Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Daddy's Birthday

Tonight we celebrated Daddy's birthday with Mia. We got Chinese take-out.


Then we had mini bundt cakes from our local bundt shoppe. Yum. Daddy's was chocolate.


Mia and Mommy shared a gluten-free pumpkin chocolate chip one. Mia requested we sing Happy Birthday to her too which we were happy to do. After all, she ate all her broccoli!


Baby Avery was there too...in her ultrasound picture we got for Christmas!

We got him a new driver as a present.

Tomorrow, his actual birthday, Daddy and Mommy will go out for a special date night dinner.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Christmas!

I count my blessings that I have had all my children home for Christmas for 31 years. I know it won't last forever, but I am thankful!


Mia loves spending time with her older siblings. They are so good to her.



Friday night we went out to dinner to celebrate two birthdays, Dan and Beth. Usually we go to downtown Denver, but this year we stayed in Castle Rock. The kids loved that we didn't have to drive and find parking. We loved that the kids are getting old like us and like to be home early!




On Christmas Eve morning we went sledding. We've lived here five years and never noticed the great sledding hill half a block away!



Real snow cones! We added Sprite, Coke or orange juice to these.



You can't come to our house without having a tea party!





Every Christmas we do a jigsaw puzzle. This year's was a 1000 piece New Orleans puzzle finished on Christmas Day.



We always go to the children's service on Christmas Eve and see the donkeys and live manger scene.




Making green beans and bacon together.


Dear Santa, I want a tunnel and a scooter.


Here are some gluten-free cookies for you and celery for Rudolph.


Santa, that tunnel was supposed to be for me!



I do love my scooter!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Tis The Season...

Since Anna is not in an orphanage right now she actually got to sit on Santa's lap! Of course, just like most one year olds, she was petrified! They could not get her to smile afterward, despite the halo.




My stepmother, Jo, sent Mia one of her famous homemade dolls for Christmas. Mia just loves it.



Mia got to visit her birth grandparents today. She has so much fun when they come!




Sunday, December 18, 2011

The Three Days of Christmas

Normally, we don't like to do activities three days in a row. But during the holidays it's just the way it is sometimes.

On Thursday we participated in Operation Santa Claus. This is our fifth year doing this. ULA and Lockheed Martin supply gifts for needy families from employee donations. When you get to the church, or starting station, you pick a family and a bag of gifts. You wrap them and then you head out to the next station, King Soopers grocery store. Driving through the back, they load up your car with groceries. Of course I forgot to take any pictures of all this!

The next station is the family's home. This family had 5 children ages 10 and under and were very grateful for the gifts and food. Mia enjoyed putting them all under their tiny little tree. She never asked once to have one for herself, which was great! I didn't feel it was appropriate to take pictures at this point.

After all that, we met our friends Sheri and Bob at our neighbor's Mexican restaurant. It was quite a long wait for Mia, but she did really well. The newly installed pond with turtles and fish helped quite a bit!





Yes, she is standing on the chair at the restaurant with her friend, Bob. She is two and it was way past her bedtime, and we're a little bit past the point of caring at that time!










On Friday night we had Mia's little friend Lorelei's parents over for dinner. The girls had a blast and so did we. By the end of the night the girls had the theater to themselves while we chatted in the family room and wondered, "What's wrong with this picture?"




The girls loved playing Wii bowling. Two nights of activities and we are already beat. But there's one more day...and night!












On Saturday we went to our foster agency's Christmas party. It will be our last one as we are letting our license expire at the end of February. We love the people at our agency. They are the sweetest.


Let's see, what did I like best? Making a craft with Mommy?




Eating a yummy lunch?


Playing with my spring loaded Nemo? Daddy tried to make it go into my cup and it did!


Or did I have the most fun running around with all the other kids?


Of course, opening my very own present was great too!













On Saturday night we went to Zoo Lights at the Denver Zoo, This was so much bigger and brighter than the Living Desert, but also much much colder. And Mia was pretty much done with the Christmas activities by now!


We didn't know the line would be sooo long for tickets. Hello? It was the Saturday before Christmas and it was only in the 30's. Not joking, it's usually in the 20's by 7:00. So we took pictures while the guys waited in line.


Ane here's a pic from the end of the night. One of the few times she was actually happy!


Thank goodness they finally let me out of that stroller!



Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Almost Done!

It's here! The last piece of paper to make our dossier complete, with my legal name even. Thank you Homeland Security for approving us to adopt a Chinese child. Now it needs to be notarized, certified, authenticated and translated. Then everything is off to China.


Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Aunt Sherry's House

How to bake cookies at Aunt Sherry's house:


First, mix the dough with the cool red mixer.


Roll it out carefully while posing for pictures.


Put on the shiny buttons.


Gobble them up, buttons first!

Monday, December 12, 2011

I - 797!

We got our I-797 today...but it has my maiden name instead of my married name. So...hopefully, we'll get a corrected one in the next few days. It looks hopeful for traveling to China in late spring or early summer!


A few days ago a cashier said to me, "Oh wow! Is that one of the old cabbage patch dolls?" I laughed. "No, it's only two years old! But, very loved." And it no longer gets clean in the washing machine. :)


This little guy only costs a penny to ride. And there is a bowl of pennies to be had. We ride it almost every time we go grocery shopping...unless someone chooses to make shopping not fun for mommy.


Some friends dropped off a dress up box for Mia. She wore this dress about 2 minutes. But she's been playing with the wand for 24 hours, saying abracadabra, I make you disappear.