Adoption Day

Wow, what a whirlwind of wonderfulness! November 19, 2010 will go down in the history of our family as hugely monumental! Right up there with our wedding day as one of the happiest days for us! I really can't put into words the feeling of relief and joy we feel to finally be recognized as a forever family! We have loved the boys since day 1 and truly felt like family, but this day sealed the deal. We couldn't be happier or feel more blessed to finally be here!

I am sure we will reach all new heights in the multitude of pictures on our blog for the next few weeks because these proud parents have held back for WAY too long! Thanks for your patience in looking at the back of their heads for 14 months! But now, behold the preciousness that is our boys!

Here is a photo of our little family outside the courtroom waiting our turn. The courts were celebrating National Adoption Day so we were one of 30 families finalizing adoptions in the 3 family courts downtown. Thankfully we were at the top of the docket!

My sweet sister drove all the way from Dallas to share the day with us! Thank you Sarah for making the long trip and for capturing our day in pictures!

Here we are getting sworn in and testifying. We were so blown away by the friends and family that came to be with us and by those praying and supporting us that could not be in attendance. Sweet friends from our Sunday School class, our adoption ministry, and my mom's Bible Study all took time out of their busy schedules to share in our joy! We could not be more grateful for the community we have found!

Many organizations and individuals donated their time and resources to make this day of celebration special for all the adoptive families! This picture was taken just after the adoption when the boys got their stuffed animals.

Dear lady in black,

I don't know who you are. However, you made it into one of my favorite shots from the day and therefore on the blog.

The official shot behind the bench. Jonathan may have grabbed a couple more stuffed animals as we shimmied our way back there. Little mischievous man!

This sign, professional family photos in a special frame, and a party with cake were all very sweet gestures from those who organized Harris County's celebration of National Adoption Day! The boys could barely carry all their stuffed animals, but they were happy to try!

After we left the court's celebration, we continued the fun with a family lunch at the Grotto. You can find previous posts here, here, and here about the significance of this restaurant. But it was where Jeff and I had our first real date, our rehearsal dinner, and anniversary dinners. The boys had never been to a fancy restaurant so it was a special treat! Angel may have written his name, in pen, on the cloth napkin. We are a paper napkin kind of family so who can blame him!

My mom (Gran) and dad (Poppa D) joined us for lunch, along with my sister Sarah and nephew Clayton. When Sarah told Clayton that she was coming to the boys' adoption, he told her he wanted to come too! These three boys have so much fun together and are such sweet cousins!

My parents are such proud grandparents and loved getting a photo with 3 of their 4 grandsons!

All 3 boys were well behaved at the restaurant and loved the special boy treat of octopus on the appetizer plate!! Angel and Clayton both tried their own little one and split the big one. I guess I'm officially a boy mom because I proudly took a picture!

The boys also loved the fancy dessert complete with sparkler! The waiter gave us some unlit ones for them to take home. Needless to say those are still unlit for now. What a fun treat and great ending to an amazing lunch!

We headed home and were welcomed with another wonderful surprise!

Our sweet daddy/hubby had celebratory flowers delivered!

The boys took a nap as they were exhausted from all the excitement of the day! Jeff and I tried to nap, but ended up having a great talk about how surreal it all was instead. Then the four of us rented Toy Story 3 and ordered pizza. What a truly perfect day we had! Thank you to all of you who shared it with us both in person and in spirit!

Adoption Eve

Oh.My.Goodness!! I cannot believe we finally made it to Adoption Day! The boys are in bed and I am praying they get good rest for tomorrow. Although Jeff and I have already discussed that we are going to be too excited to sleep! Everything is as ready as it is going to be at this point and I could not be happier to be mere hours away from being official! Thank you to all of our family and friends that have prayed for and supported us over the past 14 months. We are so blessed to have a community of people surrounding our family with encouragement and love. Those of you that will be in attendance tomorrow, thank you for being available. Your presence will mean so much! I am going to go wrap a few things up before trying to sleep!

FREE Christmas Cards by Shutterfly

We have family portraits scheduled this weekend with Sarah at Fish Lips Photography. I am really excited, but am hoping it doesn't pour down rain as expected. My friend (name omitted to protect the innocent) and I were chatting yesterday about family portraits and Christmas cards. We share the same level of determination in getting the perfect card with the perfect pictures. Unfortunately, our husbands don't see it the same way. I am a tad neurotic when it comes to this and my poor husband is so patient with me in this area. I have to have the perfectly coordinated outfits for everyone too. Heaven help him! He may hide along with his wallet when this time of year comes around again!

