Birth Parent Gifts

This year we wanted to make something a little more personal for our kid's birth families. We ended up making these books for each of them. Each book ended up different, with photos of the child and their birth parents and their families. Also each book had different pages specifically for them. They were so much fun to make and put together. The kids loved looking at their pictures and were excited to deliver them to their birth parents. Here are a few pictures of some of the pages. 

Hema was able to do a lot of the writing in his book. 

One of the books all wrapped up and ready to deliver. 

We are so grateful for adoption and each of our kid's birth parents! We hope that they love the books!!

Getting ready for Christmas

I always love the month leading up to Christmas. There is so much excitement and anticipation. My kids are really at an age where Christmas is magical and I love it! I wish I could just freeze time for a while. Here's a little recap of some of what kept us busy:

Candy Houses

No idea why Hema isn't smiling!

Hema and Little Hema made this awesome house.

Vela and I made this Nativity. I was inspired by a couple nativities I had seen on Pinterest.

I loved my little Tootsie Roll horse. 

Our finished projects!

Book Advent

My kids loved opening different Christmas books to read together each night.

 Buddy

Buddy the elf came to visit our family and make sure the kids were being good. 

 We Decorated the House

I love these Nativity plaques I got on my mission to Brazil.

Stockings!

New Seahorse ornament my mom bought for our palm tree! Love it! 

My favorite Hula girl ornament. 

We did some serious rearranging!

Switched up the family room. 

We also did lots of baking, driving around to see lights, visited the reindeer at TGP, drove through the Christmas lights at TGP, went to temple square, made Christmas presents, delivered goodies and had lots of family time!

Carlettos

While I was serving my LDS mission in Brazil, I met and became great friends with an amazing family - the Carlettos. I love them so much! They helped me feel welcome in a very different country where I was dealing with a new language, food, culture, etc... Really they become my family in Brazil. I even stayed with them while I dealt with a terrible infection on my foot and sweet Ines drove me to and from the hospital twice a day, every day. When my dad came to pick me up, they drove us all around Brazil, over to the Iguacu falls, we did a little shopping in Paraguay, we had such a great time - they were amazing.

Then when I came home, their oldest daughter Paula came to live with my family for a year. We had a lot of fun together. She hung out with Hema and I all the time while we were dating. She named her sweet daughter after me. She is truly a sister!

After Hema and I were married their youngest daughter Natalia came and stayed with us for a year. It was so much fun having her stay with us! Now she is married and living nearby here in Utah. 

Naturally I was thrilled to know that Ines and Carletto were coming to Utah for Christmas. We had them over for dinner and had so much fun reminiscing about my mission and the wonderful country of Brazil. Man I really do hope I get a chance to go back someday. There will always be special place in my heart for Brazil. One thing for sure though, my Portuguese has really gotten rusty! I need to get practicing up! Luckily Natalia is just 20 minutes away!

Here are a few pictures from the Carlettos visit.

Eduardo, Natalia, Carletto, Ines and Me

The kids being showered with gifts from Brazil!

The kids showing off their goods!
I think we've watched Rio about 8 times in the last week!

Little Nativity inside a pine seed from Brazil.
It's about 1 1/2 inches long. Perfectly Adorable!

It was so wonderful to catch up with the Carletto family! I love them! One day I hope I get to post pictures on here of my trip to visit them in Brazil!! Until then, estou com muitas saudades!!!

First Little League Football Season

 We really enjoyed watching our little guy play football this year and I was fortunate to be able to help coach. Our team went 7-2 for the season. Little Hema started as the right cornerback on defense and played a little offense as a wingback. He had a lot of fun and made some great friends. Here are some actions shots from the season. Little Hema is #22.

His job as cornerback was to "contain". That means to not let the ball runners get outside of him.

If someone wanted to get around him he would have to fight to stay outside.

Here is one of the only times this season that he got to run the football on offense.

Check out his awesome form...bent knees, straight back...eyes on the target.

Trying to strip the ball.

A nice tackle!

Fighting for position... contain... contain...

CONTAIN!!!!

I'm ready...you ready?

Racking up the tackles. 

WHO's YOUR DADDY?

Oh yeah... I am.

My proudest moment this season actually happened off the field when a mother pulled me aside and expressed her gratitude for something my son said. Her son had recently dropped off the team and she witnessed some of the other players calling him names like "wimp" and "chicken". My little Hema told the other boys to stop and then expressed that "he probably just doesn't like football".

I am so proud of my son for working so hard this season. I asked him if he liked playing football and he said "yes", then I asked if he wanted to play again next year... he shrugged his shoulders and said "I think I would like to give soccer a try." I don't care what activity he is involved in as long as he tries his hardest and enjoys it. Next year... Soccer Dad! Unless he changes his mind, which happens quite often at his age. 

Love you son -- Dad (Big Hema).

Temple Square

Last week we ventured downtown to Temple Square. It was so freezing cold! We dressed the kids in tons of layers and then drove down to the free ride zone for TRAX and caught the train over to Temple Square.

Here we are waiting for the TRAX train.  

Vela and Cora warming up inside by the Christus.

Our family by the lights!

Love these two little crazies!!

Beautiful Salt Lake Temple

Hema and Vela on TRAX headed home.
I love that Hema is wearing Little Hema's hat! 

Hema, Cora and Mom on TRAX. 

The kids really enjoyed Temple Square this time. I think they are finally old enough to enjoy seeing the lights and all. We plan to head back up later this week during the day when it isn't too crowded and watch a movie or two. 

Hema's Minute to Win it Class Christmas Party

Friday we had Hema's 1st grade class Christmas party. Since I am the room mom and get to plan it, I decided to mix it up and do something different. It seems like the parties are always the same: a craft, a snack and a couple games. I don't know how the other kids are, but Hema usually throws his snack and craft away. I decided to do a Minute To Win It party for the class. Hilary, the other room mom thought it sounded fun so we got planning. I had seen some ideas HERE on this blog. We used a couple of their ideas, added a few of our own and it was super fun! 

I made these little sticker tags for each of the kids. 

The games we played were: 

JINGLE BOX

The boxes and bells for the Jingle Box game. 

Here's the principal playing it! He was the ONLY one who didn't get all the bells out!
And I do think he really was trying! 

M&M RELAY

M& M Relay - we used red and green M& Ms.

GIFT BAG TOSS

This was going to be a wreath toss, but ended up being a gift bag toss.
The kids threw marshmallows in the gift bag. 

SNOWBALL FIGHT

This was probably the class favorite! SNOWBALL FIGHT!!
We waded up the paper ahead of time and they threw them back & forth and in the end
the team with the least "snowballs" on their side won. 

USE YOUR NOODLE

Mrs. Johnson, Hema's teacher, doing the noodle game.
You pick up several noodles using a spaghetti noodle held in your mouth.

It ended up being a super fun party and since all the games were pretty active, it was perfect for the 30 little 1st graders who could barley contain their energy on the last day of school before a 2 week Christmas break. BTW, the kids are all in their PJs because they had a Polar Express assembly earlier in the day. 

Hema has been begging for footie pajamas for a year now and I finally
broke down and bought him a pair! We was so excited to wear them!