Merry Christmas Eve!

We're finally "ready" for Christmas!

The presents are finally under the tree, Jellybean (our elf) is in his final spot before heading back to the North Pole with Santa tonight, chili is cooking in the crockpot for after the Christmas Eve service tonight and the stockings are also finally out!

Meighan can't wait for Christmas!  Dawson doesn't yet know what it is but I'm sure he will enjoy it!

 

Meighan is 5!

Today, our beauty of a daughter turned 5 years old!  She made sure everyone she met today knew it, too!  She wore her Happy Birthday crown to church!  She got to open her gift from us before we got Dawson up so he wasn't in the way and bothering her!  She got a game, some books and a dress.

We then got Dawson up and ate breakfast.  Then she got her new dress on and we all got dressed and went to church.  We left right after church instead of staying for Nativity Parade run-through, made a grocery stop and came home and ate burgers for lunch.  As soon as we were done eating, she and I left to go downtown.

We met my parents at the Orpheum Theater.  They had bought tickets for themselves and Meighan and me to see "Disney's Beauty & the Beast" for our birthdays!  Meighan was SOOOOO excited!  She couldn't wait till the show started and kept asking when it was going to start.  Once it started, she thought it was a pretty "cool" show.  I don't know how many times I heard "This is FUN!", "I like this show!", "This is AWESOME!", "This is cool!" and "I very, very like this show!"  As much as she liked it, the first part got kinda long for a 5-year-old!  She was getting thirsty and very restless.  We got water at the water fountain during intermission.  The second part she thought was kind of boring (I think until the very end, of course).  She actually did VERY WELL for this being her first Broadway show!

MY favorite part of this show is the dance the company does to "Gaston" where they clink their metal mugs together.  That's great choreography!

So, anyway, here's the pictures of the day.

Of course, Misty has to supervise!

 

 

 

 

"This is a pretty dress!"

 

 

With her birthday crown

 

 

In front of the marquee at the Orpheum!  It's COLD!

 

This is a pretty good picture of Meighan but the background didn't show up.

 

So I changed the settings and the background showed up better.  We had really good seats!

 

 

She fell asleep on the way home.  Our tuckered out 5-year-old!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MEIGHAN!  WE LOVE YOU!

Tree's Up!

And so far it has survived 2 days of a 2-year-old and 2 cats!  Just 16 more days to go!

Tonight I got out a little Christmas Tree that is for little kids and they can touch and play with.  At first he thought it was pretty cool and he put the ornaments on it (velcro)

 

 

and then he took it all apart and carried the ornaments around in one of the tree pieces.  Eventually he took the star tree-topper apart (aaarrrrggghhh!) and all the pieces were all over the house!  So, now I have to fix the tree topper and the rest of it is on my desk (except for 1 part of the tree that I don't know where it is!).

Maybe just keeping him away from the big tree is enough for this year!

Finalization

We FINALLY got to FINALIZE Dawson's adoption yesterday!  Our appointment was at 11 a.m.  My parents met us downtown.  We got through security, then they went through and then our attorney also came through right after!  So we walked up to the courtroom area together.

We had an actual courtroom this time.  (For Meighan's finalization we had a hearing room.)

The judge was a bit late because of another trial but she finally came in and got things started.  It was quick and to the point and we were done.  We took some pictures and then waited for our attorney to get the Decree of Adoption papers for us.  Then we went home!  Some people have friends and family come and then go out to a meal but it was a regular work day so Tony ate a quick lunch and left for work!

 

 

 

SANTA!

Today was the Adoptive Families Christmas Potluck at the Nebraska Children's Home.  It was moved up an hour due to when Santa could come and also because of the Big 10 Championship (which, during this writing, isn't a very good game to watch!).

We went and there really weren't very many people there.  Kind of disappointing.  And because it was earlier, food was really not on people's minds yet.  Santa got there at 4:00.  It was neat because he greeted and held several kids.  Dawson, of course, went right to him and even had a good smile for some pictures!  Meighan even got a hug before he sat down to talk to the kids.

