Muscle bumps

Preston has been wrestling now for almost 4 months and he's gotten so much stronger! He can do more push-ups than me now, without stopping, and he's improved on pull-ups too. He also now has "muscle bumps" as he calls them, which he means his biceps stick up! It's too cute, so I don't correct him!

Always a silly picture

Ashten is in a phase when whenever I want to take her picture, she poses so quick and cute, I snap it, and then she says, "okay, now a silly one!" Case in point...

Riding her scooter:

 

Lunch date with daddy:

 

Selfies with mommy:

Cuddlebugs

Our bed provides the perfect comfy spot for all the kids to wait patiently for their hair cut! Brayden was getting his hair cut when I took the pictures, so he's not here. Ashten was just here because she likes to be around her brothers, Daddy doesn't attempt her hair cuts (I don't blame him one bit)!

 

Preston is totally faking!

Football maniacs

Our house has turned into football zone lately! The boys, especially Brayden and Preston, can't get enough. They play before school, they play at school, they play on their way to the car after school and they play at home after school before it gets dark. On weekends they'd play all day if we'd let them. If it's cold outside or too wet or snowy, the football games come inside, where someone is almost always bound to get hurt or something.

 

 

The boys have also gotten into watching football with Chris on Sundays this year too. They each had a fantasy team this year and really enjoyed watching their players and rooting for certain teams. Brayden, Logan and Ashten stick with rooting for the teams that Chris does, but Preston, whether to be funny or to find his own identify, almost always roots for the opposing team. It drives Chris nuts, but it's actually pretty funny I think, especially when Preston's team wins and he gets to rub it in!

We told them they couldn't play on a team until 7th grade, but that doesn't stop them from playing. They even somehow get Ashten to play along sometimes, and she's gotten pretty good! Obviously she can't tackle the big boys, but she throws a mean "bullet" (or so I've heard)!

 

The advantages: kids who want to be active instead of sitting inside watching TV, boys who bond over their love of a sport when they maybe have nothing else in common right now, teamwork and finding a way to work out problems in order to keep playing, the noise and energy of 4 kids is outside for a time (sorry to our neighbors)

The downsides: grass and mud all over the floor when they come in from playing, stinky boys from rolling around in grass and running hard, fights over who tackled who too hard or whose rules they are playing by

 

They have especially enjoyed playing football because for Christmas they each got some football gloves and Preston got a new football. Chris even says he wants to get up and find his old kicking tee for them to use too!

Car crash

On the Monday before Christmas we had spent the day at Chris' parent's house because his sister had just gotten into town and the kids wanted to hang out with their cousins. Preston had wrestling practice that night though, so we had to take him to that at 4:30. It started snowing around lunchtime and we wavered as to whether we should take him or not. But Preston really wanted to go and you can't just not do stuff in CO just because of the snow, so we decided to go.

I was not 2 minutes from Chris' parent's house when the accident happened. (In hindsight we probably shouldn't have tried driving Preston to practice, but we didn't know the roads were so bad at the time.) I was stopped waiting my turn to turn left when a car turning right didn't make the turn slowly enough, slid on the ice and hit my bumper. Preston actually saw it happen before I did, I was looking up ahead at the car turning left when he said "mom, mom" in a panicked tone and I refocused right in front of me and saw her about to hit me.

 

It's funny how time slows down so much in the few seconds that it takes for a crash to happen. I remember seeing her coming, thinking I should try and turn my wheel and try and get out of the way, realizing that since I was completely stopped and couldn't turn or move very much and she was going to hit me anyway, I stopped trying to turn. Then I felt the impact and remember thinking, "man, that was a hard hit, I hope the airbags don't go off". They didn't, thankfully, but we were hit hard enough that my purse, which was sitting on the front seat, fell on the floor and completely dumped out. The other driver was out of her car immediately and just kept apologizizng for hitting me. She looked like a teenager, and I know she didn't mean to hit me, so I tried to be gracious. I figured Golden would be on accident alert, but I called the police anyway. They were on accident alert and since both cars were still driveable, we just exchanged information and had to file a police report on our own within 24 hours.

