Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

We've had a very wonderful Christmas so far!  We can hardly believe that we have four kids this year!  We feel so incredibly blessed to be parents to these four beautiful children!  It's so fun to watch them experience it all.  Anna and Agnes could really understand the story of Christ's birth this year and we did a lot of fun Advent activities to prepare. 

I don't have any pictures to post at the moment, although we took some cute ones.  My cord happens to be upstairs and since all four kids are sleeping, I don't dare go up there!

So when I can get them loaded on our (new!!) computer hopefully soon, I'll post a Christmas post about all of our fun activities and travels.

For now, I'll just say that my youngest child has decided that she is no longer okay with wearing a diaper and simply holds it until we take her diaper off and put her on the potty.  I was hoping for another 6 months before I had to walk the potty training walk again but Mya had a different idea.  Without any kind of formal "training", Mya's already going on the potty 3-4 times a day (after telling me she need to go) and unlike Anna who wouldn't poop in the potty for a long time, Mya is a pro at pooping on the potty.  At least Anthony's no where near ready, he'll be the one in diapers till he goes to preschool.....

Christmas Program

We had our first school Christmas program as parents this past week.  Agnes was in her preschool program and man was she cute!  She's a total ham on stage, not a single bit of stage fright in that child!  We're not surprised!  During the first verse, her voice is the one you can hear the loudest!

Not only did Agnes have a blast and look super cute, but her siblings very much enjoyed the show.  Anna was so excited to sing along, since Agnes had been practicing, Anna knew all the words.  Anna sat so nicely and listened to all of the kids and she can't wait for her turn next year!

Anthony loves anything or place where there are lots of people.  We joke that he's our little politician.  He walks around saying hi to everyone.  And kissing babies.  He's especially fond of babies (one in particular, who happened to be sitting behind us that night).  Before everything got started, he walked up and down the aisle waving and saying "hi, how are you?" More than once, people said, "well, he's got my vote, I don't know what he's running for, but I'd vote for him!"   He also enjoyed the concert, but was upset that we wouldn't let him go on stage to dance...  So he improvised.

Mya was her usual, not so easy to handle self.  The silly little girl just gets into everything and cannot sit still at all.  She's a challenge in church or anywhere else where we have to be quiet and sit for any length of time (2 minutes would be too long...).  Hopefully that phase passes quickly...  She did enjoy seeing Agnes on stage and she most definitely enjoyed the cookie afterwards.

I've loved having Agnes in preschool.  I went to this same school as a kid and I couldn't wait to be a part of the school again.  It's been nice to get to know some of the parents and I've enjoyed getting out of the house those days with the kids.  It's also a nice break, having only 3 to run errands with those two hours and I get to do "school" with Anna on Thursday mornings then.  I'm always very ready to go pick her up by the time it's over though.  I miss her when she's not here and frankly, my house is too QUIET without her around.  The sweet girl talks pretty much nonstop...  She keeps things lively and a few hours a week is the perfect break for me to just have the three others.  She LOVES preschool and is thriving big time.  Her progress report last week was wonderful, she's apparently very liked by the other kids and she talks about quite a few of the kids all the time.  It's so nice to see her adjusting so well and thoroughly enjoying her family and school.

Ballet

 The girls are finishing up ballet for the semester.  They've had a blast doing it and they've learned so much.  We've decided to go ahead and sign them up for next semester (in the 3 year old class, instead of the 2s) using some Christmas money that they get.  I can't believe how much they've learned in this short time!  Even Mya's learned a lot and repeats stuff at home and she spends the whole class on my back in my carrier!  And I can't forget my little handsome son.  He loves dance class too.  He just loves chasing the girls and watching them dance.  He's a total ham and has every mom in there wrapped around his little adorable finger!

They've been dancing to the Nutcracker songs the last few weeks and they've learned quite a few of the steps to the dances.  In fact I hear the big girls in the basement practicing their Nutcracker moves.  So we decided to get tickets to our local Nutcracker.  I took the two big girls and since the tickets were cheap, I decided that even if they didn't sit still through all of it, we could at least stay for the first half.

