I Don't Celebrate the Holidays...I Celebrate Every Day

...I saw someone post this on Facebook, "I don't celebrate the Holidays, I celebrate everyday".  And while I can't claim to celebrate EVERY day, I certainly TRY and appreciate each one.  Though life seems to be moving like a high speed train and we're all just trying to keep up, there's so much to be thankful for.  Today my sister gave birth to her 8th..yes, 8th! baby. She is absolutely precious.  Whenever one of my siblings has a baby, we all rush to see the baby in the hospital.  We celebrate Mom and baby with lots of gifts and their favorite food.  I brought Maggie some Bang Bang Shrimp from Bonefish.  It was so nice to hang out with her and the baby and my daughter, Lydia.  My heart sort of ached for another baby but deep down I think I'm satisfied with the bunch that I've been blessed with. It's been a very hard and long road to 'get there' but Ava is enough for us right now and there's a reason why she's with us and taking up so much of our time :).  She loves being the center of attention and when she senses that she's not...she'll quickly remind us with a random trick from the orphanage. 

I need to get my Christmas cards in the mail but of course, I haven't written my annual Christmas letter yet.  I've been feeling so 'not deep' lately that I cringe to think I need to write this letter.  It will eventually be written but I'm just not in the mood to write. 

So, back to celebrating life every day.  I know Ava is very grateful every day that she wakes up and she's not in her grupe.  I know she's aware of the challenges of living in a family, as wonderful as it is, there are also rules that need to be followed and that can be tough.  Overall, she would not want it any other way.  Yesterday, after travelling back home from Ginger's baby's baptism we just did leftovers for dinner since the big kids had to get to church school.  I took out the food from the party the night before which included shrimp cocktail.  Ava pointed to it and asked for some.  She never asks for food.  She ate over 6 jumbo shrimp!!!  She loved it!!  Who knew?!?!?  I don't think they ate a lot of shrimp or seafood over in Lithuania.  I couldn't believe how fast she gobbled that down.  So, thankfully, it's not a food thing with her...just certain foods.  There's just still so much we don't know about her.  There's so much she cannot articulate and we can't get through to her.  Like the other day I said "Ava, who's in charge?" and she replied "Mommy's in charge and Daddy's in charge".  I then quickly added "Ava, who is the boss?" and she replied "Ava is the boss".  So she clearly is just repeating back to us what she thinks we want to hear.  She really does believe she is "in charge" and is an extremely bossy little girl.  That probably the second most difficult challenge with her after her horrible eating habits.