Our Christmas Weekend

 Christmas Eve morning moments. Someone is excited to read!

 On our way to Christmas Eve festivities in Nashville with Michael's family, this is what I found. Evan sucking his finger (meaning he's exhausted) while letting Cora hold his other finger. I don't know if you can see her face reflected in the baby mirror but she has the biggest love face and smile for Evan. Very cute!

 After a delicious meal, it was gift time at Mike's brother's house.

 These are Evan's antlers from Grandma Jennie but he wouldn't wear them. He was too interested in something up his nose I guess. lol.

 Evan getting "Rocket" pajamas. Grandma didn't even know it's his new obsession word. When we sing him his good night song and include people he knows or things around his room (ie: "Good night window/light switch/ blanket/ toys" etc) he wants us to sing "Good night ROCKET" over and over and over. We don't know what it's about but it cracks us up. The picture of Grandma is of her finally receiving much hinted about photos of her grandchildren! Now if we could only get the parents of those children to cooperate and all take a photo together... we'll see.

 Poor cousin Lauren was sick and laying down a lot so not too many pictures of her but Brooke had a great time with Evan and he really appreciated the attention and energy Brooke had to chase him around and humor him. :) We appreciate that too! ha ha ha.

 I had no idea that he knew how to hold a guitar but he was obsessed with the Wii guitar.

 Twin pajamas! Sweet brother to his "baby sister" (which he calls her on occasion).

 I wanted a picture of their size difference. It really cracks me up.

 Back to our house and getting ready for Santa to come.

 Even the pets were 'nice' this year and got some treats. :)

 Christmas morning faces.

 

 This is why Christmas morning is going to start getting fun. Look at that face over a bunch of plastic zoo animals. Priceless!

 Thank you Grandma Karla/Putsie and Grandpa Allen for recording your voices in our book from cousin Luke. Both kids L-O-V-E it!

 Daddy and Cora Grace were total buddy's while we opened gifts. I was able to capture this cute one.

 Mike got some special wax lips from Santa in his stocking. We all wanted to try them out. ha ha ha ha.

 Evan got 3 remote vehicles for Christmas! This truck was from Santa and he got 2 trains from Michael's family. He could use a few more in his mind. We have played with them all day. Each works differently and he is getting to know them quickly. Here he is trying to run over his sister with his truck. lol.

 These pictures are pretty lame of the snow a few hours later (because of my rebellion against flash) but I hope you get the idea that Evan was having fun and that we had a decent snow storm here. Oh, and he's letting me put his old caps on again. Whoo hoo!

 House cleaned up and relaxing in his new chair from Santa, Evan played with Cora's new chew toy and just looked too cute not to take a picture. :) P.S. Thank you Meghan for your sweet idea on how to hang Greeting cards from a ribbon with clothes pins. It looked awesome and gave me sanity. :)

 I have wanted a little 'boom box' to play music for the kids since Cora was born and my awesome sister in law Kelli had one and would play music for the kids. I think music (the right kind) is very beneficial to small children. I love the Mozart and Beethoven Cd's for them but also the nursery rhymes etc that get them to interact. Well, recently Michael got this one but I really didn't have Cd's until Christmas. Here you see Evan obviously riveted to the "Silly Songs"CD Mike put in my stocking but do you see that sweet baby in the background also paying attention to it? :) First thing Sunday morning, Evan went right to the CD player, carried to a comfortable spot, sat down and tried to turn it on. Dang he's getting so big and smart!

 Being silly this morning while he ate his pancakes and sausage (well, our dog Smokey actually got fed his sausage. Evan is so 'sharing' sometimes. lol).

 Swoon!

 Playing in the snow on Sunday. He fell down and didn't want to get up. He said, very pitifully, "Help... me". It was so sad, he was just tired and worn out poor little guy. I'm glad he let me help him. Being a 2 year old, that's not always the case. :)

I just want to close this post with how grateful we are to have our children. They are the greatest gift anyone could give and we really do believe that God sent them to our home. We will always strive to do our best for them including resolving to always be good to each other as husband and wife. It has been hard since Cora came, for us to connect as we used to but we are working hard to be more patient with each other with our added responsibilities and make time for just us. We know that will make us better parents to these beautiful children. I am grateful for this season that we have to remember the sacrifices our Savior was born to make for us and for us to think of what good we are doing in the world in return. I hope to work harder on how I am not only to my family but to who ever I meet. It's always feels great to plan this in my mind, now I need to make time to do it. I hope you all will have confidence in the goals you will be making for the new year, that you can accomplish them and that they will bring you joy and fulfillment. God Bless.

pieces of me...

