10 for 2010!

Well, as we draw a close to 2010... I thought that I'd write out 10 things that I loved about this year... as if you don't already know some of them... and maybe follow it up with a couple of resolutions too. Ready? Here we go!

1. The births of James & Tyler!!
2. Living through the NICU experience, and watching Tyler thrive both in the NICU and since he's been home. The kid eats as much as James who is 6 months ahead of him! 
3. In spite of starting the year off with a major health scare... John is healthy and happy at the close of this year... so that is something to celebrate! Gallbladder & stone free! 
4. I no longer work for a crazy person who made it her purpose in life to make me miserable... no more warty toads! 
5. My Dad & his family moved back to Texas after being away for 12 years... it's been lovely having the ability to see them whenever we want. 
6. I bought and read all of Emily Giffin's books this year... and LOVED them! One is coming out as a movie in the summer of 2011... which will be very cool to see. 
7. In 2010, I learned that prayer truly does work... and even sometimes TOO well... HAHAHA! 
8. It might seem odd, but I have to put the failed adoption placement here because it certainly was an experience that shaped our future... and even though it seemed like it was something we wouldn't overcome at the time - I can't imagine life any different than it is today. 
9. The friends and family that have truly supported me and given me strength to go forward when I didn't think I could anymore. 
10. Experiencing life in a whole new way for much of the year... I've grown and changed more than I ever thought possible... and can't imagine life my life being any different. 

It truly has been a remarkable year - and one that will stick out in my mind for the rest of my life!

What do I want for 2011 you might ask?? Well, just a few things...

1. To continue to watch my boys grow and explore the world around them
2. To start a new at home business - which I'll be launching and announcing next week! 
3. To go where ever our path and John's career take us...
4. To sleep a little more than I have in 2010
5. To eat a little better, and find the time to try out some new recipes since I enjoy that so much
6. To try to get in a little more exercise - at least more than chasing after these boys once they start being mobile! 

Now tell me... what do YOU want for 2011?

Santa Came To See Us

I'll have some new things to tell you about next week, and another round of Christmas celebration photos from our last festivities starting tomorrow - including the boys being dedicated at church on Sunday. So I thought I'd go ahead and post the photos from Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after Christmas.

This is what the boys left for Santa - Memaw's Caramel Pecan Cookies and Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies... YUM!

James' stocking all filled up after Santa came...

Tyler's stocking all filled up too... as you can see Santa left some things that Mommy & Daddy will have to eat for the boys... bummer. :-)

The big gifts left by Santa for the boys... James' walker and Tyler's learning farm... a portable DVD player to replace our dying one and a toy chest to be shared by the boys.

Mommy & Daddy got a little lovin from the Jolly Rotund One as well... YAY a new zoom for the camera!

James checking out his new walker... cracks me up that it's a mustang!

Mommy hanging with her boy... ignore the lack of dressing up on my part... I did at least put on some makeup though!

James enjoyed opening his stocking... so cute! I didn't expect him to participate, but he did... loved it!

Tyler wasn't as interested... but Daddy helped him look at his new toys.

He's pretty much over it at this point...

Woo Hoo - Paper I'm allowed to rip!

Wake me when it's over...

This photo starts the pictures from the celebration at my in-laws on the 26th. 

This is actually a VERY special picture to us. This is James sitting with John's Aunt Mary. She is one of the first members of John's family that I met when we started dating - remind me to tell you this story later... but just a week or so after we got James, Aunt Mary had a massive stroke. One of the last actual things she got to do was go shopping for gifts to give us at James' baby shower - that she'd never be able to attend. She did however know about my pregnancy and had told John's uncle about it before the stroke - so it was sometime shortly after April 20th because that's when we found out how far along I was with carrying Tyler.

Anyway, this was only the second time she had gotten to see James... and the first time she got to see Tyler. She is very alert and knows exactly what's happening - she so desperately wanted to talk to them... but she has good control of her one side - so she held James for a short time. We got a few photos of it, and will treasure them always. Aunt Mary is a very special lady - and actually has two adopted children herself... so she always related very well to the struggle I had before the boys came along. I know she prayed her heart out for us to be blessed with children... and I'm glad that she's able to enjoy seeing our little family - even if it's not how we would have ever planned for her to experience it. 

