A Levario Christmas

This year was special to all of us; both of our new daughters were finally together from Ukraine and Estonia and all of our children were able to be here. I cherish the time we can spend with them more than I do gifts. I am blessed to have my children close-by still, I know that is rare.

Brian took care of Meghan and Kara while Tom and I were in Estonia adopting Amanda. The girls adore their big brother, Amanda is getting to know all of our adult children, she does not see them as often as she does us. As you can see, Meghan does not like to share Brian with her two little sisters, however today she told me, I love Kara, and I love Moo (Amanda, who we call Manda Moo), so I guess things are not all bad!

This is one of those pictures that came out blurry, doggone it, it was such a good picture of my kids too! In case you can't read what the picture says, it is Julia, Fred, and Brian.

I snuck a picture of Terry, he does not like pictures either, there are three of us in our family who avoid them, Terry, Eric, and ME!

So Terry has to forgive me for putting this one in here, but like Eric, he ducked every time he saw the camera.

Hi Terry!! :o) Terry got some art supplies for Christmas, he enjoys visual art like I do, he and I like pencil art, and he is really good with charcoal and makes amazing ceramic designs. I am thinking of doing some ceramics with the girls, 25 lbs of clay is not too expensive, and we can have lasting memories.

I loved this one of Julia and Brian, it came out so well, so many I took did not, I just do not get why that happens, but oh well...

Brian was 6 when Julia was born and he wanted me to send her back, she got too much attention being the first girls after 4 sons, though it did not take long for him to adore her and take care of her.

Brian is so busy with theater, we do not see him as much as we wished we did.

Julia is also away from home a lot, you know how high school life can get.

Our pictures would not be complete without Eric, yes, that is him behind his hand, yes, the third person who hates getting his picture taken. I keep telling him, he will regret that when he gets to be my age and there are only a handful of pictures of him. I think my brother has some of me, maybe? LOL

Julia holding up her new jacket, she looked cute in this, and I was glad to remember that Julia had said she loved a jacket like this once before. I love finding things my kids enjoy.

Check out the movie in the background; A Christmas Story, Tom's favorite movie for the holidays.
Meghan did not care about her gifts after seeing Enchanted, she adores that movie, and she wanted to go back to our room and watch it, after she put on her new dress that is! She is finally enjoying dressing dolls, and got a lot of clothing for her new Barbies and Our Generation dolls. Of course, Barbie is pretty hard to dress, so mommy gets the honor.

Kara really liked opening her presents this year, last year she looked so confused and somewhat scared by all of the commotion, mommy was sick, a cold I fought while I was in Ukraine hit me like a ton of bricks when I arrived home, I spent the next two weeks in bed, thank goodness for Christmas break, my husband was home take care of me.

Her big brother Fred helped her, she thought it was a lot of fun to toss the toys around, though she hugged her new dolly to her, she threw her as well. Kara adores throwing things. She is really into cause and effect. She is also walking like a champ, no longer has her arms out to the sides and can hold a toy and walk at the same time. Way to go Kara! We are so proud of her.

Amanda and mommy opening her presents. I am hoping this will engage Amanda in play a little more, she barely recognizes that toys are for playing. It is hand over hand right now, but she did push one flap down on her own.

Amanda's favorite thing right now is sitting on our laps and getting hugs and kisses, who can complain about that? She also likes to sit in the sun, smart girl, getting her Vitamin D.

That was the gift opening part of our Christmas day. Right after we had finished, the CO alarm went off and the monitor was flashing DEADLY GAS. We all looked at each other because we felt OK, I was nursing a slight headache, but my allergies was terrible so I figured that was why. My husband looked up the instructions and the papers said, call 911 and evacuate the home. So he did and we all went outside to wait for the fire department, feeling rather foolish about it too, I might add. Still better safe than sorry.

After a 10 minute wait the firemen arrived with their carbon monoxide detectors, they asked if we were OK, Fred and I felt headachey, but everyone else was fine. They went in and took readings, no CO, and they said we could safely return to our home. They also said it was likely our monitor was faulty, oh boy, they sure are not cheap. Thank goodness we were all OK though.

For dinner we had ham, rolls, peas, and mashed potatoes. Tom and Terry did all the cooking. Eric made two cheesecakes, they were really yummy!

Grandma came by for a while, but she is struggling with a knee replacement and tried to enjoy herself, but I think she was in pain. :o( Tom showed her the girls blogs, she had never seen them, and it was the first time she met Amanda.

We finished off our day seeing When the Earth Stood Still, the little girls were so good too, Amanda fell asleep in my arms and Kara intently watched the movie. It is VERY difficult to get all of the kids to the movies together, they all scatter in different directions at the end of the day. Then there is sitting together, there are 10 of us, and we never leave on time, so usually we sit in the front three rows. Our theater decided they needed to charge for all kids over the age of 1, and we had to pay for Kara and Amanda even though they sat in our laps, kind of irked me, and we will not be going to the movies anymore, it was $47 for Tom, Amanda, Meghan, Kara, and I. Ouch!