Making A Home

Embroidery

This month at Keepers, our friend Stacy taught the girls to embroider!  We knew she could do it because blogs tell all.  And hers told us she taught  her own daughter a few months back.

We knew the girls could do this project.  What we weren't prepared for was how quickly every one of them caught on!  After a few quick instructions, threading needles and tying knots for the younger ones, they each sketched a picture and took off sewing!  A few of the girls finished their projects during the meeting.  The rest weren't far behind.  Hallie worked through the meeting, then picked it up again that evening.  She added to her sketch, and finished her project before bedtime.  After the agonizing months of encouraging her to complete her Keepers latch-hook project, this was a miracle!

She even convinced her brother to give it a try.  He sewed a star (from Mario), the first in a series of characters for his room.

 

I have visions of my children quietly engaged in their handiwork on a winter evening in front of the fireplace.  (Make that the heater.) :) 

Dumpster Diving

Remember R's teeth?  They were removed Thursday, and she is a MUCH happier baby now.  I've got a post planned for that whole ordeal when I get around to uploading the pictures.  But in the meantime...

I spent the evening digging through trash.  It occurred to me suddenly that it had been a few days since I had seen the little yellow plastic treasure chest (smaller than a quarter) that the dentist gave us with R's teeth in it.  The last place I saw it was the dining room table.  The same table I asked Sam to clear off for me a few days ago.  <PANIC!>

Me: Sam, have you seen R's teeth?
Sam: No.
Me: They were on the table when you cleared it for me.
Sam: I don't remember.
Me: In a little yellow box.
Sam: Uh uh.
Me: Are you SURE?  They were in a little, plastic, yellow box that looks like a tiny treasure chest.
Sam: Oh mama, I threw that away. 
Me: You WHAT??
Sam: I looked inside and it looked like bacon, so I threw it in the garbage.
(At this I had to shake my head and wonder why the thought of my keeping a little plastic box of bacon on the table wouldn't cause him to pause and question.  This boy who is so incredibly smart, and yet...)

So I put the girls to bed and Sam and I spent the next hour searching through three bags of nasty garbage... coffee grounds, banana peels, diapers... and finally found the elusive teeth.  We scrubbed with antibacterial soap and played a round of Mario Party 8 on the Wii to celebrate.

Valentine's Day

It was fun having three kids to shop for before Valentine's Day this year!  (But I bet we could cram 2 more on that little couch... they look miles apart!)

We started the day with a little bag of goodies.  For Sam and Hallie, a little box of chocolates and a heart-shaped brownie.  Sam also got colored pencils and a spud gun (that unfortunately hasn't really worked.)  Hallie got pop-a-point pencils and Strawberry Shortcake socks.  For R, we got a t-shirt with hearts on it, a snuggly fleece blanket and "Monkey." 

This baby came with nothing in the way of comfort items - no pacifier, no blanket, no stuffed toys.  We thought it wise to get her a little something to attach to... something comforting and familiar that can go with her when she goes home or moves to her next placement.  The blanket she doesn't seem interested in, but she does like Monkey.  :)

For lunch, our traditional heart-shaped pizza!  (Usually it's V-day dinner, but Brian had to work that evening.)  We started the tradition years ago, by buying the ones they offered on Valentine's day at Papa Murphy's.  But over the years they've gotten more expensive, less heart-shaped, and I've figured out our homemade ones taste better anyway!  I promise my pizzas are usually gorgeous.  It seems every time I post photos of them lately they look burned!  I took the first one out of the oven and it looked perfect... but the second one needed another couple of minutes.  Of course I didn't remember to take a photo until I pulled out the second one... that I forgot about for a few minutes.  I assure you, it's not burned in the least, just a little more "browned" on top than I usually shoot for.

For dessert that night, I also made a big heart shaped chocolate chip cookie, using the same (heart-shaped) pan as for the pizzas. 

Like I said, Brian had to work that night.  He'd requested Valentine's Day off, but didn't notice until a couple of days before it hadn't been approved.  But he did bring me flowers (a beautiful bouquet - a combination of white daisies (my favorite), red carnations and pink roses) that are currently gracing our diningroom table), and a nice selection of Lindor chocolate!  I got him a tin of "EXTREME LOVE"... very dark (60%, 72% and 80% Cacao) chocolate.  Oh, that and my undying love.  :)

Dolled Up

It was fun to take R to church with us this morning.  We weren't brave enough to try it with 3 under 2 last weekend!  We got her all dolled up in a cute dress I got at a local consignment store...

She sat pretty quietly through the service.  A few comments here and there, but mostly she stayed entertained with a stuffed toy I brought along and the zipper on her jacket.  Whenever she started to get fussy or wanted to get down, I'd just rotate her (facing me, facing Sam, facing front), and the change of scenery seemed to distract her well enough. 

