Few more pre-Christmas pics

I am in the process of getting pics off our camera and WOW! Looking back at the weeks before Christmas we were busy folks, ha ha! We made so many fun memories, I have lots to blog about for sure.

Here are a few pics from the little Big Brothers Big Sisters party we had at our house, it was small scale but we had a fun time. We had the "Bigs" over and made Christmas cookies and decorated stockings and hats then did a small gift exchange where us bigs gave our "littles" the gift we got them. So much fun! I will spare you the drama involved with Hannah's gift but basically for 3 years she has asked us to get her this strange Baby Alive doll. It is so creepy to me! When she is fed she moves her mouth as if chewing and then she poops and pees plus the talking and laughing and blinking. Ewww! For some reason though, Hannah has desperately wanted this doll for THREE years so after much debate Sam and I gave in and made it happen and to use her words her "dream came true". It was totally worth seeing her that happy (and now we don't have to hear about it all the time, an added bonus for sure). She was so sweet when she opened, it she just screamed then looked at us and said "you really got it?? really really? are you sure its for me and I can keep it??" then she said thank you probably 12 times or so and then bolted and actually kncoked me over giving me a hug. It was a very sweet moment.

Sammy throughly enjoyed the party, he was dancing around and thought he was big stuff. He kept saying "Sammy play big kids" and he even made his first Christmas cookies! He concentrated so very hard and was just too cute. I love watching him when he is trying hard on a project. His tongue is always out and he narrates each step. In my nerdy world of developmental psychology this is called "private speech" and is something children do to reduce their cognitive load while problem solving and is a good sign he is developing right on target. Yay! I'm sure it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I am his mommy but I thought his cookies by far tasted the sweetest of the whole lot!

Busy little bees making Christmas cookies
Sammy was great at rolling out the dough
Can you believe how grown up Haley is now??? She has really matured this year
Mark was hilarious with his cookies, he cracked us all up
I love my Banana!
The behind the scenes crew... thankfully they cleaned up the staging area i.e. our kitchen and kept things rolling smoothly, thank you to all of you for your help and for the yummy pizza and fun activities! You all rock!!
My baby worked so hard on his sugar cookies! He took his time and planned it all out, I was one proud mamma!
Kristen got Samantha some riding boots since they ride her horses together, Samantha was beside herself if you can't tell from that grin... She actually squealed while jumping in the air kissing the boots!!!
and she gave her this horse... as you can see it was well received!
I LOVE this picture, this is when Hannah THREW her doll down and ran to me and tumbled me to the floor with hugs, super great moment for sure. Have I mentioned how much I love her??
me and my girl..(.and the creepiest doll to ever to hit toy stores)
Wow.. that was A LOT of icing!
more decorating! Check out the little elves thanks to Kristen!
Mark and his big Brother Terry
Kim and Haley were actually featured in the BBBS newsletter on the front page b/c they are such a great match so I had asked them to please autograph my copy since I have obviously never had celebrities in my house before.
Hannah Banana worked so hard on her beautiful cookies she made for me and Sam, they were delicious!!
Look at my baby working so hard!
His first ever cookies! Aren't they perfect??
I love this pic b/c looks like Sam is actually "sniffing" the sprinkles and getting high, ha ha
Mark made a "spiderman" stocking
Samantha wrote all of our names on her stocking and so of course instead of Sam pointing to his name he thought was funny to point to her since they share the same name (we used to call her Sammy before my Sammy was born and then it got too confusing with 3 Sams in the house!)
Sammy and her Kristen (her Big) they are too cute together!
Kim and Haley
Wendy who was Krista's big moved (we missed you SO MUCh at this party Wendy!) and so we told Krista that we are ALL her bigs until they can find a new match for her or until Leslie can move down here, ha ha
Mark and Terry
Me and my Banana being silly

Happy Birthday Jesus!!

We without a doubt had our best Christmas yet, Sammy just made it so sweet. For those who aren't around him much to say that he is expressive is an understatement. He gets VERY excited about the tiniest of things so he just truly made the season magical. Every "Twistmas Wight" (Christmas light) we passed in the car result in a loud "Happy Burthday Jesus!!!" and a little mini party right there in the backseat. He was just so sweet and had so many questions about Christmas. They were not very profound, mosty related to whether Jesus gets special pancakes to eat and always double checking if Jesus is happy when we are kind (been working alot on kindness), but I am just thankful he wants to know about Jesus so early. Sammy really enjoyed the Christmas program at our church and I did my best to explain what was happening as each event transpired. I thought he would get distracted by the camels and a donkey, etc but nope he was still focused on baby Jesus, just not in the way I had hoped. He was very worried about baby Jesus being cold and not being careful on the donkey and then of course Mary, Joseph, & baby Jesus were on this high part of the stage and so Sammy yelled out "careful baby Jesus.....tall!! Obey mommy!!" yea, that was fun. He also belted out a happy birthday Jesus song when all was dark and quiet in between songs. In fact, his obsession with baby Jesus almost resulted in the demise of my mom's Jesus from her manger scene. Sammy had been playing and mom said he came to her and mentioned something about Jesus and a bath and a few moments later she decided to check in on him only to find him standing at the bathtub with her porcelain baby Jesus about to be dropped into the bath tub b/c "him diaper dirty, need clean bath"... oopsy. Thankfully Mom saved the day and all is well and we made sure Jesus stayed safely in Mary's lap the rest of our trip. SORRY MOM!!

