O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

I married a smart man. Yeah, I know you know Nathan has a lot of technical knowledge and expertise about a lot of things we all wish we knew, but he's also smart in some practical areas too. Like anticipating that Ellie would have a hard time coming down from a visit to Nonna and PaPa's house for Thanksgiving.

So he had a plan. And so when as we packed our bags and Ellie asked the invariable question, "What's after _________ [in this case, 'we get home']?", he was prepared with an answer that would give our future-oriented daughter something to anticpate with excitement, not just result in an audible groan, whine, and inevitable grumpy mood the remainder of the day, "But I don't want to go home and get ready for school!"

His reply was, "When we get home, we'll decorate our Christmas tree!"

The secondary brilliance of Nathan's plan was that it would force ME to consent to bringing out our Christmas tree from storage and decorate at least some part of our home for the holiday. Lest you think I'm some sort of "scrooge" I want to point out that we do have THREE full-sized (and one mini) Christmas trees out in the center. And given that we only have about three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas travels, I'm usually too worn out just thinking about putting it all away again to have an ounce of energy to pull out a fourth full tree, our own personal tree, and decorate it in a less visible space.

It turned out to be a wonderful Sunday evening family activity. Thankfully I had the foresight some years ago to purchase plastic -- not glass -- Christmas balls, so they survived several attempts by Reni to crack them together like Emeril cracking two eggs for breakfast. Ellie had fun discovering a few ornaments of her own, including one framed photo of her first Christmas with us in Albania four years ago. Wow -- what a change! The Nativity Set was a huge hit with Reni who looks like he's getting the whole "imaginative play" concept down (check out the video at the end). In the end, it was the perfect way to end Thanksgiving weekend and begin looking forward to Christmas. [scroll down to post below to see Thanksgiving pics -- this is a 'double poster' day]

Shall we say "cheesy smile?"

(Kelly -- per our conversation last night, this is the referenced tree pic taken at ISO 12800, 1/80th, f 2.8, no exposure correction)

Thanksgiving with the Waggoner Family in Ohio

Saturday, before Steve & Rachel's crew headed back to IL.
Can you tell the back row was prepared for the Ohio State/Michigan game?

Found Photos: Reni's last 24 hrs in Albania

My Dad had the idea to photograph Reni next to some landmarks in Tirana so that when he returns, he can revisit some of the same places, knowing he had been there. The photo above is at part of the University, at the very end of the Boulevardi, very near Mom and Dad's place.

Touching a statue of Mother Teresa

Pivoting 180 degrees from the first photo, a view down the Boulevard towards the center.
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Mt. Dajti

Mother Teresa turned 100 this year and in her honor, Albania be-ribboned the country in her honor. My loose translation of the first line of the banner above is, "Where there is peace, there is God."

Looking at the Lana River

Outside the Lincoln Center (and where we attend church in Tirana), the former residence of Enver Hoxha, the dictator.

Mr. Chicken -- our favorite take-out for easy, rotisserie chicken!

Gjyshe and Reni looking surprisingly chipper for 3:15AM, loading up the van outside the apartment to drive to the airport!

Reni's boarding passes in hand!

Boarding the 5AM flight to Vienna

I love how you can see the sunrise in the window behind...

At the Austrian counter in Vienna to get the rest of everyone's boarding passes.

Jetlag and Dad's whirlwind 48 hour visit is catching up with him.

Immigration stamp, leaving Albania

Nathan was able to get online as soon as the flight opened up and reserve these seats in the bulkhead. As you can see, Reni just fits.

A new American Citizen!

Passed out on Jan's couch. I have a similar photo of Ellie, but not as modest. (She was so hot, she had stripped to her shirt and underpants).

Almost home! On the flight to Lexington!

Licensed to drive!

Spending time on our knees

A couple of days ago while checking out of Wal-Mart, Reni was distracted by the loud banging of a lady building a display for Christmas products. For conversation, I mentioned to the cashier that it sounded like the builder would feel better after taking out her frustrations on the shelving unit. The cashier smiled and said, "Maybe, but when I am frustrated I hit my knees instead of a hammer." After agreeing, I left Wal-Mart smiling and thanking God for the reminder of how important it is to have 'knee time' daily!

Reni is getting more and more 'knee time' but in a different way. Most children learn to walk by first spending weeks if not months mastering balance through standing, but even when he is not in his prosthetics, Reni is trying hard to 'walk' before he can 'stand.' This desire for vertical mobility seemed to coincide with getting his prosthetics as he would bounce up out of a crawl and rapidly take a few steps on his knees before falling back into a crawl. He sort of looked like a young boy trying to master the wheelie on his bicycle. At first he barely made a step or two, but soon he was hitting 5 or 6 steps before returning his hands to the ground (or sometimes ending up sitting down). One thing was constant, and that was speed. The faster he moved his little legs, the longer he could stand up and the farther he could go, but he really wasn't gaining much stability. Reni's physical therapist has encouraged us to help him practice standing and balance, and I think some of those exercises are starting to pay off!

