Sunday, March 31, 2013

Dad's Anniversary

Saturday morning Mia and I flew to California. Dar picked us up at the airport. We picked up the flowers for Dad's 30th anniversary celebration and then has some time to just visit until 4:00. Mia had a blast with Jack.



Jack was such a good sport as Mia dressed him up.



My battery died at the party but I did get one shot of the vow renewal. My dad always wears his cowboy hat since moving to Texas.



Here are some of my cousins I haven't seen in 10 years!



We had a great time and Mia was the hit of the party with her dance moves. At 6:30 the next morning we were on a plane to be with Dan and Anna for Easter!

Thursday, March 28, 2013

California Trips

We are getting ready for our first of many trips to California in the next 9 months. I can't believe I haven't been there since Thanksgiving. I think that is my largest stretch yet. We have had to buy summer shoes and clothes to bring with us!




Here are our definite trips. We have a few maybes as well.

This weekend: Mia and I will travel for one night for my dad and stepmom's 30th anniversary party.

Next weekend: All of us are going for 9 days. We will take Mia to Disneyland for her birthday and attend my sister's wedding among other things!

May: We are all going to Avery's first birthday party!

August: We are all going to Grossie's (Dan's mom) 90th birthday party!

September: We are all going to Max's first birthday party.
We will also be going to see our newest grandchild who will be born in
September!

November: We are all going to our niece's wedding. Well I shouldn't say that. I don't even
know if kids are invited. But Dan and I will be there!

January: We are all going to Becky's wedding!

Our maybes are some other weddings we are invited to, holidays and who know what else might come up!




Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Scissor Crazy!

We have a new scissor-crazed tot! Mia has graduated to paper only and can now be trusted with them. Anna, on the other hand, well, she has very good fine motor skills. But she is quite remorseful. Notice the almost mullet I was able to stop in time!



This is just a small amount of what she was able to accomplish in a very short amount of time!!



So we now have to be very careful that we keep the scissors up really really high!

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Spring?????

I had plans for us all to go to the big Pow Wow downtown on Saturday. We try to celebrate the kid's different heritages. Mia is partly Mexican and Native American from what we have been told. But we woke up to this...



and it just didn't seem wise to drive that far. Hard to believe it's the first weekend of Spring!!!!

We did get out. We went to Toys R Us and got a new stroller, one that both kids can sit in comfortably. Mia's seat also has a standing platform. (Anna is potty training so she justs wears underwear in the house. Don't worry, we keep it pretty warm!)



Dan helped Mia make a rocket ship from the box. She has been playing with it quite a bit.



Today we went to church early and out to breakfast. We then went to the lighting store, again. This is the fifth time! I think we have finally found and/or returned all the lights we need! We also went grocery shopping and Dan made homemade chili while I made homemade bread.



It was not too exciting of a weekend, but we have a very busy end of March and April coming up so that's okay!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Candy Factory

I thought Mia was old enough to enjoy a tour of our local candy factory. And she did!



There was a large school group there and they let us join them.



All the candy is made by hand. We saw the candy making room through glass and then we saw the packing room. Mia listened very carefully to the tour guide and even raised her hand to ask a question. Anna paid no attention, but sat quietly in her stroller because all the school kids made her nervous.




They got to take home these cute little hats and giant candy canes. Can you say sticky?



The tour ended in the shop where we bought a little bit of candy for the road.



It was a great tour, but Mia was wondering where the Oompa Loompas were!

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Jump!

I have had a coupon in my waller for almost a year. It's for a free session at a jumping place near our house. Since it was actually disintegrating I thought I should use it!



We had the place to ourselves on Tuesday. I think they do most of their business on the weekends for birthday parties.



Mia loved it right away but didn't want to play by herself. So this mama did a lot of climbing and bouncing.



Anna wanted no part of it at first. I was not surprised. But after I helped her climb a few ladders to the tops of some slides she really started to get it. And she even did it twice by herself!





The merry go round was a big hit.



I think this place we'll see a lot of us when the girls are 5 and 6 years old and can really move around well.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Easter Eggs

Yesterday we colored eggs! It was Anna's first time and she loved it. We had a couple of near misses of her almost knocking cups of vinegar over, throwing dropping eggs into the cups, and trying to eat the little color tablet and drink the dye.

We got a slow start when I pulled all the eggs out of the refrigerator and realized they were all brown. After a trip to the grocery store, we had white ones. We placed them in a pan and boiled them.



Then we put in the color tablets and vinegar with the water and plopped in our eggs.



The finished products...



We tucked them away in the frig until Bill came for dinner. Bothe Dan and Dawn were in Arizona, though not at the same place.

Bill and I hid the eggs for a hunt.



We had a clear winner...



Then Mia hid the eggs and we looked for them. She was tough! We needed hints! But we found all eighteen and there won't be any strange smells emitting from unfound eggs!

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Childcraft

When Beth was four years old a traveling salesman came to the door and sold Dan a set of encyclopedias. That was 1985. I was mad at the time that he spent so much money!! We no longer have the encyclopedias. The Internet is way easier and up to date. But we still have the "free" gift of Childcraft books that came with the set.



I didn't use them that much with my bio kids. Occcasionally we used them for a reference if they were writing a report. But I used them a lot when I taught third grade. They are written at about a third grade reading level. I would sometimes copy excerpts on something we were studying in class for the kids to read.

But Mia loves these books. She has learned all the basic fairy tales from them. Last weekend she brought out the craft volume and wanted to make a craft. We chose bottle cap boats. We thought we would make four and race them.



They got wet fast and sunk even faster.



In comes the engineer. "We're going to need a bigger boat," he says. If you are too young to remember the movie Jaws I apologize. He engineered away and voila!



We got out our straws. Blowing away, we forced our boats across the sea.



I'm not mentioning any names, but one of us elderly people was across first. The one with hair.

The girls then played with them in the kitchen sink for awhile.



Thank you, Childcraft, for a fun afternoon!



Thursday, March 14, 2013

Our Classroom

We had the builders put doors on our living room to make it into an office. And we had them make the original office into a bedroom. We can always use another bedroom, but we found we never used a living room when we had it. Instead of the usual glass office doors, we put in solid doors because it's our classroom!



We do "school" in here three days a week. The solid doors keep it nice and private and less distracting. They also allow me to close it up if I don't want the mess school supplies on display. We eventually plan to participate in the hybrid homeschool program our district offers. The girls would go to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:15 to 2:40. They would get the opportunity to socialize and learn what it's like to be in a classroom. But they would be with us most of the time - good for bonding and attachment for adopted kiddos. But that's still a year and half away and a lot of things could change by then!

We are just starting to set it up. Here's our new table and chairs, thanks to my friend who works at Pottery Barn.



Gotta have an alphabet...



These are Mia's workboxes. I put work for her to do in the top three boxes. When she is older, all the boxes will be filled.



When we aren't doing school we are often in there doing "crafts".



Or eating lunch while watching shutter man install the shutters!



We love our cozy classroom!