As of 1:30 PM this afternoon, June 28th 2010, Gabe is officially stubborn! YAY!!!
He was nervous. He ate an entire bowl (like, glad container bowl) of taco casserole, plus a bowl of green grapes, at 11:30. He eats when he’s nervous, and he hates that I know that he eats when he’s nervous.
Jeremiah was nervous. He was bummed because we still don’t have a date for his adoption day. He was a bit mopey, but over all held it together.
Gabe was so excited to have many people who love him and care about him show up for court today. Gabe’s worker was there, as well as our adoption worker, whom we have never met before, so that was great. Hubby’s mom, grandma, and sister were there. Many of our closest friends also made the trip, and thankfully one of them remembered a camera, otherwise we would have been picture-less.
The court hearing was short, as I knew it would be. Gabe was glad that he didn’t have to say much, just a lot of yes sir’s. The judge gave a nice speech that I’ve heard at many adoption proceedings about how this is his favorite part of the job. It was nice. We got a picture with the judge afterwords, and he said he would love a copy. That made me smile.
After court we all headed to a local restaurant for a very fun time of celebrating and laughing together. Gabe felt very loved. That’s because he is. Oh, and he ate A LOT!
After dropping Hubby off at work, we went for a little DQ for dessert. Yum!
Gabe requested our family’s favorite dish, affectionately named “Rufus”, for dinner. It was amazing, as usual. Great job, lovey!
So that was our day. And now we wait for Jeremiah’s. Soon, we hope.
I can’t believe our first Christmas with the boys is already over. It was a good one, though. We made plenty of good memories and had wonderful times with our wonderful family.
Here are a few highlights:
- Christmas Eve
We started the day with a delicious breakfast of biscuits, gravy, and cheesy scrambled eggs. Yummy! Our pastor’s wife passed on a bunch of her amazing recipes to me as a graduation present, and her “Mile High Biscuits” is one of our favorites. I’ll put the recipe at the bottom of this post.
After breakfast, we lit the Jesus Candle on our Advent candles and read our Christmas Eve passages. The boys have really loved this tradition, which we usually do after dinner, so we will have to figure out a way to keep it going. What I’ve loved about it is the set passages that are relatively short and come from all over scripture. I haven’t found many devotionals that break things down that well. Any ideas?
Next, the boys cleaned up the kitchen while the grown-ups finished making sure all presents were in order. The boys finished dishes in record time.
Finally is was present time. In my family, we always opened presents on Christmas Eve. I’m not sure how this tradition started, but I think it was more practical in nature than sentimental. My dad is a pastor, so we always had Christmas Eve service, than we opened our presents, and then left for Grandma’s very early Christmas morning.
My favorite present from my hubby was my very own camcorder! YAY! I shot so much video over the past few days it’s frightening. And don’t worry, I will make sure to share an allarming amount of it here.
The boys loved all their presents, and Jeremiah’s reactions were hilariously enthusiastic. We were worried about him being thankful, but that was definitely not an issue. Way to go, kid.
After opening presents, we headed off to Christmas Eve service at my husband’s childhood church. It was a beautiful traditional service. It made realize how much I need to teach my boys as far as church history is concerned. I think I may be hitting up some of my homeschooling friends for some ideas soon. Actually, the prize I recently won from Kimberly at Raising Olives will be very helpful in that endeavor.
After the beautiful service we headed over to Hubby Person’s dad’s house. We ate entirely too many goodies and then opened even more presents with Grandpa K, Aunt E, Uncle J, and Cousin T. It’s tradition that the youngest in the family passes out all the presents, which is all fine and good, but there were a few issues. First, Jeremiah is not very good with names. Second, Jeremiah is not a very good reader. Those two in combination led to nearly half an hour of hillarity. Kaleb’s dad was nearly falling off his chair laughing because Jeremiah could not get the concept that Grandpa was also Kurt etc… Miah started getting a little antsy toward the end, but held it together long enough to get to play with some of his new toys.
- Christmas Day
Ah, glorious sleep. Both boys were occupied enough with their new bioncles that Hubby Person and I were able to sleep in without a peep from either child.
Jeremiah didn’t like the fact that Mom caught him in a lie, so an hour long tantrum ensued. I knew it was coming. He had had such a good day the day before, he just couldn’t handle it any more. It ended well though, as Hubby Person had a good long conversation with him about how to handle his anxiety.
