Catching Up

Well for the past month and a half we have been getting used to having two little kids in the house (we love it) and we have had sickness go through everyone multiple times, so it seems that all I do it just the bare minimum. I finally have a moment to catch up my blog.


LIFE WITH TWO
It has been such a fun adjustment getting used to two children. Angel really is a little angel and Sean got used to him so quick. At first he never wanted to go near Angel. In fact, he would say, "That guy needs to go home!" But slowly he would get closer, then he would touch his hand and then finally he wanted to hold Angel. And he would say "I love Angel" without being prompted.

We have been getting used to no sleep, and ironically that is not really due to Angel, he sleeps through the night most nights, but if he goes down in the evening early, he will be up at 4 or 5, but still sleeps 8 hours. Sean on the other hand, has been waking every night between 1 and 5 and we can't seem to figure this out. He has been doing this for several months and we just can't seem to get him out of this pattern. So we continue to try many things and will be taking him to a chiropractor that specialized in children and holistic approaches to see if there is anything that will help.

Sadly though we are enjoying Angel so much, we don't believe we will have him with us very long. There is some family that would like to take him, so the county is working on looking at their situation. We would love to keep him if possible and have told all of our caseworkers, but we are preparing for the fact that we will not keep him permanently. This has been the hardest thing, because we want so badly to add to our family and he has fit so well up to this point. I keep praying for peace and to trust in Heavenly Father's will for our family and I have to trust that He knows what is best for us. When I do that, I am comforted. I have no idea how this will affect Sean, but we will take it one day at a time. We were warned that this would be the hardest part and you think, before it happens, that it won't be too bad, but then you live it and it is as bad as you think, but not so bad either. That probably sounds like gibberish. All I know is that with the sad feelings, I have also felt calm and peace and I am grateful for that. And I hold on to those feelings every day as we go through this process. In the mean time, we enjoy Angel every moment we can have him. Here is a picture of our "boys".




CHRISTMAS

Well, Christmas was a little different than we had planned, for a good reason. We had our "Christmas Angel" with us this year. He, of course, didn't care, but we sure had fun having two kids for Christmas. Sean on the other hand had a blast. He loved talking about Santa and he sat on Santa's lap (my picture didn't turn out). He told Santa he wanted a Garbage truck, which he got.

We started our festivities with our traditional Christmas Eve at my parents house, were we had a great dinner and dessert and then watched the Christmas Story. Then we had our traditional gift exchange and we just had a wonderful time visiting with family.

Christmas morning was nice, because of Angel, I was up in the night, and even Sean woke in the night. He saw his stocking as I tried to get him back to bed and amazingly enough, he did go back to sleep, so we all got to sleep until about 10 a.m. Then we opened presents. Sean loved looking in his stocking and opening presents, but once he opened a present, he just wanted to play and we had to encourage him to open another one.

At one point he was a few feet away from the tree playing with a toy and we suggested he should open another gift. He said, "I can't, I'm too far away!"

The worst part of Christmas was that the stomach flu hit our house. But we survived and enjoyed our holiday the best we could. We didn't get our traditional family picture in front of the tree because of that.

For New Years Eve, we had Becky and Ronnie Luckett come over for a nice quiet evening where we just snacked and played Wii. We were so tired, but it sure was fun to share the evening with friends.

Here are some pictures from our Christmas:


Mom with Angel


Sean opening a present with my help


My brother Paul and Steve working on the computer


My sisters Molly (standing) and Cheryl


Sean opening one of his favorite presents (from Grandma and Grandpa O)


Sean playing with his Trio building blocks from Grandma Gail and Papa Bill


Our Christmas "Angel"