We woke up again this morning to fresh snow falling and a beautiful new blanket on the ground. I love how the snow sticks to the trees in our woods, making everything look so sparkling clean. The kids were outside as soon as they could get there and have been enjoying sledding down our backyard.
We’re heading out to spend New Year’s with the Wolfe family soon. Thankfully our awesome neighbor used his John Deere and plowed our drive for us.
We woke up to a beautiful WHITE Christmas! It had snowed during the night and we had about an inch of snow. It continued to snow and blow the rest of the day. It made it extra nice to be in our warm house all day with our family. We opened the rest of our gifts in the morning and then had “adopted” grandparents over for our Christmas dinner. It was nice to share our Christmas with them. Carolyn brought the yummiest cheese cake! We also got to talk to our family around the globe to wish them all Merry Christmas, wishing we could have been with each one of them.
We had a wonderful afternoon and evening spending time together. Of course the kids were anxious all day to open presents. Our Christmas Eve service was very nice and was a special time to focus on the Greatest Gift of all. Currently the boys are trying to stay up until midnight to celebrate the official start to Christmas, the three girls are sound asleep, and Chris is trying to set up his perfect Mii. 
Phew, I feel like I’ve been in the kitchen for three days straight. The kids have helped here and there, but I am still worn out. I think we are well stocked for the holidays now and it’s time to relax. We made seven different kinds of cookies/goodies to snack on, I’ve fixed breakfast from scratch each morning of our break, we made homemade spaghetti sauce and French bread, plus we have our Christmas dinner ready to bake including ham, casseroles, rolls, jello, and pumpkin pie. We also have yummy homemade cinnamon rolls ready for tomorrow’s breakfast. We are blessed indeed!
Tonight we will attend our church’s Christmas Eve service and come home for summer sausage, cheese and crackers. Then it’s time to start opening presents! We combine two family traditions in our house, so we open about half of the gifts on Christmas Eve and half on Christmas morning.
Elijah is eagerly anticipating his first Christmas in America. Two years ago today we received our final confirmation to travel and purchased our tickets to Japan and China. We left the day after Christmas to begin our travel. It was a whirlwind for those two days around here! We are so thankful to have our Elijah with us this Christmas. He is enjoying our traditions and fitting in just fine with it all.
We wish all our family and friends a very merry Christmas. May His great gift to us all inspire you to share that same Love with others around you.
Today’s Memorial Box “G” is representative of a family that has become very dear to us. Their Goodness, Gifts, and Generosity to our family has blessed us in many ways. This family has always been very kind and encouraging to us, but when we were in the process of adopting Elijah they told us that they wanted to bless us with monthly financial gifts. We were very humbled and we were also in awe again of our heavenly Father at His ways of providing for our adoption when we were obedient to His calling. For Christmas we received a huge set of fun cookie cutters from them and we thought that this “G” from the set would be a perfect standing stone in our box to remind us of God’s faithfulness to us. We ask that God bless this family and Give them many Great returns for their Generosity to us. Thank you Guys, you are Grand in our eyes!! We love you.
If you aren’t familiar with our Memorial Box, check out my original post about it here. Or on the sidebar click on “Memorial Box” under the categories to read our MBM posts.
We are so excited about having two weeks off school. The kids had pretty much finished up their work by last Thursday, so we got an early start. We have already enjoyed an extended time at the library with donuts and hot chocolate, Chris and I got to enjoy a double date night with friends, we had our first good snow to play in, visited a living nativity, had an evening drive to look at Christmas lights, and got a start on our annual big puzzle. We have ingredients ready to make lots of yummy cookies this week and we are going to play, relax, eat, and have fun!
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Philippians 4:6
This has been our theme memory verse for our week of school. This morning I asked the kids what they worried about. Without skipping a beat, Elijah emphatically blurted out, “Food!” He was not joking at all, but very serious. Oh how that made my heart hurt for him and brought me so quickly down to his reality.
