My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

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.

No related posts.

Why I haven’t blogged for 5 days

Labor Day Weekend — Family Camp at Young Life’s Lake Champion
We look forward to it year round with good reason.

Our kids competing against another family’s three kiddos during field games. Our kids lost. But, who cares when you can move right over to the batting competition and a family pyramid race and a wrestling competition in a stack of tubes.
Lydia loved strutting around the camp and did great in a bunk room of ladies in her pack and play.
She slept through each night with no problem (getting up early and staying up late helped with that, I think).
That’s our 4 year old nephew blobbing. He rocks.
Tubing pretty much rules.
as do ziplines.
Here’s my brave 6 year old girl–doesn’t look too hard, right? Well, look how high she was.
She did great. I was a little nervous. 
Little Miss Center of Attention. Jenna (in yellow) was adopted from China about 11 years ago as a baby. Pretty cool.
And, here we are on the screamer swing…screaming. 
Now, back to real life. We made school lunches already and got the backpacks ready for tomorrow.
(sigh)
But, it’s not too early to think about next year…anybody want to come with us?

No related posts.

Cousin time

For only having 2 kids, Mark’s mom did pretty well for herself in the grandchild department. She’s got 8…so far. Grandchildren include a 9 year old (as of next week), an 8 year old, a 7 year old, a 6 year old, two 4 year olds, and 2 toddlers only a couple weeks apart in age. With Mark’s sister living in North Carolina, we don’t get to see her and her family nearly enough. I miss that the kids can’t play together more often and be a real part of each other’s daily lives.

Introducing Lydia for the first time to her cousins
I remember doing this thing when I was a kid. How come I never thought of putting dish soap on it to make it more slippery?
Tabi walking Lydia…more like Lydia walking Tabi. 
Drew with his Orange Crush moustache
Tabi getting some snuggle time feeding Lyds. 
The kids engaging in a competitive Tic-Tac-Toe World Cup tournament in the treehouse
A bunch of tired but happy cousins

No related posts.

Saturday Thatcher Day

I’m an aunt again! Thatcher Andrew was born today at 9:23 am, weighing in at a whopping 8 lb. 12 oz. (what Lydia weighed at 2 mo. old, mind you). My parents, my older sister and her hubby and two girls, and Lydia and I all went to see the baby (and, of course, his mother and father and big brother and big sister). It was fun to celebrate new life and watch the first moments of the siblings meeting their new baby.

As I sat in that hospital room, watching Lydia toddle around and watching my sister and brother-in-law (as well as the whole family) dote on their new baby (“make sure you use that antibacterial stuff,” “Stay close to him in case he starts to cough,” “Oh, look how dry his little skin is,” etc.), I couldn’t help but think about what Lydia’s birth may have been like. I wonder if she was born in a hospital or at home. I wonder who was there when my daughter was born. I wonder if they celebrated her birth joyfully or stayed awake all night, knowing they had few options. I wonder if they knew about her heart condition right away or learned about it later as the sound of her murmur became obvious. I had thought about all this before. But, being with a family and a child only hours old, it all came up for me again. It made me hurt for her that she won’t know much about her first year of life and nothing at all about her first two weeks of life. Perhaps that is why I’m so motivated to take so many pictures now and preserve all I can for her.

How thankful I am that we were able to celebrate the birth of my sister’s third child with joy today. We have much to be grateful for.

No related posts.

Follow Along!

Categories

Recent Posts