When I thought of writing this year's Christmas post, I really wanted to do something out of the box and special. I kept trying to think of something polished and fancy to present the big emotions I experienced this year. I finally quit lying to myself and decided that emotions are not scary and hey, you probably have them too, so why not just use emojis for our Christmas letter?! They can be annoying, I know, but hopefully you'll smile at the ones I've used and it will connect w/you in a different way. I didn't want to write 'that was bittersweet' after everything, even though it's pretty much true. When you miss someone who has passed, grief is like the shadow that is there for a while. "Weren't you happy, wasn't that fun?" Yes, we were, yes it was, but remember that something can be both happy and sad at the same time. 🎭 You've seen the masks, right? Now that I've set the stage😉, please enjoy our year in review.
🌳📸 2019 got off to a rough start, as I mentioned in the (late) 2018 Christmas post. My Dad passed away in February...the silver lining in things like funerals is that you get to be with a lot of family and friends to celebrate someone who meant a lot to you. I selected the tree emoji to represent my roots/family tree/heritage, but also for the branches that remind me how so many others support us and lift us up, especially as we continue to grieve. Another one of the silver linings for me was going through photos from my childhood - y'all know how I love photos!! (Again, see last year's Christmas post part 1...)
🤼♂️Spring of 2019 saw us busy w/various activities. Moses and Franklin had lots of gymnastics meets, Colleen participated in Destination Imagination, all 3 boys were involved in wrestling and Moses did Forensics again! Ask me how many pounds of snacks I packed, how many bleachers we sat on, how many photos I took....it's a big number!! I'm a happy and proud momma when I see my kids having fun, cheering their teammates on and trying new things.🏰 Speaking of spring...this was a special year so we splurged on a special spring break vacation! TO A CASTLE!!! No one cried or had a bad day b/c it is THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH!! It was a lot of fun and we have my aunt and uncle to thank for helping us pull it off. I still can't believe we did it...it always seemed like a really big ask, financially and emotionally for our crew. I'm so glad we did it - it reminded me of when my parents took us kids. We rode my Dad's favorite ride and I sang "Yo Ho Yo Ho, a Pirate's life for me!" at the top of my lungs, just for him.
And then...
-------SOMETHING BIG HAPPENED HERE-----
------BUT I AM SAVING IT FOR LAST------so...movin' right along...
🌱In May, some friends of my parents organized a tree planting at a park they enjoyed in honor of my Dad. All the grandkids were so excited to help, pulling burlap off the root balls of these trees and scooping dirt in the hole! I haven't been back yet, but I can't wait to camp in that park and visit Dad's trees!
🎡♎ (closest thing to an arch I could find!) Over Memorial Day weekend we took a road trip to St. Louis. We had 2 specific things in mind - the arch and The City Museum. There really needs to be more emojis for The City Museum! If you have been, you know what I mean. If you have not, GET YOURSELF TO ST. LOUIS and check it out!! Start by visiting their website and then go. Seriously. We have been there multiple times and every time I struggle w/the cost but I always see the fun my family has and I never regret it. This time I was confident enough that Moses remembered the tunnels and such that I just let him go. He was able to show the other kids a lot of cool things! I am not much for the climbing these days but Dave's sense of adventure means he might get stuck in a tube while I take photos for posterity!
🏅🏕️ In June, Franklin and Moses participated in the YMCA gymnastics Nationals!! They were held in Wisconsin Dells this year, making it cost effective for us to attend. We picked a camping spot and played tourist in the off times. We took a Dells boat ride, watched the teams march in before the Tommy Bartlett Show, made s'mores and rested up for the tournament. It was a neat experience to see teams from all over the country enjoying the Dells and all it has to offer. Then in July Colleen attended her first sleep away camp...It's called Camp Daniel and it's a very special camp for people with disabilities. Her friend from school invited her. She actually wrote me a letter to invite Colleen, which made me happy cry for all sorts of reasons! It was a blessing to know that her friend would be there the same week. After the week was over, Colleen commented on how their were other kids who had some of the same struggles as her participating in the camp. I think it made her feel more confident! You can imagine all the emotions I had tumbling about w/one of my children out of my reach for a week, but then seeing how this camp made her feel emotionally sort of made me put mine in check. It was worth it, though, and that's what matters.👨👩👧👦⛰️🥾🏇🏾🚞 We kicked off August with a huge family reunion weekend - how many cousins and 2nd cousins can fit in a hammock?
🚼🍼🏈As the summer came to a close, the talk of the house was about 2 things - me babysitting a friend's baby part time during the school year and flag football. I get the pleasure of baby Mercedes' company (not her real name!) three days a week. Do you know how cool babies are? I could talk your ear off about that, you already know....the best part of this deal is seeing this family develop and cheering them on. Knowing Mercedes' parents means we see how they are invested in her and what character traits they are modeling. It's different than foster care for a lot of reasons, obviously, but the same in that you can never go wrong in encouraging a family!
