Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Christmas is overwhelming

For our little Ukrainian princess Christmas was a little overwhelming.  Nothing major.  No melt downs or freak out moments but, we could tell she was overwhelmed.  At Christmas Eve service she lasted about 20 minutes, due to her nap rebellion that day so she and I spent the rest of the time in the lobby.

On Christmas morning, we could quickly tell that Dariya had never opened a present nor understood what the heck we were doing.   We sang Happy birthday to Jesus and read the Christmas story.   She hung in there for about 15 minutes opening a present or two then quickly was ready to climb into my lap to escape the chaos of her siblings.  When I got up to take more pictures she quietly went into the other room and lay down next to the dogs and read a book while Aidan and Alayna finished unwrapping their gifts.

Thankful that she liked all her gifts and has enjoyed playing with them the last couple days.
The look of wonder before we started opening

We love our books from Ms. Laura and Ms. Juanita


Aidan loves his new electric scooter
The girls have played non stop with their new doll house

One of Dariya's favorite gifts - a doll head to groom!  She has been carrying it around like a caveman!   But, hey it saves Alayna from being her victim!
Aidan made Jason a MCFC football pitch with players for Christmas

Aidan and Alayna had a blast opening everything and loved all they received.  We had a nice quiet Christmas morning then had an enjoyable evening at my brother's house celebrating with family.


Christmas night opening her present with help from Uncle Ed

5 comments:

Becca said...

Hooray for groomable doll heads!!! Glad Alayna can get a bit of a break... Love the football pitch Jason got! Hope he got to enjoy Boxing Day. :-)

Emily said...

Merry Christmas, Cannon family!

Tara said...

You, my friend, have been a HUGE encouragement to me on this road toward adoption. Just wanted to say thanks. :)
Btw, Christmas is overwhelming to ME and I was born here. She did great! :)

Mud pies and Moonlight said...

I so feel you, friend... The boys woke up early and opened their presents, THEN Paris and Paisley woke up and opened theirs and it was STILL nutty... Paisley was like, what the heck is all this...can we just eat already? :) Love the pictures though and I LOVE Aidan's new scooter...Talk about awesome!

Lacey said...

I forget the challenges that come from an older child that actually remembers the orphanage. Arina was so young, she has know knowledge of her previous life. I love the caveman analogy!!