Tonight his knee walking has started to change. His 'standing' is more deliberate and less simply bouncing up, and while he still is pretty speedy in his 'walking' he is showing more balance and control. He is progressing so fast that I was afraid that if I didn't record this stage he would be gallivanting around fully and we would miss the transition.

Below are two short videos I shot from my phone. My guess is that by Christmas he will have this mode of transportation basically mastered.

Dedication Images

On Sunday we presented Ellie and Reni to be dedicated at our church.

Pastor Steve unexpectedly shared the microphone with Nathan to share a little bit about the kids. We jump at any opportunity to share what the Lord has taught us about Himself through our adoption experiences of these two! Sue (in red) faithfully followed the blog this past summer and kept the church prayer bulletin updated frequently with our needs during Reni's adoption. We are grateful for our church family!!! Friday night I have been asked to share with the 4th-8th grade girls missions group about our adoption experience. They are serving byrek for supper! I can't wait! Pray for me though -- it's not an age group I'm very familiar with!

Ellie was given a wonderful daily Bible.

After church we ate at O'Charleys. We were sad that Nonna and PaPa were unable to come at the last minute but are glad that Nonna is doing much better now and that she had an opportunity to share with students at her university about adoption from a grandmother's perspective!

Reni is very proud of his new ability to drink from a straw. Check out that look. Yes. We get to see that sweet smile every day. All he has to do is catch your eye and he'll flash you a grin. Even if his mouth is full and he's drinking out of a straw! Such a happy, content little boy.

I'm trying to be good about posting his developments and interests. I don't know if I've mentioned how much he likes tractors and big trucks with loud engines. He says some sort of 2-syllable word that sounds sort of like "tractor" and will point if he sees or hears anything resembling heavy equipment. He generally notices it before I do! It's like all boys are hardwired to like that kind of stuff, or something.

In preparing for tomorrow evening's program I thought I would go back and scan the blog to refresh my memories from this summer. I don't think I had revisited our summer posts since writing them and quickly lost a good 90 minutes, drawn back in time before Reni was "ours". My heart was full, as were my eyes with tears, re-living our experiences. None of us deserve God's goodness, but my goodness, has He piled it on us these past five months.

I don't think I have shared much here about the initial roller coaster of emotions I experienced when we first learned about Reni and weighed the decision to pursue his adoption. In spite of assurances and confirmations we sensed from God, there were still moments during those first few days in mid-April when I would be gripped by fear and doubt. It was so unexpected -- his needs were nothing we had ever imagined parenting.

Now I can't imagine life without this little charmer with blonde hair and brown eyes. My fears have been washed away in a sea of love for this precious boy. He and Ellie just act like they've always been together and genuinely love each other (you should see them reunite at the end of a school day). I still melt when he lifts his arms for me to pick him up, then lays his head on my shoulder and says, "ahhh." Though he's STILL not sleeping through the night, we wouldn't trade him for anything, of course. ;-) His determination is an inspiration and no doubt we will marvel throughout his life at what he will accomplish. Dedicating Reni on Sunday was so natural. He and Ellie are such precious gifts, Reni feeling particularly unexpected, that we stand in awe every day that we have the blessing of parenting these two children. Thank you for praying for our family!

Field Trip to Bi-Water Farm

I can't believe Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK!!! Where has the month gone? We had Great Commission Congress week on campus the first week of November. I was excited to share at a joint hall Koinonia on my old hall, Kresge 3rd-Mid! Last weekend we were excited to host my family for Reni and Ellie's dedications at church (photos to come at a future post). The days in between have been a blur of work, appointments, and daily life. As mom and dad have put the farm to sleep they're now preparing to return to Albania and I've been frantically sorting through pictures to send back to Reni's orphanage with them (thank goodness for Wal Mart's 1-hour photo processing via the internet that lets a procrastinator like me send photos into cyberspace that can be printed in Illinois for my parents to pick up this afternoon)!

My digging found these photos from Ellie's school field trip that we joined in Georgetown, Kentucky...

Ellie was happy to ride on the hayrack. Reni was not so much. He cried to ride on the tractor pulling the hayrack, thanks to his recent visit to Gjyshe's machine shed and ride on his John Deere.

A photo to prove I was there! It was COLD and WINDY!

Ellie and her gal pals, Chloe and Essie.

The entire county's Kindergarten visted the same day so we also ran into my freshman college roommate (Amy) & suitemate (Sarah)! Who knew 17 years ago that we'd all have children in the same class in Jessamine County?

Little hams.

Yes, our children brought home an extra souvinir besides their pumpkins. Given the price of corn, we probably should have offered to pay for this ear.

Here is Ellie with her special ed teacher -- she has a whole teaching team and loves them all!

If birds could talk...

Reni's favorite thing to say these days is "uh-oh!" He also says, "Hi!" and "dye-dye" (bye-bye), "Meh" (more), and "ha", which is Albanian for "eat".