We headed over to Hubby’s mom’s for dinner. Yay, turkey! Yay, real pumpkin pie! We opened up even more presents. My MIL loved the basket I made her, which I still have to post about. The boys got some remote control cars and the spent a good two hours racing them around Grandma’s basement before heading out to sled. Hubby, Rachel, and I played my SIL’s new Wii with her for a couple of hours as well. Wow, it really is a work out.
The only real bummer about the past few days was that my daddy, step-mama, and lil’ sis got snowed in by the big blizzard and weren’t able to make the trip. It was heart breaking, but I am glad they didn’t risk their lives in the 40 MPH winds. They are going to try to make the trip on Wednesday to be here for the new year.
But we are blessed. Blessed beyond blessed beyond blessed. And it has nothing to do with material things, which we have been blessed with as well. How great is it that even though one set of grandparents couldn’t make it, the boys had two other sets of grandparents that loved on them and cherished them?
How great it is that we have a God who enjoys celebrations! Who enjoys us enjoying Him and all He’s given us.
Okay, that’s enough for now.
Blessings!
Hannah
Oh, I almost forgot! Here’s the biscuit recipe.
Mama Char’s Mile High Biscuits
3 C. flour
2 TB Sugar
5 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Salt
3/4 Cup shortening (I use the butter flavored Crisco sticks.)
1 C. milk
1 beaten egg
Mix flour, baking powder and salt together. Cut in shortening until it resembles cornmeal. Blend milk and egg together, then add to dry ingredients. Mix only enough to blend mixture. Place dough on well floured board and knead 5-15 times. The secret to light biscuits is to not over mix dough after liquid has been added. Cut into biscuits and place on a baking sheet lightly coated with cooking spray. Bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes until biscuits are golden brown. *Hint* Don’t place biscuits too close together or they will not cook through properly.
I’m so sorry I’ve been away so long. As I said before, we were dealing with some stalking issues, but they seen to have calmed down for now, so I am hoping to resume blogging as usual, although I am going to have to be careful for a while about content until my husband puts some extra security precautions into place.
That said….
Things are…adventurous. Every day seems to bring something new that the Lord is teaching us as a family, and me individually.
This Christmas season has been exciting. We are doing and Advent devotional together as a family every night after dinner. I found a five candle candelabra at a garage sale last year and it has made the perfect Advent candle stand. The boys take turns lighting the candles each night and everyone in the family has a passage to read. Most of Jeremiah’s passages have been out of Isaiah, and he is getting better and better each time he reads. He loves to read out loud, and it’s so fun to see his confidence grow. The boys love learning more about the Lord and more about the history surrounding Christ’s birth. Gabe has been asking some very intuitive questions, and Jeremiah’s enthusiasm is incredibly contagious.
Both boys are handling the Christmas season and the trauma-versaries that come with them in their own ways. Gabe is, of coarse, very introspective and is dealing with some denial about what has happened around this time in the past. Hubby person and I just continue to reassure him that he is safe and that we are never EVER going to leave him.
Jeremiah is much more vocal about his stress and has been having marathon tantrums the past couple of weeks. Thankfully, when he actually FINALLY breaks down and cries, he is very open about what is really scaring him. The biggest things that he has expressed anxiety over is that he has never been in a family of his very own for Christmas before and he is not sure what to expect. He told me (yes, with his own mouth. YAY!) that it would be helpful if I could let me know ahead of time what is going to happen so he knows that Mom and Dad have things under control. Good to know, kid. He has also been having a lot of birth mom questions lately, which I am trying to handle with sensitivity and age-appropriate honesty. Wisdom on this would be helpful.
Jeremiah had his first Christmas concert tonight, which I will proudly post video of as soon as possible. He was amazing! I mean, he sang well, which is awesome, but the best part is that he participated completely. He sang loudly…on the song he remembered the words for…and when he was sitting down he was quietly paying attention and watching the other performers. I loved being there for my son’s first ever holiday concert. What a memory. Hubby person, unfortunately, had to be out of town this week, but Jeremiah knows that Daddy loves him and that he wanted to be there.
