Merry Christmas!

A new kind of Christmas. It was definitely a different experience "being" Santa Claus this year, as well as being away from my family for the first time on Christmas.

Christmas eve we made cookies for Santa with the kids. Then they went to mass, after we changed them into their Christmas pjs and all piled into one car and took them to see Christmas lights. They loved it! They were so fascinated and regularly shouted instructions to, "Stop!" or "I can't see! Move up please." Driving around looking at Christmas lights is one of the things I have always enjoyed doing with my family and it is definitely one of my favorite memories so far with these children. We put out cookies and milk. Our 6-year-old dictated a letter to Santa and we left carrots and water for the reindeer.

On Christmas morning we had to wake up the older two, so we brought them out one at a time to watch their reaction to the presents. Every one of them did not know what to think. They just kind of stood there and looked at the presents, than ran to check the letter and of course the carrots. I don't think any of them knew what to expect when we kept telling them Santa was bringing presents. We had waffles with whip cream and Christmas sprinkles but our kids don't really like anything new and thought it was weird. So they wouldn't eat until we gave them plain waffles with just syrup. All the kids opened presents in their pjs and we just played with the new toys all morning. After nap we got dressed and helped the kids make a gingerbread house while we finished Christmas dinner.

Everyone ate lots of food and we watched Christmas movies and played with toys until bedtime. It was a very joy-filled Christmas!

Our Christmas tree. We did not want to buy a tree topper so we used one of our Barbie dolls and wrapped fabric around her :)

The wreaths are made out of the kids handprints and we set up a little snow village.

The awesome advent calendar my mom made for me. There were only 2 days left at this point otherwise there were cute little cans on each square. This was the kids favorite thing. They always asked to "Check the calendar." My mom put special surprises in each can for the kids.

Mittens the kids decorated hung over our kitchen table.

It is kind of blurry but in the background you can see our stockings. I couldn't put a close up picture because they have the kids names' on them. We had Christmas lights everywhere downstairs!

Snowflakes we made and hung around the living room.

Crazy Christmas lights.

Our tree Christmas morning :)

Opening presents in their cool Christmas pjs!!

Putting together our giant foam ABC puzzle after dinner in new clothes from Santa.

Picture Update

Staff picture. I was feeding the baby so I had to hold her out of the picture haha. This was on Thanksgiving. These are the people that work in the house with me. (L to R Mark, Marcy, Juliette, Courtney, Alice, Nicole and I)

Dancing to Christmas music with the kids.

Decorating our Christmas tree!

I will post a picture of it all done later. It's beautiful!

Opening stockings that Santa brought for the kids.

Our little 3-year-old wearing my big puffy vest. She looked hilarious.

Our 6-year-old sitting on Santa's lap.

Tanicia and Landon Came to Town

Tanicia and Landon came to visit me this week! It was so nice to have a friend in town. Here are the highlights:

• We went to the zoo on Saturday! Landon got to crawl in a tunnel that went through a huge fish tank.
• Tanicia and I went to a Rockets basketball game Saturday night. They won, we got free t-shirts.
• Sunday after church we went out to dinner and got amazing chicken fajitas. Landon ate limes and sour cream.
• Monday night Tanicia and I went to a Texans game. They lost (amazing game though), we got free t-shirts.
• Wednesday we went to the Children's Museum. No free t-shirts, but super cool.
• Tanicia and I went to a Christmas concert Wednesday night and then watched HARRY POTTER! I bawled when Dobby died.
• Thursday we went to the Holocaust Museum and got yummy frozen yogurt (with raspberries on top) later.
• We ended our week watching Charlie St. Cloud and eating potato soup.

It was so much fun having them here and I miss them already. God has truly blessed me with wonderful friends.

California and Thanksgiving Pictures!

Pictures as promised...

Danika and I on Venice Beach!

Zach in front of the spray paint walls on the beach.

Danika and I eating yummy, messy burgers at The Counter.

Zach and I on our way to the airport :(

This is our new little guy. He thought it was so fun to put the bucket on his head and run back and forth, back and forth across the living room. It was hilarious to watch him scamper across the rug on his tip-toes as he dissolved into giggles.

Here are two of the girls watching the parade Thanksgiving morning. They all loved the big character balloons.

The apple turkeys the kids made!

I had to put up a picture showing his adorable little sweater vest we put him in for Thanksgiving Day.

I love this picture because it shows three different styles of parts. I did the star part :)

Mark carving our turkey.

Here is our Thanksgiving dinner.

We relaxed after and watched Beauty and the Beast. Here are all of our kids minus the baby.

