The Great '08 Wrap-Up

It being close to a year since I've blogged regularly, I'm just gonna wrap up the year 2008 in one post. Nah, it would have nothing to do with the fact that, as a full-time-office-working mother of 4 kids...well, 5 including the hubs, that I can hardly remember last night's dinner, much less almost two years ago. I actually had to go back and look at my scrapbook pictures to remember anything at all. Thanksgiving of 2008 had only two pictures. Yup, that's right...2. In a family as large as ours, and as OCD as I am about photographing every moment of my children's lives as humanly possible, to only be able to find two pictures of a major holiday like Thanksgiving is disturbing. That must have been a real hair-puller of a day. Which also does not make a lot of sense, because according to the pictures, we dined in a nice restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner that year. Although, given the chance, my kids act worse when eating out in public, just because they know it drives me bat-bleep crazy. And a day without driving momma batty, is like a day without sunshine to them. Hmmm, hoped I enjoyed it at the time, coz I sure don't remember it now.

Anyways, on to Christmas. Quite a bit more photos of Christmas, and it appears to have been a pretty great month. Certainly, one of the highlights was having Andrew's birth mother drive up with her boyfriend, and spend the day with us at our adoption support group holiday party. That was a first for our group...a birth mother at an adoptive family party. But, as I've always said, this particular birth mother is more like a sister or a daughter to me...I truly love, love, love this young woman, and we're blessed to have her in our family. We had a breakfast buffet at the house and my parents even came over to meet her. Then we headed out to Wendy's for our party, where all the families were so thrilled to meet Casey. Pete, as usual, played Santa for the kids. And, of course, Alex wanted nothing to do him the bearded man, EVEN THOUGH, this time he figured out it was his own daddy! But it was a wonderful day, as always out at Wendy's, and made even better by getting to share it with Casey.

Also in December was the tree lighting at our local duck pond. Always have fun there, yup, three little boys surrounded by an acre of slimy green and brown duck poop. But regardless, the lighting was beautiful, as always, and the boys discovered the thrill of rolling down hill. Not so much interested in the lights, Santa, the ducks or anything else. We pretty much spent that evening watching the boys roll downhill, over and over and over again. "Look, Mommy, watch dis!" Over and over and over again. What a lovely family tradition we've started.

Later in the month was Alex's first school performance. His pre-school class put on a song and dance Christmas show in the church sanctuary. Although with all 4 year olds, and mine in particular, is was more of a "Stare Like A Stump" to Christmas music show. Some of the kids were real show-stoppers....dancing and singing their hearts out. Alex, for the most part, just looked real cute in his Rudolph shirt, and on occasion would clap his hands or raise his arms as instructed...but for the most part, he had the glassy-eyed, gape-mouthed gaze down to a T! Nevertheless, I loved seeing my first born up there with all his classmates, dressed all in red and green, and doing whatever it was they were doing to entertain all the parents and grandparents. Alex may have stared like a stump, but he's my, beloved stump!

After the show was refreshment time, and we, along with my parents and Aunt BooBoo, enjoyed cookies, cake, pastries and breads and visiting with the other families. I tried my best to get a picture of the boys on stage, in front of the potted poinsettisas and the beautifully decorated Christmas tree, but getting 3 boys under age 3 to pose was akin to herding cats. Just wasn't going to be done. I got one insanely grinning pose of Alex, looking like he'd been electrocuted, one angry, fighting and pulling away from momma shot with Andrew, and a calm pose of Austin, so calm he looks sad....like he just lost his best friend. What-r-ya-gonna-do?

Christmas was special this year, well, it is every year, being as blessed as we are, but I say extra special because Santa Clause actually came to our house Christmas morning! Threw Alex for a loop, because he thought he was ALL THAT because he had figured out at our adoption holiday party that it was his daddy playing Santa. But when Santa came in our backdoor from the Sunroom late Christmas morning, with some gifts that he had accidently "forgotten" to leave the night before...well, that just blew Alex away. He even sat on Santa's lap! Alex's belief in Santa Clause has been restored! Many thanks to our friend Paul for helping us pull that one off!

Three days after Christmas is Alex's birthday....he turned 4 in 08, and we celebrated with a "struction" party. Had another beautiful mild winter day at the local park, with a "struction" cake, pizza, ice cream, games, friends and a Lightning McQueen pinata. Pinatas are the bomb, lemme tell ya. My kids, well, all kids, from what I can tell, go bananas over a pinata. But that best part of all, as always, was seeing Alex surrounded by love and family and friends. Here's to a happy birthday, Alex!

So the year 2008 ended on a great note. It had been a busy, full year of settling in to our new house, deciding to grow our family yet again, me battling the on-again, off-again walking pneumonia, and working while trying to keep up with the boys. We were looking forward to a great 2009, and it would prove to be a doozy! Stay tuned for more adventures as my blogging resumes.