Ray and Julie: Christmas & New Years & Birthdays! Oh My!

Introduction

We've been married for ten years. We love being an aunt and uncle to our nieces and nephews. We have been through the roller coaster of fertility options and are glad we explored those avenues. We now know that our children will come to us through adoption.
The purpose of our blog is for you to get to know us and to get word out that we are looking to adopt in the hope someone we know knows someone who is pregnant and considering
placing the child for adoption, and then refer them to us.
To the expectant parent, I don't know you or how you found yourself looking at this blog, faced with this decision to place or parent your baby. But I do know that you are a strong and amazing person for even considering adoption. God knows you and loves you. With His help and your faith I know you will be guided to make the choices that will be best for you and your baby. Know that we pray for you without yet knowing who you are.
Adoption is such a personal and unique experience for all involved and is different for each case. I believe the specifics of adoption are between the people involved and not for the general public. We do have a letter for you that has more information about us, our ideas on parenting, our families, our open adoption plans, and where you fit in. We want to get to know you and in doing so we can discuss more openly what adoption looks like to each of us.
Thank you for taking the time to look at our blog. I hope you will be able to get to know us through our posts. If you want to read our expectant parent letter please email us at jewelstewart@gmail.com and we will send you a copy.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Christmas & New Years & Birthdays! Oh My!

I spent Christmas Eve at my parents house because Ray worked the night shift both Christmas Eve and Christmas night. Nick and Katie and their girls were there Christmas Eve to open gifts with us and play games. Christmas morning Ray got off work and joined us for an hour or so to open gifts before he went to sleep while the rest of us went to Grandpa Doug's house. It is our family tradition to have breakfast at grandpa's house every Christmas morning. It is really fun to see all the cousins, aunts, and uncles celebrating Christmas together. On the 26th Ray and I went to Naomi's house where his mom and dad had spent Christmas so we could spend a little time with all of them and exchange our gifts.

Another tradition that we have is our New Years Eve party at our house. (If you can call 3 years a tradition). We invite our extended family over to eat and play games and eat some more. We always have Siagon Subs, my Great Grandma Zina's Cheese ball, chips and dip, and a veggie tray. This year we added sugar cookies to the party which the kids really enjoyed. Those who stayed until midnight rang in 2014 with fireworks!

January is a busy month for birthdays in our family. We have Kaitlynn (niece) on the 13th, Nick (Julie's brother) on the 17th, and Nick's daughter Sarah & Jennifer (Julie's sister) share the 18th. Kaitlynn turned 10 this year and we had a skating party with her friends and cousins, and aunts and uncles. We love getting together to play games so for Nick and Jennifer we had game night at my parents house. We played a few games of poker and a new game called "Bang".