Well, they surprised me and sat great!  They absolutely loved watching the ballet and they are still talking about it.  I was in tears at the beginning, just in awe that I was sitting at the Nutcracker with two of my daughters.  It was so wonderful and such a sweet time with them.  

Look at that smile, think she enjoyed it?

She's constantly doing ballet moves like she saw!

Not letting go of their programs.

Baptized!

The girls were baptized the Saturday after Thanksgiving!  We're so grateful that they allowed us to baptize them so soon!  Agnes was so very excited about it and she still can't stop talking about it.  We feel blessed to have four souls to look after and raise!

Waiting for Dcn to start!

Clean soul club for Mya!

And Agnes

Agnes and her Godparents, my brother-in-law (Jeremy's brother) Joey and my sister, Julie

My and her Godparents, my sister and brother-in-law (her husband), Sara and Kel

Our Catholic family!  I just love this picture!

With Jeremy's family.  I love that there's a new almost-sister-in-law in there!  Joey and Sela got engaged a few weekends ago!

My family, including my grandma who was able to make it up for the baptism!

The highlight of Agnes' day... the cake...

And I couldn't resist.  Jeremy was excited that him and Cecelia matched.  Cecelia is completely obsessed with her Uncle Jeremy and if he's around, she's with him.  Just look at that adorable niece of mine!

Advent

We've been really intentional about observing Advent with the kids this year.  It's really helped me too, in my preparation for Christmas.  The kids are very enthusiastic about our Advent routines and are very good little reminders of what we're supposed to be doing as we prepare for Christ's birth.  Here's a little bit of how we're observing Advent around here!

We have a few different Advent calendars that we're working our way through.  Each day we read from this book.  It has a nice reflection based off of Scripture and an activity for each day.  Some activities are question/answer type activities and some, like tomorrow are crafts.  The kids love the craft days, we've made all kinds of fun things.  We did this and a Jesse tree last year, but they overlapped a lot and I had a hard time keeping track of the Jesse tree ornaments with toddlers, so we're putting that one on hold for a little while.

My mom found us this cool advent calendar/countdown.  It has pockets with cards in it for each day.  The nice thing was you could arrange the cards to fit different days/schedules.  So I planned certain activities for times and days when I knew we were free. I like that the reflections and Bible readings are short but kid friendly and there is an activity but also lots of good suggestions on how to complete it.  So tonight, we did "see it" and we drove around for an hour looking at Christmas lights.  The kids had an absolute blast and we enjoyed their sweet reactions to the lights.  We have some pretty cool light displays in our neighborhood, one in particular that's set to music and its really cool.

And finally, we got this Advent calendar that I'd seen at a friends.  I've seen a lot of calendars, but I LOVE that this one counts down with the nativity.  We've been alternating kids each day and they are really in to it.  We've talked about each piece and the importance of that part of the nativity narrative.  When we read our Christmas books, the kids are pointing out people and animals that they've seen on their calendar.  They're making neat connections with it.  And of course, surrounding it are the Christmas cards we've received!

And of course no Advent is complete without Nativities!  One in particular that always looks a little like this or a little more scattered.  They love their Little People Nativity and it's nice to have an interactive one.  We have some very nice ones, one in particular that we got while in Italy that's hand carved wood from the Franciscan monks in Assisi that we just love pulling out each year.

Every night at dinner we light our Advent wreath and we have a little candle nativity in the center of the table.  I tried to make things simple for the kids and not overwhelm myself or them.  It sounds like a lot, but in reality, we spend a few minutes a day doing our Advent routine and the kids talk about what they read/learned the rest of the day!  It amazes me how much they actually listen, even when I don't think they're paying any attention.

We've also got our tree up and decorated and the kids love seeing our family ornaments.  We contemplated waiting to decorate it this year, but we've got lots of Christmas parties/gatherings at our house and frankly, we do a lot of travelling/visiting of people for Christmas and we don't spend much time at home.  It's far more relaxing and Adventy here with it up and ready.  I feel like it helps me wait with joyful anticipation as a constant reminder of the beauty and excitement that Christmas brings. 

