My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

Sunday Snapshots {No post holiday blues for me}

Every year on January 1st, all the decorations come down and tree is gone except for about a bazillion needles carpeting my floor and the trail to the door. We like having a fresh start (and a clean house) for the new year. But, still, I usually feel a bit of a let down. No more 24-hour Christmas music on the radio. No more Christmas cards in the mail with pictures of friends and their children to admire. No more gingerbread-house-making parties or tea parties with Drew pretending he is Santa at the North Pole. No more reading the Advent book at night with our kids or opening Advent gifts every morning. Sorta sad to know we have to wait another 11 months until we can start all of that again.

But, this year, the let down has been more of simply a sigh. Maybe part of that is because the Christmas preparations this time around were not easy; I felt like I spent more time balancing than truly worshipping and enjoying the season. But, I think the bigger reason is because of this….

Can you guess where we are going in 25 days? 
See the paper link countdown? 
Oh yeah — Christmas may be over. But, there is still a lot of excited children people in our house. Okay, so, really that’s just the three older kids and me, I guess. Lydia has no idea what’s coming (poor thing may be in for a shock). And, Mark, well, he’s not nearly as enamored with Disney World as I am.

Ni Hao Y'all



P.S. Aren’t those towels stinkin’ cute? I love the “D” one the best since it really looks like the Disney D. Robin from Red Thread Stitches made them for my mom to give our kids for Christmas. Go check out her other adorable stuff as she works like a crazy woman to make the money they need to bring their daughter home!

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Christmas Recuperation

It’s now the 29th of December, a week after my last post. So, here’s a whirlwind recap.

Our Christmas celebration starts on the 23rd each year as we journey to Bethlehem (not kidding), drive past the spot where we got engaged on that very night (always have to point it out to the kids who seriously don’t care as we smile at each other and remember that night), and arrive at Mark’s mom’s house to finally sit and simply talk over food and coffee and hungarian kiffles after days of crazy busyness. No kiffles this year though. Mark’s sister and brother-in-law were celebrating his doctoral graduation in Hawaii (also not kidding) and Mark’s mom (St. Grammy) was watching their 4 children (yes, 4 kids. She had two quiet children of her own and ended up with 8 grandchildren….so far…had to put that in there). For some reason, caring for 4 children (9, 7, 5, and almost 2) kept her from her usual Christmas baking…can’t imagine why. So, as you can imagine, our quiet sitting and talking wasn’t all that quiet. But, the kids sure enjoyed each other until we left Christmas Eve night. We even let them sleep in forts in the basement. So not safe (please look past the ironing board and the dangling Christmas lights). Please note that Lydia slept very safely in a pack and play.

Drew is our king of facial expressions. Loved this one of the sheer awe factor as he admired cousin Wyatt’s new Star Wars figure.

And, this one, happy as can be with his new slinky (it was going to be in Lydia’s stocking. But, Grammy slyly moved it over to Drew’s upon hearing about his meltdown at the kids’ school the day before when Evan’s teacher gave the kids each a slinky and Drew could not get it through his noggin that he didn’t need to have one too).

Christmas morning — 4 kids in front of our tree. The classic picture. Lydia was super excited about the presents. Afterall, she had opened 24 advent presents from Nanma and Granddaddy already (not counting the ones she not-so-secretly opened ahead of time from Ashlyn’s calendar). And, the word “present” had become the first word she said when we got her out of the crib each morning. Nice.

We give our kids 3 gifts each year (and a full stocking)–we relate them to the three gifts of the Wise Men to Jesus. The first gift is a practical gift–the girls got a Mickey Mouse tunic top I made and the boys got Mickey pirate tees. The second gift is an experiential gift–this year, since we are going to Disney World in only 30 days, a photo of Disney World is what they were given as their experiential gift. And, their third gift is a gold gift, something they really like–the three big kids got Lego sets and Lydia got a big stuffed dog.

Despite a folded over ear in this picture, I just love it. She is so pretty modeling the hair thing I made to go with the tunic top and another Disney outfit.

We headed down to MD by the afternoon to stay with my parents for a couple days. 9 kids at this location, so the fun just kept on going. Here’s Drew and his cousin Boh modeling their new G.I. Joe outfits. 
Ashlyn with the look of a child over sugared and over gifted.

A sweet picture of my boys.
Which quickly became a silly fest.

Celebrating Christmas with my fam is always a 2 day deal. This year, we had the special experience of witnessing the baptism of the newest family member, my nephew Thatcher. 

Here are my two sisters–Erin on the left, Megan on the right, and Erin’s 3rd child, Thatcher.

After some another feast of food–I should have taken pictures of the spread–we gathered together for a family game of Bingo which is our spin of the old White Elephant game. Winner picks a gift from the pile or steals a gift from someone else. It always seems like it’s going to be lots of fun and then breaks down when children are not happy with the gift they end up with, etc. etc. Next year, I vow to come up with a better structure to this tradition so that this Mama doesn’t end up having to scold any children.

All was well. We were sorta enjoying the calm on the evening of the 26th…until we realized it was the calm before the storm. That evening, we got hit with the plague. I will refrain from going into the gory details. But, I will say that during the night on the 26th, 4 people in my family got sick. My sister’s husband called my parent’s house to tell us Megan was throwing up at the exact moment I was cleaning up Ashlyn from the same. At 6am, when Lydia woke up, Mark and I called my parents from his cell phone (mind you, they were upstairs) to ask them to come get her because we were sick. They couldn’t because both of them were sick. My grandmother and my college cousin also got sick that night. We have no idea what hit us. But, it definitely hit us. Lydia was the last man standing in the end.

Our journey home had to be delayed a day because we just couldn’t make it as we were. But, we’re home now. And, we are finally eating normal food as of tonight, some of us eating off of new food face plates that we got for Christmas.

The good news is that I don’t have to worry about any holiday weight gain this year.

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