Pictures From Thanksgiving Break

Oh how I LOVED having all of the kiddos home over Thanksgiving break from school!

The atmosphere felt so much more balanced with the boys home! :) Not to mention that the girls love to play with their brothers! I did not hear one of my kids say “I’m bored” even once! There was always someone to play with, something to giggle about, or a goofy new game to come up with.

We are still enjoying the game “Zingo!” that the kids got for Christmas last year!

They can play it by themselves and usually get a couple of games in a day. For those of you adopting, this game is a fun way to teach your English learners a few words. Jennifer loves this game and is so proud that she knows how to say all the pictures in English now. :)

 

One of the things that we always do the day before Thanksgiving is decorate our house for Christmas. We head to a tournament in KC straight after Thanksgiving Day so I like to have “Christmas up” for when we get back. A tradition that we started with the kids a few years ago was that we got them each a small tree for their rooms, and every year they get to pick out an ornament from the store to put on their tree. This year the kids were more into it then they have ever been, asking me days in advance about when they would get to put up their trees! Here are the yearly comparisons from this year to last year…

And here are this year’s ornament picks…

Once again, I love how the kids’ personalities come through in their picks! This year Jayla was on a mission to find a ‘rainbow puppy’ ornament as she is really into rainbows right now. Currently Jennifer tags along with what Jayla likes, so she picked out something similar. [Justice was this way too until his personality really started to blossom about a year after he was home – until then he followed whatever JJ and Daddy liked]. Jasara went straight for the gingerbread man as soon as she saw it on the rack. She held it up to her chest and did not change her mind the whole time that we looked at ornaments! JJ picked the boxer hog because he is really into fighting/wrestling right now. And Justice’s pick really surprised me, until it clicked in my mind that he is our gift giver! He LOVES to give gifts, so how appropriate that he picked out the presents. :)

 

I wish I would have videotaped Jennifer and Jasara helping to decorate their tree for the first time. They were jumping up and down - so thrilled - and it was hilarious watching how proud Jasara was to put her gingerbread man on her tree! She kept going back into the room to look at the tree and touch her ornament after it was up. I did get our big tree up in the living room as well, but it wasn’t without a few snuggling intermissions!

A few more pictures and vids from the past few days…

 

Sing it girl!

Jasara is the first of Daddy’s girls to take a prolonged interest in the basketball!

Here’s a video clip of JJ reading to me among some backround chaos…

And here is a real quick clip of Jayla and Jennifer being goofy – Jayla had found out that Jennifer doesn’t like snakes!

Jayla has taught Jennifer how to do the ‘pretend read’ technique…here is a video of Jennifer trying it out which is hard to do when you have a limited English vocabulary!

Cool cats.

Serious studs.

I’ve started giving Jasara a front row seat during my cooking, and this has really helped her episodes of crying/worrying/whining for food when I am preparing meals. :) It keeps her mind busy watching me chop and stir and mix.

We got to do some swimming at the hotel this weekend….it’s so fun to get to do this during winter time! Daddy got a good ‘ol African sponge bath from Jasara…

Jennifer got some swimming lessons…

And JJ got dunked!

Who would have thought? :)