I don't think I've mentioned R's teeth yet on the blog.  This poor sweet baby has 4 teeth (top front) that have rotted beyond repair.  I took her to our dentist last Tuesday and he said they needed to come out.  We can only speculate it was a bottle-in-bed problem, but the point is, she's in a lot of pain (grabbing at her mouth and screaming), which on top of the adjustment, missing her parents, etc... has made for a miserable time for her.  Infant Tylenol helps when the pain gets too intense.  Because she's Native American, her social worker has to take a few extra steps in order to legally clear us to get the rotten teeth extracted.  We had originally made an appointment for that Thursday, but we couldn't get clearance soon enough.  We postponed it until THIS Thursday, and are hopeful.  The dentist says she should feel relief immediately.

She had her first visit (since placement) with her birthparents on Friday.  Things went well, as near as we can tell.  She didn't react like Hallie used to.  (Hallie was only a few months old, but would "shut down" and sleep the rest of the day, then spend the next day spitting up and the next two days crying way more than usual.)  R seems pretty normal, despite the fact that this all must be so confusing to her.

Game Night

I promised the kids a game night if they cleaned their rooms without resistance every day for a week.  In a previous week, Sam had earned ice cream, but Hallie wasn't on board that week.  But last week, they faithfully cleaned them, every morning, as asked (I'm not so confident as to expect them to do it without any reminders.  Not yet.  Not these kids.  But someday.)

The kids each picked two games they wanted us to play.  Hallie chose Monopoly Jr. and Apples to Apples Kids.  Sam chose Chess and Mario Party 8 Wii.  I made pizza and brownies (in a game-night theme, tic-tac-toe, with marshmallow "o's" and peanut butter chip "x's") and served juice (a rarity with meals around here.)  The M&M's were prizes.

 

We ate in the livingroom while we played our first game, Monopoly Jr.  Even R got to join us, in her booster seat.  Though she didn't join in the actual game playing, she did get ahold of a couple of my Monopoly Dollar bills and smear them with pizza sauce.  :) 

Sam won Monopoly, got a prize of 10 M&Ms, then we moved on to Apples to Apples.  If you haven't played it, you should.  We all love the game.  We add an extra element to the game at the end, by reading our remaining (or won) cards out loud.  For the green cards that we won, we say "I am..."  (Some in my hand were "I am... noisy, helpful and sharp.")  And for the red, we say "I like..."  ("I like... Pizza, Apple Pie and Bumblebees." )  Not the best examples, but it's really quite funny as each person reads their own.  I won that game, collected my M&M's and moved on to the championship round... Chess!  Sam and I played Chess for our tie-breaker.  He did great, as usual, but I was the victor, collected MORE M&M's, and won the coveted privelege of Controller #1 for the Wii during Mario Party 8. 

The kids didn't get to be until 9, but it was a really fun night, and R only woke once (during our raukous Wii playing), fussed a bit and fell back asleep... then slept until 7:30am!  It's all about the memories, man.

2+"twins"+1

Here's what we've been up to around here.

We got a call just before dinnertime on Wednesday, asking if we would accept "overnight" placement of a 13 month old girl.  We said "Sure!  Bring her over!"  She arrived with a box of diapers, 2 pair of socks (in her social worker's pocket), a carton of Lactaid milk, a backpack full of random clothes (and toiletries, deodorant, shampoo, etc that obviously belonged to someone else in the family), and a box of mismatched pieces to cups and bottles.  The clothing consisted of about 90% coats and hoodies, 1 pair of jammies, 2 pair of pants and two shirts, one of which was a boy's shirt.  We had another pair of (neutral) jammies on hand, and I picked up a few more things for R at a local consignment shop yesterday.  It's been fun putting her in cute girly clothes.  We'll just hang on to the clothes when she moves on and save them for future use.  (I even got her a dress and tights for Sunday morning!)

R is a very sweet girl.  She's very cuddly and loves to be held.  Really.  Loves it.  As in, she cries whenever you set her down, and won't stop unless she falls asleep.  She seems to be having tooth pain (not just teething), which only adds to the crying.  I'm going to do my best to get her into a dentist on Monday morning to see what can be done for her.  That makes it sound like we aren't enjoying her... really we are.  Brian is especially taken with her.  I just wish I had a good carrier for her... I fashioned a sling out of a scrap of fabric, which keeps her happy, but hurts my back after a while. 

Friday morning, two more arrived.  T (2 years old) and A (also 13 months.)  These are 2 of the 3 we were considering adopting most recently.  And they are VERY sweet kids.  We're just doing respite care for the weekend while their foster mom gets a little break.  These are two HUGE kids.  Made of lead, I think.  Can you believe these 2 girls were born only a week apart?  (A and R)

 

And here's T with Sam, trying out the carseats we hadn't moved to the van yet.  

