Prize

On Saturday, the 6 of us headed downtown to enjoy the second annual Art Prize event. My alma mater was hosting an alumni event, so we were able to mingle with some people I graduated college with and then we headed out to see some art. I have never seen downtown so busy. There was a lot of energy. It's really a great event.



Micah


Mary Kate


Hope and Mommy