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My mom is an even bigger Disney/Mickey Mouse fan than I am. We have our small bathroom decorated in Mickey Mouse. She has her whole KITCHEN!
I saw the idea for this Christmas wreath in the background of someone's porch for a fleeting moment on a tv show several years ago and tucked it away in my mind to someday make one for my mom. This year I finally got around to it. I delivered it last week.
And nicely watching a short movie. (I figured it would be a good low-pressure way to get used to us.) So far, so good. Next on the agenda, a little team-building exercise (ha ha... MarioKart.) Then our advent candles and story, then off to bed!
Pray for the snows to hold off tomorrow... I have a LONG drive to take J to school in the morning and pick him up later in the day. I'd rather do it without slick roads.
Our Christmas meeting for Keepers on Monday was a blast - we (including the boys and little kids) decorated Christmas cookies to share with our neighbors. The moms all brought something to decorate the cookies with, and either sugar cookies or icing. We iced the cookies and started passing them out, and the kids all decorated to their hearts' content. Enjoy the photos...
Sam had another appointment in Bellevue yesterday.
The first thing we did was stop in Kirkland for Teriyaki. Mmm... The restaurant was full, so we got it to go, and ate in the van. 2 specials (chicken teriyaki, rice and marinated cucumbers), shared between the 4 of us. It actually worked great. Brian and I sat in the very back of the van holding the food containers, and folded down the center seats. The kids sat on top of those, and shared our food. The kids ate more than ever! I had to beat Hallie away from my chicken with my chopsticks!! (Just kidding. We actually had some left over to give the boys.)
Next we were on to Sam's psychiatrist. Our synopsis for her: This isn't working! He's EXTREMELY emotional and the positive effects of the medications are inconsistent at best. We wanted to either try something else or (better yet) try him OFF the medicines for a few weeks. She met us halfway. We're dropping the Adderall until January (at least), but staying on the Abilify. Already today he's less emotional. Really.
Between that appointment and our meeting at our adoption agency, we had a little bit of time to kill. Luckily, I'd stumbled across (online) a little gem at a nearby shopping center.
A giant chess set! Sam was in heaven. No one was using the board, so the kids got to play most of a game before we had to leave.
The only downer were the creepy people hanging about. No one else was playing... there are evidently just a contingent of people who have nothing better to do than sit around on benches and stare at the chess set. Since both of us were there with the kids, we felt pretty safe (and it was inside a mall, so plenty of passersby), but I'll admit it gave me the willies when one man (either drunk or mentally ill, I'm not sure which) began trying to engage Hallie as she played. Talking to her about every move and repeatedly calling her "baby" in a saccharine voice. But all that aside... the kids had a lot of fun.
It was interesting to see how many available moves Sam didn't notice because the large size threw off his perspective.
About 3:30, we left the mall and headed for our agency to meet up with Bonnie, our homestudy specialist. She was running behind due to traffic, so we got a later start on our interview than expected, but we were finished by 6:30 or a little after. Her 14 year old daughter had come along to entertain the kids during our meeting. She brought a movie, snacks, coloring stuff, toys... they had a blast hanging out with her. Almost too good of a time, actually. As we were leaving, Sam whispered to me twice (I had to try to put him off to explain it when we got the car) "I had a lot of fun with her, mom. Can we get her?" We'd tried to be so careful about explaining this was Bonnie's daughter coming to play with them. And Brian made a point to tell them that even though we were going to the adoption agency, that didn't mean we were getting a brother or sister today... it would still be a while. Unfortunately, we evidently weren't specific enough. Somewhere in his mind, Sam must have decided they were "trying out" a new sister. He was so sad to find out that wasn't the case.
While we were there, we ran into Tammie, the agency director. She wasn't the director when we did our first 2 adoptions with them, but she was there, and actually did our very first interview before we started the process, so she's been on a long road with us. Of course, she was shocked to see how big the kids were. She stopped back in the room as we were packing up to leave and asked Bonnie what the timeline looked like to get our homestudy done, and she said because of the holidays it probably wouldn't be finished until January. "But they're foster licensed, right?" Evidently that's all it takes. She said she'd put us on her radar to watch for our kids right away - that since we are licensed, they could be found and placed in our home before the homestudy was finished. So... that's it. Tammie's looking and (although it likely will still be a while) it literally COULD be any day now.
That's what Sam still calls it. Regardless of having the pronunciation corrected repeatedly. CUP scouts. This week at Cub Scouts, the boys (and Hallie) made these cute little Christmas Tree projects. One for home, and one to share with a special person, like a neighbor or grandparent.
They painted, while I manned the blowdrier to try to get the project to dry faster!
Sam's leader this year has been so gracious to allow Hallie to not only hang out with me during the meeting, but to join in the projects that the boys are doing.
Cute trees, huh?
Cute scouts, too.
Hallie earned her letter-writing badge this month for Keepers. She had to identify the parts of a letter and the proper location of the items on an envelope. Then she had to write a letter to someone, address the envelope and mail it... and it had to get to it's destination!
Hallie, of course chose to write to her best friend... Grandma! The letter-writing part she had no trouble with (and Grandma was able to decipher it fine), but we had a bit of a power-struggle over the envelope. Hallie doesn't like to have to do things over, and couldn't seem to understand that if we couldn't read the address on the envelope clearly, then neither could the mailman, to get it where it was supposed to go! Eventually she finished, we dropped it in the mailbox, and it made it's way to Grandma's house.
Can't tell if she's proud of her accomplishment or more irritated with the process, but just glad to be finished! (Don't worry, it's not really THAT messy... I smudged the addresses in photoshop for privacy's sake.)
Sam just earned his chess belt look for cub scouts. Brian taught him over the course of three days, using tips I found online. This site had all the steps laid out to teach chess to a new student, along with "mini-games" to play along the way to reinforce legal moves for each piece.
We've played countless games already. He's really enjoying it, although he wants to invent new rules ("OK, this time the Queens are invincible!") The day after learning to play the full game, realizing we weren't able to play against him constantly, he taught his sister to play. The cat isn't catching on as easily.
Advent begins December 1st, right? That's when all the little advent calendars always started. Bummer to open the book we're reading this year for Advent (borrowed this copy from a friend - ours was ordered from Amazon and should be here any day now), and find we're already a day behind! So I guess sometime this week we'll squeeze in another chapter.
I'm excited about this addition to our Christmas traditions. We're always looking for more ways to put the focus on Jesus, while still having lots of fun. I'm very optimistic about this book. We also lit an advent candle while we were doing our reading tonight, which added to both the excitement, and importance for my kids. I know, they aren't the right colors for traditional advent candles... and I didn't have a candle wreath (nor the money for one), so we improvised... uh... an overturned Amazon.com box and a piece of foil (with some rubber cement adding to the stability of the candles). And the candles are what they had available on the 4/$1 coupon at Walgreens last week. Hopefully next year we can get something a little more traditional, but honestly... the kids don't care. Foil is shiny! :)
And a continuing tradition... my homemade utility-drawers advent calender.
Today's treat: Reese's Peanut Butter Trees!
No peeking!!!