Here is my family so far. wink. I have so many thoughts about my husband Michael, our first child Evan and newest addition, Cora Grace. I can't stop thinking about how grateful I feel to the mercies of our Heavenly Father that he will give you the righteous desires of your heart (in his time), if you continue to trust him and have faith in him and serve him. I hope I don't sound like a broken record but I dreamed, prayed, fasted and hoped to be a mother for so long, many many years. Here I was enjoying being married to Michael, I felt fortunate to have nabbed him up when I did because he is so caring, a very good listener, funny, smart, smart, Smart!, talented, loyal, strong in our faith and deserving of the priesthood power he holds. I wouldn't have thought I 'deserved' someone like him but I did hope to have someone like him and worked hard to make myself worthy of the idea of him so it was a pleasant surprise that when we met, we melted together as if we were never apart. Still, after a few years of marriage, the desire to have children and the disappointment of infertility was so strong, it was not the life I wanted so instead of just asking for my children to come in my prayers, I began to tell my Heavenly Father that this isn't the life I want with Michael, without children laughing and playing, growing into successful adults (hopefully) and plead with him about that. Finally we were given Evan. What a gift! I experienced a whole new level of JOY that I didn't know existed in my heart yet it was so natural and all the years of bareness disappeared bit by bit. I knew before Evan came he wouldn't be our only child so I was carefully to "treat him like he is our third". smile. That meant I would push myself to let him cry more than I wanted or get a bruise and scrape. I'm not a parent who jumps to his falls or even gives him much attention after he does cause my parents let us learn to soothe ourselves and I liked that. Doing even those little things, I think prepared us for the call about Cora and do we want her, 'she was born this morning'. I was able to realize, this is how Heavenly Father is answering my prayers (For the month before this, I had been praying for H.F. to be preparing our birth mother for us. I am not kidding. I prayed for that with Evan too). I knew I needed to be able to make a decision quickly cause she needed to be with the family she was meant for and I needed to concentrate on my child if it wasn't her but it was. It couldn't have been made more clear than when I held her the next night for the first time. She was crying before being handed to me and as soon as her body touched my fingertips as she was handed to me, she was silent and suddenly very alert and aware of a change. We knew each other immediately and it helped me feel a bigger confirmation that she is my daughter and Evan's baby sister.

Michael was either born much more logically than me or his parents raised him this way but 'walking by faith' isn't his strong suit ( i also recognize this as a male trait). He wanted a big family when we were first married and trying but when it took us 9 years! to get Evan... he would have been happy with just him I'm pretty sure. Now that Cora is here and real he would probably eat those thoughts cause he's loving her more and more each day. I hope he will let me have all the babies I want, even if his logic doesn't see how it can be afforded. ;) (love you honey). I am so grateful I get to change these diapers, wash all the laundry, pick up the bedrooms, read the books, feed the food, play 'where is Evan', watch yo gabba gabba, have playtime with cousins, watch them learn and get smarter... You want to know why some woman can have 'so many children'. I expect that they were just made to handle the chaos that ensues but still are able to get the joy out of the little things. Today I am grateful that my family is healthy and happy (which I pray for every night and day and in between). I am grateful that my children are relatively good-wink (though Evan is a gigantic handful these days with his intellect and energy!). My daughter is taking after Evan: now a month + old, she is sleeping through the night, usually 9 hours, 530a-6a eats, burps and goes back to sleep for 3-4 hours. Cora is so content, only crying when she wakes up because she is starving! or if you are playing with her too long and she wants to go to sleep (to the untrained eye, this can also look like she's hungry but she isn't). She let's me give her Mohawks and dress her in all the thousands of clothes I keep getting. lol. She is still little though, wearing newborn diapers and clothes but drinking 4 and 5 ounces. She is getting more and more beautiful and her faces are so cute when she's just waking up or rooting around for a bottle. She tolerates Evan when he climbs into her crib to play with the cool toys she's got from the gift cards she's received (thank you!). The other day I laid her down with her mobile going and left the room to 'clean' probably. Evan had been running around the house like the banshee that he is when I realized it was quiet. I quickly searched the house, listening for his 'noises' and when I finally found him he was in Cora's crib, laying his head on her chest/chin (as she grunted for him to get off! lol) because he wanted to watch the mobile like her too! LOL. :) Thankfully neither child was hurt in this story cause it was just too cute of what he was trying to do, to punish him. I'd like to just put a video camera up all day to capture some of these many daily occurrences to remember them forever but that is why I take time for my blog. Again, I am grateful to have been given these children. They were born for me and for Michael, born for us and I know it everyday. Adoption has inspired me to educate other what it means and that these are no 'second hand' children. Not only do they feel like they were born to us, they are loved by their birth parents, no matter the circumstances and placed in our home so we can be their Parents. I suppose I am opinionated on most subjects I know anything about but that is how God made me so I find joy in that trait of mine. I want my children to always know how special they are and what a gift they are to us (and all of you). One day, if they are at all like me, I'm sure they will tell me. ha ha ha. I can't wait.

So... This is my journal and my documentation of my family, my feelings about them and my life. I hope to print it one day and hope my children appreciate that I described how they made me feel each day. Entertaining everyone else reading is only a biproduct of my families documentated antics. I appreciate the comments and feedback. As a reward, here are some of my favorite pictures from the last week. :)

and the cutest of cuteness...

and video from July 1, 2010...