Christmas 2012, first communion, and parenting picture fail

First communion, baptisms, major life events, I've got pictures galore.  Any given Christmas, too many pictures to upload.  Christmas + first communion at the same time = complete parenting fail in the photo department!  There are no Christmas Eve family pictures in our festive outfits or even one of the girls in their new pajammas in front of the tree or putting out cookies for Santa.  We have one... count that, ONE... picture of Laurel taking her first communion.  We have no pictures of Laurel and the family with the pastor.  Honestly, there aren't even too many pictures of Christmas day.  I'm not really sure what happened here!

Moving past that, the events of December 24th and 25th were wonderful!  Laurel has been preparing for communion for a while now and it was moving to watch my dad assist the pastor in offering her the bread and wine at the Christmas Eve service.  Laurel beautifully sang a solo during the evening and Sierra did an amazing job performing two readings.  Sierra forgot to officially end her reading.  She came back and sat down as everyone remained still and quiet.  Brad pointed out the ending to her in the program and without hesitation she ran back up and said "Word of God. Word of Life" and then ran back to her seat!  She was a little embarrassed, but was able to laugh at the silliness of the situation!

My parents were staying for later Christmas Eve services so we didn't have a typical gathering like we usually would for first communion. We came back home joined by our friend and her daughter, Laurel.  Together, Laurel and Laurel read the "Night Before Christmas", we made reindeer food to put on the lawn, and enjoyed eggnog and cookies.

Christmas morning was wonderful to hear the excitement of all of the girls.  Sierra worked so hard on paintings for each family member, Laurel wrapped up quite a few of her own toys to give as gifts, Cadence went to town opening any package within arm's reach, and I was surprised and excited to get a blue box from Brad!  Typically we at least head to my parents' house for part of the day and sometimes then up to see Brad's family, but this year the grandparents came to our house.  It was wonderful to not have to go anywhere for the day and still get to celebrate with our families!  Despite dreary weather the kids spent quite a bit of time outdoors trying out their new toys (and so did I!).  I guess I will just have to try to keep the mental log of my memories since I have so few paper ones.  The fact, though, that we had too memories to keep up with to photograph them all... well, I'm okay with that!

Laurel's first communion

As soon as we sat down in church Cadence opened her bubble wrap bag, took off her shoes, and slipped on her penguin slippers.  Girlfriend demands comfort!

Getting ready to read

Brad is really getting ready to pet Shiloh, despite how this looks!

Reading the same book that I read as child

And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Christmas morning chaos

Mini Rip Rider

Once she figured out how to spin there was no stopping her! Okay, the car stopped her, but she had her helmet on!

Everybody rides...

Round two with the grandparents.  The kids weren't excited at all!

Beginnings

On Easter Sunday Sierra took her first communion.  This event marks a new beginning in her spiritual journey.  Brad and I will answer her questions, expose her to different paths in life, and ultimately she will choose her own direction, but this is one of the first steps in her spiritual growth.

April 24th also marked the anniversary of another beginning... the beginning of our life with Cadence.  I woke up that morning, one year ago, and got ready to start the chaos of a Saturday.  Gym for me, swim for Sierra, baton and a sleepover for Laurel.  I hurriedly opened my email and saw a message from our adoption agency.  "Waiting Child Match - WANG, FENG YE".  Holding my breath, reading the email, really only processing a few words "read this ENTIRE email carefully", "Female, 5/2/09, cleft lip and palate, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia", "time constraint on shared list", "This IS a potential child match".  And then there were 4 pictures... and those eyes.  Deep, dark, intense eyes.  They didn't seem sad or broken to me, as I've seen other orphanage pictures look.  They also didn't seem ecstatically happy, but content.  But it felt like they were looking right AT ME.

And I was scared.  We weren't supposed to get this until December, at least.  I'd been watching everyone else's timeline and this was too soon.  Could this really be it?  Could it really be her?  Was this our daughter?  Was I supposed to open up my heart to this child and believe that she would be in my arms in a few months?  What if some adoptive parent put their child on a plane back to China with a note in her pocket... and China stopped their adoptions, like another country had (albeit temporarily).  Was I strong enough to have faith in the process to accept and love this child now?  But isn't that what I did with both Sierra and Laurel?  I fell madly and deeply in love with these children from the moment I saw two lines.  I took a leap and opened my heart to something that I could lose.  And I do it everyday now.  I am not so naive to believe that the universe will discriminately protect me from the worst heartache possible.  But I keep on loving, fiercely and deeply... as I did with Cadence on the same day that I opened that email.  It didn't matter that I had never touched her hair, smelled her skin, or heard her laughter.  It didn't matter that she was on the other side of the world.  She was my daughter.

Four and half months later I got my first look into those eyes in person.  I got to hold her, wipe her tears, and eventually hear her laugh!  And now, one year after seeing her face for the first time, I get to do this everyday!  We are truly blessed!