christmas joy

It's been a rough week.  A week where something goes wrong, and you think - this couldn't possibly get any worse. And then it does.  

We ended up at home with no particular plans for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Never something I desire for, as some do, but something that occasionally happens with our families spread out.  We finished up putting our life and house back in order around dinner time Christmas Eve.  

Time to rest.  Well, as restful as life can be in the presence for our three energetic little ones.  Eager to open gifts.  Anticipating Santa's deliveries.  And, without exception, vying for attention.  The children drudged through a half dozen Christmas carols around the tree (just as I did as a child) and in a flash the gifts were opened.  It gets harder every year, but we really do try to keep gifts simple. 

I got my first good night of sleep in over a week, when I wasn't awakened to hear of Santa's arrival until after 6am.  There was evidence on our front step (deer prints in the snow, no joke) and in our stockings.

There was nothing fancy about our Christmas.  Our cars never left the garage.  We put together new lego toys and did crafts.  We played fox and mouse in the snow and drank hot chocolate.  We made a ham, but we do that often.  

But we lit our five candles at our table and read our advent devotional, and, because we had reflected on the story so many times in the last weeks, I let the kids fill in the blanks. And the angel said to the shepherds,  "Do not be afraid, I bring you good news of great joy, a baby is born.  He is Christ the Lord." (Reggie's translation.)  And there were many angels singing, "Glory to God, and peace, good will to men." (Lydia's translation.)  Brett was listening but much too busy eating his second helping of stuffing to interject.  

But it is not "as the old story goes".  Our Savior is born to us this day.  Our hearts are filled with hope.

After lunch we snuggled up and watched Disney Planes.  To clarify, Lydia watched the movie, Daddy and Brett napped, Reggie bounced around, and I looked at gardening ideas on pinterest.  But we were together.  And I didn't mind a bit when Reggie bounced up on me, gave me a kiss and told me, "I love you, Mom, Merry Christmas!"

As promised, our next activity was sure to bring delight.  At Thanksgiving, my parents, who are downsizing, bestowed upon us our twenty-five-year-old (!) nintendo, which we had not gotten around to playing yet.  All I can say is this was really fun.  Crazy how much detail Bryan remembers from that long ago, and downright amusing to race on the power pad!  And when Brett's Mario plummeted down a pit, his gut-laugh was shear joy.

We rounded out our day with left-overs and making one more batch of Christmas treats.  Not that we needed any more treats!

It certainly was nothing fancy, but I had the three best gifts.  Hope of a Savior.  Love of our family. And experiencing the joy of a nothing-fancy Christmas.

(My camera is broken and it's too much work to upload pictures from my phone to the blog.  Maybe another day...)

survivor blood vs. water made my blood boil

We are devout fans of Survivor.  We have watched every episode of every season.  When Bryan travels during the week, which he often does, and as was the case this week, I don't possess enough impulse control to wait to watch it til he gets home later in the week.  Every Wednesday, as soon as the last kids' head hits his pillow, it is on.

This season brought a new twist.  It started out with a tribe of returning players pitted against a tribe of "loved ones".  Each returning player brought a "loved one" to play Survivor with and/or against.  There's a variety of relationships resented including brothers, lovers, and mothers/daughters.  So, even though the season is "blood vs. water", not all the relationships are "blood" relationships.

This weeks' episode featured returning player Tina and her daughter, Katie, in a challenge against each other where one would continue the game and the others' game would come to an end.  Tina won the challenge, ending Katie's game.  Tina had a meltdown, amidst she says, "I was adopted and I don’t have those connections in my life. It wasn’t until I had her that I felt my first connection”, and goes on to describe the connection as a "pure, unadulterated, complete love."

