Since October we've been praying about and pursuing adoption. There are 2 children in our church who we are praying about adopting. Crazy...I'll update in another post sometime. For now I just want to keep up with fun stuff as it happens.

On Saturday we had The 2 over from noon until 7, then put them to bed at their house and sat until midnight. Mike's parents were still in town and the 6 of us had fun taking ornaments off of our tree; Mom Padilla handed the kids a few ornaments and they carried them over to me where I wrapped them up in tissue paper. At one point the Boy was looking at an ornament as he was bringing it to me and he said, "Hey, I made this!" I looked at it, and it was one of a few foam ornaments that had been included in a large holiday care package that our church had put together for it's members who were serving in the military. We had opened the care package a few weeks ago and thought these little child-made ornaments were so cute and thoughtful and we hung them on our tree. So here was the Boy holding this ornament that he had made which had made it's way to us. He was so excited! A few minutes later we found another one that he recognized and he said, "I made this one too!" and was so happy he jumped into my arms for a big hug. :)

The 3 guys took the tree to the lot to drop it off while the 3 girls stayed home and payed. Later we all went for a walk. It was so fun to watch Michael running after B on his bike, and G kept yelling after Michael, "DIA!" (she can't say "Mr. Padilla" or "Mrs. Padilla," so she calls us both "Dia."). Mike would turn around and run toward her and I'd run pushing her in the stroller until we crashed into him, G giggling so hard. So fun!

The kids call their foster parents Mama and Papa. When we were giving the kids a bath later that evening, G was sitting there playing, and quietly sang to herself, "My mama, my papa, my brother, my Dia." Precious.