Busy busy Ingrid

It seems hard to shift from our last post full of such sadness to a new post that is full of hope and promise and life!  We do celebrate the hope and promise that Quinn is with God but really, really miss him.

Today's blog has mostly pictures of our active little 22 month old.  She is
so full of life and energy! Each day she fills our house with laughter and smiles!

Ingrid loves to put on hats!

She is proud she can do it by herself.

Her Swedish hat

She loves the boys' baseball hats

Even Mom's hat!

 

Ingrid loves to wear all of our shoes

 

Ingrid loves to play hide-and-seek

She literally shakes and squeals with delight!

This is our favorite picture!!! 

Ingrid is full of smiles and her eyes just sparkle!

 

Ingrid needs a haircut ...

This is how she looks most of the time... hair sticking up all over.

She is not too sure of the haircut but makes it through with one tiny tear

Ingrid loves being outside

Eating the snow, touching it, throwing it, rolling in it!

Her brothers take her all over the yard- she loves it!

Ingrid loves playing with her brothers

Oskar reads her a book

He wants her to have good posture so they practice balancing with books, and pans, and boots- all on her head.

Noah dances with Ingrid.  She loves her big big big big brother!

They always fall at the end of their dance.  Noah's sweetest girlfriend ever!!!!

Ingrid likes to mess up the Sunday paper- especially Oskar's comics.

Ingrid pretends to hold a microphone by her mouth and shakes her head like she's singing into it.  It's quite funny.  Oskar turns the music way up and they boogie.

Her dance moves include jumping, twirling, nodding her head.  Wild to remember that she wasn't walking in September!

 

 

Ingrid has full control of her brothers...

 

 

She puts her hands in the air and squeals and her brothers follow her commands.  Here's a taste of it on a video.  It was really cute to us at first but now is getting so loud and it can last all through dinner!

 

 

One more video of Ingrid putting her beans down her shirt instead of eating them.

(try and ignore Kris' high pitch voice)  :)

 

 

 

 

XOXO
Ingrid and family 





The path to Ingrid...

     This blog was set up to someday show little Ingrid how much she was loved before we even knew her.  It hopefully helps document her story.  We believe all the steps on the path to Ingrid (although very frustrating at times) had a purpose.  God was orchestrating this path on His timing. 
     One of the things we had to do before getting too far in the adoption process was to decide which  "special needs" we felt we would be comfortable with for our family.  Quite honestly this was a heart-wrenching process as at times we felt we would be saying "no" to some children who needed families.  One of the special needs we felt confident in was a child with a moderate heart condition.  That was because for years we have loved the most wonderful little boy, Quinn, as he lived with a heart condition.  We had such respect for his parents and how they treated him, loved him, and let him shine!  Quinn was our Oskar's very best friend since the time they were in preschool together. We knew his parents' knowledge of pediatric heart care in the Twin Cities was extensive and so helpful.  We had joined the fundraising walk/run for Children's Hospital Heart Clinic the past few summers in celebration of Quinn.  When Ingrid arrived we were able to show Quinn that Ingrid had a scar on her chest like he did.  There were many days this fall when Oskar and Quinn would chase Ingrid and giggle and say, "oh she's so cute!" Quinn would say, "you are so lucky you get a little sister."  Then Oskar would reply, "yeah, but you are so lucky because you have a dog!" 

Quinn died a week ago suddenly and unexpected at the age of 8.

He died of cardiac arrest. 

We are so saddened by this tragic loss and will miss him dearly.  Our whole family fell in love with his smile, his enthusiasm, his attitude and his zest for life.  Oskar will miss playing football and hockey with him, Legos, and chasing little Ingrid.  We celebrate his life and rest in the peace that he is with God.  We grieve with his family and pray they feel God's arms wrapped around them.

What a blessing to have known and loved this little boy.



Ingrid's First Christmas

This really isn't Ingrid's first Christmas since she was 9 months old last Christmas.  But it was her first Christmas with her family and we cannot believe what JOY she brings us!  It was such a busy holiday time.  She did really good with the late nights and active household.  There were times we knew it was just too much for her.  We talked about all the changes.... the new foods and smells and trees and relatives, the presents and excitement and shopping.  Here's what her Christmas season looked like:

She loved the Christmas tree

 

She didn't really understand it all and learn to ask "what?" with her hands

As the days went by she got closer to the tree

Then she found all the goodies!

 

We tried on Christmas dresses

 We tried to get her to pose for a picture

But she would rather dance and jump

 

 The jumping and twirling were so fun!

Her favorite book right now is one we sent to the oprhanage with pictures of her family.  It is sweet for us to know the book arrived in China and that she could bring it home.

 

 

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Ingrid made Christmas cookies

 She even learned to make Spritz cookies!

Ready or not, she was told the Christmas story over and over! 

 She loved the sparkling lights and of course took as many ornaments off as she could!

 More sugar... candy canes were a hit!
Finally it was time to get ready for Christmas Eve service.  First a stop at the tree.  What joy to see the wonder in a child's eyes at Christmas.  We pray for little Ingrid that she will have a sense of awe at what Christmas really means.  An awe at God's gift to us and an excitement for all the joy He has to offer us!

This was an ornament we received this year after attending a memorial Christmas celebration at church where we remember Ingrid's cousin Elli who died.  Interesting that the glass ornament has a tag on it that says "strength".  Elli went through so much in her young years and we know what a strong little one she was!  Ingrid now too- she has to be strong to go through all the scary changes in her life these past few months.  Perhaps we can all learn from these two young girls!



"Joy" ornament

 

She tried to eat the pickle glass ornament.  Oh dear.
She didn't really sit through the Christmas Eve service even though her brothers were herdsmen, one gave a prayer, and there were animals wandering around.  She instead paraded up and down the aisles until it was time to take her out.  Perhaps it was ok that she was too busy to sit still.  Even with a wiggling child,  singing the Christmas carols with family and the joy of the season made Kris tear up with every song.  How thankful for this gift!

At home Ingrid tries on her new boots

 She has a confident stride, and is happiest with the least amount of clothes on.  This bothers her brothers because they think she is so skinny.

 Her other favorite thing is to lay her head on the hard floors.  Target and Costco have "inviting" concrete that she puts her head down on and just smiles.  She rolls over and over and is  content.  We are thinking that since she spent so much time in the orphanage on concrete floors (we didn't see any carpet) she is feeling quite comfortable here. A little bittersweet.

 Christmas Even dinner was quite interesting trying to fondue with little Ingrid, but it is our family tradition, so we gave it a try.  One of her favorite foods was Oyster Stew which seems to come out from more of the German side of Matt's and Kris' families.  Since lefsa was already introduced, we thought we should also pull in some of our other family foods.

After an active dinner we let her open a little teapot which she loved...

Technical difficulties make it so the video has to be watched sideways.  :)

 

Oyster stew and hot dogs in fondue made for quite a messy girl.  Quick bath before bedtime! 

 

 

 

 



Christmas morning!

 

 

 

It was a fun morning and a busy time with family at Christmas Lake.  She did not want to be in a group picture at home....

 And she did not want to be in a group picture at her grandparents house...

 

 

She was happiest when she could play with toys...

 

strip down and talk to her Grammie...

play with the nativity scene...

and when she could be a part of her brothers' rukkus...

She loved to play with their new things,

and barely made it out of the driveway before the Christmas celebrating had worn her out!!!