Later I had some one on one time with Elijah and had the opportunity to talk more about his fears. As some of you know, he lived his first seven years with his Chinese family and their means were so different than ours. He confessed that he was often hungry and that there never seemed to be enough to eat. At one time they bought three piglets to raise. When they were grown, the family butchered them and sold the best meat for needed cash (he has shared these adventurous times with us before with great excitement, ha!). They saved the lesser desirable parts for themselves, such as the tail, the heart, and the feet. Even these were a treat.
It breaks my heart that Elijah still carries the fear of hunger with him. We have always been very aware of his love of eating, although I have no idea where he puts it all. He eats twice what an adult eats and always asks for more. When he asks for his third or fourth helping, I often ask, “Are you really hungry, or do you just like to eat?” He used to always answer, “I’m hungry”, but as time has passed he has learned to say the truth, “I just like to eat”. But even as he says that I know he still wants the security of knowing that more food will still be available. I usually allow one more small serving and he knows that’s the end for this meal.
The verse that follows Philippians 4:6 is, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” I pray that Elijah will grow to trust Jehovah Jireh, our provider. In the meantime, as his spirit learns not to be anxious, this mama will keep his tummy full and allow some extra servings even when he is not physically hungry. His spirit is hungry and we will feed that as much as possible with love as well as some extra feasting over the upcoming holidays.
Today Elijah completed his reading book that we have been working on since we started homeschooling him in February. I have used this method to teach Michaela, Benjamin, and Johanna and it worked very well for Elijah, too. We took a bit slower pace with him, but we are pleased with the results. By the end of this book a child is at about a third grade reading level. Not bad, especially for someone just learning English in this last year. After each lesson Elijah got to add a sticker to his chart and at the end of every ten lessons he got a dollar to spend as he wished. Then for our final celebration he chose to spend an evening at Bonkers, a local indoor massive play structure. The kids all had a blast and I’m sure they will sleep quite well tonight! Way to go Elijah, we are very proud of you!
Well, I’ve lagged behind in blogging this week. Chris’ mom has been here since Wednesday. Her eye appointment went very well and she does not need the surgery that she had expected. So we had time to shop and play. Grandma loves doing all sorts of crafts, especially croqueting. The kids all got into doing things with yarn and Grandma helped them all create things. Ami didn’t croquet, but she got a hat with a crown at the top. Sue also helped me on some sewing projects, including reupholstering our rocking chair.
Our nephew/cousin Zane is finally home from the hospital as of last night. What ended up being an expected one night stay ended up a four night stay with a major roller coaster ride along the way. You can check things out on their blog if you like. As of now he is recovering well and his picture looks oh so sweet.
One more week of school then we are off for a two week Christmas and New Years break. Woo hoo!
First of all I’d like to ask you for prayers for our nephew Zane. He is scheduled for a near four hour surgery tomorrow to repair his cleft lip, palate, nose and gum line. It will be a long day for mommy, daddy and especially Zane. It will also be a bit of a road to get through the healing process in the days and weeks that follow. This treasure was brought home from China in September and we have so enjoyed watching him develop and grow in these last three months. We love you, Zane!
Secondly, Chris’ mom flew back to the States from Russia yesterday. She is scheduled to see an eye specialist this week in Columbia and will then likely be scheduled for repair surgery. It will be nice to have her here for Christmas, but we’ll miss Grandpa as he was not able to return this time.
Last but not least, there is great rejoicing today as another treasure has met her forever family in China. Our dear friends from our first trip to China just met their second daughter today. Piper will be fourteen next month and we are thrilled to know that God made a way for her to be a part of the Murray family just in time before she was no longer eligible for adoption (fourteen is the “cutoff” for China adoptions). Our original 2006 travel group from our agency included six families, of which we and Eric and Kate were a part. For all six families it was our first adoption. Through the incredible miracle of adoption our six families have now adopted fifteen children, including two sets of twins. We are blessed to know these families and we have rejoiced together as each child has been placed in a forever family. Miracles are still happening! Congratulations Uncle Trouble and Aunt Kathy, Jaden and Piper!
