A week of holiday 2008

Sunday, December 7, 2008

A week of holiday

Over the week of Thanksgiving we had everyone home. We had fun making cookies, banana and pumpkin bread, wreath and snowflake crafts, Thanksgiving pies, mailing family Christmas gifts, decorating for Christmas, sledding, family and friends. Phoebe had a sleepover with two school friends and Olivia and Phoebe both had a friend over another day. The boys are not as interested in Christmas as we thought they might be. Of course! They do not know what it is! I showed them a photo of Santa Claus and asked who is this? The answer, "Ummmmmmmmmmmm, grandpa?" They do think the big tree is "wowie!" and it has "flowers" on it. That would be lights. They liked putting their first ornament on it. An airplane. They love to hear the Christmas story of Jesus over and over. They play with the kids nativity too, which has added animals from Ethiopia this year. I regret not buying items that could be made into ornaments while in Ethiopia. The thought did not occur to me until we put up the tree. Dave and I mused after all the kids went to bed the day we decorated. Last Christmas we had NO IDEA we would have two more kids or that we would go to Ethiopia, nothing that happened this year was even in our minds or a guess last Christmas and New Year's. As usual, God's plans for our lives are mysterious and in the proper perspective all of it can be wonderful too. Wonderful does not inherently imply happiness. Joy yes, contentment in life's circumstances, yes. Sometimes those plans are really hard. But, when we walk with the Lord in the light of his love, we are given the strength to walk, sight unseen, the path marked out for us. From all the information we could gather, we are coming up to the anniversaries of the death of our son's birth parents. Their little minds will associate Genna and Timket (Christmas and Epiphany done the Ethiopian way, celebrated in our January) with the saddest time in their young lives. For this reason I am glad that our celebrations do not look anything like the Ethiopian versions.

One thing the boys DO understand is Birthdays! We have had celebrations for Daddy, Mommy and Phoebe since they have been home. Keds is coming up on his Christmas Eve birthday when he will turn 4! This he knows. Cake, ice cream and gifts. This he is looking forward to because he has experienced it with other family members.

Nate is actually looking forward to having his teeth fixed this Thursday. He choose a garbage truck at the store and will get it when he is finished with the Dentist. He has been reviewing what will happen for a month now. He will go to the dentist, sit in the green chair, put on the nose and go to sleep. While he is asleep the dentist will fix his brown teeth (4 caps on the top front 4) and then he will wake up and get to open his trash truck. He has sat in the chair and met the dentist and talked about it there. He is not afraid and so I hope he stays calm when it really happens.

We just enjoyed a concert of the Messiah by Handel. The boys did great sitting for close to 3 hours! It appeared that they actually enjoyed it. They do love music and rhythm.

Here are some photos for you.