Officially Offical.

 Adoption works differently in every state and in every situation.  Gabby's entire adoption process was local and the legal process didn't take very long due to the details of the situation.  So...Gabby's adoption was final on February 6.  We celebrated in court with Grammie, Grandpa Maynard and Grandma Judy and enjoyed a fun dinner that evening to honor the day.  Gabrielle Carter Marie, we love you up to the moon and back. 

I posted all of the photos we took so you could see that no, there was not a better option.  Yikes.  This is why you'll soon see a post of professional photos from Gabby's newborn days.  Because we need someone with skills to catch us all looking and possibly smiling.  At least not with our mouths open or fingers in the nose.

Christmas 2014 Happened

With Gabby's amazing surprise arrival, things like blogging totally fell off the radar.  When we were finally getting in a groove with her, summer started.  Summer is all kind of crazy fun but blogging was not going to happen.  Alas, school has started and I want to catch up.  

We celebrated Christmas with both sides of the family...

 We were going to do our little family's celebration on the 27th after arriving home from Iowa on the 26th.  However, we went straight to the hospital and got to meet Gabby so our celebration waited until she arrived home.  I'm laughing out loud at these photos because we just tried to take a few to document the day but really, we just enjoyed spending a day as a family after the whirlwind.  And, I'm wearing a funky black glove.  Because my hands were in terrible shape after using the hospital soap for three days.  How nurses manage to keep their hands in decent shape, I have no idea.

Merry Christmas 2014.  

Gabby

So the precious little babe in this house is finally sleeping better after about nine weeks of really wakeful nights.  She is bright-eyed and always looking around.  You'll notice the absence of photos including Eliana and Gabby.  I have yet to figure out how to keep Gabby safe while taking a photo of her with Eliana.  Eliana loves her.  So much.  But the love lacks the gentle touch that keeps a baby safe.  Gabby's eyes get especially wide when she hears Eliana shrieking down the hall: "BABBY!!!" Alas, we will just settle for separate photos until they are a bit older.  

She is now a solid ten and a half pounds.  She started out at an itsy bits 5 pounds, 7 ounces so she's gaining ground and eating like a champ.

The boys love to hold her and snuggle with her and are most protective and loving. 

Her hair gets so many compliments.  It is funky and big and soft all at the same time.  Her baby hair is fine and straighter but the curly textured hair growing underneath makes it all stand out on end.  I just love it.  It will be sad when it changes and isn't spiky like that any more.

Gabby, what a sweet completion to our family.  We are over the moon with delight about the gift that is you!

Gabrielle Carter Marie

Surprise!!  We were ending our Christmas celebration with my mother when we got "the call".  Our celebration with my family had been sweet and sad as my dear dad's love of the holiday made it even harder to miss him as we celebrated.  The car was packed to head home and we began to notice buzzing and dinging from our phones.  If you've tried to contact us when we're out of town you can attest to this fact - we typically ignore those dings and buzzes until we return home.  However, the insistence of the dinging caused us to check things out and we noticed a familiar name popping up on both of our phones: Susan T.  The beloved social worker who who walked us through the failed adoption this summer and with whom we had always hoped to finalize an adoption.  

We immediately called her back and heard these words: "there is a baby girl who was born this morning, Mom has seen your profile book and wants to meet you.  Where are you?"  To which we replied: "we're in Iowa and we can come straight there."  We loaded everyone in the car and began the drive towards home as Gabby was born fifteen minutes from our house and was waiting with her amazing first momma there to meet us.  

This sweet girl has an amazing first momma who I was privileged to spend beautiful time with in the hospital, loving on Gabby.  Those three days are a treasure for us and were the start of a relationship with her first momma that is a gift.  

Consents were signed and we got to welcome Gabby home on the 29th of December.  Remember the hotel room wait time for Eliana's adoption? Well, Gabby was born in our home state so that wait time didn't apply and we got to bring her home as soon as she was discharged.

Gabrielle means "God is my strength." in Hebrew.  Carter is the middle name her first momma chose for her.  We added the middle name Marie at finalization in honor of both of our paternal grandmothers.

She has three siblings who tell us almost daily that they are so thankful that Gabby is part of our family.  They all love her dearly.  Some of the love has to monitored a bit more carefully than others but our (not so little) family is complete.  We couldn't be more thankful and amazed at the gifts that each of these kiddos are to our family.