Things You've Missed

Real quick update...I've been really busy the last few weeks and have slacked in the blogging world. I have to work soon but I just wanted to jot down a few things that I haven't mentioned.

• Having my parents here for my birthday was absolutely wonderful! I took them to the church I attend, we went to a park close to my house, we ate some great food and they got to play with my kids, who they of course fell in love with. They made my birthday very special and I loved having them in my new home.
• My Grandpa Al died sadly and suddenly on Halloween, so I had an impromptu family gathering on the next Friday for the memorial service. The service was very nice and it was so nice to spend some unexpected time with my whole family together. He will be missed, he was a very special guy.
• I got to spend an extended weekend with Zach and it was perfect. It was so great to see him and spend some quality time together. I will post pictures from this weekend sometime this week. He is doing well and recently started a job at Target, for those of you wondering. He is very excited about a cool job opportunity that begins in January and so the seasonal Target job is perfect. We got to do so many fun things, eat lots of good food and cuddle :) I also got to see my sister, Danika, and Zach's brothers and sisters. We had so much fun spending the day up in LA with everyone.
• We have a new kid. A boy who is 22 months old. He is a train wreck. He has the most high pitched scream I have ever heard in my life. It actually hurts your ears to be in the same room. Needless to say our whole house has not gotten a lot of sleep the last week. He definitely needs prayers. He is having a hard time adjusting to our schedule. He is slowly learning how to play. Until yesterday he would flip out if you tried to read him a book, now he will listen and sit on our laps. He is doing better but has a long way to go to settle down.

Happy Thanksgiving early!!! We got our food delivered today so we don't have to make anything we just heat everything up in the oven. We are all very excited for tomorrow. We're going to put on the Thanksgiving Day parade and let the kids sleep in and we all (all the adults too) are going to eat dinner together and watch movies. The kids only get to watch tv once a week on movie night so this is very exciting for them. It will be weird not to be with family, but I look forward to celebrating with the kids. None of the kids even knew what Thanksgiving Day was so we don't think any of them have ever celebrated it before.

Side note: for those of you who know what apple turkeys are..I am making them with the kids tomorrow morning :) I'll try and take a picture to post. I love you all and hope you have great Thanksgivings wherever that may be!!

Happy Halloween

"God knows what I need." This line in a song at church today just really stuck out for me. It is so simple and I feel like we are told this all the time, but for some reason today it really made a point. I don't know where everyone is at right now, but this is what I am going to try to remember this week. God knows what we all need.

One song that has been played the last couple Sundays has one line that is particularly powerful and it makes me think of my kids. "Give us souls that never close, to the grace that you bestow."

With everything these kids have been through they are still open to being loved. They crave that grace and we need to be open to receive that as well. These children prove that hope is real. Hope lives in them. These beautiful children who have been physically, sexually, and emotionally abused, neglected, used, and forgotten can still learn to love again and have faith in the world.

So here are some pictures to make you smile! We celebrated a birthday today and got to take the kids trick-or-treating. There is nothing like a Halloween spent with 6 young children who have never celebrated Halloween before, please imagine the excitement and chaos in our house!

So we had a fish, a spider, a bumble bee, a cheerleader, a witch, and a butterfly princess. I was a ladybug...sorry no pictures :) They were all completely adorable, especially our baby in her fish costume. In the picture of the two girls the one on the right is a bat. She used to live in our house and the last picture is of trick-or-treating..YAYY!!!!! What a wonderful reminder of what is good in life.

Backyard Adventure

A typical afternoon, playing in the backyard is a favorite for the kids. So many wonderful things to do and see just beyond the kitchen door.

We caught some frogs. Five in all. We had 4 in one bucket and 1 in the other. The kids like to hold them in their hand and tend to squeeze them too tightly so we made homes for them in buckets. We added grass and a little water from the sprinkler, which the kids loved doing. Then we set them free when we went inside. Our little two-year-old girl named hers Froggie and her brother named his Froggie-a-saurus #1, #2, #3, and #4.

We also dug in the dirt for bugs, played some baseball,

we rode bikes and played in the sprinkler.

We even had a brief game of butterfly chase,

the butterfly won and would not listen to

shouted requests of "Slow down, please!"

(The butterfly is the small yellow dot you can see in the top middle of the fence.)

There is so much trust in the simple action of holding hands. Someone always want to hold your hand. It makes them feel safe.

The two kids in the picture where I am holding hands, left yesterday. It was very sad and I miss them so much. It is so hard to say goodbye to the child that has learned to trust you and love you. I could not help crying as I buckled them into their car seats to leave and they looked at me with such honesty and whispered, "I love you, Emily." I pray that they are loved and cherished and understand one day why we had to say goodbye.