Happy Holidays from the Cuares family!

As I opened up this site I realized that it's been 3 months since I last updated it with a blog. I have updated pictures since then but never seem to find the time to write a little ditty about our little angel. Well, we are now 2 (going on 12) and life is good. Thanksgiving came and went and we are ever so thankful for the family that we have and what all we have. There are so many jobs being lost in Michigan so we are grateful to both have a job and income coming in. There are also thousands of foreclosed homes around us which is why we have not been able to put our house on the market to build a new one. We are hoping that the spring will bring some better news. 

The holidays are such a wonderful time of the year to share fond memories and stories of past holidays. We are looking forward to making new memories this year to add to those from last year, our first year with Ella Grace home with us. It seems like a lifetime ago that we were waiting and waiting for her referral to come with news of a baby girl waiting for us. When we look at her now and hear her talking and laughing, it's hard to believe that she hasn't been here all along.  Of course, those who know me know that she was here with us, just not physically. I talked to her, read to her, sang to her, and went shopping with her LONGGGGGGGGGGG before that phone call July 31, 2006 that told us we had a daughter.

Ella is amazing! Of course we are biased being her parents and all but she is! There is not one day that goes by that she doesn't do something new and genius that makes us laugh and ponder just how lucky we are. Now that she is talking in 3 and 4 word sentences and her vocabulary in 2 languages) sometimes 3 we are exhausted at the end of the day just trying to keep up with her. The energy comes from somewhere, I just don't know where yet. After working all day, we both sink into bed at night after cleaning up dolls, plastic food, plastic dishes, musical toys, ELMO dolls, and yes, sippy cups, we go to sleep dreaming about how amazing she is. From the first moment we saw Ella, she has had us transfixed on her every move. She is our universe and we cannot imagine or fathom her with ANY other family. Whoever matched us with this little wonder knew that it was perfect. Whether that was divine intervention or just fate, we are blessed beyond all realm of imagination.

I am going to try to keep up better with blog entries even though I probably will be better at adding pics rather than finding the time to write about our daily adventures. Right now, she is helping Daddy with his homework and eating lime Jell-O so I am finding the time to have some Mommy time. We had the day off today because we got about 10" of snow over the weekend so Mama got a snow day today from school. We went shopping and saw Santa (from afar) and thought about sitting on his lap but then adamantly changed our mind at the last minute. Ella is terrified of the real Santa for some reason. She loves seeing Santa figurines and seeing him from afar but when he reached out to touch her or gets close she backs away usually saying, "no, no, no way."  We'll try again this year before Christmas but I think we'll have to wait for awhile on the Santa pics unless we PhotoShop him in. Some of my students have told me that they were afraid of Santa till they were like 4 so ........... Mama can hope! We got a picture from another family that adopted with us today and she is screaming sitting on Santa’s lap. It was so funny and reminded me of Ella and the Santa mall ordeal.

That will have to do for now since someone is needing to sit on the potty before bedtime. Take care all and have the Merriest Christmas and the Happiest of New Year's (Year of the Rat).

Love,

Teresa, Randy, Ella, Jake, and Maggie