The roads were SO bad as I tried to turn around and get back to Chris' parent's house, it took me 15 minutes to get back, even though I was only 2 minutes away. By the time I got back there I was a nervous wreck, the car was slipping and sliding all over the place, it felt like something was wrong with it and I was done with dirving!

Chris and I went down and filed a police report that night and I called their insurance to start the claim process. The driver's mom called me in a panic and told me she "didn't know how we were going to handle this" but I told her I already filed a police report and called her insurance. After about 2 weeks, finally, her insurance accepted liability and now we are just wating for my car to get fixed.

It's been a hassle, but it could have been much worse and I am just thankful that Preston and I were both okay, as well as the other driver!

Christmas 2014

This past Christmas was a busy time, but a good time with getting to see lots of family and extended family. Chris' sister was in town, so the kids were very excited to hang out with their cousins that they don't get to see as often.

 

We went to the Christmas Eve service at our church, but we actually went on the 23rd because that is the one that worked with our schedule. I really liked the service at the new church we are going to, totally non-traditional, but that's fine by me!

 

Obligatory photos by the tree....

 

 

Unfortunately I didn't get one of all the kids dressed up by the tree, but oh well. I was not very good at using my camera around Christmas time this past year.

 

I did however, get one of all the kids on Christmas Eve in their pajamas by the tree. It is hard to imagine that after all this time of waiting (3 Christmases) that next year we will have 5 kids in our Christmas tree photo!!  So exciting!!

 

All the kids got Legos for Christmas, so as soon as we got home from Chris' parent's house on Christmas Eve, they couldn't wait to build their sets. Chris helped Ashten build her Cinderella castle set (something I'm sure he never thought he'd do!) while I helped Preston build his Chima lego set. Once they were all built, at like 9 pm, we got them to sit still long enough to take a picture of them all!

 

My camera batteries needed charged Christmas morning, so I didn't get any pictures of opening presents. Just picture paper flying and tons of "oohs" and "aahs" and "I was wishing for this!". It was awesome! I think out of all the whole Christmas celebrating that we do, I enjoy our quiet Christmas mornings the best, just our family, in our pajamas, no hurry! I also enjoy spending time with our families too, but that's not as low key usually, just due to the number of people.

Cocooning

To our beloved family and friends,

When Chris and I began the adoption process almost 3 years ago, we were so naïve in so many ways. We have had to learn a lot, but we are better for it. As part of the homestudy/dossier process (both for Ethiopia and China), we were required to take many online courses, ranging in subjects from culture differences, becoming a conspicuous family, attachment/bonding and many other adoption topics. Most of these were things we hadn't really ever thought about, but they made sense once we learned about them.

The most major "aha" moment came as we learned more about adoptive parenting, specifically as it relates to attachment and bonding. To be honest, this is probably the biggest topic talked about in adoption communities as it is so all encompassing the rest of the child's life, but especially the first few months they are home.

When our four children were conceived and grew in 9 months in my belly, they learned more about our family than we give them credit for. They learned our voices, smells, patterns of life (bedtime, eating, when we go out, when we relax, etc) noise level, etc. We also learned a lot about them, such as what makes them tired, sick, hyper, when do they like to sleep, what sounds do they prefer and not prefer. Those 9 months of growth in my belly were also times of great bonding between me and baby, I felt like I knew them before they were even born. Then, they were born and Chris and I were immediately there to be a safe place for them, and they didn't have to learn to rely on us, it was just natural for them to do so, and as time went on and we continued to provide for their needs, they trusted that we always would.

An adoptive child has had none of that previous paragraph with us. And what little they did have with their birth mother was broken at some point through a traumatic event or abandonment. Enter cocooning......

