Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's {Sunday Snapshot}

We spent Christmas Eve at my parent's house with all of the cousins.  We went to 5 o'clock mass and then went to their house for a huge German dinner.  Afterward, we opened gifts.  A cannot stand the chaos of all of the little kids screaming and opening gifts at once.  She would much rather sit back and enjoy watching everyone open their gifts rather than everyone ripping and tearing and not being able to see anything.  So she decided to play "Santa" this year.  She gave gifts to the littlest 4 kids first, then once they were finished, she went on to hand gifts out to the next 2 "middle sized" kids.  It kind of worked...for a little while. ;)

 

Cara got a pink guitar.  Funny story about the guitar.  Christmas night she was laying in her toddler bed and I was laying with A in her bed talking.  Cara kept strumming the guitar and I would tell her to stop.  After telling her to stop 4 or 5 times, I said, "Cara, stop or I'm tossing the guitar out in the snow!"  She was silent for about 20 seconds and said, "MAN...someone's...PISSY!"  It was pretty funny!

 

B got mostly clothes for Christmas and he was happy with that.

A got a helmet for skiing.  Now she's on the lookout for new ski pants and a jacket.

It was a great Christmas for everyone.  The tree is down and we are now spending our time watching the final weekend of the regular NFL season.  Hope you had a wonderful holiday, too.

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A's 18th Birthday

A's 18th birthday was on December 15th.  She asked for cupcakes (chocolate with cream cheese icing) because she prefers them to cake.

 

She got a crown necklace from Uncle D and Aunt D.

We got her a WSU bikini.  Her present from us is a trip to Hawaii in February.  She is so excited to go!

She got a new ski jacket and a diamond bangle from grandma and grandpa.

She had a pretty great 18th birthday!

Christmas 2012

It has been a wonderful Christmas this year at our house.  I took this picture before we left for church last night:

Cara couldn't sleep.  She was too busy listening for Santa.  She wrote her first letter to Santa Claus this year and asked for a writing bear.  She saw it in a toy catalog and decided that was what she wanted...a bear you can draw on, throw in the wash, and draw on again. :)

A and B wanted new cell phones and they were so excited that Santa brought them!

Cara loves Hello Kitty and the WSU Cougars.  So when A got her a Hello Kitty in a WSU t-shirt, she was beyond excited! ;)

A got a crown Pandora charm from her brother and sister.

Cara had a huge hug for B after she unwrapped her Hello Kitty microphone.  Now she will really be able to sing like Taylor Swift!

I love that this boy finally enjoys unwrapping his clothes box. ;)

I got a new lens for my camera and I can't wait to try it out.  Its an EFS 18-135 mm and should be a nice, all-purpose lens to replace my kit lens that I use for all-purpose shots.

Merry Christmas from the Funks!

Terrible blogger!

I have been a horrible blogger lately.  Really, I haven't done that well all year.  My goal was to post more than the year before and that didn't happen.  We have been up to quite a bit this month with A participating in 2 lighted parades, B's wrestling season, family winter birthdays, and getting ready for Christmas.  I will try to post later tonight or tomorrow some pictures of the day.

Watching Day

Both Cara and her sister have dance on Tuesdays, and the first Tuesday of the month is watching day.  Dance starts for the year in October, so this was the first watching day of the year.  Cara looks so serious when she dances.

 

She did take some time to pose for me for a minute! ;)

Again, all business when she dances...

Cara did a really nice job.  I can definately see improvement from last year in just one month.

She Sleeps



"Orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names.  They are easier to ignore before you see their faces.  It's easier to pretend they're not real before you hold them in your arms.  But once you do, everything changes."  David Platt

 

November is Orphan Awareness month, and yesterday was Orphan Sunday.  I'm not a very political person, but I do feel strongly about promoting adoption.  I'm not a poster child for adoption and I won't bring it up until someone else does first, but I'm happy to talk about it.  I look at this beautiful, sleeping child and I still can't believe she's mine.  Two years later, I marvel daily at the fact that I get to be her mom. 

But I'm a realist.  I didn't "save" her.  She was a beautiful little girl with VSD on the shared list.  She would've been snapped up 10 seconds later off that list if we weren't lucky enough to have gotten her file locked first.  She would have gotten her family no matter what.  So when people say, "Oh, she's so lucky,"  I always smile and say thank you, but really I'm thinking that we are the lucky ones.  She's changed our lives.  She's made us better parents.  She's taught patience and the ability to love fiercly to my other two children.

Life dealt her a crappy hand in the beginning, and we're still working through the ramifications of that.  We probably always will.  But I didn't look to adoption to "save" anyone.  I wanted to adopt.  Period.  End of story.  I've wanted to do it my whole life.

But what about the kids still waiting?  What about the ones that linger for months on the shared list?  What about the ones dangerously close to aging out? They need families, too.  Am I done?  Is my family complete?  Cara says, "I'm the baby.  No more babies!"  Some days I think we're done, and sometimes I think we're not.  My question is, is YOUR family complete?  Have YOU considered adoption?  Is there a little (or not-so-little) one waiting for YOU?

