1st Snow

The kids were very excited to see our first snow! It made me excited to see it too. :) It was barely enough to cover the grass, but that didn't matter to them. I guess I'm in the blogging mood, because I thought I'd share the pictures!

Christmas and Stuff

I realized when I logged in here that it has been months since I last wrote anything. I am such a bad blogger. It seems like I am so busy doing life that I don't feel like writing about it! For the handful of you who still actually read this blog, here goes...

We've had a really mild Fall and have spent every last chance we could get playing outside. I confess that I've never been a huge fan of winter, but now with my 2 small kids I actually dread it. Jonas has calmed down quite a bit from when he was a toddler and literally never walked... because... why walk when you can run? But he still has an extraordinary amount of energy that he needs to let out through rough and tumble play. Otherwise he tends to take it out on his sister by trying to tackle her, sit on her, jump over her, etc. Ava, for her part, is pretty used to his rough play and can take a lot, but we all reach our limits. One of his favorite activities last year was to pretend he was a race car and run laps around our dining room table with Ava toddling behind him. And yes, I gladly let them do it. I just needed to give frequent reminders to be a nice race car and to pass Ava slowly and carefully. With all that being said, now that the weather is turning colder I have actually found something that makes Jonas sit still for awhile. He loves any craft project with paint and glue. Ava really enjoys crafts too, and is old enough this year to know not to eat the paint and glue. So we have been keeping busy with crafts. I am really not a creative person, but I came up with a lot of project ideas thanks to some web searches. We haven't gotten very far down on my list of ideas though because the kids are having so much fun with popsicle sticks. You would be surprised what you can make with popsicle sticks (stars, picture frames, etc). ****** Spoiler alert for our family members***** We plan to give some of these creations out as Christmas presents!

Jonas likes putting googly eyes on just about anything....

Ava prefers fake diamonds. :)

Glue and paint!

We had fun picking out our Christmas tree. We waited until the kids woke up from their naps and arrived at the tree farm at 4:15pm, about 15 minutes before they were closing for the day. We had to walk quickly up to the trees and we picked the first one that looked good and was small enough for our living room. It was actually fun to pick one so quickly. When we went back to pay for it the kids were treated to some lukewarm "hot" chocolate and cookies, and they were each given a little jingle bell to hang on the tree.

The kids were "big helpers" with the tree decorations. OK, it was actually kind of stressful for me, but I didn't let them know. I could barely get another ornament out before one of them was back asking, not so patiently, for another one to hang on the tree. Many of the ones they hung wound up on the same branches. But in the end, the tree got decorated, the kids had fun, and Ray snapped some cute pictures.

Ava is too little to remember that Christmas involves presents, but this is the first year that Jonas definitely remembers. He reminds us often of the things he wants for Christmas. Lucky for us, the things he wants don't cost too much money. And, at the risk of sounding cheap, we actually get many of his gifts second-hand from garage sales, Ebay, Craigslist, etc. Our kids are too young to notice that their presents didn't come in brand-new packaging, it allows us to get them more than we could otherwise, and maybe even helps our environment a bit.

Ray and I have been talking a lot this year about the things we will do to try to get our kids' focus off the gifts they will get, and on to what Christmas is really all about. We want our kids to know that Christmas is about the birth of our Savior, and we want our kids to be generous to others as God has been generous to us. We have tossed around a lot of ideas of how to teach these things and have started to implement some of them. First, we explained to Jonas that many kids around the world don't have enough food to eat and then we looked through the World Vision gift catalog together as a family. We decided to buy a goat and 2 chickens to help 2 families in need. We also have a good old fashioned construction paper advent chain, and each day when we take off a loop we read the Christmas story from one of their Children's Bibles. I made these little cards on sticks (good old popsicle sticks!) that the kids can use as puppets when we read the Christmas story. Today Jonas grabbed Gabriel in one hand, and the Shepherds in the other and said, "Do not be afraid!" So I guess he is listening. :)

We talk a lot about how Christmas is Jesus' birthday, and I am planning to make a Birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas day. Jonas gets a bit jealous about the fact that it is Jesus' birthday because he tells me he wants it to be his birthday. But I remind him that we celebrate Jesus' birthday by giving gifts to each other, and that seems to make it OK. The other day though, Jonas told me, "I don't want Jesus. I want Santa Claus!" Ray and I have never really talked to Jonas about Santa, but he knows who is he and what he is all about. I don't want to keep my kids from having fun. I grew up believing in Santa and it was magical and exciting. But at the same time, Jonas' statement really hit me. I mean, if you were 3 years old, would you choose the jolly guy in a bright red suit who uses magic and flying reindeer to bring gifts to kids or a humble savior in a manger? And if Santa is the focus of Christmas, what about generosity? Why would kids need to even think about giving gifts to the poor if giving gifts is Santa's job? So I told Jonas that Santa is fun, but that he is pretend, just like Lightning McQueen, Spiderman, and Curious George. We can still leave cookies and carrots out for Santa and his reindeer and visit Santa at the mall, but I want my kids to know that Santa is just a fun character, and not the real deal. A couple of coworkers scolded me when I told them this. Maybe I am just a big meanie, but this is the decision that Ray and I have made and I think our kids will survive.

Before I end this long post let me just give a quick adoption update! We finished all our home study paperwork (phew!) at the beginning of November and waited excitedly for a phone call from our social worker to start our home visits. Instead, our home study coordinator called to tell us that our social worker will be on medical leave until mid-December. At the time I was a little disappointed, but it is already almost mid-December! So sometime soon we should be able to get those 4 home visits out of the way and then we'll be able to finish up our dossier.