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!