It's Been One Year!!

A year ago this week Bear was placed in our arms for the first time. I will let the video below do the talking.

We love you more than we can say kiddo.

To celebrate, we had the honor of spending the evening at an Ethiopian restaurant with our friends and travel buddies the Andersens. There are so many significant memories packed into December 27, 2009 and almost all of them include the Andersens. They took the video above. As you might gather from the video, they had already met their two gorgeous twin girls and still managed to play photographer and videographer for us. It was truly awesome to spend gotcha day with them and a little bit surreal to be together again with our children on this side of the world.

Who are the three Ethiopians looking at? :)

It doesn't get any sweeter than this!

Holy Night

There is a reverance about Christmas Eve. What this night represents frequently causes me to suck in my breath and cry. The night before the world changed. God was about to enter this planet as flesh and blood. Impossible to fully comprehend.

Christmas Eve 2009 was our last night in the house as a family of two. Molly called it Ethiopia Eve. We were packing, preparing, praying. The next day we were leaving for Ethiopia.

Tonight, with Ethiopia Eve heavy on my mind, I wait in anticipation of my God's entrance as a vulnerable baby. My awe runs deeper tonight, my head bows lower, holding this child He's given us in my arms.

Holy night indeed.

.............

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,

It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining.

Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!

O night divine, the night when Christ was born;

O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!

O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!



Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,

With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.

O'er the world a star is sweetly gleaming,

Now come the wisemen from out of the Orient land.

The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;

In all our trials born to be our friends.

He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,

Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!

Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!



Truly He taught us to love one another,

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.

And in his name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

With all our hearts we praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,

His power and glory ever more proclaim!

His power and glory ever more proclaim!

Firsts

So much going on around the Miller house. I am having a hard time getting the details of our lives recorded so we can remember this busy, happy time. With the holidays here, together we are experiencing lots of Firsts.

Here's one of the Firsts. Oshkosh overalls! I fully admit these are for my enjoyment and not Bear's. Probably since I was a teenager, I have regarded Oshkosh as one of the guilty pleasures in having a boy. Moms of girls look forward to the Christmas and Easter dresses, moms of boys (or so I thought) look forward to Oshkosh. I bought these for him a long time ago, and all Kohl's had left was size 18 mos. They seemed huge at the time and I half thought he would never be big enough to wear them. Well he is big enough, and he's wearing them. I took a picture to commemorate the donning of the overall. Here is his chubby belly in Oshkosh.
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We got our first snow of the season in Wisconsin yesterday. I was happy it came on a Saturday. This is the first time Bear can play in the snow and I couldn't wait to introduce him to it. Although I've lived in Wisconsin for many years, I did not grow up in the Midwest. I am originally a California girl, where playing in the snow at Christmas seemed dreamy. So this was my first time prepping a child for snow play. It took at least 30 minutes to get both of us dressed to go out. I was exhausted before we made it out the door. And I realized I didn't really know what I was doing. Hmm, do you put sweats on under the snowpants? How do you keep snow out of the boots? How do you keep mittens on a 16 month old? How do you keep up with the runny nose? Maybe he will be too hot? Maybe he will be too cold? Does it matter?

I thought our little tornado would love playing in the snow, but as it turned out, he was quite unsure of it all. He ran from the garage straight into the snow, fell, rubbed his hands in it, then turned around and ran straight back into the garage. First bite of snow below.

Some friends gave us the cute little sled below before Bear came home. Again, this California girl with idealistic thoughts of Midwest winters thought he would have a blast walking with me through the neighborhood in a SLED! Well, I would say he tolerated it. He was strangely quiet on the ride and just held on to the sides of the sled with no expression like, what IS all this? I think he was confused that the yard, the house, the neighborhood looked so different blanketed in white. I am not sure he knew where he was.

I am confident there's more snow in his future so he will eventually have fun with this.

Here is my handsome boy figuring it all out.

More Firsts to come!