Merry Christmas!

Wishing you a Christmas filled with this kind of JOY! 

Reunion

When Cooper was in China, he had a foster brother, Ming Ming (or Ning Ning, as Cooper calls him) for a long while whom he loved.

About 6 months before we traveled to bring Cooper home, Ning Ning (Adrian, Ming Ming....we call him three different things here....) was adopted by a family in Alabama.

That was a difficult loss for Cooper. The picture below breaks my heart- it's them telling Cooper that Ning Ning is leaving. Of course no one knew at the time when (if) Cooper would ever see Ning Ning again. Cooper looks so sad, and I hate that I wasn't there.

Cooper asked about "Ning Ning" every day after he left. At the time, I was not Cooper's mom. I was the volunteer who edited Cooper's sponsorship update that went out every month to the people who sponsored him while he was at New Day. I clearly remember editing the update in March 2010 that said this:

 Evan’s little brother, Adrian, was recently adopted by an American family. Evan is missing him a lot, and tells us often how much he misses him. He tells everyone that Adrian went to the United States and he wants to visit him there! 

That's when I started praying for Cooper to be matched with a family. My heart broke when I read it (at that time I hadn't seen the picture.- just the words broke my heart). And, of course, I had no idea that in just 4 short months I would be looking at his picture, knowing his file was on the shared list, and realizing that we could be the answer to my prayers.

BUT....that's a different story! :)

Shortly after we were matched with Cooper, I connected with Adrian's mom, Shawna. (You can read that post to get the whole story.) We became fast friends.

And, while we were in China, Cooper's foster mom told me how very much she was longing to see Cooper and Adrian reunited in the United States.

I think we all were.

So.....It didn't take long after Cooper was home for us to try to make plans for a reunion between Cooper and Adrian. But, life being what it is for two families of five made coordination kind of tricky.

However, on December 3, Cooper and Adrian were finally reunited to the great joy of three mamas who love these boys.

It was a little awkward for them at first (not for us Mamas....we hit it off right away!). And, we had to get past the really sad and hard moment when we realized that Cooper's ambivalence to Adrian's arrival was because he thought they were coming to take him with them. Once we ALL clarified in no uncertain terms that Cooper was staying here and they were going home and taking Adrian with them, Cooper was able to enjoy all sorts of fun with Ning Ning:

playing cars

Playing Wii

taking a tubby (which is apparently a New England term, I found out)

watching movies and eating ice cream

And just hanging out

The whole lot of us had a blast during our three-day sleep over.

The dads watched football and talked politics. The moms talked long through the afternoon into the early evening sitting half-freezing on the front porch.

All while the kids had endless amounts of fun:

playing (more) Wii

 exploring the stream

climbing rocks

And (what else?) building a tornado shelter.

I dare say it's the only one of it's kind in our town.

A gift from our extended family in the south.

(Note: Shelter only rated for tornadoes rated F -10 or lower.)

And, there was lots of sleepy-headed DS playing as well.

(How else to keep 5 kids quiet when one decides to sleep in?)

The kids even had fun posing for a group picture thanks to Scot:

"Pretend like you are on a roller coaster!"

Did I mention that all three of our kids are the same ages as their three kids? Sawyer made fast-friends with MaiLin. They were inseparable all weekend long!

Chloe had a great time with AnnaLi as well.

Truth be told though.....AnnaLi was maybe second most excited to see Cooper. She had bonded with him while they were in China to pick up Adrian, and she was so sad to leave him behind. She asked about going back to adopt Cooper, and she prayed for him to find a family. It was a sweet reunion for her too, I think.

After a short three days, we said a very tearful good-bye.

When Cooper spontaneously said, "Bye, Ning Ning. I love you. I miss you." we all had to take a moment to regroup. I had held it together pretty well up till that moment.

Thankfully, we know we'll see them again even if we don't quite know when. I'm sure it will be too long though.

Who knew that when we adopted Cooper that our family would grow by more than one?

How blessed are we?


And, PS- we did send many, many pictures to Cooper and Adrian's China mama so that she too could share the joy!

Conversations with Cooper {Over Lunch}

*Cooper sits eating some tuna for lunch*

Me: Did you ever eat fish in China?

Cooper: Is this fish?

Me: Yep.

Cooper: No.

Me: How about chicken? Did you eat chicken in China?

Cooper: Nope.

Me: Hmmmmm.....then what did you eat for dinner in China?

Cooper:  Candy.

Me: You had candy for dinner?

Cooper: Yep.

Me: Really?

Cooper: Yep.

Me: Oh, wow.

Apparently, life is all unicorns, rainbows, and M-n-M's in China.

Who knew?

WINNERS!

The two winners for the Truth in the Tinsel downloads are: 

Sara:

 Sara said...

eek! I just realized that I forgot to include what our family does to keep the focus on Jesus at Christmas in my first comment! (too excited about the chance to win! ;)Please don't count this as another entry! Think of it as part 2 of my first comment ;)
One thing that we do which I love is read "One Wintry Night" by Ruth Graham Bell. You can find it here http://www.amazon.com/One-Wintry-Night-Ruth-Graham/dp/B002T451MM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323200866&sr=8-1
It is a beautifully written and illustrated book that nestles the true story of Christmas in the middle of a fictional story about a little boy who gets lost in the woods. We read it every Christmas Eve at bedtime, and love it!
Sara

December 6, 2011 11:52 AM

and Kristi: 

 Kristi said...

We discuss ways to have a birthday party for Jesus each year and our advent calendar is a nativity with stickers that you put on each day to start filling in the scene. So far we have two angels and a star on ours.
We also have our Fisher Price nativity and at least once a day I read a different children's book that tells the story of Jesus's birth to my kids and help them act out the story with the little people. I love it when I catch them telling the story to each other!