  

A & T leave tomorrow afternoon.  R is here... until I don't know when.  According to her social worker, they still don't know what the plan is.  We don't mind.  We're enjoying having her around.  And it will be easier when she isn't keeping 2 other little ones awake with her crying, too! 

Oh, and lest I forget to mention it... I took R with me to Starbucks this morning, to help me with my school planning.  (Brian was kind enough to get up with her at 3:30 this morning and change her, so I returned the favor by taking her with me so everyone else could sleep in.)  Renee held her for a while, and at one point, I slipped out to use the restroom.  I wasn't gone more than 3 minutes, but when I returned, I saw Renee sitting there, holding R, and both of them (and the chair and floor) were COVERED in baby puke.  Another customer was running for napkins.  Apparently there were 5 or 6 customers standing there waiting for their drinks, that got to witness the whole thing.  I would have absolutely died of embarassment.  I helped clean up as best I could, then quietly slipped out with my throw-up-covered baby girl, while Renee retreated to the restroom to try to clean up herself.  She handled it like a pro.  Like someone who has been thrown up on a time or two. 

Annie

In the midst of studying the Great Depression, we had the opportunity to expand our learning and our "culture", by going to a live performance of "Annie."  The kids have liked the movie for a long time, so when I saw the tickets on sale last November, I knew we just had to go.  I didn't know we'd be studying the depression at the time - that was all quite coincindental, but it was so perfect... I leaned over several times during the show to whisper something to the kids relating what they were seeing/hearing to what we'd read in the Kit series.

Our seats were in the very last row of the balcony.  At first, I was worried they wouldn't be able to see much from there, but the seats turned out to be just perfect.  We could see and hear everything perfectly, and having nobody behind us meant that when the kids got a bit fidgety (right before intermission), they weren't disturbing anyone by moving a bit.   We all loved the show.  I'm so glad we had the opportunity to go.

Sisters

We finally had the opportunity on Saturday to get together with our kids' beautiful big sisters.  We had planned for them to come up to celebrate Christmas on New Year's Day, but when we got an unexpected foster placement the day before, they thought it best to wait.  No... scratch that.  Originally we had planned to get together around THANKSGIVING as we had the last 2 years... but busy schedules prevented that one.  Despite the fact that the men had to stay home to work on the house remodel, it was SO GREAT to see "Aunt Jo" and the girls!  (Sam and Hallie's full siblings.)

We enjoyed Spaghetti, French Bread and Green Beans, finished off with Apple Crisp ala Mode, and had a grand time just chatting, letting the kids play, and just BEING with this wonderful extended family God has blessed us with through adoption.

Tell me these two don't look alike!  Sharon (10)and Hallie (5)

And the whole crew...

Kelly (11), Sharon (10), Sam (7), and Hallie (5).  It's hard to know how much Sam rememebers from his earliest months.  When he was removed from his birthhome at 6 weeks old, he was placed in the same foster home as these two sisters, where they all remained for another year before coming home to their forever families.  He doesn't talk much about them between visits, and even has trouble remembering their names (not for lack of our trying to help him learn them!)  But when they drove away, he cried, and said "I want them to come back."  If memory serves me, he always cries when we or they leave, at least the last few years. 

Superbowl

Big sports days are like holidays for my husband.  I finally started a bin (as with all of my holiday decorations) of "Sports Celebrations."  Among the pieces collected for superbowl...

-Football Tablecloth
-Football Chip Platter
-Football Paper Plates, Cups and Napkins
-Football and Goalpost Toothpicks
-A Soft Football for passing around during the game
-Plastic Footballs (to hold candy) - I got them during in the Easter stuff at Big Lots a few years back.

(I have a few baseball things collected for Mariner's Opening Day, too.)

Brian loves sports.  I love to make the days a bit more special for him by making a big deal out of it... and... like I mentioned last year... I like the opportunity to make man food.  On this year's menu:

Chicken Nuggets with Homemade Honey Mustard
Chips and Dip (Onion/Garlic Dip)
Pretzels
Pigs (Little Smokies) in Blankets (Crescent Rolls)
Mini Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches
Cream Cheese Brownies
Homemade Pop and Italian Sodas (thanks to our Soda Club soda maker)
and of course... "Football" Chocolate Covered Strawberries!

During the game, we had a couple of running games of BINGO going on.  We just had our last Christmas get-together Saturday (I'll blog that soon... I'm so behind!) and were given a "BINGO bin" with a great Bingo set in a wooden case, complete with rotating ball cage, and a tote full of wrapped gifts for ongoing prizes, each color-coded with different wrapping papers for each of us.  Brian won two games, the rest of us each won one.