the story of our tree

This Christmas Season is filled with so much sweetness, I just almost can’t stand it. For the past two years we have been longing for one of our sons to be home and this year, they are both home. Our house is full of love and laughter and there is a completeness to this season we’ve not had in years.

Let’s take a look at some of the ornaments on our tree.

2009 ornaments: Bates’ referral picture

2010: Bates in his big brother shirt and Brodie’s referral picture

and this year, 2011- both boys smiling and home!

We moved into our house in the summer of 2007. That Christmas we put up our tree from our old house and it was like a mini tree in our den. The 12 foot ceilings just dwarfed the 7 1/2 foot tree, so I convinced Nick to get a new bigger tree.

I remember taking the tree down after that Christmas and thinking “man, next year I could be pregnant doing this or even have a little baby home. oh how great of a Christmas that would be”. We had just decided it was time to expand our family and I was so hopeful that Christmas of 2008 would be very different one.

Fast forward to Christmas of 2008. No little baby and I wasn’t pregnant. But as I packed away the ornaments I looked forward to Christmas of 2009 and knowing that it would be a very different Christmas. We had an appointment with a fertility doctor right after the New Year and I had hope that we’d have our little baby by next year! Little did I know as I was packing those ornaments up, my first son was being born a world away.

Fast forward again…. Christmas of 2009. A whirlwind year and yes, this Christmas was indeed different. We were longing and waiting for our son to be home in our arms. We were in love with a photo of the cutest little Korean in the entire world. I decided to mark that year with an ornament of our sweet boy’s referral picture on our tree and thus a new tradition was born! As I decorated the tree that year I knew, this time for sure, next year would really be such a different Christmas. Little did I know just how much….

Christmas of 2010. Our son, Bates was home. The joy that was felt in having our son home and seeing the magic of that Christmas tree in lights through his eyes was marked by a tinge of sadness as we longed for our Brodie boy to be home. Our first Christmas with Bates, our first Christmas as parents, and our last Christmas without Brodie.

And finally, this year, Christmas of 2011, our boys, both of them, are home. As we decorated the tree and hung those pictures on the tree, I took a deep breathe and looked around at my life. I watched as my husband unwrapped ornaments and handed them to our two boys. Bates would carefully walked them over to me and help me hang them as Brodie would swing his around, wack the coffee table with it, or shout “ball” and throw the ball in my general direction. What a blessed Christmas it is, indeed. Broken ornaments and all!