She's a Charlton!

Well, it is finally over! She's ours!!! Did you hear us shout it from the roof tops yesterday? We went to the lovely (sarcasm intended) City-County building downtown yesterday at 3pm for our court hearing. The experience was much different from what we expected. It was very formal and Dave and I each had to take the stand to answer questions and promise under oath to take care of Claire as if she was a birth child to us (obviously, not an problem!). In the end the judge did not play the role of Santa, nor did the clerks play elves. They did clap when it was declared that we were Claire's parents in the eyes of the State of Indiana. We were the last adoption in Marion County for 2008!

So, now Claire is a US citizen and we can apply for her passport and social security number. We will need to take care of this soon so we have time to get her passport before we go to the UK in the spring. We also have to have the passport to apply for her social security number. We need that so we can file our taxes this winter as well. So, we aren't really done with paperwork...

We've had a busy couple of weeks gearing up for Christmas too. Dave and I have both been busy at work. I agreed to work on a project to help out one of the Directors and it has snowballed in to the project from hell. What was thought to be a 1-2 week project has now been estimated to take 6 months! Anyway, it is job security, which is good in the current climate I suppose.

Jack is super excited for Christmas this year. His Christmas concert at pre-school was on Wednesday and it was hilarious. He decided for the second year running to sing his own acappella version of Jingle Bells between two of the songs that were being sung by all the kids. He just belted it out while everyone laughed! Then he played with the curls of the little boy in front of him on the steps for another song. And as a finale he kept sitting down and standing back up on the step he was supposed to be on.

His wish list for Christmas has grown by the day. We keep reminding him he will only get a couple of things and not the toys from every commercial on tv. He's even started telling us what Claire would like too.

We feel really fortunate this holiday season and we are enjoying watching the kids take it all in.

The first picture below is Jack at his preschool concert. The next ones are of us with the Judge after court and Claire eating her noodles when we went to dinner to celebrate!

All I want for Christmas is....

SLEEP! And, I think Dave will agree with me on this one for sure. We are dragging. The kids have been sick on and off since October and not sleeping well. Claire was sleeping pretty well for a few weeks in a row and now she has started getting a lot of separation anxiety and therefore screams several times per night when she wakes and realizes we aren't there next to her. Jack has also been acting out a lot lately and it is wearing on our patience given how tired we are. And if that wasn't enough it is the holiday season and therefore there are a thousand things to do! Ahhhhh

All in all though we are doing alright. Claire is still doing amazingly well with attachment and bonding to us. She is saying mama, dada, something that sounds like ack for Jack, and baba for her baby doll and picture of babies that are on our fridge. She also is really into dancing to any music she hears. She has taken a couple of steps now, but mostly prefers to crawl. We had her one year doctor's appt. today and our pediatrician thinks she is doing wonderfully. She is impressed with how well she is attaching to us and shocked at how verbal she is already given she has only heard English for three months. One minor thing we knew we would likely have to have taken care of, and the dr. confirmed today, is to have Claire's tongue tie corrected. The little flap of skin under her tongue is too far forward near her teeth and therefore she cannot stick her tongue out of her mouth past her teeth. It isn't uncommon and is a quick outpatient procedure. We will be using the same dr. who did Jack's ear tubs a couple of years ago. Not sure yet when we'll get it done, but probably after New Year. It isn't urgent and isn't causing her any problems, but it needs to be done before she starts speaking much more as it may delay certain sounds she needs to make to say some words.

The pictures attached below are of our trip on the Polar Express train ride in Connersville last weekend. We went with my mom, and Dave, Cynth and Andrew. The boys LOVED it! The rest of us enjoyed watching the boys enjoy it :) The other picture is of Jack started to decorate the tree at home with his ornament for the year.