I had a really hard time falling asleep on Christmas Eve. It was strange b/c I had such eager anticipation of the morning and it reminded me of how I felt as a child only my anticipation was for Sammy's experience if that makes any sense. It is surreal being on this end of it, on the parent side and experiencing all the wonder of Christmas through your child's eyes. It is so important to Sam and I that he "gets it" and one day fully grasps the true importance of the day and comes to cherish it for Jesus more so than the presents and hooplah associated with it. Yes I am aware that nobody knows the true date of Jesus' birth, I've heard some speculate October and others January but the actual date is not important. Those debates only serve to distract us from what it is really all about. We are not commanded to celebrate His birth and we can obviously celebrate it on any day we choose. As believers we are not celebrating a day, we are celebrating God's AMAZING love for us. His love for us is more than we can even comprehend really. Our God loved us so lavishly that he literally came down here to earth to US to live with us and teach us and ultimately save us and offer eternal life. Um can you say WOW? Although he was human he never stopped being God yet he came to us as a helpless and totally dependent baby in a lowly manger. ..again.. wow! I am just so overwhelmed with thankfulness and joy and so many different emotions when I think of that night and how each involved must have felt. Each year Christmas becomes even more meaningful to me personally as I grow closer to my Jesus. My hope and prayer is that one day it will be the same for Sammy. I want him to understand that in the Bible God does not require nor forbid the celebration of Jesus but rather we CHOOSE to show our devotion to Him by celebrating with our family and although we hope to celebrate Him all year, it is nice to have a time when EVERYONE around joins in together.

The pics I included tonight are from our "Birthday Party for Jesus" we had with the Flores kids. This is a tradition we do with Hannah each year and thought it would be fun to include her siblings as well and thankfully it was just wonderful! We went to the gym at church and played basketball for a while then came home and baked the birthday cake and made some gifts for their family members then decorated the cake. I was SUPER excited that we found the original cake topper for Jesus's birthday cake from when I was a little girl and of course the kids LOVED that it was something from my childhood. It was important to me that we read the Christmas story and talk about how it really relates to our lives now but I also wanted it to be something that my little Sammy could understand and participate in too. The big kids were great sports and agreed to read from his toddler Bible. Each kid read a few pages (even Sammy!) and then we had the sweetest prayer, their prayers were so genuine and sweet that tears filled my eyes. I found myself begging and pleading with Jesus to please answer their cries to Him. After the prayer we lit the cake up with MANY candles and sang the bday song then PAR-TAY'd!!! Fun fun fun!! We turned the Christmas music up and danced the night away when the sugar highs set in and I half expected my neighbors to call the cops, ha ha.

We had a great night... I LOVE THESE KIDS!!

Hannah, Mark, Samantha, & Krista
Making their presents for their fam

Sammy worked super hard on his Noel sign
Everyone had a turn decorating the cake.. It originally said Happy Birthday Jesus but then there was a red sprinkle mishap and a GINORMOUS meltdown on the part of my little Banana SO.. they all wrote it a second time on TOP of the already existing sprinkles and lets just say it was rather intense to eat. I could hardly taste the chocolate b/c of all the sprinkles and icing!

Mark was so patient and taught Sammy how to do the sprinkles, unfortunately he then taught him how to EAT them too..

Everyone had a turn reading and I was VERY PROUD of how well Hannah is doing with her reading, she has come SO FAR this year. I had to put a video of her up so you can all see how well she can read now!!!

Happy Birthday Jesus!!!


I uploaded videos too, most are short but I will warn you that you may want to cut off the craft time video when Krista starts singing it gets a little long and she got carried away and basically I have no clue how to edit them to make it shorter, ha ha. Also, remember if you an email notification that I posted this you can see the pic of the video but you have to click onto the actual blog to watch the videos.

Blowing out candles! Happy Bday to my King!!! ** Mark WAS ok at the end, it was all for dramatic effect. The smoke blew close to his eyes but it was nothing bad


Interview with kids during craft time


Sammy reading Christmas Story


Hannah Reading her part of the Christmas story

My Favorite Memory of All!!!

Of all the Christmas memories we are making this season, one night stands out in my mind. We had just the sweetest most amazing night decorating our tree with Hannah & her sister Samantha (who I can no longer call by her nickname of Sammy b/c it was just TOO confusing!). We love each in the Flores family so much but it is difficult to balance ministering to each of them and maintaining my one on one "Big Sister" relationship with Hannah so we limit the times when all 4 are here and let Hannah decide if she wants one on one time or wants to bring a sibling. The others understand that she may want time alone with us and they are really great about it. We also decided to put the siblings on a rotation to cut down on the bickering b/c when allowed her choice of who comes with her it became way to stressful. SO.. this particular night was Samantha's turn and it was a FABULOUS night!