Overall, we're having a very holy and blessed Advent.  It's so neat to have the girls old enough to really start to understand what it is that we're celebrating.  With Agnes in particular, we've been explaining a lot.  We don't know that she's ever really celebrated Christmas (and if she did, she doesn't remember it) so we're trying to make up for lost time.  We feel so grateful that these girls are home in time to enjoy the beauty and love of Christmas.  And we cannot wait for so much of our family to meet them in a few weeks!

Kid talk

The kids say some hilarious things lately.  I try to record them on FB or IG when they happen.  It's fun to read them later.  But I'm going to try to remember to compile some for the blog so they're easier to find!

This one made me smile and cry all at the same time.  No child should have to feel this way, but I'm glad she knows that we're her family.
Me: It's fun to play with your toys together!
Agnes: It's fun to have a family!





Heard this morning while she was playing in her play kitchen.
Anna: I'm tired of the whining! I'm making grilled cheese.

Agnes: You're welcome mommy !
Me: no, you say thank you mommy.
Agnes: you're welcome!
Me: no, say thank you!
Agnes: thank you
Me: you're welcome
Agnes: why are you saying you're welcome?
That conversation went nowhere fast!

Anthony was excitedly looking out the back window.
Me: Anthony, what's out there?
Anthony: BUSH!

Anna: (regularly) Give me a break!

Agnes: Mommy!  Good job, you peed on the potty!  you can have a sucker.


And updated:
Backstory: We took the kids to Jer's office this weekend for a Santa visit. (We don't "do" Santa at our house, so they really have no clue who he is)
This morning on our way to drop Jeremy off at work.
Anna: Where are we going?
Me: We're taking daddy to work!
Agnes: Are you going to work with the hoho guy today?

Thanksgiving

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving yesterday!  The kids were even better than we expected!  We spent the day at my aunt's house about an hour away from home.  My family's pretty big, so there were lots of people there (40ish, and we were missing quite a few families!).  There were lots of people to play with and chat with and the kids had a blast.  Everyone ate well, napped great, and had wonderful attitudes.  Miss Mya was quite a handful, keeping her away from other people's plates and just keeping her contained, but that's nothing new around here!

Here are some pictures:

Aunt Julie's kind of a celebrity around our house... Not even kidding...

Jeremy went upstairs to rock Anna to sleep.  After about 15 minutes, I went up there assuming she was being a challenge and ready to relieve him.  Not so much.  They both napped for almost 2 hours!  As did the other 3 kiddos.  The only one who missed out on the nap was me...

Mya in her confinement so she couldn't steal every one else's food.

He looked like such a big boy sitting in the big chair!

All ready for the ride home in their jammies!  Anna declared that we were having a "thanksgivin pajama party!"

On Wednesday we had a visit with the girls' case worker, her supervisor, and our case worker (and intern).  They came to have us sign our "permanency commitment" sheet.  Basically they can now show the courts that they are proceeding with a permanency plan for the girls and the courts simply have to approve it (merely a state formality).  The case workers were so surprised by how happy the girls were.  And it makes me very sad that they've never seen them happy before.  I hope we can turn their sad (thusfar) childhood into happy memories. 

She said the girls seem to be thriving in our home and is so happy that they have found permanency for them.  She was shocked to hear that we haven't had any challenges with aggression or defiance.  Seriously, Agnes in particular has been a total sweetheart to have as a daughter.  She has moments where she drives us crazy (mostly because she asks a zillion questions about everything and has a hard time not talking nonstop) but they're moments and actually, it's a blessing that she can't stop talking.  That's apparently not typical of her and it shows that she feels like she can really be herself in our home.  She's a typical 3 year old who is very independent and smart.  We have to remind her that we're the parents and she's the kid and she doesn't have to worry about adult things.  I think it's a relief to her that she no longer has to worry about stuff.  She can just be a kid and not focus on being a "mom" to her little sister and herself.