 Grandpa and Grandma meeting Gabby

 Grammie and Gabby

 The crew meeting Gabby for the first time

And the love that has to be well supervised.

Caleb Thomas

Last night we were browsing through photos on my phone and came upon a video of Caleb from last year at Christmas.  It's amazing to see how much he has grown.  And it has been great delight for us to watch him bloom in Kindergarten.  Preschool was not his favorite and he would much rather have been home.  Kindergarten is an entirely different story: he loves going, he talks about it, he learns a ton.  

Caleb's sweet spirit became even more apparent this year as he grew into his role as big brother to Miss E.  Eliana lights up and squeals with delight when we pick up Caleb at lunch time. 

Caleb loves to play games but he is not competitive.  At all.  We were guests at cousin Josh's party and the game for the party was soccer.  All of the boys got to be on the same team against the adults and for the first time, he really enjoyed playing.  When I asked about why he liked playing this time and didn't like playing other times he replied: "because we weren't trying to beat each other, all of the boys got to be on the same team."  Cooperation is the name of the game for him.

He and I have delightful afternoons: reading on the couch, making crafts out of the most random items in the recycling bin, playing games, making lego creations.  He has always been creative and content to make fun out of most anything so it is entertaining to hear him pretend and create.

Caleb doesn't like to be cold.  He chose to be a penguin for Halloween: "because that costume is warm and sometimes it's cold on Halloween."  He loves to play in the snow and such (and we all go out in this house) but he always wears wool socks, warm shirts, hats, gloves.  When we asked him about playing a sport this spring his first concern was about whether or not it would be when it was cold.  It makes his day when I have to drive to pick him up from school when it's cold instead of the walking we usually do (three times a day - to school, home with him at noon and home with Jman at 3).  When my dear mother left after being here for parts of two weeks (and walking the boys to and from school every day!) Caleb said: "I'm sad Grammie had to go home, but I'm happy that now when it's too cold for Gabby you will drive and get me in the car."

Caleb's singing voice is as sweet as ever and whenever we can talk him into a song, we do it.  This year was his year to start piano lessons and he loves learning to play and being able to play for friends and family.

Caleb Thomas.  We are blessed beyond measure to call you son.  Happy 6th birthday big little guy!  

Big C Turns Six

Caleb, the little man who arrived on a cold December morning, turned six in December.  He is such a sweet kid who his teacher says: "is a friend to everyone."  He most always plays with cousin Jake but he liked by the other students because "he's kind to all of the kids".  He wanted a lego snowman party so we had each of the five boys at the party build a lego snowman as the activity. (This turned out to be a genius boy party idea for winter parties)  

Caleb's reasons for things are often unique but entirely well thought out.  He told me he wanted pie for his birthday.  When we were talking about it, he told me he wanted apple pie and blueberry pie because they were warm and it is usually cold outside on his birthday.  We always make the kids'  birthday cakes so I decided to take on the task of making homemade pies for Caleb.  They miraculously turned out and I have the utmost respect for those who often make pies from scratch.

 Baby Katie was only one week old at Caleb's party.

Hodge Podge of Fall Fun

We love the whole fall season around here: the foods, the activities, the holidays and the birthdays (oh the birthdays... now every single grandchild on my side of the family is born between September and the end of December).  We take an awesome trip to the pumpkin patch on a week day (because as much as I love the patch, I detest crowds more so Jamie takes a day off for this kind of fun) and this year was entertaining fun for all, as usual.  My favorite and possibly the boys favorite is the pumpkin launcher.  I would pay the price of admission just to see that thing do it's magic.  As a former physics teacher it is great amusement to see those things launch across the lake or better yet, skip across the lake.

 The giant jumping pillow

 This fiery one was not to be held back by being only 13 months old... she wanted a piece of all of the action.

 On to Halloween.  I generally do not especially like Halloween.  Maybe it's because everything else is so busy that time of year and the costume preparations catch me by surprise and then, suddenly, I need to have a costume right now.  Add to that the particularities of the children in regards to how things fit and feel and it's just not my favorite.  However, I put on my happy pants and we go trick or treating and dress up and have an enjoyable time.  We had a penguin, a Chiefs player and a pumpkin princess this year.

The pumpkin princess and evening family pictures did not turn out.  I am not sure what happened other than it was just too dark.  She was sleeping during the school party so that's when all of these other photos were taken and I have no other photos that were recognizable.  So, imagine cuteness in an orange tutu.