This statement stirs up some pretty unsettling feelings for me.  Sadness.  Anger... fear.  Sadness, because, as much as reality TV is reality, I'm sorry this was Tina's experience and how she has resolved her beliefs about her adoptive relationships.  I can't argue that her feelings were wrong...a feeling isn't right or wrong.  Relationships are so complex, I do have a hard time accepting that any one particular factor, even a big one like being adopted, can dictate a level of connectedness.  This is where my anger comes in.  My anger is that adoptive relationships tend to be presented in the media as a "less than" relationship.  I am not saying adoption does not come with it's unique set of challenges.  I'm saying I'm glad my boys weren't watching. And I'm saying I'm six and four years into adoption-connections that are different from my connection with my daughter, as no two connections can be the same, but are definitely not "less than".  I would whole-heartedly to my core describe my connections with all three of my kids as "pure, unadulterated, complete love."  Which brings me to my fear.  I am the mom in these relationships.  I don't know what it's like to be adopted, only to adopt.  I can only strive and hope and pray that my boys will throughout their lives experience true connectedness within our family...regardless of blood or water.

Happy 6th Birthday, Brett!

Happy Birthday to our four-footer!  You are distinctively thoughtful and considerate, distinctively handsome, and distinctively quirky.  And a little mischievous to keep us on our toes.  

 I am so thankful that God chose me, of all people, to be your Momma.

Portraits in this and previous post, and future posts by Brittany at Sonbeam Studios.

Happy 5th Birthday, Lydia!

Our peanut is five! 

How appropriate that every once in a while our daughter's birthday will land on Thanksgiving.  What a gift to have this little one born to us, always full of surprises, and just a little sass.  She is the littlest and the middlest but will not be overlooked, outshined, or underestimated. 

We thank God for you, Lydia June!

trick or treat

 Robot.

 Ariel.

 Robin.

fall

 

 

 

discovery

 I love it when we discover a new park come across a park we've never been to before.  I always think, "How could I have not known this gem is only 15 minutes from our home?"  And it is our favorite place to be until we discover something new come across something we haven't experienced before.

Childhood is all about discovery.  Every experience is something new.  A joy of parenthood is rediscovering by entering into the world of our children.

Each kid has their own tire swing!

 And there are endless rocks to throw into the river.

 And a big stick to....

My little girl will not let a chill in the air cramp her style and her shoes are on the wrong feet...just details.

 And there are no monkey bars my five-year-old won't tackle.

 

Spinning. Climbing. Sticks. Water. Rocks. 

 Discovery.

"t" is for tent...and trust

The one is at school and the two homeschoolers are playing too harmoniously to be interrupted with formal learning, so I have two choices.  I could clean the bathrooms, or I could brew another cup of coffee and update the blog.  My choice is obvious. 

God's Little Explorers, the preschool curriculum I've been using, goes through the Bible chronologically with a new story every week and a theme with a letter (not alphabetically) that goes along with the story. 

A couple weeks ago (as you can see I have not posted to the blog, or cleaned my bathrooms, in a couple weeks), our story was about Abraham and how God promised him he would be the father of a great nation, but first Abraham must pick up everything and move.  Where?  God did not tell him, he was required to trust without knowing the whole plan.

The curriculum developed a theme around "'t' is for tent".  On the first day of the week, it was suggested that we pack up as if we were camping and set a tent up and read the Bible story in the tent.  So, on Monday morning after Brett was off to school, I announced excitedly to the preschoolers that we were going on a adventure!  "Get your backpacks!  Let's pack a snack and sleeping bags and flashlights!"  Reggie was totally on board.  He ran around the house in blind trust, gather stuff for his adventure.

Lydia.  Not so much.  She wanted to know what we were doing.  "Are we going somewhere in the car?  When are we coming back?"  She stomped her feet and whined and begged and pleaded.  "Put your shoes on, it's going to be fun!", Reggie and I pressed on.  If Reggie had not been so enthusiastic, I don't think she would have joined in.  But she reluctantly followed us out to the backyard and finally joined in on the adventure when we started to set up the tent.

After "camp" was set up and we had our "s'mores", we settled in for our Bible story. Reading the story, we realized as the morning had unfolded, we had a real-life object lesson of  what it meant for Abraham to "trust" God and go, even when he didn't know God's whole plan.