We also got the green light to call her Agnes.  So we've started calling her that and she loves it.  She's responded just fine.  It worked out nicely, since her baptism is this weekend.  We've told her all along that we will baptize her as Agnes, so the timing works out well.  She kind of assumes that when we get baptized, our name changes.



And, as is our tradition, we took our Christmas card picture today!  We hung our stockings last night and the kids were so excited to see them.  My mom got them all matching Christmas outfits and they look seriously adorable!  We just can't believe how our fireplace has changed in the last 2 1/2 years!

Updates

Lots going on, little time to sit down and type it all out!  But I'm trying to make time, if nothing else so I can journal our lives in this crazy time!  So bullet points it is for now!

1) We got Anna's ears pierced tonight!  We noticed that Agnes and Mya had theirs pierced and just this week, I got around to putting earrings in their ears.  Since then it's all Anna can talk about.  She so badly wanted "pretties" in her ears and she was constantly asking me to "get Anna's ears pinched!"  So we thought we could treat her since she's been through a lot of change in the last month and she seemed to have no issues with the fact that it might hurt.  Let me tell you, that girl is tough!  She didn't cry or even flinch.  I had my phone out for her to play with and frankly, she was totally focused on that.  As long as the lady wasn't interfering with her phone playing, she was fine.  She picked out some cute start earrings to put in and she can't stop talking about her "pinched ears".  Agnes is excited for her, she keeps saying that now all the girls have earrings in! 

2) A few people asked how the name change is going for Agnes.  We haven't actually started calling her that yet.  It's a violation of our foster care license to call them anything but their legal names without consent from their case worker.  We see her on Wednesday, so we'll ask then.  But we've talked about it with Agnes and she's excited.  We tied it in with her Baptism, since we'll baptize her as Agnes.  She talks about it all the time and asks us to call her Agnes.

3) Speaking of Baptisms, they're being baptized on Saturday!  They're really excited, both are particularly excited to wear the pretty white dresses.  It will be a really wonderful day!

4) When they're case worker comes Wednesday, we're signing the "Commitment to Permanency" paperwork.  Basically, we're putting in writing what we've known all along.  They're ours and they're here to stay.  We're stressing this with Agnes as she's very leery of anyone sticking with her.  In her experience, just when she starts to trust people, she gets sent away.  We're being very clear about our intentions of adopting her and this being her forever home.

5) We got some snow last week!  It seems so early for winter weather, but already I've gotten quick at putting coats on/taking them off in the car and getting kids in and out of places all bundled up. It wasn't much snow, but the kids loved it anyway and can't stop talking about it!

5) This little lady is quite the handfull around here!  Toddler doesn't even begin to describe her!  She's IN TO EVERYTHING!  And climbs, oh my does she climb!  Such a change from my lazy son....  But isn't she just so sweet?  We call her "destructogirl" or sometimes just "the bull".  She's stubborn and destructive and we love her to pieces.  But man does she make me want to sit on the couch by the end of the night!

6) This little guy cracks us up.  He knows how to run the dishwasher and does so 3-4 times a day.  I've gotten quick at the "reset" button and Jeremy and I are constantly asking each other if we ran it or if he did.  And when we're loading it, he likes to lay under it like a mechanic...

7) These two are best buds.  And they're double trouble.  So goofy!  Here they were making my parents an anniversary card and Agnes kept exclaiming "Happy University grandma and grandpa!"

8) Hair.  Oh my!  All that hair!  Today was a hair day, so we basically spent all day in front of the TV (luckily it only happens once every few weeks!).  A and M are getting better about sitting still and letting me do it.  Although Mya still thinks the comb is equivalent to a razor coming at her head.  They look pretty cute with their beads.  And I can't believe how long Anna's hair has gotten!  That girl has A LOT of hair!

 

9) Things are crazy around here.  We're pretty settled into a good routine and the kids are being really good.  There are certainly challenges each and every day but overall everyone's adjusted well and it feels like we've been a family of 6 for forever!  I'm still trying to figure out how to keep up with housework with 4 young ones underfoot, but it takes time. 