Now this is where I could go into a lengthy explanation about cocooning and the reason it is necessary and all the details about how it will look, but I am not very good with words and I always leave something out or say it wrong or offend someone in the process. I have been stressing about writing this blog post for a couple of years now for those reasons! I was on pinterest the other day and ran into these two great articles (with more links at the bottom of one of them if you're interested) about cocooning and they say it so much better than I ever could. PLEASE read these articles and share with anyone who you think could benefit from them too. We really want and need our family and friends to understand why we are doing this!

• http://www.theadoptionmagazine.com/2012/06/07/cocooning-part-2/
• http://thesweetfamilylife.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/a-letter-for-the-family-and-friends-of-those-adopting-a-little-one/ 

Chris and I knew this was something we would need to do when we brought our daughter home, but we also knew we could, and most likely would, be met with misunderstanding, hurt feelings and even judgment. Please understand that we are not planning on cocooning for any reason other than that is what is best for Kailin. We aren't planning on cocooning because we don't want her to meet her extended family or because we are so excited about not leaving the house for a while, it's not about us or you or anyone else but Kailin. This period of intense attachment and "making her world small" will be critical to her long-term attachment and trust of us as a family. We are not going to put a time limit on it (unlike one of the articles states) because every child is different and we won't know how long she needs until we are home and assess that based on how fast she seems to open up and begin to trust us. Also, cocooning in some form will always be a thing we may have to come back to as we open up her world little by little if we notice she is getting stressed or not handling the changes well. Her sense of safety and security in our family is our first priority!

This is not an area of adoption we necessarily signed up for as we didn't really know about it when we first started, but as we are 100% committed to adoption, this is a natural outflow of it and we are also 100% committed to cocooning as well. We welcome any questions you might have as we have probably had those same questions sometime along the way. Whether you completely agree or not, please trust that as parents we are doing the best we know to do. We can't wait for you to be a part of Kailin's life, but even your relationship with her will be better as well if you give us the time she needs to form a healthy attachment to as her parents and siblings first!

Thank you for your respect in this matter!

--Chris and Gloria

Brayden's viola

Brayden is playing viola again in the 6th grade orchestra. He has a natural knack for music and viola is no exception. He barely has to practice at this point to keep up with the rest of the kids in the class and we have seen him work ahead and sight read music as well!

 

On Thanksgiving he brought his viola to my sister's house to play a little Christmas music for everyone. It is very enjoyable to listen to him, I am so jealous because I always wanted to play a string instrument when I was younger!

 

Logan's cupcakes

Logan found a recipe for turkey cupcakes in one of his magazines and asked if we could make them to take to Thanksgiving dinner. Well actually he asked if we could make them right away and I said we would make them on Thanksgiving!

Logan did most of the work by himself and he really did a great job! I had fun doing this little activity in the kitchen with him, we don't often get that time alone together doing something in the kitchen.

These were tasty cupcakes! Thanks Logan!

Ameritowne

Brayden's 6th class participated in Ameritowne this year. It was such a cool experience for them. I never got to do anything like this when I was in elementary and I think it was a great learning experience, but also really fun in the process. In the months leading up to Ameritowne, the kids spent time in class interviewing for different jobs, campaigning for jobs that would require election (judge and mayor), applying for business loans and learning how to balance their checkbook and not overdraw their account. The whole point of Ameritowne is learning about economics (supply/demand), running a profitable business and being responsible with your money.

Brayden wanted to be judge, so he spent several weeks making posters to hang around the school and preparing a speech to give to his classmates to convince them to vote for him. In the end, he won!!!  I'm so proud of him, I know that the reason his classmates elected him judge was because they knew he is fair and can be impartial. His desire to see everyone follow the rules came in very handy for this job!

Brayden's office at Ameritowne

Brayden being sworn in as judge

I got to chaperone this field trip and see Ameritowne in action. They don't allow parents to work in the same office as their kids, so I worked in the newspaper with some other kids from Brayden's class. That was an interesting and fun job as well, I'm glad I got to be there with Brayden and I'm so glad Brayden got to have this experience!