As a snapshot into our busy and blessed first holiday season with the girls, I thought I'd share a song (fortunately, only the lyrics will be communicated via blog):
On the 1st day of Christmas, we shared an entertaining evening with the rest of the campus at the annual Christmas Party and Talent Show. We ate yummy holiday food, sang Christmas carols, were reminded of the real reason for our celebration, and of course, shared our amazing "talents" with one another. Two of our young girls sang Silent Night - 3 full verses a capella! Another of our girls did a Christmas Rap and organized a Christmas dance with a few other girls. It was a fun night! The damper to the evening was when we said good-bye to my previously posted about "my girl" who left us to live with a relative; it was a hard good-bye indeed!
On the 2nd day of Christmas, we decorated our tree! Not much was left in the decorating department by the previous houseparents, so we let the girls pick out their color scheme and supplies from scratch and build this beauty (Monticello Billies Colors).
On the 3rd day of Christmas, we attended the Monticello Christmas Parade! It was a fun night of bundling up for the great chill of 40 degrees and enjoying all the festivities. We made a hot chocolate run afterwards to the only place open with Hot Chocolate: Sonic!
On the 4th day of Christmas, we had a Christmas play! Our 6th grader was in a Christmas musical at school which I had to construct the costume of a "gift" for. She looked adorable and did great, and it was fun to see her thriving at school!
On the 5th day of Christmas, Michael and did a lot of shopping! Though we know the girls get a bit spoiled at Christmas with lots of donated presents, we tried to pick out one thoughtful present for each girl just from us to share on Christmas Eve. This of course took some thinking and planning and TIME!
On the 6th day of Christmas, we did some Christmas wrapping! I believe an entire day off I spent turning the living room of our apartment into Santa's workshop and wrapped through several Christmas movies, but oh what fun! Tis the season!
On the 7th day of Christmas, we did some Christmas crafts! The Junior Auxillary Women's Club hosted a Christmas Craft night for all the girls on campus. They were served pizza and goodies and then given a large, square ceiling tile. Then, they painted them up to their liking and hot glued cute ribbon to it and they became brand new, super cute bulletin boards! It was a fun night to watch the girls express themselves artistically.
On the 8th day of Christmas, we decorated the house! Michael went to great lengths to stretch our budget and decorate the outside of the house as wonderfully as possible for the Outdoor Lights contest among the campus homes! It looked great with lots of lit garland, bows, and class. It took him several hours to engineer where every extension cord needed to go to connect all of our trees and railings to the two outlets we have. We took 2ND PLACE - Woot!
On the 9th day of Christmas, we helped sort the gifts in Santa's Workshop. Because only 3 of our girls were here when they filled out their Wish Lists for Christmas, we had a lot of random gifts for our house with a lot of new girls. So, I spent an afternoon, helping Santa's helper shuffle and re-orgranize until every girl had an impressive pile of presents to open that they could enjoy. The girls really are overly blessed by the donations of so many of the churches that sponsor us. It's nice for them to have the distraction of new material things or shopping cards to spend, but it does not take away from how much they miss their families at this time of year.
On the 10th day of Christmas, it was our CHRISTMAS SURPRISE! We'd been telling the girls we had a suprrise that day for weeks! A wonderful group of donors from FCC donated the means for us to have this awesome day with the girls. What the girls do not get to experience normally, despite their many gifts, is the art of giving to others. Each girl recieved a gift card and a name of another girl in the house and then had the afternoon at the mall to find just the right things for them! They LOVED picking things out for each other, and we LOVED seeing them think of others and be stretched in this way. Then, we were further blessed by gift cards to share a holiday family meal together at Chili's which was so fun and something some of the girls had never done before!
On the 11th day of Christmas, it was Christmas Eve! We introduced the girls to Puppy Chow which we whipped up in the kitchen together. We made some Pinterest Ornaments to add to the tree in teh afternoon. In the evening, we read the Christmas story and exchanged our gift exchange presents. Then, we got all dressed up and went to the Candlelight Service at our church. It was an evventful and fun day focused on Christ and the gift He gave to us!
On the 12th day of Christmas, we awoke at 6am to see what Santa brought! Our little ones kept us entertained with their new toys and excitement, of course! We had a big breakfast and played games (we got the house Just Dance 3 for Christmas, wahoo!) and the girls ate too much candy. Then, some of the girls had family come visit in the afternoon, which was special for them. One of the girls got an EasyBake oven, so we had an adventure with that, too! We let them make a complete mess with their things until it was all over and they had to take it up to their rooms and crash into bed.
