Holiday Recap

As of last week, we are finally finished with the longest, most relaxing holiday season that either David or I can remember. We were truly able to be "in the moment" this year, and it made for a wonderful Christmas. I don't know if it was due to David not being under so much stress at work for once, or the fact that we weren't in the middle of an adoption, or the decision that we weren't going to spend money on ourselves this year (probably a mix of all of those)....but we enjoyed this year's festivities more than we ever have before....and that's saying something!

We had numerous family get-togethers, and saw lots of cousins:

The boys slept by our tree the night before they opened their presents from us:

We saw happy smiles on our "Christmas morning":

Sintay loved his new bike, and tried to ride it through the house:

Mr. Y loved his new Playmobil castle....and he especially enjoyed waging war against his daddy's army:

Sintayehu fell madly in love with his cousin Jana. He followed her everywhere, insisted that she sit beside him whenever possible, and still sings her praises on a daily basis. Unfortunately for him, Miss Jana is currently in Minnesota on a pharmacy rotation, so we won't get to see her for awhile.

We had an interesting time trying to limit our boys' exposure to electronics. With lots of older cousins around, it is never easy! However, I'm afraid that this mean old mom thinks that being with family means you should be spending time with said family, rather than constantly playing Subway Surfer on your cousin's i-phone!

We opened stocking stuffers on the real Christmas morning:

We played outside in our bountiful snowfall:

Mr. Y lost a tooth, and was thrilled to discover that his cousin Zavier had the same one missing:

We met Vitaly, the sweet Ukrainian orphan boy that my sister's family hosted over Christmas. When he met me, he gave me the biggest hug you can imagine and crowed excitedly, "Mama's Seestra (sister)!" Vitaly headed back to Ukraine today....but there is some exciting news ahead for him! God is definitely not finished with this precious boy's story.

We attempted to take cute pictures of our kiddos with their cousins, but we got stuff like this:

We spotted superheros reading stories in our living room:

We celebrated Ganna or Ethiopian Christmas on January 7th. We dressed in our traditional costumes and had a dinner of injera and shiro, while listening to Ethiopian music. Sintayehu was SO excited about it all. When I walked out of my bedroom in my traditional dress, his whole face lit up and he shouted, "Mommy! Pope-ia! Cute!" He was quite distraught when I changed later in the evening to go to calling hours at a funeral home.

On January 1, David and I celebrated our 18th anniversary. (Crazy, I tell you!) We really wanted to get away together, but we didn't feel that we could leave Sintayehu overnight with anyone else yet. In the end, we decided to take the boys to a nearby hotel with a teeny-tiny "water park" (think nice swimming pool with a slide and a couple of "extras.") They loved it, and it was so much fun to watch them enjoy the water. I'm pretty sure that Sintayehu went down the slide about 9000 times.

We did have to laugh at ourselves though. Sintay doesn't fall asleep if we are in the same room with him. He will keep goofing off and talking and carrying on....no matter how tired he is. On the night of our anniversary, David and I solved the problem by going into the bathroom and closing the door. While we waited for our three-year old to fall asleep in the hotel room outside, I sat on the counter and played free cell on our i-pad, while David sat on the toilet lid and read a biography. Yep....this is what passes for romance these days! Ooh-la-la! One of us commented to the other, "I wonder what the us of five years ago would say if they could see us now?"

Anyway, back to reality: school for Y and me and regular work weeks for David. It was fun while it lasted, and we're thankful that we'll get to enjoy the memories for a lifetime!