Lizzy Turns 7!!

Lizzy turns 7!  I can't believe how fast the last year has gone.  It seems like we were just getting ready to celebrate her 6th birthday, and here we are at 7.  She has grown up so much in the last year.  She's reading, telling time, and handling life so much better in many ways.  We love her feisty, sassy, full-of-life personality and can't imagine life without her!

Aunt Mimi and Grandma Hanson came over to celebrate.

A color your own bag from Aunt Mimi.

A hooded Angry Birds blanket from Great Grandma and Great Grandpa-she loves it!

Daddy

Shoes, ballet outfit from Mom and Dad

Ballerina outfit from Grandma Kathi

Ballerina outfit from Grandma with boots from Mom and Dad

This kid has the funniest poses!!

Zoo Lights 2012

Cori and I took the kids to Zoo Lights this year.  It was freeeezzzzing and the kids didn't seem to notice a bit.  The kids seemed to have fun but really liked the animals themselves, not the lights.  Cori and I agreed it was fun, but probably not an every year type of tradition we want to begin.  We made sure to end the evening with 7-eleven hot chocolate!  I have no idea why I have so many pictures of Paul-he never wants to take pictures, but apparently he did at Zoo Lights!

Lizzy was, of course, howling at the moon.  Another little girl joined her.  It was pretty funny. 

Finalized Adoption!

We finally had our adoption finalized on December 27, 2012.  One year and one week after the kids officially moved into our home.  We found out in late October that the parents' appeal of the termination was basically denied, but that there was one remaining issue that needed to go to hearing.  Since the issue was regarding the Indian Child Welfare Act (which, if it's found that the kids are eligible to be members of a Native American tribe, can literally stop proceedings and tribes can remove kids from a placement-they have jurisdiction over a case at that point) I was pretty nervous that something would go wrong.  Once I discovered it was really more of a paperwork issue and not a tribe choosing to intervene in the case, I was much more comfortable and excited things were actually going to go through!  However, in typical fashion with this entire thing, it was chaos leading up to it.  Our original caseworker had said that there was an attorney that was working on the adoption paperwork for us and that she had access to all the case files/paperwork because she was the kids' GAL (an attorney that represents their best interests in the court proceedings).  Then, that caseworker randomly quit and the attorney wouldn't call me back.  Eventually I called the attorney and told her that if she didn't call back that day, I was finding someone else to do it.  She called back, but then said she was too busy to file the paperwork and she hadn't been working on it.  So, we called another attorney that does adoptions through DHS frequently, and he was amazing!  He got everything rolling and worked super hard to get things into the last December court date, which we really wanted for some logistical reasons.  So our court date rolled around, and we woke the kids up super early, drove the two hours to the courthouse, and then it was done!  Officially ours.  We hadn't told anyone we were going to court that day, so on our way home we texted everyone and let them know.  When we got back home, we met my grandparents, my parents, and my brother for lunch at Nordy's to celebrate.  As the kids would say, Best Day Ever!!

Christmas Season 2012

**Warning**  This is a super long post with tons of pictures!!

Christmas has come and gone, but here are the pictures.  As usual it was pretty busy trying to fit in school parties, Christmas with everyone in the family, etc.  

We had a school program:

We took the kids to visit Santa:

We decorated the house:

We got new Christmas pajamas:

We dressed up for church and dressed up for the holiday:

This beret has a poinsettia on it, but it got cut off in the picture.

Lizzy wore a reindeer antler headband everywhere-and why is she always eating in these photos?!

We watched old school Christmas cartoons:

Cori and I decided that we would stay home Christmas morning, invite his family for breakfast and gift opening, then go to my parents' house when we felt like it to open gifts there.  It was so fun!  We kept breakfast simple and then had so much fun opening gifts with Cori's family.  We realized we definitely need more seating as our families are getting bigger!  The boys all got rockets, and they are putting them together in these pictures (which are the only ones I took all morning!)  Lizzy is in a towel because she got a Barbie boat and had been playing in the bathtub with it already.

We went over to my parents' house in the early afternoon, and it was crazy there as well, with so many gifts to open, lunch to fix, and excited people (Cori, Austin, Paul and Lizzy, not to name any names) anxious to open the gifts and start the festivities, etc.  We skyped with Danelle, Ryan and Reed so they could watch us open the gifts they sent and vice versa, which was a really cool thing when family is far away at Christmas (again, no pictures of the actual festivities).

We loved having the kids with us this year.  It made everything so much more fun, and we've started some traditions that we will keep and some that we decided don't mean as much to us.  Most importantly, we've tried to teach the kids that people are more important than things, and that we celebrate Christmas to remember Christ, and everything else is secondary.