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!

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! 

Decorating the Tree

The kids have been dying to get the Christmas tree up all of Thanksgiving break. We had planned to decorate it tonight, but had some other things come up that we needed to do. As they were going to bed, Little Hema expressed how sad he was that we didn't do the tree over his whole Thanksgiving vacation so we scrapped bedtime and headed down to decorate! 

Hema did a great job with the glass ornaments.
Only 1 got broken going up this year! Woo Hoo!  

Vela was pretty much just thrilled to be up past bedtime! :)

Where is a picture of Cora you ask? Yeah we aren't crazy! She went to bed and skipped the fun. There are lots of non-breakable Christmas activities that she'll get to participate in. 

Hooray for the Christmas Season! 

More Christmas Visits

I figured I better finish posting my December photos before it is February! 

Here are some shots from Christmas Day. We went by Krychele's house. 

 Kim, Krychele and Cora

Cora got to meet Blake, Krychele's brother who lives in Germany. 

And Blake's beautiful wife, Candace. 

They spoiled us all with lots of great gifts. Little Hema has had so much fun with his remote control car. 

Cora got LOTS of adorable clothing! 

And could Vela look any happier in her princess dress? 

Thanks for the thoughtful gifts guys! You are amazing! 

We also got to visit Uziel's family. I only got a couple pictures of Cora with Uziel. His mom made the tastiest hot chocolate for me. Reminded me of the cocoa we had in Mexico a couple years ago. Yummm! 

Christmas Morning!

Traditional picture on the stairs Christmas morning:

Cora, Hema, Vela, Dellin and Sterling Henry.

Doesn't Hema's face just say it all?

Some shots of the present opening...

Books!

 Hello!!

 Glow Bug

 Power Rangers

 Working in the kitchen

Aiming for a bear (like the one Uncle Jason shot!)

Busy Ball Bopper

 My sweet presents! Love my family so much!