A Gingerbread House

We put together and decorated a gingerbread house for the first time with the kids.  Wow, was it hard!!  They had a great time building and decorating it.  Although they would love to eat it, we think they will have to settle for gingerbread cookies.  Their house is much too hard to eat!

Decorating Christmas Cookies

Like so many other firsts, the kids made and decorated Christmas cookies for the first time this weekend.  They loved it, and did a great job.  The best part was eating them!  They are very good at helping us in the kitchen and usually help us make our meals.  Although we are really trying to work on it, they are doing better about following decorations as long as you stay with them and you are doing a structured activity, like cooking together or an art project when we are right there helping them.  When we look back over the past six months since we have been home, we have seen a lot of improvements.  With each new day, we are all adjusting as we continue to transition to work together as one big family.  Here are some pictures of the kids making and decorating the cookies.

One Year Ago!

This past Friday, on December 16th, we celebrated the one year anniversary of the first time we learned about our kids from our adoption agency.  It is hard to believe all that has happed since then!  Through all of the ups, downs, challenges, and good times, we have been very blessed.  Although life is a lot busier and more challenging  now, God has granted us the opportunity to raise three beautiful chuldren.  Here are the first pictures we received of our kids, along with the most recent one of them together.  These first pictures of the kids were about a year old when we met them in April.  They have grown up so much!!

Fun with Legos

We bought a lot of Diplo legos for the kids, and they love them.  Their imaginations have really improved over the past month, and they are really getting creative now.  Sometimes they get out their train set and build a whole village of houses and buildings with their legos to go around the train track.  Other times, they just build creative things like a Christmas tree!

A Dinner Theatre

Each year, our church puts on a dinner theatre.  This year's program was about The Christmas Story.  We are blessed to have so many talented people in our church, and they did a wonderful job.  They told The Christmas Story from the time Joseph met Mary until Jesus was born.  The kids loved it, and really like going to church.  Right now, we are going to church and Sunday school but hope to become involved in more church activities after the first of the year.  We are thankful that they enjoy it so much, and are learning a lot.