Home For The Holidays

We've been enjoying the Christmas season with our expanded family this year.  This was the first full year of Kayleigh & Michael being part of our family and it has gone exceedingly well.  We still get comments from people saying that it is pretty much the best adoption story they've seen or heard of.  There were a lot of factors that played into our family being a great fit for them, but in the end I think it's just a God thing, taking two orphans that statistically had no real chance of getting adopted and finding the ideal family for them 6092 miles away!

We had a great Christmas time with the kids this year.  It's always a blast doing Christmas with the kids but in some ways it's like going back in time when it's a new things, as many things still are for K & M.  We give each kid a budget for shopping for presents and a lot of driving them here and there to do their shopping.  You will hear many stories of older adopted kids being extremely selfish and survivalist in nature (in knowing the situations they come from that would be normal....) but K & M are not really that way.  They really enjoy giving! 

Christmas morning ended up really being Christmas afternoon as our crew doesn't leap out of bed in the morning on the days they don't have to :)  We had a great time opening presents and just being a family.  I will still marvel almost daily at how natural it seems to have them in our family, and how much I love getting to be their dad now.

I've had some time off here around the holidays so have been enjoying one on one dates with the kids (it's something we do to get special alone time with each kid, away from distractions, siblings.....) and that has been wonderful.  Usually families with multiple kids have one that is a train wreck or something.  We've got five teenagers, two that we didn't get early in life, and yet all five are pretty awesome people :)

2014 is swiftly approaching and the goals are set for the year.  It will be a big year for kids ages as we'll have our first non-teenage child (Bekah turns 20....), TWO more adult children as Alyssa and Kayleigh hit 18, and another sweet 16 with Dylan in the spring.  Michael is still the baby who will turn a mere 15 in the spring as well.

All of the kids bring up adopting again, with Kayleigh and Michael being big proponents of it (although I think some of Michael's motivation is to not be the baby of the family .... :).  I think we need more bedrooms....

Wrapping up the holiday season (and Hallmark movie marathon, Kayleigh and I are hooked.....) and looking forward to an amazing year to come.  Best wishes to each of you and your families, thanks for reading along and being a part of our family adoption adventure!