I read about this contest on Wendy's blog and I just had to join in the fun! I mean, who doesn't want 50 free Christmas cards from Shutterfly?! We use them every year and the cards always turn out beautiful! Last year we used this design and I loved the card stock and printing quality!

This year I am thinking about doing something a bit different. I love all the new cards Shutterfly has this year that provide space for a more personalized message, particularly this one. I always love when people send a Christmas letter. We have a lot to share about our family this year with our adoption finalizing just in time for the holiday season!

This one is really sweet too, especially for families like us with multiple children.

This one is a bit more contemporary than my usual taste, but I think it is really fun too!

I am looking for a card with places for at least 3 photos. I want to do a family photo and some of the boys individually. Shutterfly has a lot to chose from this year with plenty of space for multiple pictures. I especially like the ones with the initial highlighted. There are several in all different colors and they have a place for several pictures. This is great for me because I can never narrow it down! I will probably chose one of these styles this year, but may still struggle with choosing which one. I like the non-traditional color scheme of this one though.

The choices are endless and I have definitely not chosen one yet. I will have to see how our family portraits turn out! You will just have to wait to get your card in the mail to see which one we choose!

My fellow Bloggers if you too want to get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly, follow the arrow à http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Family Portraits - "A" & "J" Style

I had several really proud mommy moments lately and I just had to share a couple with you. "A" has been processing what it means to be a family and what adoption means for some time now, but we really thought "J" was sort of in a state of confusion about the whole thing. Well, the other day "J" came home with this drawing and told us it was our family. He identified each person in relationship to one another. This is the very first time he has ever done that! He's drawn pictures with some of us in it but never all of us! He told us that the first person on the left is "A" because he is the bigger brother, then himself, then Daddy and then Mommy. I thought, yay, he is catching on. Then yesterday when I was taking him to school, he asked me if we could tell his teacher his name is going to change. He said he keeps forgetting to tell her. I was THE proudest Momma when he and I walked up to her and he told her his new full name.

For comparison sake, here is one of "A"s first family portraits from February 2010. I remember thinking, "great, he thinks my hips are huge, but at least I have good hair!"

We couldn't be happier to be just ONE week away from officially becoming a forever family with our precious boys!

Weekend Wrap-Up

This past weekend was busy! I think this will be the case until after the New Year! Welcome to the holiday season! We are not complaining because it is such a fun kind of busy! But, I will probably be doing this weekend wrap up format for a while until things slow down.

Friday "A" had early dismissal and his thankful party at school. Basically the kids were at school for just a couple of hours and one of those hours was spent consuming tons of sugar and playing games! I told the teacher as we left that I knew what she was thankful for... That the thankful party was on early dismissal day so we can take these sugar crazed children home pretty soon! We were so excited because due to Jeff's new job and the opportunity to work from home he was able to come to the party this year! He worked basically all night the night before and then hurried back to work afterwards in order to make it possible. "A" just beamed when I told him about the sacrifice Daddy had made just for him! He sure loves his Daddy! Here they are working on a seasonal cross word puzzle! I LOVE watching my hubby with our boys! SO sweet!

Friday, we also had a parent/teacher conference at "J"s school. The Montessori method is an adjustment for us because the teachers don't communicate with us daily like we are used to. The conference offered us our first feed back and thankfully it was all good! "J" is learning quickly and adjusting well. He is very affectionate with all his friends too. I knew that though because every day when we get there he hugs all the kids and usually their mommys too! Definitely a little Romeo!

Saturday, our Sunday School class had a chili cook off! Jeff decided he wanted to compete. I didn't feel confident enough in my cooking to do it myself, so I was all for him giving it a try! I am so proud to report that he was the runner up! The winner Alison (pictured below with Jeff) is a super cook and it was pretty close so Jeff has every reason to be proud!
Here is what was left off his crock pot full of chili! It was a big hit and oh so yummy!
Sunday was full of fun and activity too! We went to church in the morning as usual and then went back in the evening for our church's observation of orphan Sunday. Oh and "A" ran to a birthday party in between! We also participated in a unique opportunity at church called Foundation of Prayer. Our church is expanding the building to accommodate the tremendous growth we have experienced in our children's ministry. All of the families were encouraged to write the names of our kids and those of any other children the Lord placed on our hearts on the foundation. The names will be prayed over (literally) for years to come and our prayer is that every child will come to know Jesus as the Lord of their life! Here I am writing the first memory verse we taught the boys Isaiah 43:1 and their names on the foundation of the second floor of the expansion.

