Christmas Tree, Christmas Cookies and Fun

What a crazy time of the year.  Between basketball schedules and homework, it's been tough to sweeze in some Holdiay fun.  Chloe wasn't sure if she liked hanging ornaments on the tree or eating homemade Christmas candy better.  Her smile looks a little goofy because her mouth was full.

Making Christmas cut-out cookies was quite an undertaking with a 2 year old this year.  How many hands do they have anyway?  Lets just say that we iced and decorated them while she was sleeping :)

Chloe is looking at her favorite book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear."  She almost has it memorized.

   I wanted to end this blog post with a link to a YouTube video of the song called "Merry Christmas."  It features an adoption video created for the Third Day tour.  The song was written by Brad Avery, who has adopted from China. Click the song title below:

Third Day - Merry Christmas

May God richly bless you all this Holiday Season and I pray there will many reminders of the precious gift of God's Son Jesus Christ that was given on that first Christmas.

Friends, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Trees

We had a nice time with family at Thanksgiving.  Greg's family was at our house for brunch on Thanksgiving day and then we celebrated with my family the following Sat.  Chloe especially enjoyed making Lego towers with her cousin Jared.

Everyone was together in my family except my nephew Mitch who was in NY with his girlfriend's family.

We enjoyed a windy 60 deg. to cut our Christmas tree this year

    November also brought a special visit from Alexandria and her family.  She was in a crib next to Chloe at the orphanage and in our travel group.  Her visit came at a really good time.  Chloe continues to learn her life story through attachment therapy and was particularly emotional about a pictures of Alexandria in a crib at the orphanage.  The other babies were the only "family" Chloe ever knew and they were suddenly just gone.  Working through her feeling from her time at the orphanage should be the last big emotional milestone preventing her attachment.  However, it is the big one.  Chloe spent the most time at the orphanage and it makes sense that there are the most emotions associated with it.  She continues to be in regression, screaming, biting, and doing all she can to reject our family right now, but we know that this too will pass as her heart heals.  Many kids in therapy struggle during the Holdiay Season.  They respond to their mom's stress.  If Chloe has not pulled out of this regression by mid Jan., we will do a 3 day intensive therapy session with her to help her move forward.

    My thoughts today are for all you other adoptive mom's out there who not only are stressed from the season, but are struggling with our little ones (and big ones) behaviour.  May God grant us all the patience and wisdom to continue to parent with unconditional love and to see them as His precious creation without the baggage of their past.