Happy Chinese New Year!

Ruthie could not stand to have Leah wearing a "China princess dress" without wearing one of her own. So even though the only other one we had was a bit small for her, she wore it anyway! The girls wore these dresses to church yesterday.

Catching Up: Tons of Christmas Pictures

Christmas picture extravaganza!

Christmas Eve - stockings

Magic set - Peter's favorite gift

Breakfast casserole with the giant inflatable dinosaur

Time to play!

Catching up: Tubing!

Over Christmas break, we took our annual trip to visit family in Michigan. For the second year in a row, we went tubing, and I think this is likely to become a tradition. Peter is a HUGE fan. Thomas was excited too, but he was involved in a major collision only his first or second time down the hill, and the poor guy did not want to go down any more after that. I don't blame him too much, because he got hit hard and probably had quite the headache. I hope he will want to go again next year!

Here is a video of one of our trips down the hill. The two stars of the show are Mark and me. Nick is the brave filmmaker:

Tubing 2014

Next up...lots of Christmas pictures.

Catching Up: Thanksgiving and my favorite Addams Family clip

Wow, over two months without posting. That should tell you something about our crazy lives. It hasn't been crazy in a bad way. We just have a lot of kids, jobs, and activities to handle. Coordinating the holidays (including two fairly large road trips) for a family of six feels a bit like you've been thrown into a three-ring circus.

For anyone who was unable to come to the Addams Family show live, some clips have been posted on youtube! You can browse the channel "The Actor's Charitable Theatre" to see what you would like, but I have to post my personal favorite:

"What If?" from the Addams Family

Over Thanksgiving, we visited my parents' house. It was a delightfully full house - Tim, Lauren, & Natalie came too! We ate turkey, watched football, and did Christmas early with my side of the family. One of the highlights was going to the local science museum with the kids. When we saw that the special exhibit was dinosaurs, we knew we had to take Thomas!

Leah did not like the bed of nails!

We think we're so hilarious :)

Gramps is also hilarious

Tim and Natalie digging for dino bones

Pete was the only one brave enough to touch the giant bug

This is what you get when you try to take a picture of all the cousins before feeding the youngest one!

Much better

Long road trip

Quiet van....for now

Stay tuned for a Christmas recap in February...

One Year!

Greg and I met Leah one year ago today in a government building in China! I don't remember if I have actually shared this video before, but here is the moment we met her for the first time:

Leah's Gotcha Day

A few photos from that day:

A view of Chongqing from our hotel room

Packing her bag, getting ready to go meet her

Moments before going inside to meet Leah

Mmmmmmmmmm!

With our dear friends, back at the hotel just after meeting our children

First dinner together. She likes pizza!