They also had ink pads for the kids to leave their hand print on this canvas to be hung on the wall. We also got to take home a memento card with their hand print on it like the one framed in the left top corner of this picture.
Below is a close up of our growing boys' hand prints on the canvas! I love that their fingers overlapped! When "J" took his hand off the canvas, I saw remnants of the blue ink from "A"s hand print on his little red finger! Such sweet symbolism!
We love both our boys so dearly and feel honored to be their Mommy and Daddy! I am grateful our church gave us this opportunity to show our kiddos in such a tangible way how much they are valued by us and more importantly God!

Halloween Happenings

We did Halloween up big this year! It was a full weekend of fun! Friday night we went to "J"s school for their fall festival. Our boys were ALL about collecting candy, even if it meant doing a sack race to get to it. But, really let's face it...it is always a race at our house!

The school didn't allow masks so "A" decided not to wear his hulk costume sans mask. Instead he was a race car driver. In fact we had 3 costume changes for "A" this weekend. Each event we went to he wore a different costume that he got for his birthday from cousin Clayton.
On Saturday afternoon we went to our church's First Fest. It is always such a fun event with tons of inflatables, games, and festivities! "J" was such a cute little Superman! He got mad because his muscles got mushed when we buckled him into his car seat! Everywhere we turned people were chuckling at our little man with the BIG muscles!
"A" really showed some natural talent in the baseball themed games! He pitched in this one and swung the heck out of a ball and bat game.
"J" and Daddy had a pretty good system going on while "A" and I waited in line to ride a horse. Daddy let "J" eat a piece of candy for every one he shared with his Daddy. Smart Daddy!
"A" shocked us when he wanted to climb the rock wall. He had always been afraid of anything to do with heights but he was excited to try this! Way to go "A"!
Sunday night we went Trick or Treating in our neighborhood. It was fun to do this for the first time with the boys! This time "A" was Iron Man. Our neighbors went all out with fun decorations, a lot of great candy, and hospitality!
This house definitely won for the most elaborate decorations. The kids went into the castle and it made sounds and blew smoke. Kind of spooky, but oh so fun!

Jeff was really into taking a picture of all the kids' "loot"! They each have a whole gallon size ziplock bag full of candy, but no worries...This mommy and daddy are in control of the bags and apportion out the candy very carefully!

October Catch Up

Where did the month of October go? Time has been flying by way too fast, but I am grateful for the change in seasons, cooler weather, and the upcoming Holidays. I love the fall/winter! We still haven't put the shorts up yet, but we at least have busted out some light jackets here in Houston. Such weird weather we have!

Anyway, let's play catch up on October in the Albus' home. "J" celebrated his 5th birthday on Oct. 11! He was so excited about his "Pump It Up Party!" We also celebrated him at his school. I went to his "celebration of life" at his school. Sort of a weird, secular, ceremony, but still sweet! I cried the night before because we had to make a poster with pictures and a description of "J" for each year of his life! The grief for the lost time and lack of pictures/stories of his first 3 years totally snuck up on me! But, in the end we are so very grateful for the time we do have with our sweet 5 year old!

Here "J" is carrying the globe around the rug. He went around one time for every year. The candles represent the sun. I told you it was sort of a funny ceremony.
"J" blowing out the candles at school with his "special friend" Lacey looking on. Isn't she precious?! They are quite a duo!
On "J"s actual birthday (also Columbus Day this year) we had the privileged of attending family camp with our adoption ministry from church! We did all kinds of attachment based activities with the kiddos and also learned more about connecting and correcting our sweet boys. Here Jeff is making our birthday boy into a hot dog! The whole group also sang "happy birthday" to "J" which our little extrovert ate up!
I treated "J" to pancakes for dinner as well! That lil' guy loves pancakes and having them for dinner is even more fun!
We also got to go to Dallas to celebrate sweet Drew's 2nd birthday! What a sweet little train conductor he made!
The boys loved riding in the real train with the other kiddos!
While we were in Dallas we just had to go to the State Fair. We missed it last year so this was the boys' first time to go!
Here they are planning our day with the map!
We went to the petting zoo but it was the last day of the fair and the animals were clearly not hungry for any more of the feed. Sweet "A" patiently held it out in the shovel anyway!
I am so jealous of this camel's eye lashes!
We love Big Tex!
And the Birds of the World show is also a huge favorite for our little family!
"A" was scared of the Ferris wheel at first but soon got distracted by the beautiful aerial view of the fair and sky line!

This green house was a new exhibit this year and I just thought it showcased some amazing craftsmanship! We had a blast in October! A Halloween post is coming soon so keep checking back!