Christmas is Coming!

Christmas is getting closer and we're all very excited at our house.  It's extra fun this year now that K-man is getting older.  He's getting really excited.  There is a video you can personalize online so that Santa talks to your child.  K-man gets so excited and he is asking to talk to Santa everyday.  He answers all of Santa's questions and everything... it's adorable.  Bear doesn't quite get the whole Christmas thing yet, but he definitely senses K's enthusiasm.

Today we did some last minute Christmas shopping and had the kids buy each other gifts to wrap.  K-man picked a fun bathtub car for Bear and Bear picked a fun Nerf bow and arrow for K-man.  K-man also picked something for me.  Amy says that it's an interesting choice so I'm excited to see what it is come Christmas morning.

Other than getting ready for Christmas things have been fairly routine around here.  Bear is learning more words every day which is really fun.  He is getting much better at communicating.  K-man has been obsessed lately with wearing pajamas.  When he's at home he only wants to wear pajamas, so when we leave the house he has to change.  Then when we get home he runs to his room to change back into pajamas.  We're not really sure why he loves his pjs so much, but it's fun to see.  Lately he has even been wearing multiple pairs of his pajamas at the same time.  We took a picture of him with four pairs on.  You can see that he is pretty proud of himself :)  We had him hold up four fingers to represent how many pajamas he was wearing.

Just the other day Amy went upstairs to see what K-man and Bear had been up to.  It turns out that K was making a bed of books for Bear.  Initially Bear thought it was fun, but after a few minutes he decided that he didn't like his new bed too much.  It's always interesting to watch them play together.  It makes me think of a quote I saw recently - "Because I have a brother, I will always have a friend".

Snow and Santa on the Coast!

Earlier this week it snowed in our town!  Since we live in a coastal climate it hardly ever snows here.  Instead it usually rains during the winter.  It was a lot of fun, and the kids loved it.  Amy and Mike both grew up with snowy winters and we have fond memories of playing in the snow so we tried to make sure the kids got to experience how fun the snow can be.


Amy shoveled some snow into a little path on our lawn so the kids could go sledding.  K-Man absolutely loved sledding and it was the first thing he asked to do when he woke up in the mornings.  Bear hasn't been a huge fan of the sledding, but he likes going outside.

In other exciting news, we got to go see Santa Claus.  He was visiting during the local Festival of Trees event that Mike's work puts on.  K-Man was thrilled and he was totally prepared.  He asked Santa for a blue soccer ball.  Bear was not fond of Santa.  We have a similar picture of K-Man crying on Santa's lap when he was Bear's age, so we weren't surprised.

Anyway, the last few weeks have been a lot of fun and we're getting excited for Christmas.  The boys are getting into the Christmas spirit and have been watching some Christmas classics.  Only two more weeks to go!

The Latest

As we mentioned below, we are very excited to be adopting again and we look forward to hearing from potential birthparents.  We'll try to update this blog on a regular basis so anyone and everyone can see what we've been up to lately.

As far as things that have been going on in our lives recently, we've actually spent a fair amount of time updating our adoption websites with new pictures and information.  It's amazing to see how quickly the boys are growing up, especially as we've been looking at, and posting, some pictures of them when they were younger.  Here's some of the most interesting things we've all been doing lately, starting from youngest to oldest:

Bear: This kid is walking and running faster every day!  The past few weeks he's been in to spinning.  He's also learning fun new words all the time and he's getting better at letting us know what he wants.  He really likes playing with his brother and he is obsessed with trucks.  He also loves to help and when he finishes a task (like putting something in the garbage or in the dishwasher) he always claps for himself, which is adorable.  We've also noticed lately how good he is at doing puzzles.  He's very thoughtful about doing things and he likes to watch us do something and then try to copy us.  He's a smart little guy.

K-man: He continues to charm everyone with his friendly personality.  He is never shy and he likes to say hi to everyone.  Lately he has been taking swimming lessons three times a week which he really enjoys.  It's been good because he's become less anxious about being in water.  He's also recently been obsessed with wearing his pajamas, especially his green dinosaur pajamas.  He wants to wear them all the time and for a while it was a challenge to get him to change into normal clothes to go to the store or to church.  He's now okay with only wearing pajamas at home, so when he gets home he immediately goes upstairs and changes into pajamas.  Crazy kid.  Then again, maybe he's on to something...

Dad: Dad is still getting used to his job (he's had this job for about 7 months now) so sometimes he has some long days at the office.  He really looks forward to his time at home and makes sure to focus on the family when he's not at work.  This last weekend was a lot of fun for him because he got to take the boys out all Saturday morning.  First they went to help clean the church.  Both boys were pretty good helpers for a while, but then they snuck off to play with a friend.  After the church they went to play at the local bounce house with friends, and they finished the morning with some food and ice cream at Dairy Queen.  It was a great day!

Mom: Mom has been a little under the weather lately, but fortunately she's doing much better now.  It seems like we get sick a lot more frequently now that we have these kids.  She's been keeping busy with the boys and has been dedicating time to help teach them new things.  She's also been having fun decorating the house with the boys for Halloween and now Thanksgiving.

We're back!

We are so excited to try to adopt again.  We love our boys, we love their birth families, and we would love to add more love by adding another child and another birth family to ours.  We hope that reading our adoption blog will help you get to know our family a little bit better.