🛠️🚽🤝 Fall - a perfect time to remodel the bathroom we never really intended to remodel...🤷🏻 We discovered the main sink we use in the bathroom had a leak, which led to a wet cabinet underneath. Not just wet, soaked, moldy and disintegrating!!! It was bad. It needed immediate attention. Dave is handy but he felt it was a bit above his paygrade and he didn't have time to dedicate to the project to get it done quickly enough. Lucky for us, a friend from church was available! He put in new counter, new pipes, new cabinets...and then Dave decided we needed a new toilet. It seemed like a coincidence that some friends were trying to sell theirs on FB marketplace! So we bought that and our friend from church installed that too. We feel like grownups now, having our first major interior house project done. We also bought a new piece of furniture to store our board/card game collection and dipped our toes into some interior decorating. Starting to look a little better around here! Some day - we'll tackle that kitchen!!
🦡🏈 You guys!!! They have a Badger emoji! He's so cute! This was the first year we took all of the kids to a major sporting event. Dave and I had our first date to a Badger game almost exactly 20 years earlier, the opponent was the same and history was made both nights. (1999 - when the Jump Around tradition started and 2019 - longest field goal.) We were excited to share the experience w/Dave's mom, who is an alumni! Many times we have taken the kids to see the band as they pump everyone up before a game and then we would leave campus. The kids were always sad that everyone else got to go in to the stadium and we only saw the band. Not this time! We made a pit stop to add more layers and were in our seats before kickoff. 😊 We had fun jumping around, seeing Moses on the jumbotron (his teachers even saw him from somewhere in the stadium!), and shaking hands w/players afterward. I call this a huge win for our family - the kids are maturing, finding ways to regulate themselves in these situations and communicating w/us so much better. (When you're wearing a million layers and there's a line to go pee, you need to give the grown ups a little lead time on bathroom breaks, you know what I mean?) This was another event that left my heart feeling a mess of emotions - happy memories of life before kids, happy new memories made, a few tears for not being able to tell my Dad about the great day, a little anxiety over how it would turn out, etc. It was definitely another one of those times I just hung on for the ride!
🏀🧠As we close out 2019, the kids have begun 2 new activities. Moses joined the 8th grade basketball team. The other night he made his first shot ever! So fun to see the kids try new things. Colleen, Franklin and Ezra are all in Destination Imagination this year. It is Colleen's second year and the boys' first. DI is really neat in that it's like teams competing, using their brains on instant challenges and are judged on skits they present, showing how they solve a specific problem. I'm learning a lot as a helper for Franklin's team. I can't wait to see what all the kids' teams are cooking up for the tournament in spring!
Now, I cannot finish this letter w/o mentioning possibly the most emotional event of the year...
.
.
.
(Don't ya just hate cliffhangers?)
.
.
.
♾️📜💕🎉🥂🎂🥳🎊 I had to resist putting ALLLLLLLL the emojis for this one!! There was another HUGE event in spring...OUR ADOPTION BECAME FINAL!!! We are now FOREVER family (to infinity and beyond!), with papers to prove it...We were so blessed to share the day w/family and party w/family and friends the day after. Our hearts were so full and I felt like my face was going to crack from smiling so big!! From now on, Bert and Ernie shall be known as their true names, Franklin and Ezra!
 |
| Ezra in white and Franklin in blue |
These dapper dudes bring us such joy...they have waited so long to be part of a forever family. There were many stutter steps along the way. People promised them things and did not deliver. Their trust was broken more than once. People left their lives at an alarming rate. It was not ok. They were not ok. They are still recovering from all of that junk and then some. Make no mistake, finalizing adoption does not mean they suddenly live the happiest of lives. Every day we all work together as a family to build bonds that LORD WILLING will some day be viewed as unbreakable, unchanging, and unshakeable. But to be able to go into a court house and have someone validate what we are working towards is priceless. A gavel banged and no one can tell us we do not belong together. We are family!
❤️❤️From our family to yours, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!❤️❤️
❤️Here's to building strong relationships, friendships, and families in 2020!!❤️
We hope you enjoyed this green version of our Christmas card! (If you still wish to receive a paper copy, leave a comment.) There are lots of reasons we decided to do things differently this year (again!)...here's a few:
1) Save postage. We love you, but we're cheap!
2) Save paper. You just recycle those cards after you read them...you do recycle them eventually, don't you??
3) Save printing costs. See reason #1!
4) Save stress. Nothing to print, sign, stuff, address...
5) Expand our options! Now you can see a practically limitless amount of photos.
6) Our greeting to you is saved in cyber-space for posterity!
7) It went so well the past years...we heard a lot of positive responses, and even some people who said they'd try it themselves. Welcome to the dark (green) side! (Sorry that was a goofy Star Wars joke...)