I'd love it if you might take a moment to pray for our Dearest Aunt Mary - that she'll continue to improve in her recovery... and be able to regain the ability to talk and even walk... most specifically to be able to regain speech because I know that has to be incredibly frustrating for her. She knows exactly what she wants to say - but just can't get the words out.

Taylor & Brooklyn got scooter/bike things and were very excited about them

James opening more gifts... too cute!

John bought me this sign off Etsy - it hasn't come in yet, but they sent a proof. It'll be roughly 2 feet long, and all of the white is etched into the wood and painted... I am SO excited about it - I can't imagine anything more perfect.

Lights & Action

On the 23rd - to continue celebrating our first Christmas as a family... and of course James' adoption being final... we took the kids with my Dad and his family to see a light show in the area called the Dearing Dazzle which is an incredible light display done by a family not to far from us. (you can go to this link to see videos of the display from 2009)

James seemed to enjoy watching and listening to the music...

Josh & Gabby enjoyed it as well...

And Tyler slept... which is what Tyler does. :-)

Daddy and his boys... oh look - Tyler was awake for a minute!

Me with Tyler and my Dad...

There's my precious tiny man...

Gabby inside the display dancing to the music and catching bubbles...

Awesome!

Josh & James... Josh is very excited to not be the only boy in the family anymore!

The lights are amazing - this year they moved and it's a bit smaller than 2009 - but every bit as much fun to watch... but you REALLY should check out the videos and see what we watched last year.

Gotcha Day

On December 22, 2010 - James officially became a legal member of our family. He's of course been a member of our family since the moment we saw him for the first time... but he's now legally a part of our family. Which means that we will now have a birth certificate for him and a social security card - both of which we've had for Tyler since about 3 weeks after his birth.

In the adoption process - they call the finalization day a child's Gotcha Day... and it's sort of like a second birthday. Of course for James - with it being only hours before Santa comes... it will be more of a special day where we'll do something extra fun as a family. Likely as he gets older - he'll get to decide how we spend the day celebrating... but this year it involved being in the court room signing papers and giving testimony in front of some family.

I've got several posts to write, but as I start getting caught up... here are some pictures from our family's special day.

We arrived at the court house quite a bit early - so James had breakfast in the backseat... and while Tyler was having some breakfast - James practiced "driving" the car... it was so stinking cute - I had to get a picture!

A picture of us before going into the courtroom... I hadn't gotten around to putting on my lipstick at that point, but immediately after this photo - I did get it applied.

Here we all are waiting to get assigned to our courtroom and listening to the judge. It was really cool how special they made it for us - how many other times would you sit in a court room and get called a "very honored guest"?!

This was during our testimony where we promised to love and care for James for the rest of our lives... we all cried. James cracks me up in this picture because he's looking up at our attorney probably trying to figure out who he is and why he's touching his head. HAHAHA!

My little brother & sister were there along with one of our nieces - they got to help the judge by picking out a stuffed animal for James and for Tyler. Of course they each got the opportunity to take one as well - the girls both got a kitten and my little brother declined. He's just getting to big for stuffed animals... now if the judge had silly bands... it would have been a different story!

Here we are with the judge immediately after the proceeding was complete... which only took a total of about 5 minutes. We're holding the boys and their coordinating animals.

Here is everyone that was able to attend with us - except our social worker, Sara... I wish she had been in a picture with us other than the one sitting in the court room waiting. Anyway - from the left: Me with Tyler, John with James, Gabby, Josh, my Dad, Brooklyn and John's Dad.

Here we are on the ground floor of the courthouse in front of their Christmas tree. We took another shot of us with our kids and the other 3 kids... and I laughed when I saw it wondering what all the other people in the courthouse must have thought - can you imagine a couple having 5 kids under the age of 8?! HAHAHA!

Here is another shot of us with all the kids... too funny. I'm sure that same thought crossed through the minds of some of the people driving by too.

Our little family - so happy to never worry about losing James ever again! The best gift we got this year for Christmas - for sure!

The family with both grandfathers... too bad none of the grandmothers could make it - but they were all there with us in spirit.

A picture with Aunt Susan... or Aunt Suz as she likes to be called. She took all the photos - so we had to use a backup photographer for this shot.

One happy Mama with her oldest little man... he's getting sooooo big!

These are their animals... which of course weren't what we'd have chosen for the boys because most of their stuff here at the house is of frogs or turtles, but the kids got James a tiger and Tyler a puppy... funny thing is that they have the same eye color as their prospective owner.