Finally, I am on the fertility adventure again. I had my yearly physical with my OBGYN today, and when she found out I haven’t had a cycle since…ummm…FEBRUARY….she was a little concerned. SO. She did an internal ultra sound and was shocked when she discovered that my uterine lining was only .34 cm thick. To put that in perspective, a typical woman’s uterine lining is 1.0 cm thick on day 14 of her cycle. Right before her period, it can be from 2.0 to 2.5 cm thick. Mine was .34. As if I just had a period…except my last one was 9 months ago. Yeah. SO. She has prescribed progesterone for 10 days to help my body get the signal that “Hey! Do something with the uterus!” After that, we are going to try clomid again, but at a higher dose this time, to try to get those darn ovaries to wake up. WAKE UP OVARIES!!!!
Okay, so those are the current adventures. God is good. He is taking care of us in crazy ways…including putting another infertile, adoptive, Christian mom in my path today in the Christian book store so I could unload for an hour after my appointment before coming home to the boys. If you think of us, pray for us, and if you need prayer, just let us know.
A persistent friend reminded me that I haven’t posted about how the weekend went. So sorry, Miss Charity.
I told you! I don’t make a big deal of Halloween!
The harvest party was a blast. I don’t know how many kids came through, but it was pretty darn crowded. Jeremiah was a little overwhelmed at first, but soon was having so much fun that when the two-hour party was over, he didn’t want to leave. We got to see an amazing black light puppet show (I saw it twice) that both boys really enjoyed. Gabe has quite the obsession with black lights, so even though the puppet show was geared for very young children, I knew he would love it. He did.
Yesterday I discussed why our family has chosen to not participate in typical Halloween activities. I thought some of you might be wondering how our boys feel about our decision.
When I have fantasized about motherhood, many of my fantasies center around building traditions with my kids. Traditions are memory makers, and I couldn’t wait to get to experience those things with my kiddos. Well, when you adopt an older child they come pre-loaded with memories of traditions they have already experienced. This never really occurred to me until we started to have conversations with our boys about childhood memories. Neither of my boys were raised in particularly Christian families, and definitely not as conservative as ours, so I wasn’t surprised that Halloween was something that they were used to participating in.
Jeremiah was especially exposed to a lot of age-inappropriate scary things, i.e. movies, stories, humor etc… When he moved in, there were quite a few things that we had to put away that were not appropriate for a 10 year old little boy to have. Not surprisingly, when Hubby person and I discussed our feelings about Halloween, he was initially upset. But, since our approach is simply not to focus on the holiday, it soon became not such a big deal, especially since he knew he would still be able to dress up and go to a really cool party.
Gabe on the other hand comes with a lot more history. He has 16 years of memories and traditions, and those are difficult for him to ignore. Thankfully, Gabe is very dedicated to pleasing my hubby and myself, and, in general, tries to respect our decisions. Well, the ones he considers important. He understands why we are trying to help him learn to honor God with his whole life, and has barely fought us on this decision at all. Of coarse, now he has the dreaded plague and probably won’t be able to participate in activities anyway.
Anywho, this is just the beginning of the journey. We are still learning so much about our boys. Heck, 10 and 16 years is a long time. This upcoming season is going to be one of adventure, and I’m sure plenty of heartache, but I’m hoping maybe some good memories too.
Lord, give me patience as I learn more and more about my sons. Help me to be sensitive to their hearts as they remember things that are not easy to remember. Help us to replace any bad memories with as many good ones as possible. Bind our family together with love.
I’m not aware how the rest of the country is fairing at the beginning of this history making flu season, but the UP is not off to a good start. Entire school districts are being closed down as more than 25% of their student population is out sick. The local news tonight said that 80% of all the flu cases are the dreaded H1N1. That’s a lot.
Our family has been sick, but not with H1N1. Hubby person came home from his business trip and woke up the next day with horrible body aches, 102 fever, and a bad cough. Today, I’ve been out with a really bad head cold, but none of the flu-ish stuff.
When I was a kid, I was sick quite a bit. I am pretty susceptible to lung-related illnesses and have had bronchitis and/or pneumonia nearly every winter since I can imagine. The one thing I can always remember my mom getting me when I was sick was 7up. We weren’t a pop drinking family, so this was a special treat that also encouraged us to drink fluids. My husband really likes powerade, so that has become our sick day beverage of choice. I also remember watching a lot of M*A*S*H and Little House on the Prairie while snoozing on the couch.
Does your family have any sick day traditions? Do you get to eat or drink something special? Does Mom or Dad have a special medicine-giving routine like on one of my favorite Cosby episodes?
I hope everyone is staying well, and if you’re not, I pray you come to full health and strength very soon.
