Our Christmas Break

Ok, I will start at the beginning. We started a tradition last year (it was our first Christmas with ANY children) that we would start out by taking a drive to look at Christmas lights around our neighborhood and area then we would come home make cookies for Santa (of course eat a few) then watch a Christmas movie downstairs in front of the Christmas Tree (last year was Home Alone 3, this year was Polar Express). This year wasn't so "tradition" based. Riley spent a majority of the week (from Wednesday morning on to Friday evening) Christmas with his mom so on December 23 Daniel & I took the 2 kids and went on a Cruise to the North Pole. It is a holiday cruise on Lake Coeur d'Alene where they set up a North Pole scene on the other side of the Lake with Santa and his workshop and the tallest Christmas tree. When we came home I wasn't really feeling the best and my ear hurt then by the time I got up on Christmas Eve my ear REALLY, REALLY hurt. So I went to the doctor to have them tell me I had an ear infection. So Christmas Eve we spent at home. Christmas Day was good though because I wasn't in pain until the next morning. I got up and was SOOO dizzy I felt so sick. So I took some Dramamine and felt better to have the same thing happen the next evening. So needless to say our Christmas break was an interesting one this year.

Anyway, Christmas Day was fun. Natalie really enjoyed opening her gifts. She wanted to help everyone else open theirs or do it for them. Natalie got a stroller for her babies but now that Corbin is close to walking he likes to push things around while walking which means Corbin & Natalie fight over the stroller. Corbin will push it round and get stuck. When he gets stuck he squeals to let you know he needs help. We have gotten to the point where we will make him get himself out of the predicament he is in so he will learn how to the next time. IT has helped a lot. Overall it was a fun Christmas. Now onto the New Year.

This is the two of them just after coming down the stairs and seeing their presents

Give him a few minutes to warm up. He just woke up

This is Corbin walking. He started at the Christmas Tree and kept going-he will be there by the time we go through the Temple. You go Corbin
This is one of Natalie's new outfits

This is not staged. They actually sat down and ended up back to back.

Aikele Family Reunion

We traveled to Blackfoot, ID for our annual family reunion in July. We had a friend of the family take some pictures for us that turned out really cute. I have published a few of the ones that I have. I know there were many more cute ones of all the grand kids but that would take years to upload. So here are ones of my family.

Eagle Watching

We were given FREE tickets to go on a seasonal Eagle Watch Tour on Lake Coeur d'Alene. We were really not sure if we wanted to take all the kids with us especially where it was so cold. We were told that this tour was specifically for young children and everyone got a free cup of hot cocoa. So we went. It was a lot of fun but not sure we would ever do it again with 3 young children. Riley spilt ALL his hot cocoa all over him, his pants, the chair he was sitting on, and the table, Corbin wanted to get down and crawl, and Natalie wanted to go walk outside along the boat so she could see the water plus they were ALL tired. What a ride. You had to have binoculars to see the Eagles so the kids didn't really know what we were looking at. I think the next time we will wait until they are older.

This is Daniel & the three kids waiting to get on the boat

K so I know there is an Eagle in this picture. They are so small the hare hard to see. If you look about half way up the pole then look to the left you can see a little white head.

This one also had an Eagle but I couldn't find it now. If I remember someone said it was somewhere aroudn the house.

This is just part of the scenerey while out on the boat.

Will this EVER end???

Wow-it has been a while since I posted. Well, October 30 came and went and two days later we heard from Natalie's Case Worker that the judge has granted termination of parental rights. We were absolutely ecstatic. So the file was transferred to an adoption clinician and the adoption process was ready to begin. Then we got word that Natalie's mom has appealed AGAIN which means the case now goes before the Idaho Supreme Court!!!! So now we are in the waiting game again. We now wait for the supreme Court to review the case and make their decision. There is some good news in all of this. This is as far as she can go she can't appeal anymore. Some more great news is that we can continue to work towards adoption knowing that there is an appeal on the table so that when we do have the final word from the SC we can immediately set an adoption date. We won't have to wait on anything else. So we now pray that the SC will see that there has been two other terminations and dismiss the case. We can only hope and pray. I strongly believe we are looking at middle of 2010 for an adoption.