That just about covers our gotcha day festivities... we spent the rest of the day hanging out just the four of us resting and getting ready for Christmas.

The Training of a Mommy

Before I had children, I had some pretty specific ideas about what kind of mother I would be. For the most part, I wasn't completely off base... but there are a few things that I've done a bit off the path that I thought I'd follow. One of those things is the idea of crying it out - I'm just not strong enough overall to deal with it. I actually get physically ill when James has a fit.

So for the last 8 months, we've been able to put him to bed using the same routine. We swaddle him, give him a bottle, and he'd pass out - then we'd lay him in the crib or bassinet. Well, that no longer works. Somewhere between being sick and getting his first two teeth poking through those cute little gums... he simply wakes up whenever we go to put him down in the bed.

So we've had to adapt... and unfortunately that includes letting him learn how to put himself to sleep. We've had to change to swaddle, bottle, and then laying him down awake in the bed. He does get upset and cries for a bit, but we can sneak in the room when he's on a break from crying...and put his pacifier back in his mouth - it seems to knock him right out at that point.

I think he went about 20 minutes the first night, and then never made a peep until 6AM the next morning... and last night it was shorter, but he woke up around 4 or 4:30. In his defense on that though - he was flipped over so all we saw in the monitor was his little booty. He's never moved while sleeping before - so I'm sure that was a little shocking to him. It's a whole new world you know. The last two nights - he's broken his arms out of the swaddle too - so I'm thinking that he's moving away from needing to be swaddled, but I don't make that change on him just yet.

My little man is growing up! Tomorrow is the court hearing to finalize his adoption as well... we are thrilled! I can't wait to share that with you guys tomorrow. The day is all about James tomorrow - I'm not sure what we'll do, but maybe his first trip to the park is in order. If the weather is good. Right now it's less than a week before Christmas and 80 degrees outside!

And just because my boys are stinking cute... here are some photos for your enjoyment.

James decided that Tyler needed kisses last night... so that's what those last two photos are... hysterical and oh so cute!

First Mall Trip

It's taken me about a week to get this post written. I ran into technical difficulties last week when I started it because apparently - I've run out of space to store photos on this ol' blog of mine... so I had to delete some from old posts or pay for more storage space from Google. I'm thinking that I need to just pay the $5 a year to get more storage space - because I don't want to delete anymore stuff from my blog - that isn't fun at all.

Anyway - last Tuesday, the boys and I went on our first trip to the mall. I just had to take them to see Santa, and had been waiting to take them to Bass Pro Shop because their Santa is free. They allow you to take your own photos as well, but they also gave me copies of the three poses that I wanted. It really is a great set up there - they've got games and crafts for the kids... and of course the free picture & print with Santa rocks too.

I had to laugh though because I wasn't the only Mommy with a baby to think about going here while the big kids were still in school. It was a bunch of Moms with infants - but we didn't have to wait in line at all - we just walked up and got our photo done. Heaven!

So here is what we got - the first three are the photos that the elves took for me. I wanted one of each of the boys separately and then one of them together, but Santa would only hold one baby... so I had to get in on the action. Good thing I thought about it and wondered if this might happen... so I color coordinated. The other two are photos that I got with my own camera. The reindeer were a nice touch, right?

After we got the pictures taken - we let James explore a little bit. They have some giant fish tanks there in the store, so we let him look at the fish. I explained to him that Daddy would take him to catch fish like this as soon as he was big enough... but not to expect Mommy to eat them... because she doesn't do seafood.

We then walked around and did a bit of shopping - it was great... I think James enjoyed having so much new stuff to look at. He really didn't fuss at all. We stopped somewhere around the middle of our loop around the mall and had a bottle, but he really was super happy. I love it when things work out like that!

Somewhere close to the end of our excursion - we came across the Rain Forest Cafe, so I let James check that out a little closer - I can't wait until he's a bit bigger and we can go in and eat to see all the other stuff. We just played outside the entrance where they had an alligator and an elephant that moved and made noise. He really seemed to like that and was very interested in what was happening with the animals. I guess it's about time to take the boy to the zoo... oiy!

Our first trip to the mall was a huge success - I couldn't have been more pleased with how the boys handled it, and certainly enjoyed getting out of the house for a bit. Teething has been kicking our butt lately and the illness stuff has been too - so it was a real treat.