This week is seven weeks since we arrived home with Chelley and Naika on November 26th. Here are some of the big and little firsts we've celebrated since that day (with pictures if I have them)!
11/28/13 -- First Thanksgiving Day. We had a quiet Thanksgiving celebration with my parents and my brother. Since we'd only been home two days, Grandma and Grandpa generously brought the Thanksgiving meal to us. The food was delicious, the company was wonderful, and we were so grateful to be celebrating that day full of thankfulness with our entire immediate family all in one place. I was also VERY thankful that my parents brought the turkey and all the traditional fixings over for us, because we would've been having toast and cold cereal if it had been up to me to fix the meal! With my arms full with our new girls, I was zero help with preparing the food but definitely found time to enjoy it. Sadly, I managed to get through that whole day without any pictures...clearly I wasn't in my right mind! I'm the queen of making sure every holiday and important family event is captured on film. Oh well. At least we had enough pictures from our homecoming to make up for the lack of pictures on Thanksgiving.
11/29/13 -- First bath in a bathtub for our Haitian girls. A tub full of water can be a scary thing for kids that have never experienced it before but they loved their first bath and played together for a long time! They both look forward to baths now and it's hard to convince them when it's time to get out. I won't be sharing bath tub pictures :) but here are a couple of pictures from after the first bath in their matching cozy pjs. We've been happy to see that they really do know that they are sisters and have more of a relationship with each other than we thought they would.
11/30/13 -- First time playing outside in our backyard and at the neighborhood park. It was a balmy 40 degree MN day and we knew we had to take advantage of the chance to play outside before the cold and snow really set in. I'm sure they thought it was cold compared to what they were used to playing in but they now know what REAL COLD feels like since they've now experienced -28 with windchills close to -60!! Anyway, they had a great time playing and Naika kept chanting "Let's Go!" as she went down the slide over and over again. I tipped off our favorite photographer that just happens to live a few blocks from the park and she showed up to capture some of the cuteness.
12/1/13 -- Chelley's first time at a store...to Wal-mart, of all places! I just needed to pick up a few things and she did a great job of helping me. She seemed interested in everything and not too overwhelmed but we did keep it short. :)
12/2/13 -- Naika's 3rd birthday!! This day brought a mixture of grief and joy to this mama's heart. Grief because Naika had never known what it was to celebrate a birthday in a family. Joy because every birthday from now on, she will be celebrating with her forever family! Grief because we'd missed her 1st and 2nd birthdays, but joy because we got her home just in time and didn't have to be apart from her on her 3rd birthday. Our celebration with Naika was sweet and simple. Grandma came over and brought a yummy chocolate birthday cake with her (Grandpa had a previous engagement or he would've been there too). The birthday girl really enjoyed being the center of attention and loved all of the gifts that she received. Kadi Tiede is also responsible for capturing the fun and beautiful moments of that day. We also had our first shortened version of home school with the older girls that morning. It was really easy going and short, but just wanted to introduce Chelley to the idea of how school works at home.
12/3/13 -- One week home! We took our first family outing to Grandma and Grandpa's house after we'd been home for 7 days. It was a small, safe place and good for all of us to get out of the house! Grandma made us a delightful and delicious meal and it was a joy to introduce Chelley and Naika to my childhood home. Words cannot describe how amazing it was to see them playing in the play house that I had grown up playing in with my sister and friends and that Maria, Annika, and Livie have found so much joy in over the years. I can't wait until this spring and summer when we can introduce them to all of the fun that can be had at Grandma and Grandpa's in the warmer months!
12/4/13 -- First family movie night...also known as "Pamy Woowie Night" at our house thanks to Livie's cute 3 year old accent. We watched the movie "Santa Paws" and everyone had a wonderful and cozy time. Chelley is still singing some of the songs from that movie. :)
12/5 and 12/9/13 -- First time doing their hair! I tackled Naika's first (on 12/5) and then Chelley's on 12/9. They each had over 70 beaded braids in their hair from their orphanage and those took a very long time to take out! I already shared some of the pictures of that experience on a previous post so I won't post them again. I've done 2 more hair styles for each of them since that first experience and I think I'm beginning to settle in and calm down about the hair situation. I won't be doing any complex styles anytime soon but I'm able to do some basic braids and twists and have been thrilled with the results so far. And let's face it...they are both adorable and beautiful and I'd really have to work hard to mess up how cute they are!
12/6/13 -- First time eating out at a restaurant. Culver's was the restaurant of choice on a sunny but COLD day in December. The girls did great and loved the food. We did skip the ice cream that day since it was barely above zero!
12/8/13 -- First time going to our beloved church, Calvary Evangelical Free Church. It just so happened that our first time at church with them was the Worship & Arts Ministries Christmas Celebration with full orchestra, choir, drama, solos, and more presenting the Joy of Christ coming to earth to rescue us. This is something that I would've been VERY involved in helping to plan, prepare for, and present if we had not been able to bring our girls home in November. It felt strange to sit in the congregation instead of participating up front but it was such a blessing to at least be able to attend. We hadn't been sure that our girls would be ready for a church service yet but they were as anxious as we were to get out of the house and they sat quietly throughout the whole service, just taking it in. I'm sure they wondered if this was what every church service at our church was like! I didn't take any pictures of us at church that day, but I will always remember how amazing it felt to finally have all of our girls with us as we came to worship our amazing God with our loving church family that day.
12/9/13 -- First time sledding and playing in the snow. That milestone had its own blog post as well so I won't post those same pictures again. Chelley and Naika both really enjoyed playing in the snow and sledding in our backyard. We've played outside many times since then and they have really acclimated well to the snow and cold. Chelley says that she loves snow and that it's not that cold! :)
Whew...even though we were cocooning and not going as many places as usual, I'm just realizing now that we really did manage to pack a lot into the first two weeks!! Those little excursions out into our community kept us sane while we all went through the first days of this huge and often overwhelming adjustment for all of us. I'll share more firsts soon in a part 2 post, since this post is already so long. Hope you enjoyed these glimpses into our first 2 weeks all together as a family.
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing and giving a glimpse into the adventures of your family. Can't wait to read more!
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