Think about it.  Adoption is the best thing our family ever did.  Is it right for you?

Halloween 2012

Cara wanted to be a pirate for Halloween.  She loves pirates!  She had a pink pirate birthday party back in June.

 

She went to her cousin's house for the first trick-or-treat stop and then the 3 of them went trick-or-treating together in the neighborhood.

 

Last stop, Grandma an Grandpa's house.  Cousin Jake dressed up like the WSU mascot, Butch.

And as we were leaving, another group of cousins showed up to trick-or-treat, so I got a picture of all of them in their costumes.

Hope you had a wonderful Halloween!

Fall Pics {Sunday Snapshot}

This Sunday was just about the only day we have had this fall to get some nice fall pictures of the kids.  We just have too many other things going on.  I took the kids out to the usual places on the farm to take a few pictures.  The big one of all three of them that hangs on the wall in our bedroom is two years old!  I think I'm going to change it out for this one:

 

I just love this one of Cara!

This one turned out good of Bryan.  His eyes look cool!

I didn't get any good ones of Alison alone; she just looked irritated in every shot.  It's a good thing I already have a lot of her from taking senior pictures.

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Cara's Surprise



Last weekend we told Cara we were taking her out for a surprise on Sunday.  We told her she could pick where we had lunch and she chose Olive Garden so she could have their mac 'n cheese.

 

We took her to Toyota Center for Disney on Ice.  She really didn't "get it" until we go situated in our seats and she could see the set and the ice rink.  She was in awe of the whole thing.



The show featured three princess stories.  The Princess and the Frog:

Cinderella:

The third story was Tangled, but my pictures from that part turned out blurry.  At the end, all of the Disney princesses and princes came out in beautiful white and gold costumes.  Cara loved Mulan, of course!

We all had a really good time.  I think Cara is looking forward to the next Disney on Ice show.  I think she thought it was a good surprise.

Cara's Baptism {Sunday Snapshot}

We finally got Cara baptized.  We bought the dress in Guangzhou two years ago so she could wear it for her baptism.  It's pretty short now; short enough that she needed to wear white leggings under it.  We tried to find the next size up online, but didn't have any luck, so we made the original dress work.  She was pretty nervous for the whole thing, even though we explained the whole process to her multiple times.  She would say, "Now I have 3 special days:  my birthday, God day (baptism), and the one where we eat Chinese food (gotcha day)."

 

All my kids outside before we left:

Cara was pretty nervous for the whole thing.  She almost cried twice. 

We asked her in the car, "Do you really think we would let something bad happen to you?"  She said no, but it was just scary.

We went back to the house and had dinner, cake and ice cream.  It was her cousin Jake's baptism, too, so we had a houseful of people, two cakes, and a great, big celebration.

 

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Cara's Second Gotchaversary

How fun that Cara's second "gotcha"versary is on 10/11/12!  She just radiated excitement today.  They are learning about the letter "P" in Kindergarten this week so she got to wear pig pajamas to school today and they ate pancakes!

 

To top that off, she brought cupcakes to school for her class and her book, I Love You Like Crazycakes, which her teacher read for the class.

 

She came home, took a bath, and put on one of her Chinese dresses for dinner tonight at Panda Garden.  I talked her in to posing for a picture or two before we left.

 

Last night we watched her "gotcha" day videos.  We got to the part where she saw the nannies down the hall as we were getting into the elevator to leave and she started crying her little eyes out.  Cara watched quietly and said, "Man, I was really scared of that elevator!"

It was a little bit funny; she doesn't associate her grief on the video anymore with going away with strangers.  She thinks it was the elevator that scared her. ;)

What a transformation from two short years ago!

We love you, crazy girl, all the way to China and back!

Tickle Monster Before Bathtime

 

Cara loves to play tickle monster before bath:

 

Making Cider {Sunday Snapshot}

Yesterday was the annual pig barbeque that my parents put on for employees and customers.  It's a lot of fun with tons of food, live music, dancing, and making cider.

 

This is the only picture I could get because the cider press was swarmed with kids for the majority of the day.

 



I took this picture with my Cannon T2i and the kit lens.  I snapped it in automatic on the landscape setting and ran it through Florabella clean color.  I added paint-on color to the apples at 100% opacity.

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Homecoming 2012 {Sunday Snapshot}

Last night was a bittersweet evening.  It was A's last homecoming dance and B's first.

 

B went with his gf.   They both looked amazing!

A and her bf.  They both looked fantastic, too!

The plan was for all of them to eat an early dinner and get back to the house while there was still good light for a little photo shoot.  Well, dinner ran a little later than expected, so we had to do shots in the living room.

The girls:

The boys doing "the Tebow." :)

They had a great time!

The top pic was snapped with my Cannon T2i in outdoor automatic and edited with Florabella retouch and ran through clean color.

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