10)  We're so very thankful for the gift of our children.  We are excited for lots of family to meet them this weekend, especially my brother in law and his new fiance!  And we're thankful we get to have them baptized so soon!  We just feel so blessed by our four beautiful children.  It's more than we could've ever asked for.  I go to bed each night thanking God that this is my life.

Meeting the girls and Welcoming them home

I want to document all of this while it's still fresh.  The girls have been home just shy of a month and it feels like they've always been here.  It's certainly taken time to adjust, but we all feel so comfortable as a family of 6 now.  

We were obviously very excited to meet our new daughters.  We found out about them on Wednesday and were scheduled to meet them on Monday.  The time in between was LONG and it was hard to know they were our girls but we couldn't meet them yet.

So it was finally time and we drove the hour to where their previous foster parents lived and we waited for them to come.  When they showed up, they both acted shy at first.  After a little while, Mya warmed up to me and let me hold her and play with her.  Once Mya warmed up to me, Agnes did too.  I read her a few books and she was soon playing with all of us.  Anna and Agnes clicked right away and Agnes couldn't stop talking about her new friend "Annie".  It was pretty sweet.  We played with them for a while and the case worker slipped out so that we could have some time alone with the girls.

Agnes and I

Daddy and his four babies!

We also got to meet the girls' younger sister.  She's 5 months old.  Her case is likely to move towards parental rights being terminated due to the circumstances, so we hope that it moves quickly.  In Illlinois, children have to be in foster care for 9 months before than can move towards TPR.  She's 5 months (and 5 months in care) so we have some time before that would even begin.  We would obviously be their first choice if her rights are terminated also.  It was great to meet her and her foster mom and we look forward to getting the girls together again soon.

When it was time to leave, it was super hard to leave them.  We helped get them in the case worker's car so that she could take them back to their foster parents' for the night.  Both girls cried when we put them in the car and my heart about broke into pieces.  I couldn't wait for them to come home.


The next day, they were due to arrive around 3:30.  It was SOOOO hard to wait!!!  The anticipation just about did me in!  It was so strange the way they were just dropped off.  It was a very surreal experience.  Their case worker literally brought them in, carried their stuff in (a whole van and truck full, yikes!) and asked if we had any questions.  She left without any kind of instructions or anything.  We went through some of their stuff to find the important things and then were a little bit like "now what?"  It actually was similar to how Anna came home.  We picked her up, we brought her home and kind of looked at each other and smiled...

That evening we took a walk and played in the playroom.  They all went to bed nicely and we sat down to go through some of their stuff.

Our full table :-).  Notice Minnie Mouse got a prime seat too!

Fast friends

Pushing 1, wearing 1, walking with 2.

The stuff they came with.  A lot of it has made its way back out of the house.  They really didn't have many nice things and most of their toys were trashed or missing lots of pieces.  We have SOOO many toys, so we kind of tested things to see if they were super attached and got rid of a lot.  Same with clothes.  Most of their clothes were WAY old and not in good condition.  We have a ton for Mya from Anna's old clothes and Anna and Agnes wear the same size, so Anna's overflowing closet was perfect. 

It has been incredibly overwhelming going from 2 to 4, but the transition is going very well.  Logistically, there's a lot we've had to figure out.  They're all so young that everything takes a lot of preplanning (my forte thank goodness!) and lots of organization (also a strength of mine).  It has been made easier by so many friends and family bringing dinners (I haven't made dinner yet since they came home!), giving us a nice carseat, fun matching outfits for the girls, and just being overall wonderful and supportive.  We have such a beautiful network of family and friends, the girls certainly feel loved here. 


And the way God orchestrated all of this is just overwhelming.  Right down to family pictures.  We happened to have family pictures scheduled for that Saturday after the girls came home.  They'd been scheduled for a long time.  We had no idea how important and necessary those family pictures would be.  Getting Agnes' picture on the wall has been such a beautiful way for her to feel at home.  She thanks me regularly for putting her pictures on the wall.  Who wouldn't want that beautiful girl on their wall?

Agnes (3)

Anna (2 1/2)

Anthony (18 mo)

Mya (16 mo)