December 4, 2011 1:55 PM

Both great ideas! If you could both e-mail me your e-mail addresses (to: scjchardy{at}yahoo{dot}com), I'll send you your very own personal download links! YAY- you can even get started tonight!! :)

Also....a shout out to Kelly. I LOVE her Christmas idea as well. 

Me...I'm seriously behind. I've got ZERO decorations up, only half my shopping done, and I've missed three days of the Truth in the Tinsel devotionals (BUT some of that was for a decent reason which I will share when I get 10 seconds!).  

Let's just say I'm looking forward to this weekend and realizing that the up-side of meningitis last year was that I had a very peaceful, uncluttered, unscheduled, nothing to do but be present with my kids December. 

Not so this year. 

I'm just trying to be present when I can, and do what I need to when I can. 

And not get overwhelmed by what I *think* December should be like. This year, it is what it is.

Next year is different! 

Congrats to the winners! I hope you ENJOY it!

Winners, and Advent, and ANOTHER Give Away!

OK.....what I love about these giveaways are the odds.

Seriously....one in six! :) 

This time I very prayerfully pulled a name out of a hat, and that name was: Rachel! And, I was happy, because I just like her. And her kids. Even though I've never met them! We've been following each other's blogs for a LONG time, and she has been an incredible encouragement to me in so many ways on this adoption journey (both hers and mine).

 rachel said...

jenna, i am so glad to hear this! i was praying for you. my mom's in town and we were both sick with another (yes, another!) stomach flu. we were too sick to even make/have a thanksgiving dinner. but i was very thankful the kids didn't get it. and thankful for my family.

ps - sleeping on the bathroom floor to cool a fever sounds absolutely *dreadful*.

November 29, 2011 7:08 AM

Rachel, I have your address, and I'll get that book right on out to you! I hope you love it as much as I have!

-------------------------------------

Switching gears entirely, I have been looking for something new to do this year as we count down the days to Christmas. I have a few simple qualifications:

• It has to be simple. I've tried complicated or involved, and I'm just not good that way. I have not been intentional enough (yet) to create a set of Jesse Tree ornaments. Every year I remember that I really want to, it's WAY to late to try to pull it together. There's always next year, I guess. (But, you should totally check out that link to my friend, Rebecca's blog. WOW....she did an awesome job with her Jesse Tree ornaments. If you are as crafty and advanced planning as her, you'll LOVE the Jesse Tree idea! )
• It has to help my kids better understand the story of the birth of Jesus. I'm not interested in advent calendars that give them a piece of chocolate and help them get excited that they are one day closer to a boat load of gifts. That's just not my thing. I want each day to bring a new discovery of the Christmas story. 
• I'd like it to be truly kid-friendly. Devotionals that are way over my kids are not helpful. 

So, today I stumbled across the Truth in the Tinsel: An Advent Experience for Little Hands by Amanda White. (She blogs at Impress Your Kids.....go check it out. It is loaded with awesome ideas!) At first glance, you may immediately think I forgot my #1 qualification of simplicity. The entire book is geared around creating an ornament with your kids every day in the month of December.

OK, well, yeah. That's not simple in my book. Let's face it, I'd be dead in the water on night #1.

However, this still qualifies because:

1. The readings themselves were simple- only thing I needed was a Bible, and I have one. Simple.
2. It fits my other two qualifications: it focuses on the Christmas story, and with my kids being younger, it focuses on the major elements of the story. It's repetitious, and the talking points are VERY kid-friendly. 
3. One word: downloadable. No running around trying to get it. I saw it. I liked it. I bought it. I printed it. I used it. All in like two hours time.
4. Another word: modifications. I totally skipped the ornament tonight because I didn't have time or the materials on hand. But, I did do the other suggested activity, which just involved a dark closet and a flashlight. I had those on hand. So, we read the passage from our children's Bible, and then had a conversation in the closet with the flashlight. It was awesome! And, I felt like Mother of the Year because I didn't miss a day! :) She offers other suggestions besides the ornaments daily! I'll make it my goal to do an ornament at least once a week. I can manage that! 
5. She includes options to help you create "clues" you can use in an advent calendar to help your kids focus on the one thing they are supposed to take away for that day. Brilliant. When my kids went to bed tonight, I pulled out our wooden advent calendar with drawers (like the one she uses in the post linked above), printed out her icons for each day, wrote the scripture she suggests for that day on the back, and stuck them all in the correct drawers. Now, all I need to do every day in December, is check the book in the morning for the activity, have my kids pull out the clue, then we are on our way! I literally downloaded the book a few hours ago, and now I'm all set for the month. Awesome!

So, I'd love to give TWO lucky winners a downloadable copy of Truth in the Tinsel. (To be clear, I'll be buying two additional copies and sending the two winners the links to download them. I'm not paying for my copy and then forwarding my copy to two people. I just wanted to be sure to clarify that.  Stealing is NOT in the Christmas spirit. It's also a violation of copyright law, and that would be a bummer!)

In order to enter, please leave a comment letting me know what you do at Christmas to focus your family on Christ instead of on Santa, gift getting, and all the other things about our modern day version of Christmas that don't seem to have to do much with the REAL reason we celebrate.

If you'd like a second entry, become a follower if you are not already! 

Please be sure to enter by midnight on Tuesday, December 6. I'll announce the winner on December 7th! 

I have a few more ideas on this topic (some my own and some from others) that I'll share this month as well. We may not have arrived yet, but every year we've become a little bit better at focusing our family on Christ at Christmas. I'm hopeful that every little change will make a big impact on our kids!