O, Christmas Tree

Another Christmas season begins with our "day-after-Thanksgiving" tradition of going to the tree farm to cut the Christmas tree. The weather was wonderful and we were able to outdo ourselves this year. Mikaela picked a particularly lovely douglas fir with the most delightful scent. Everyone took their turn cutting it down before we took our tractor ride back to the shed.




After eating homemade pizza for supper, we set to work decorating with all of the ornaments we've accumulated over the years. What fun we have looking through all of the boxes and remembering each one.

Walking through the garden.....

You crack me up!

Helping Grandpa open his birthday present

In the past couple of weeks, we've celebrated Grandpa's birthday and visited with Grammie and Aunt Rhonda. Grammie showed Maimie the cutest little "hand game" (for lack of a better term). Funny, I've known Grammie for nearly 4 decades and brought all 4 of my kids around her when they were young. I had never heard this one. I'll try to add a video at the end.

Time with Grammie

Cheesing with Aunt Rhonda

After rolling Mikaela's hair for a trial run of "madrigal hair", Maimie decided she'd like her hair in rollers, too. While Maimie was quick to pose for a photo, Mikaela could not be convinced to join her. Notice Maimie's little fingers in the photo. It looks like she's crossing her fingers. Probably getting ready to tell a fib.

The price of beauty

This past weekend, I decided I couldn't wait until after Thanksgiving to start decorating for Christmas. Because I'm a decorating Nazi at our house (especially at Christmas), I decided that maybe I should let the kids have their own tree just for fun in our over garage room. ( The room is unfinished, but very usable at this point.) So, we bought a cheap fake tree and the biggest gaudiest multicolored lights we could find. Jacob mentioned he'd like regular bulb ornaments, too. The kids enjoyed decorating their tree and were pleased with how it looked. Mission accomplished.

Mmmm, finger bananas!

China Story

It happens roughly 10 - 20 times each day at our house. It generally is associated with love and saying I love you. And it generally causes Maimie to brush my bangs back with her hands and look at me very seriously. It is a ritual at bedtime, naptime, and lunch time.
It all started months ago when Maimie would start saying "I love you". I always told her that I loved her, too. Then I would tell her the "china story". It sounded like this:" I love you so much...I went all the way to China in a big airplane just to bring you back home with me." Soon Maimie was asking for the China Story several times a day.



Eventually I started to add more information to the story. Now the china story sounds more like this: " Once upon a time, there was a beautiful baby girl named Guo Zhen who lived in China with Fay-Fay and the other little babies. Mommy and Daddy wanted a baby girl, and one day we got a little picture of baby Guo Zhen. We loved baby Guo Zhen so much that we wanted to bring her home to live with us and be part of our family so we could love her and squeeze her and hug her anytime we wanted. So, Mommy and Daddy and Mikaela and Jacob and Joseph all got on an airplane and flew all the way to China. When we got there, we went to a building to meet baby Guo Zhen. Fay-Fay handed baby Guo Zhen to mommy and baby Guo Zhen was so brave. She didn't even cry! And Baby Guo Zhen looked at mommy and mommy looked at baby Guo Zhen. I just loved my baby! Later we took baby Guo Zhen back to our hotel room. Jacob held baby Guo Zhen, Joseph held baby Guo Zhen, Mikaela held baby Guo Zhen, and Daddy held baby Guo Zhen. We gave baby Guo Zhen a bottle to drink and played with her. Then baby Guo Zhen got a bath and put on some little blue sheep pajamas and went night-night. Then when it was time to go home, we all got on an airplane. Baby Guo Zhen spilled noodle soup all over poor Mikaela's lap! The End."

Going out to breakfast with Daddy

Sometimes I'll leave out something and Maimie will tell that part. Sometimes I'll abbreviate the story, but then add in some of the things we did while in China such as the zoo, the park, the temple, shopping.
Nothing could have prepared me for what happened one evening last week while telling the china story. Maimie and I were on the couch with Daddy and she asked me to tell the story just like a million other times. But this time when I got to the part about Fay-Fay, Maimie interrupted to tell me "Fay-Fay ride". I asked her if she said "Fay-Fay ride" and she said yes. Then she said Fay-Fay ride Maimie. I asked if she and Fay-Fay rode in a car. She said yes... Fay-Fay cry. When I asked her if Fay-Fay cried, she said no, baby cry. I asked her if she was the baby that cried. No, baby cry. Then she said Fay-Fay tell Maimie I love you. And that was all she said. But Steve and I think she was filling in part of her China story. I had been telling about Fay-Fay and the building where we met her. That morning Maimie and around 3 or 4 other babies made the 3 hour trip with several nannies by van/car from her orphanage to the capital city of Nanning where we met her. Apparently one of the babies had been crying during the trip. And evidently her caregiver (Fay-Fay) had at some point told Maimie that she loved her. WOW! How amazing that Maimie still holds memories from China and is just now starting to get enough language skills to relay bits of them.

Fun with Gus and Margie

Happy Halloween

Maimie, Mikaela, Joseph, and Jacob

Since the kids had a day off of school, we spent Halloween morning visiting with family.

Great Grandma Ruth

Great Grammie Betty

It was nice to see mom and dad, both of my grandmothers, my uncle Terry, and my aunt Rhonda (a missionary to Australia). Aunt Rhonda arrived earlier this week to be here for Grammie's chemo and radiation treatments. She last visited the U.S. in 2005 around the time we announced to the family that we were adopting from China. This was her first time to meet Maimie in person.

Great Aunt Rhonda

After supper, the kids and I dressed up to trick-or-treat. Mikaela and Jacob sat on the porch to pass out candy. Mikaela was a hippie and Jacob was a guy from the 50's (were they called "greasers"?). They easily ate as much as they passed out -- there were about 100 wrappers in the garbage can when we got back! Daddy and I took Joseph the giant pizza and Maimie the ladybug around to a few houses in our neighborhood.

Afterwards we ate a little candy and some rootbeer floats while watching "Wallace and Grommit's Curse of the WereRabbit". It was a really nice day!