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We put together and decorated a gingerbread house for the first time with the kids.  Wow, was it hard!!  They had a great time building and decorating it.  Although they would love to eat it, we think they will have to settle for gingerbread cookies.  Their house is much too hard to eat!

Like so many other firsts, the kids made and decorated Christmas cookies for the first time this weekend.  They loved it, and did a great job.  The best part was eating them!  They are very good at helping us in the kitchen and usually help us make our meals.  Although we are really trying to work on it, they are doing better about following decorations as long as you stay with them and you are doing a structured activity, like cooking together or an art project when we are right there helping them.  When we look back over the past six months since we have been home, we have seen a lot of improvements.  With each new day, we are all adjusting as we continue to transition to work together as one big family.  Here are some pictures of the kids making and decorating the cookies.

This past Friday, on December 16th, we celebrated the one year anniversary of the first time we learned about our kids from our adoption agency.  It is hard to believe all that has happed since then!  Through all of the ups, downs, challenges, and good times, we have been very blessed.  Although life is a lot busier and more challenging  now, God has granted us the opportunity to raise three beautiful chuldren.  Here are the first pictures we received of our kids, along with the most recent one of them together.  These first pictures of the kids were about a year old when we met them in April.  They have grown up so much!!

Each year, our church puts on a dinner theatre.  This year's program was about The Christmas Story.  We are blessed to have so many talented people in our church, and they did a wonderful job.  They told The Christmas Story from the time Joseph met Mary until Jesus was born.  The kids loved it, and really like going to church.  Right now, we are going to church and Sunday school but hope to become involved in more church activities after the first of the year.  We are thankful that they enjoy it so much, and are learning a lot.

The kids really enjoyed decorating the house for Christmas, and it was their first time.  They said they have had a tree before but had never been able to decorate it.  They all did a great job helping with the tree, and we only dropped one ball!  The kids were also a great help outside.  We are now the proud owners of an eight foot Santa for the front yard!  As we have started talking about Christmas, there is so many new things.  Jingle Bells, Rudolph, Frosty, and Santa Claus are just a few of these new things. In school, we are learning a lot about Advent and the real reason we celebrate Christmas.  They understand the celebration  of Christmas is for the birth of  Jesus, and we give gifts to each other out of love.  It is such a special season for us all this year! We are helping with the tree! It's time to decorate outside!

November has been very busy with school, activities, and special times.  Angie celebrated her 11th birthday and is growing up so fast!  She wanted a Barbie theme and had a great day. We had the opportunity to go to MN a few weeks ago to meet Dainis's Grandparents, Aunts, and cousins.  Dainis's Grandparents are 90 years old now, so we were so excited we could go and see them.  They were so excited to meet the kids!  It started to snow there for the first time this year, and the kids had never seen snow before!  Juan learned the hard way that taking off his gloves to play in the snow was not the best thing to do.  We all had a great time, and it is always sad to say good-bye.