*Some events may have been portrayed out of order or smushed together to fit into the structure of the song :).
Following the madness, we were so blessed to get to travel home for the first time since the move for about 5 days in Salina seeing family and beloved friends. It was truly a wonderful time for us, and so wonderful to see so many people we have missed. We are now recovering from the travel and preparing to see the girls again and for the week ahead!
On the 1st day of Christmas, we shared an entertaining evening with the rest of the campus at the annual Christmas Party and Talent Show. We ate yummy holiday food, sang Christmas carols, were reminded of the real reason for our celebration, and of course, shared our amazing "talents" with one another. Two of our young girls sang Silent Night - 3 full verses a capella! Another of our girls did a Christmas Rap and organized a Christmas dance with a few other girls. It was a fun night! The damper to the evening was when we said good-bye to my previously posted about "my girl" who left us to live with a relative; it was a hard good-bye indeed!
On the 2nd day of Christmas, we decorated our tree! Not much was left in the decorating department by the previous houseparents, so we let the girls pick out their color scheme and supplies from scratch and build this beauty (Monticello Billies Colors).
On the 4th day of Christmas, we had a Christmas play! Our 6th grader was in a Christmas musical at school which I had to construct the costume of a "gift" for. She looked adorable and did great, and it was fun to see her thriving at school!
On the 5th day of Christmas, Michael and did a lot of shopping! Though we know the girls get a bit spoiled at Christmas with lots of donated presents, we tried to pick out one thoughtful present for each girl just from us to share on Christmas Eve. This of course took some thinking and planning and TIME!
On the 6th day of Christmas, we did some Christmas wrapping! I believe an entire day off I spent turning the living room of our apartment into Santa's workshop and wrapped through several Christmas movies, but oh what fun! Tis the season!
On the 7th day of Christmas, we did some Christmas crafts! The Junior Auxillary Women's Club hosted a Christmas Craft night for all the girls on campus. They were served pizza and goodies and then given a large, square ceiling tile. Then, they painted them up to their liking and hot glued cute ribbon to it and they became brand new, super cute bulletin boards! It was a fun night to watch the girls express themselves artistically.
On the 8th day of Christmas, we decorated the house! Michael went to great lengths to stretch our budget and decorate the outside of the house as wonderfully as possible for the Outdoor Lights contest among the campus homes! It looked great with lots of lit garland, bows, and class. It took him several hours to engineer where every extension cord needed to go to connect all of our trees and railings to the two outlets we have. We took 2ND PLACE - Woot!
On the 9th day of Christmas, we helped sort the gifts in Santa's Workshop. Because only 3 of our girls were here when they filled out their Wish Lists for Christmas, we had a lot of random gifts for our house with a lot of new girls. So, I spent an afternoon, helping Santa's helper shuffle and re-orgranize until every girl had an impressive pile of presents to open that they could enjoy. The girls really are overly blessed by the donations of so many of the churches that sponsor us. It's nice for them to have the distraction of new material things or shopping cards to spend, but it does not take away from how much they miss their families at this time of year.
On the 10th day of Christmas, it was our CHRISTMAS SURPRISE! We'd been telling the girls we had a suprrise that day for weeks! A wonderful group of donors from FCC donated the means for us to have this awesome day with the girls. What the girls do not get to experience normally, despite their many gifts, is the art of giving to others. Each girl recieved a gift card and a name of another girl in the house and then had the afternoon at the mall to find just the right things for them! They LOVED picking things out for each other, and we LOVED seeing them think of others and be stretched in this way. Then, we were further blessed by gift cards to share a holiday family meal together at Chili's which was so fun and something some of the girls had never done before!
On the 11th day of Christmas, it was Christmas Eve! We introduced the girls to Puppy Chow which we whipped up in the kitchen together. We made some Pinterest Ornaments to add to the tree in teh afternoon. In the evening, we read the Christmas story and exchanged our gift exchange presents. Then, we got all dressed up and went to the Candlelight Service at our church. It was an evventful and fun day focused on Christ and the gift He gave to us!
*Some events may have been portrayed out of order or smushed together to fit into the structure of the song :).
Following the madness, we were so blessed to get to travel home for the first time since the move for about 5 days in Salina seeing family and beloved friends. It was truly a wonderful time for us, and so wonderful to see so many people we have missed. We are now recovering from the travel and preparing to see the girls again and for the week ahead!
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