Christmas......USA style

Here is Coy before the carnage started. He would have been perfectly content to just play with that single train. Of course, that is not good enough for us, we want more. So we had him open up gift after gift after gift until he was running from gift to gift wanting more. He has also learned about being able to choose more of what he eats. He is still a great eater compared to our others but it does not bother him to leave food on his plate and it has become more of a challenge to get him to eat things that he would previously devour (i.e. bananas).

I like this photo of Caleb. You may need to click it to see it well enough to get the expression on his face. He has just put his hand into his stocking and realized that he got a package of white tighty underwear. Hey, they can't all be exciting can they?

The best present that we saw Coy get was a stuffed Elmo that is just about the same size as him. He yelled Elmo over and over and danced around and hugged it. It was pretty neat. Unfortunately, after just a minute or two, it was on to another gift. He did end up sleeping with Elmo that night.

Did Christmas Come Here??

I wrote this post back on December 23 but after much debating, I originally decided not to post it. I have now decided to post it. The folks at the orphanage were against us taking pictures of the other children and putting them on the internet. I am putting these pictures up here, not out of disrespect to the wishes of the leaders of the orphanage, but as a reminder to myself that there are still many very adorable children that are waiting for a forever family.

Here is the scariest Christmas lion that you have ever seen. You know about the story of the Christmas lion don't you?? Don't feel bad, we didn't either. Actually, the pre-school where Coy goes had a Christmas program and in their efforts to include all of the children, the older children sang a song about God and the animals and they had the young kids parade in and Coy got to be a lion.

Coy went to see Santa today. I am not sure that he even knows who he is because we don't really talk about it much but he got his picture taken with him anyway.

We have had friends and neighbors over the last couple of nights and it has been lots of fun. Stacey cooked for everyone one night and we ordered pizza the other night.

As we have gone through this Christmas season, I can't help but think about all of those children that we saw this year that aren't going to have the Christmas that Coy is going to have. I always feel guilty about all of the "stuff" our kids end up with but this year it has been especially bad for me. While we are basking in our excess this year, a much bigger part of me than usual will feel guilty about what we have. When I hear mothers that have many many resources here in the US worrying about what amounts to very trivial things and I know that children in other parts of the world are struggling just to eat and stay warm, I think things are sadly out of whack. As we sit here in our large homes, with multiple vehicles, and an over abundance of everything that we could possibly need or want and we hesitate to sacrifically give to God because we think we don't have the money then we are missing the point. I don't like to think about what God thinks about that.

Santa Grant This Wish Please

To see this full screen, you can double click on the letter and it should come up.

This is a letter that Caleb wrote to Santa at school. This is the kind of stuff that makes a Mom and Dad really proud. We obviously don't know what they are doing when we, as parents, are not around but you always hope that it is at least something nice. You try to teach them things and you hope that some of what you are trying to teach them is sinking in. This is definitely an item that we will hold on to and get it out some time when things aren't going so well. This gives us encouragement that he gets it. Just in case you can't read it, here is what it says:

Dear Santa,

Did you know that you are not the biggest thing in Christmas? It is Jesus' birthday, at last lets get to the presents, just one present, a Bible, not for kids.

From,

Caleb

Caleb, unfortunately, has been really sick today (Friday). He is acting like he feels much better now but he was in a world of hurt for most of the day today. His teacher sent his letter home with his homework.

Here are some left overs from our Christmas card photo shoot. It is hard to get all three of them to be serious and then capture a photo of it. We could a couple of them to do it at the same time, but hardly ever all three.

Christmas is Coming

Having a new person in the house that is old enough to start to learn about the meaning of Christmas causes Stacey and me to be so much more aware of what we are really teaching our kids about Christmas. We so much want them to have fun and enjoy the "stuff" of Christmas without that becoming the primary focus of Christmas. Of course we ask them what they want and will try to oblige as best we can but we really want them to know the true meaning of Christmas. We are trying to teach Coy what Christmas is about before he gets lots of presents and forgets to think about why we are celebrating Christmas.

Coy loves to "read" books. Here he is reading a book to Stacey. Stacey is really good about reading to the kids or having them read to her. Coy especially likes books about Clifford or Arthur.

We had lots of fun taking our Christmas card photo. This isn't the one that we ended up using but it is pretty close. I like it just the same. We also went to see the Go Fish Guys the other night at Southeast Christian Church with some really good friends of ours. We really enjoyed the music and we went out and bought the Christmas CD this past weekend.

I have been reading some blogs recently of some folks that are in Ukraine now finding out who their kids are now. How exciting for them. Some other friends of ours were over there at this time last year. It is hard to remember exactly what we were doing this time last year.

My parents got us a Web Cam and we got it installed. It is pretty cool. I don't think it would be cool just to talk to any old person with it but the kids really enjoy being able to see themselves on the computer and to be able to "show" Grandma and Grandpa stuff.

What is after Thanksgiving???

Of course, it is Christmas, but not until we celebrate Katie's birthday first. We did however manage to put up the Christmas tree on Thanksgiving Day weekend, despite all of our travels. Since Katie's birthday is the weekend after Thanksgiving (usually) we have to do it that weekend or it is just too much. I did not get very many good pictures of putting up the tree because it went up too fast. With all of the help (a lot of improvement of the help that we had last year) and the new help, it went up faster than I could get the camera out. When I did get it out, I had trouble getting the lighting right. I don't know if Coy knows what to make of the Christmas tree or not but he is definitely a big fan of the train that goes around the bottom of the tree.

This has been a week of celebration for Katie. We had her birthday with the Yankey family on Thanksgiving weekend and then the Ferguson side of the family came up through the week this past week to help celebrate. Katie also had a couple of friends over today (Saturday) for a couple of hours to play and do some crafty stuff. Caleb went to a movie with a friend but Coy and I stayed with the girls. He got right in on the crafts that involved food (cup-cakes and gingerbread men).

Coy is fond of shoes. I don't know what it is but he really enjoys putting on shoes that don't belong to him. My guess is that he is trying to make us laugh and it usually does. He will probably regret this picture in Katie's shoes some day.

Below is the scene at bedtime at our house. Unfortunately, I was out of town all week with work so I did not get to see this scene at all. I feel sorry for folks whose jobs take them away from their families on a regular basis. But I really feel sorry for the folks that are left behind

to run the house with one of their sets of hands tied behind their backs. I know it takes a toll on Stacey while I am gone. Fortunately, both sets of Grandparents came up to help break up the week but I know it is still hard to keep the peace alone for the week.

I don't know when, or if, we will make it to go see Santa. Neither Caleb nor Katie have ever been a big fan of Santa and Coy has not really shown any real affection for adults in costumes so we will have to see. Of course, Coy has no idea about Santa and it is not really a topic that we discuss much at our house. We will probably end up walking past Santa at the mall some afternoon to gauge whether or not to try it but I am guessing that ours will be a letter, or e-mail, campaign to that guy.