December

I haven't blogged in a few weeks. Things have been kind of stressful around the house, but we've also had a lot of blessings and a lot of fun things have happened.

The first major thing that has happened is that my son turned four. It's been really hard to believe.

He was so little and cute!

For some reason, with the passing of my grandfather last month, I've had a lot of repressed sadness coming out. My son is really growing up, and the fact that he still doesn't have any siblings has been really hard this month. We are so grateful that Kevin is a part of our family. He makes us laugh and he has taught us a lot. I love being a mother, and it hurts so much that Kevin is still alone. Grig and I have to not only be his father and mother, but also his siblings. I grew up surrounded by siblings, and it is really hard for me to believe I still have an only child.

However, I also am aware that many people aren't even able to have one child, and I know how lucky we are to have our son. I just long for him to have siblings and I know that there are still children missing from my family.

On a less sad note, his birthday was awesome, and he was so excited! He told me exactly what he wanted for his cake, and I did my best.

The day after Thanksgiving, we put up our Christmas decorations. I was too excited to wait any longer.

Kevin had a great time with that too. I was super excited about Christmas until my grandfather passed away, and then it was  hard for me to get the excitement back, but around Christmas Eve, I started feeling it again.

The week before Christmas, Santa came to the library again, and Kevin was really brave. Before we went in, he told us that he was going to be brave and not cry. He also informed us that he was going to sit on Santa's lap.

He was very brave, and he sat in Santa's lap.

He told Santa that he wanted Justice League toys for Christmas, and Santa said, "I'll see what I can do." Kevin told everyone that was what Santa said. He was pretty excited.

Christmas Eve we had a party at my maternal grandparents' home where we reenacted the Nativity. It was a lot of fun. We left a little early so we could get Kevin to bed at a good hour. As we were leaving, it began to snow pretty hard.

We took a picture, and then we put Kevin to bed.

Christmas was on Sunday (as you are all probably aware). We woke up to over a foot of snow and it was still snowing. We looked at the presents that Santa had brought. Kevin got his Justice League toys, and he was thrilled! Then we ate breakfast and went to church. They only had Sacrament Meeting, so an hour later we came home. Allopex and Havelock came with us, which was nice, because later their church was cancelled.

We opened presents after we returned home. We were all pretty happy with what we received. Kevin got a lot of new books. I got some fun movies, and Grig got some things for a Halloween costume that he's pretty excited about.

The dogs enjoyed Christmas too, and they're pretty patient with us.

Allopex and Havelock are going to be moving out of our home this week. Hopefully, we're going to have our foster care paperwork all finished soon, and we'll have some more children join us.

2017 is going to be an interesting year.