Uganda or Bust...

With the onset of the new year upon us, Billy and I will officially begin our preparations for our mission trip to Uganda. As I stated in a previous post, we will be traveling with the adoption agency we adopted Vivi from and a church youth group. One of the things I am most excited about it is gathering the items we will take over in duffle bags as relief aide to the baby home that our agency has partnered with to find homes for orphaned infants. I will blog here about the details as they come to play and will also be sharing information about the baby home's progress (they currently have four babies) and work we will be doing with Africa Renewal Ministries. I am working on putting the finishing touches on our support letters and hope to have them in the mail by the second week in January. I am also looking into passports and visas. I hope to get those applications done and sent out in the next few days.

I will be spending this time reading up on the plight of women and children around the world, to prepare my heart for what God has in store for us. I found this book at Half Price and it is a Latin American woman's story as told by President George Bush's daughter who spent time working with Unicef. Below is the description.

"Ana's life is a collection of bits and pieces of her past. Infected with HIV at birth, she's unaware of many details of her early childhood and barely remembers her mother. Living with her strict grandmother, she learns how to keep secrets – secrets about her infection and about the abuse she endures at home. But after Ana falls in love and becomes pregnant at seventeen, she begins a journey of hope – a journey of protecting herself and others. She is living with HIV, not dying from it.
Jenna Bush tells of Ana's struggle to break free from the cycle of abuse, silence, and illness with passion and eloquence. But this is not just Ana's story. It is also the story of many children around the world who are marginalized, neglected, and mistreated."

Our Christmas Celebration

Christmas was a grand event this year! I need to try to dial it down a bit next year. We were so busy that Vivi and Isaac have yet to open our stockings for them as I write this post Monday afternoon! No joke...they still are hanging loaded down on their nails on the mantel. Sheesh!We will make sure to do that after dinner tonight.

We spent Christmas eve day at my sister's house. We opened gifts, ate a nice lunch and then did the traditional Ice cream cake yule log for baby Jesus! The kids have begun to really enjoy this as you can see from the below video. Too fun!
The best gift of all is that it began to snow in the afternoon and didn't let up all night! So we woke to our first white Christmas in Texas for all of us adults! What a beautiful way to spend this holiday.

We also began a tradition this year of putting trees in the kids rooms with their personal ornaments on them. Vivi's is the pink tree below. Every year I buy them each a new ornament and a Christmas children's book. So under their personal trees were these two gifts to be opened on Christmas eve night before bed. They loved that and were so excited to see what the other one received. They were very sweet to each other this year. Their patience and generosity in waiting for the other one to open a gift before they tore in to theirs was so sweet for me to witness. They were not jealous or competitive but genuinely happy for the other's gifts. I hope to continue to instill this in them as they grow older and the childhood greedy monster threatens to overtake them!


Christmas morning we opened gifts, let the kids play for a bit in the snow and loaded up the van to travel to Houston to spend the weekend with Billy's family. The kids were once again spoiled with gifts and love. We were so excited to go see The Princess and The Frog. The music in that movie is amazing. It was such a treat. I took Vivi out of the theater and covered her eyes during the scary bad guy scenes. She really loved seeing Tiana turn back into a princess! It was a great Christmas. Thank you to all of our family for making it special. We love you!!

Finally...our Christmas post!

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Merry Christmas Eve

Vivi got her pink tree for her room.
She was so thrilled she kept hugging us and saying
"Oh thank you Mommy, thank you Daddy for Vivi tree!!"

Gingerbread House

We were so blessed to have Billy's Aunts drive up for the night.

We had game night last night and today did our annual gingerbread house with the kids. They had never done one before, so that was a treat for them to do it with the kids. We will see them again on Christmas day at his parents house in Houston.

The finished project.

So cute, guys! Great job, everyone.

It's snowing!

After the snowstorm of powdered sugar!

Later when we came home from eating lunch out, this is what we saw.

Not so bad from this side until you look on the other side.

Ahhhh!! Hurricane Lucy blew in!

Luuuuucccccy!!!!!

Don't hide from us.

Rotten dog.

Check out the video below of us discovering Lucy's misbehavior!

Christmas Cookies

Isaac sang carols through the whole process. Hilarious.

Vivi took her role very seriously.
Get it, "roll"? Ha!

Tree Lot

Isaac's Class Party

I am the room mom for Isaac's Pre-K class, so I planned the party and hosted it.

Only 3 other moms came. Sheesh.In the hallway in front of the Christmas craft wall.

We had snacks, did a craft, and I led classmates in a Bingo game.

They loved that!

He is in a very diverse class, which has been a blessing.

Here is his locker. Red apples are the morning class.

The afternoon class is smaller so they don't have to share their locker.

And here are all the fun crafts throughout the room and hallway!

Isaac's Award

Isaac won an award at school for being a "Clever Coyote". They only issue 3 awards per grade level per semester, in 3 different categories. He was chosen out of over 50 children to win the award. The description is using problem solving skills, seeking knowledge, and exhibiting creativity. He slapped the Assistant principal (in green) a big high five and then received a stuffed coyote from his teacher (in red to his right). It was precious.

Then I took a photo of him in front of the "international tree". Every family at the school was given the option to contribute an ornament representing your child's culture.

The red tag on his says "USA-Transracial Adoption. Isaac is an African American who was adopted by his Caucasian parents as a toddler." There is a picture on it of our first Christmas as a family when he was two! He seemed very proud to be represented on the tree.

We went out to celebrate his accomplishment with icecream. They both gave thumbs up at the same time without being prompted. They are the biggest hams in front of the camera!