Christmas pics and "The cake"

I really wish I could post pictures of the foster girls on here, because most of my Christmas day pictures have the two of them in them and they are so adorable! We got them a week before Christmas, and we couldn't ask for sweeter, easier to take care of girls. They are six and eight, and, with the exception of helping the younger one wash her hair, they are completely self-sufficient and they play, eat, and sleep very well. Clara loves them, too. I wish we could just keep them until we are done at the end of February, but CPS is doing background checks on an aunt and uncle right now, so I bet they'll go in a week or two. Bummer.

Christmas was really, really good. It was fun to have these two girls for the week leading up to Christmas. We made some type of cookies or Christmas goody pretty much every night for that week, made a lot of simple Christmas crafts, and talked a lot about the Nativity Story. By the time Christmas came, all three girls had that story down pat! We we also very blessed this December with gifts for the kids . . so much so that Jeremy and I didn't have to buy anything for them. The first night they were here, I took them to the YFC Christmas party, and we brought home a big bag of gifts from that. Then, a church group brought over three large garbage bags with about 7-8 wrapped gifts in each one, one bag for each girl here. We also got clothing vouchers from Sears for these two girls, which we haven't gotten for pretty much ANY of our other foster kids . . so I spent that money by myself and wrapped up all of those things for them. Both sets of grandparents were also here on Christmas day, so, needless to say, there were plenty of gifts.

We have never been able to spend the actual Christmas day with both sets of family, so that was a real treat. Jeremy's parents came two days before Christmas, so we had a yummy fondue dinner on Christmas Eve, went to Rainier View for their service (all dressed up, I might add . . . all four of us girls and Jeremy were looking pretty festive!) and had lots of cookies to eat that night, too. In the morning, we read a fun book about the history of stockings that relates that activity to Christ, opened our stockings, ate a nice brunch, and then opened a bunch more presents! My parents, Melissa, and Sara came in the afternoon for another round of present opening, a dinner of ham sandwiches, and finally, the big cake ceremony that everyone had been waiting for!

My friend, Adeliz, made us a birthday cake for Jesus, so that we could celebrate his birth as part of our day's festivities. However, this cake had a second purpose, too: to reveal to us the gender of the twins! She was to either make it pink or blue, depending on what the ultrasound technician had written down for me two weeks earlier. Both sets of grandparents were so antsy to cut into this cake, and I made them wait longer than they wanted to! In fact, as we were finishing dinner, Dewayne came up to me, put an eggshell timer on the table in front of me, and said, "Alright. When this timer goes off, we cut the cake!" These pictures are out of order, which annoys me, but you can get the general idea. We have it all on DVD, too, thanks to my dad! VERY obviously pink cake!
Cutting that first slice . . my heart was pumping so fast!

Pulling out that important slice. Everyone was yelling and hugging each other at this point

And here are a few pictures of Clara opening gifts. She was so funny all day . . I didn't know how she would respond to opening presents, but she really got into it. Once she did one or two, she just kept wanting to go to the tree and grab another one, thinking they were all for her. She'd say, "Clara's?" or "Another one Clara" and point to herself. We had her deliver the ones that weren't hers to other people. She got way too many things, and I snuck away some of it for her birthday or to pull out in April when the babies are born.

She really liked everything in her stocking . . . she probably would have been satisfied with just that stuff!