This would be a cute, comfortable story if it was just about Lydia.  It wasn't.  How often in my life do I want to know the plan?  Am I so comfortable and set in my routine that I'm not open to doing something different?  Can I step out in faith without knowing the outcome, or researching my options, or doing what my middle-class-American culture tells me is best?

Do I trust - really trust - God, like Reggie trusts me?

on to football

If I can't be at a baseball game in October, I might as well be at a football game.  Can you sense my enthusiasm?

In reality, this was a very big day for the Wedan's.  It was our first game as season ticket holders!  In honor of this big event, we hired our sitter for the whole day - she actually spent the night so we could leave home at 5am sharp!  It's about four or four-and-a-half hours to drive, so we got to Green Bay around 9:30.  Time to tailgate!  Yes, we were eating hot dogs when most people would be eating scrambled eggs.



Up to our eight seats occupied by seven family members and a friend (and no kids - those days will come!) around 11:30.  It occurred to me I had never actually been to an NFL game.  The game was entertaining, the nachos were average-at-best, and we (and 78,000 other fans) got to witness the Packers' victory over the Lions first-hand.



The fall air was crisp, but a perfect weather day for football "up north", and the drive was beautiful.  We made it home by 8:30 to tuck the kiddies in.  Now, you don't have to be a fan of football to call that a great day!

10 reasons why I love home-preschool

I am a strong believer that what's best for one child might not be what's best for another, and this particularly applies to their education.  Brett started going to preschool shortly after his 3rd birthday, and I believe we made the right decision for him.  With Lydia, in particular, and for Reggie, this year, we carefully weighed the pros and cons, and decided I would do home-preschool with them.  Last year, we did home preschool also, but with Brett home in the mornings, and the two of them still taking naps, I had to squeeze the curriculum into less than 3 hours a week, not that they aren't learning through play all the time.  This year, we have more time to devote to it, and we've really enjoyed it.

Here are 10 reasons why I love home-preschool

1. It's (almost) free.  I use free resources online and check out books from the library.  Of course we need crayons and glue and construction paper, but we'd buy most of it anyway.  Here is the curriculum I'm using this year.

2 and 3.  Maybe it's just my personality, but I'm bothered by the time constraints and gas of taking my kids from here to there. (We will have plenty of years of that ahead I'm sure). We do home preschool on our time, in whatever we happen to be wearing, and the car stays in the garage a couple days a week.

 4.  It's everything times two with two four-year-olds.  I'm getting twice the bang for my energy.

5.  If I'm going to "stay-at-home" with my kids, I might as well have my kids "stay-at-home" with me!  I'm of the general opinion that we push our kids into too many programs too early and for their first five years, parents are their primary teacher.

6.  Each kid is different, and Lydia (who will be in kindergarten next year) is an eager learner.  She loves to sit-and-do learning activities, making my job easy (Reggie requires a little more creativity).

7.  Both kids separate well from Mom and Dad, one of the primary goals of preschool.

8. Both kids tend to make friends easily wherever they go, another primary goal of preschool, and they get plenty of opportunities to share and take turns with each other.

9.  Wow!  Lydia is starting to read!  And I get the honor of participating in the process.

10. Field trips!  A is for apple, so lets go to an apple orchard.  Z is for zebra, so let's go see one at the zoo!

teeth

It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating teeth coming in...

Brett, 15 months

And now here we are celebrating teeth coming out.

I have a feeling the Wedan's are going to be keeping that tooth fairy pretty busy the next few years!

now it's the kids' turn

We had our fun going to baseball games in August, it was the kids' turn to go in September.  Thanks to participation in the summer reading program at our library, we scored free tickets to a Twins game!  Brett and Lydia were both under two the only other time they had been to a MLB game, and it was Reggie's very first MLB game.

 The two main ingredients for keeping 4-and 5-year-olds content at games are coloring sheets...

 ...and sugar.

 See?

Maybe that was too much sugar for Reggie.

But for Brett, every event is all about the treats, so next up was the $16 "souvenir" bucket of mini-donuts.

 We survived 7.5 innings of not-watching the game and got a picture with TC before calling it a night.