Once he sat down, he started off by saying that it's important to remember that Christmas isn't about him.  It's really about family and Jesus.  He proceeded to tell the kids the story of "The Night Before Christmas" and brought kids up to sit on his lap as he told the story.  When he was done, then it was time to have kids tell him their wishes.

After the first couple kids, Dawson came right in and sat on his lap.  Then Santa asked if there were others that needed to be in the picture.  We told Meighan to get up there, too.  We got pictures and video of her and Dawson and then it was her turn to tell Santa what she wanted.

Then we went back and ate a little bit but she had to keep leaving to go watch the kids with Santa.  Our case worker told me later that she was just very interested in what was going on.  She also got him to go outside when Santa was leaving and had told them to watch out the windows for the sleigh in the sky as he went back to the North Pole.

Before very many people got there, we had our picture taken in front of the neat Christmas trees in the rotunda of the lobby.  Here's those and other pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Operation Christmas Child

Our church organized an opportunity again this year to participate in Operation Christmas Child.  All the kids got a box one Sunday at Sunday School.  Meighan said she wanted to participate and send a gift to someone.  She didn't really quite get it at first.  She wanted to give some things she wasn't using anymore.  No, we have to buy new things.  Then she wanted to give the gift to someone at church.  No, this gift will be for some little girl in another part of the world.

So we went shopping one day at Target to get some hygiene items (toothbrush, toothpaste--and right there by the toothpaste was a coupon for a toothpaste!), a wash cloth (we already had some soap at home), a stuffed lamb, a ball, a pencil/eraser/sharpener set and also at home I had another little toy that we stuck in.

We had to do some rearranging to get everything to fit in the box so the lid would close!  We included the $7 for shipping and dropped it off at church in mid-November.  Before we took the box to church, I had her sit down and took a picture of her giving the lamb a hug to send a hug to the little girl.  She also had colored a page showing where we live and what she likes to do, etc.  We also included our address so hopefully the little girl that gets this gift will write back to us someday.  I hope she does so that Meighan can see that she really helped a little girl in need.

 

 

First Thanksgiving with Dawson

Well, we survived our first Thanksgiving as a completed family of four!

We found out that Dawson just LOVES pumpkin pie!  AND he LOVES turkey!  He pretty much shovels it in!  Tonight he kept wanting more and more and more!  And then he had pumpkin pie!

I baked 2 pies on Wednesday and we had some that night.  These pictures are from Thursday noon.

Here we go!

 

 

... and, it's all gone!

 

Then Daddy let him lick the whipped cream spoon!

 

Yummmmmm!

I Spy With My Little Eye...

...all of these things that were INSIDE our large speaker for our entertainment system!  I guarantee that this wasn't done by just one person!

A Byproduct of Completing a Project

We bought this at Target on sale last January before we went to China.  Meighan has one in her room and I wanted one for Dawson's room.

I finally got the bee in my bonnet today to put it together and actually start USING it!

Well, once I got it up, my two kids (BOTH OF THEM!) started taking the toys that have been on the living room floor for the past 3 1/2 years and moving them in here!  They did it ALL BY THEMSELVES!

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the living room floor!

I HAVE MY FLOOR BACK!  It's almost a shock to walk into the living room and see the entire floor again!  (See the video in the previous post to see how it looked "before".)  I thanked them and hugged them for cleaning up the living room floor.  Meighan kept saying "I'm glad I can clean up your floor, Mommy!"  She was so proud of herself!  And Dawson was quite happy, too!

I'm very happy to have my floor back but ... we'll see how long it lasts!  (I hope a long time!)

I never thought (or expected) that just putting the shelves together would result in getting ALL of the toys into Dawson's room (where they actually belong anyway!).

Dancing Dawson!

I finally got Dawson dancing on video!  He loves music and dances whenever he hears it!

Pictures

He got in here all by himself! .....  But he had help getting covered with toys!