Meeting Santa!

So, we've been SOOOOOO excited for this holiday season, with Thanksgiving and Christmas, because this is Owen's first year home with us for the actual time period. Last year, we kept up our Christmas tree all the way to Gotcha Day and coming home with Owen. That way we were able to celebrate Christmas with him once we got him home. That happened to be in the middle of February, LOL!

This year, we've enjoyed having him home for Thanksgiving, and getting to spend the time with us and our extended family. It's been wonderful!  We had been trying to have children for about 4 years when we were matched with and given Owen as our son. Over those four years, my enthusiasm for Thanksgiving and Christmas, though still there, decreased with each year that we were wondering if we would ever be blessed with chidren. 

With Owen, celebrating these Holidays, have been extra special, and I think my enthusiasm is up more than it ever was before for this time of year!  We enjoyed seeing Christams lights with him, and singing Christmas music to him. Decorating the tree and the rest of the house with all our Christmas goodies! 

Yesterday, we took Owen to meet Santa for the first time. Now, we have been more focused on teaching Owen about Jesus and how it is Jesus' birthday on Christmas, and that he was born in a manger. We gave him a Little People's Nativity set that he can play with and learn about the story. He has told his grandparents and aunts and uncles about Jesus in the Manger, very cute;)  However, we hadn't exactly talked as much about Santa. So before we went out to meet him, I showed Owen lots of pictures of Santa, some cartoon, some real life, some with children on Santa's lap. I told him he was going to meet Santa and sit on his lap. Owen's response, "yeah!"

We got to the mall, luckily since it was during the week, it was maybe a 5 min wait. We got to see a couple other kids sit on Santa's lap, and Owen acted like he was ready. I sat him on Santa's lap, and quickly backed away. Owen just did a double take of the situation....looking back and forth from Santa to daddy and me. He almost started to cry, but I tried to make him smile, the elf taking the picture started making lots of noise,and Santa tried to tickle him. We were able to stop the crying, but no smile came. We were still proud and glad at how good he did. We got a pretty decent picture considering he didn't know the "strange man" holding him, LOL!   I'm soooooooo happy to be celebrating fully as a family and not from 2 different continents this year!!! We are super super Blessed, and I can't get over my amazement at the wonder of God's plan.   Here is Owen's pic;)

Ho, HO, Ho, Merry Christmas!!!!!!