We are home!!! This ornament sits in a beautiful plant in our house that is our pretend tree for the year.

The flights went amazing-in Addis he fell asleep in the airport and then a very nice man from Toronto helped me on the plane with him (hint flying solo with 5 year old who has just really met you 2 days prior could become an Olympic event). Once on the plane to Amsterdam he did very well--one flight attendant got to know him quite well during turbulence when he needed to go to the bathroom and the pilot would not let passengers out of their seat....well she certainly helped a ton (plus he was soo cute, she kept giving him extra snacks). While in Amsterdam I had coffee with another CHSFS dad while M slept (fyi like clockwork he would fall asleep either right as boarding or leaving a plane-and those walkways are long!). We also experienced our first escalator, once-twice-three-twelve times (hint he really knows the word "more mommiee" quite well after that one).

On the plane to Minnesota he fell asleep for the first 4 hours!! At that point I really realized how much we had been constantly together, and how much I enjoyed a few moments to read (the passenger next to me let me borrow a New Yorker), or eat something by myself. Once back up we watched Cars II and Smurfs--in slow motion, fast forward, reverse, Chinese and maybe even in Dutch (hint first remote and own tv connected to it-at some point I just gave in that we would be hitting the call button every 10 minutes).

The entry into Minnesota was far less stressful then Washington DC-we were first in our line-got through and baggage within 20 minutes....then the elevator down to meet the family.

Thanks to amazing girlfriends-Rob made it there in tact and we have a ton of beautiful pictures from it. Tears all around and the next part of our journey starts (I promise to blog more on this-but I am sensing I have about 10 more minutes of free time before the boys (Rob and M) are up.

I hope you all have an amazing weekend celebrating the birth of Jesus~ I know our family we always hold this season extra special to our heart.