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!