We had all the non-breakable kid friendly ornaments ready to go on the bottom half of the tree and Hannah, Samantha, and Sammy all decorated it up! They were giggling and just having so much fun. So much thought went into where each was placed (well minus Sammy, he just put ALL of his on ONE branch that quickly fell to the floor) and our tree is just beautiful now! My favorite moment was when it was time to put the star on the top. Everyone wanted to do it so we decided to pull up a chair and let each kid try. Samantha went first but she couldn't quite reach it. Hannah went next and gave it her very best effort but again, was too far away. We all agreed the best plan would be to lift little Sammy to the top and so up he went and he did a great job! He placed the star in the cutest most crooked little way (we have even decided to leave it crooked b/c it reminds us of that sweet night)! It was instant cheers and celebration and huge group hug, I know it sounds cheesy but it was just the best, sweetest most happiest moment. Of course I had to take it to the next level and tell the girls just how much we love them and how special it is to us that they can share in our family traditions and Samantha & I got all teary. Sam said we were being too girly but I know he was loving it too!

We all raced cars Sammy's cars together and played some soccer then both girls made us dinner! Sammy helped a little too but I was very impressed with how much of dinner they could handle on their own without any help from me. They each made yummy pans of pigs in the blanket and a giant bowl of green beans. It was absolutely scrumptious and we followed it with some delicious desert and then.. the sugar highs set in!! Good times! We played all kinds of things and Sammy literally ran from one end of the house to the other laughing.

As happy as I was on that night, I couldn't help feeling a little twinge of pain. It isn't fair that the kids we love so much in Guatemala can't be a part of family moments like that. At least a few times a week Sam and I talk about what Cristina would think if she could see some of the places we go to (the lights at North Floria or how big a Super Target is, that kind of thing) and although a select few of them are in the adoption process most of them will not know the sweet tenderness of those precious family moments. Sure the missionaries at Casa try to do the best they can to create a family environment but with 500 kids, it is just not the same. I am just broken over this! It makes me question why and even question God. There are just so many children without families. My heart is broken for them always but especially now at this time of year. I want to do more for the kids in Guatemala and the orphans around the world for that matter. At this point we can all do one thing for sure at this very moment... PRAY. We can first pray that God will place people into specific orphans' lives to share God's love with them , to care for them and show them how to find their fulfillment and hope in Him. We can pray for God to stir in the hearts of the Christian families who do have room in their homes and hearts for children to be moved to adopt or even just sponsor orphans. Lastly, we can pray for the many families who are in the adoption process to have their cases sped up and processed in a timely manner so their children can be home with their forever families.

On that note.. pleas pray specifically for the Williams family. Brad and Kathie have been in the process of adopting Daniel (Danilo) from Casa for 2 1/2 years now and are in the home stretch. They have been swapping living in Guate with him and the spouse here in states with their other 3 kids and they desperately want to have everyone together at Christmas. It is Daniel's dream to have a real family and now he does and he just wants to be with them at Christmas time for his first real Christmas. Please pray for a miracle as they are in their final days of all the processing fiasco!

Lastly, I have to take a moment and brag on my man. There was a mailbox key mistake on this particular night that he handled with such love and grace, I was one mighty proud wifey. Hannah had gone to get the mail like she always does earlier in the evening but when it was time for Sam to take the girls home his car keys (that also have the mailbox key on them) were nowhere to be found. We asked Hannah to retrace her steps and came up with nothing. She was all upset and it came down to Sam & Hannah walking back down the street (at this point cold and pitch black) to search the ground for keys while Samantha and I scoured the house. I would have expected Sam to be a little exasperated and annoyed (the clock was ticking and all 3 kids' bedtimes were quickly approaching & Hannah kept changing her story of where she went at what times) but he stayed calm and cool and was just so sweet with Hannah. He made sure she realized it was just an accident and he even got her to laugh about it. The keys showed up inside thanks to our neighbor Joe (hallelujah!) and a few fervent prayers on my part and all was well. I am so proud of the way Sam handled it and the example he set for the girls to see. No yelling, no annoyed attitude, just love, grace, and forgiveness all the way. I know Jesus was smiling down on him. I love you honey!!!

Samantha decorating our tree... yes that is Franklyn's little doggie ornament *tears!* we miss him so much!

Hannah with her ornament she made for us when she was 5, so sweet!
Samantha's try at putting the star on
our Banana was so close to getting it up there!
and my little lovey made it happen!!! Go Sammy!!!
Hannah's plundering actually paid off for once, she found our 2 missing ornaments.. my cherished ornament that was my Gram's and my own baby's first Christmas from 1979
YAY!!! We got the star on!!
The three little chefs hard at work
Don't worry I put them in the oven for them.. safety first!
Desert time!
Silly silly!! I think SAM's sugar high kicked in first!

They spoil him rotten!
He loves his "tunnel" and says "Mantha mo tundel peas?"

He really thought they were having a horsey race and he totally beat Hannah, they are so sweet with him