christmas season

Monday night we did our first Christmas Family Home Evening with Kaalam. We watched Joy to the World and talked to him about the baby Jesus and brought out the little Nativity set Nana made for him last year and we played with it for a while. At the end we gave him one of the pass along cards with the picture of Mary and baby Jesus to put on his wall. For the last 2 days, every time he comes into or out of his room, he wants to stop and tell us all about the picture and baby Jesus. We've got our decorative Nativities out and he keeps asking if they can be toys too. I am SO GLAD to have Nana's because there is just no way he'd leave the nicer ones alone if he didn't have his own to play with.

I love Christmas. Kaalam's been wanting Christmas songs every night to go to bed, our decorations are out, most of our extended family Christmas shopping is done, the tree is up and we've had Family pictures taken. Brandon took a few days off after Thanksgiving to help me get Christmas underway and I am so glad he did. Most years we're scrambling to get everything squeezed into the last 2 weeks and I keep panicking out of habit that we're running out of time and there are things that need to be done! Then I suddenly stop and realize, it's only the 2nd. That feel nice. :)

christmas tree hunt

We went Christmas tree hunting today. I was so excited and so was Kaalam! He sang Christmas songs the whole time. I am so excited that he's finally old enough to get into Christmas.

This is probably the closest we'll get to real snow this year sad to say. We decided to get our tree flocked this year. Neither one of us has ever done it and I am really missing snow!
Kaalam wasn't interested in choosing the tree. Mostly he wanted to run around through the trees.

Zander wasn't too impressed. He rarely is, but as long as he's being held, he's pretty happy.

baby giggles

There really isn't anything so wonderful as the sound of a baby's laugh.

sweaty boy

My baby smells like dirty hockey locker room. What's with that?

I have never seen a baby sweat like Zander does ever! I'm not supposed to have to deal with teenage sweaty sock smells until I have teenagers. Instead I have Kaalam who doesn't sweat at all, to the point where my doctor has advised I just not take him outside when it's hot and if I do, I need to be soaking him in water every 20 minutes or so to keep him from overheating.

Then I have Zander.

I bathe him every day. I get about an hour of the sweet, sweet baby smell that makes you want to pick up a baby and snuggle him so badly. Then I put him down for a nap. Then he sweats so badly during the nap that I have seen water droplets running down his face and steam coming off his forehead. We keep the windows open when it's cold, we keep a fan running on him all the time and we wrap him in not much more than receiving blankets. It's not like I'm actually sleeping him in a sauna. But by the time he wakes up, his body has acted like I did and he's back to smelling like a twelve year old boy who hasn't changed his socks in three days. By the evening, it's pretty awful and he gets a second bath quite regularly. He's a very snugly baby, but tonight he smelled so bad I kept having to move him to keep him downwind.

He's in the bath with Kaalam right now so I'll have another sweet hour of baby lavender and snuggles before bed tonight.

I hope he outgrows this.

my favorite adoption video

With National Adoption Awareness month drawing to a close, I thought I'd share one of my favorite videos about adoption. And I finally figured out how to embed video, so now's the time before I forget and have to figure it all out all over again. :)

In the Spirit of Thanksgiving

I just came across this FANTASTIC Thanksgiving video!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I am thankful for my children.
I am thankful for a wonderful husband.
I am thankful for adoption. I am thankful for a birthmother whom I love with all my heart.
I am thankful for my amazing extended family and friends on whom I can rely.

I am thankful for the life I get to lead. Life is good. I am happy. And I thank the Lord for that most of all.

silver linings

Today was an awful day. I had to change my clothes 3 times because the baby kept puking on me, he wouldn't let me put him down while he was awake so I couldn't get anything done, Kaalam was throwing full on tantrums all afternoon and refused to take a nap and I've been buried under a house that is in desperate need of a good scrub and about 7 loads of laundry, the Christmas gifts that are supposed to be in the mail by Friday so they'll actually make it to Canada on time are only half done and to top it all off, my hip hurts so bad I can hardly walk.

But today, (between tantrums) Kaalam snuggled me on the couch and gave me a kiss and Zander snuggled my shoulder and smelled like baby shampoo. It was a really rotten day, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Once upon a time neither one of them was here to get in the way or annoy me with how loud they could each scream. And that was far worse. It's better than not being a mom at all because at the end of every day I get to have heard at least 1 'I love you' and hold them in my arms and know that I love them too.

I really love being a mom. I am so lucky to have them.

colorful eating habits

Kaalam has been trying very hard to learn his colors but if he doesn't know the name of a color his default is green, so I thought it might be good to start comparing colors side by side once in a while. I got the idea from Toddler Boredom Busters and it was a huge hit. When Kaalam saw me piling food into the little cups his response was "Oh Wow!", and then he refused to leave the kitchen.

We had noodles (not quite yellow, but I needed something that wasn't a vegetable or fruit), corn, strawberries, beets, peas and asparagus. I made sure to pick a few of his favorites. He isn't a picky eater, so I had plenty to choose from.