Little Max

Little Max is six weeks old and smiling!

I'm going out in about a week and half to babysit him for a week. Mia is really excited that she gets to hold him on the couch and tickle him. Are babies that young ticklish? I don't even remember!

New Family Picture

We have a new family picture! Yes, it is missing Max and Arek, but we will get them at Thanksgiving. If it looks like there is a lot of movement that's because there was! There are three kiddos three and under in the picture. I hope to post more pictures from the wedding in the next few days.

Binoculars

I found these cool things while Mom and Dad were packing up the coat closet. But I don't think I was using them right. I was walking while holding the larger end up to my eyes and I ran right into the refrigerator!

We needed that sign: Caution, objects are actually closer than they appear!

Busy Busy busy

I am so very tired. We have been packing away night and day. We will be hiring movers to move everything though! We get the keys to our furnished condo on Thursday and will be putting all our things in storage this next weekend. The last few weeks, we have been doing minimal activities, just enough to keep the kids from going stir crazy watching us pack!

I let them write all over our pumpkins with washable markers. We'll carve them Tuesday night!

Anna has been sleeping in a bed in Mia's room to get ready for our two bedroom place. She is adjusting pretty well. In the condo they will share a queen bed. We'll see how that goes. I tried to move the crib to Mia's room but Anna wanted no part of that!

Mia has been trying to teach Anna how to use the iPad. Mostly she just wants to push buttons!

We had our first snowfall here a few days ago. Mia was so excited to go out! Anna was a little scared to step in it...okay, a lot scared.

Today we went to Monkey Business to work off some energy. These pictures are deceptive. This place is not really Anna's thing. Run, jump, climb? No, not her idea of fun. She kept pointing to the bathroom so she could go back and wash her hands again. Then she wanted to go get some more water in her sippy cup. She liked to walk around and look at what everyone else was doing. She just is so funny...she's like a little old lady sometimes. No offense to any little old ladies. I'm one myself. :)

Be Warned...This is REALLY Scary!

It was Halloween dress up at gymnastics today. We had gone costume shopping online and Mia said she wanted to be something really really scary. We found just the right costume. When she saw it she thought it was super scary!

Be careful or she just might sting you in her scary scary costume!

Goodbye Laureen

Last night we gave a party for Dan's secretary, Laureen, who is retiring. We asked her to make the guest list. She said she would only be inviting very close friends. When we got the list it had 50 people on it! We teased her about it. My close friends would fit around my dining room table!

She is moving to Florida to be close to her daughter so we themed the party "Toes in the Sand".

Anna and Mia are opposites in almost everything but they both love chocolate!

Anna cracked us up when she lay down on the wood floor in the middle of the party and tried to go to sleep! Wish I thought to take a picture.

One of Laureen's coworkers brought a book about Colorado for everyone to sign and all ULA employees signed this matted picture of one of their rockets.

Goodbye Laureen, we'll miss you!

P.S. During the party we heard from our realtor that the buyers gave up on their request for an extra $8000! So the sale of our house will close on Election Day!

Food

Mia and Anna have very different tastes when it comes to food. Mia could very well be a vegetarian without any problem. Anna likes her meat. She is not too fond of bread. And when I use gluten-free bread, she just throws it on the floor. Lately we've been eating sandwiches almost every day for lunch. If we have leftovers from the night before I put that in their sandwiches. Then I add lettuce, tomatoes and pickles. Anna always picks her tomatoes out and Mia always takes the lettuce out. The funny thing is they try these things first, every time. That's all I ask.

Mia asked if we could have a picnic today. It was too late to pack a lunch for the park so we picnicked on the kitchen floor. They loved it. And all that was left was one slice of tomato and a piece of lettuce.

On another note, we aren't too sure if we have in fact sold our house now. The buyers want us to spend $8000 to repair rock walls and window wells that look perfectly fine to us! We have said no. We'll see what happens next.

Quiet Time

Oh how I wish I knew about this 30 years ago. I thought I invented it about 5 years ago, but little did I know many many women were already using this child-rearing strategy. With me it started when I had a foster child that was very very very clingy. He had spent a year and a half at a relative's home who let him watch T.V. ALL DAY LONG. He had developed no imagination at five and half years old. He spent the greater part of the day asking me to play with him. I played with him, but I couldn't do it all day! He also would never leave my side, which meant he didn't play with toys because they were not glued to me!

After about a month of this not getting any better I decided to force the issue. I told him he would have to go in the playroom for 5 minutes every day and play by himself. The first day he stood in the doorway the entire time. He did this for a few days. Then one day I told him he wasn't coming out if he hadn't played at all, even if the timer went off. So he played. And he played the next day. After that I increased the time each day until we were up to an hour. Sometimes he even fell asleep. He started to not like it if we were busy running errands and didn't have time for Quiet Time.

I started the whole process for very selfish reasons. I needed some respite from him during the day. But in the end, he benefitted from it so much more than I did! He developed an imagination. He started playing in other areas of the house. He was less fearful about being alone. I saw such changes in him, I knew I would use this technique with any more children that came into my home.

So now that Mia doesn't always take a nap, we have graduated to Quiet Time. After lunch she gets to load up a rattan tray with play items and at least one book (my requirement). I then set the timer for one hour. She plays, sings, and sometimes falls asleep. I have noticed that her imaginative play has increased at other times of the day as well.

Love love love my her quiet time!

Fall Festival!

Yesterday we went to the Fall Festival at Anderson farms. We've gone to the corn maze at Chatfield the last few years, but decided to try something new this year. It was pretty crowded by Colorado standards, meaning we weren't the only ones! Everyone around here likes to be outside when it's warm.

Our first stop was food. They had a great BBQ place where we got to listen to live Blugrass music as we munched on our corn dogs and chicken on a stick.

We headed for the hay stack jungle next. It's just a bunch of haystacks lined up to run on with a few breaks for jumping. Really, my sisters and I could have played on this all day when we were kids.

Next was the tire mountain - not nearly as much fun as the haystacks for some reason.

What happened to Anna's hair?? Somewhere outside she pulled her pony-tail holder out and who knows where it went. Luckily it wasn't her shoes which she likes to take off...often.

Mia got to ride the ponies, but Anna would have none of that!

There was a kid-sized maze that Mia went through by herself...

...and a wooden train that was Anna's favorite attraction. She was actually a lot happier here than she looks. When she's happy she has a hard time standing still for pictures. this is the only one where she wasn't blurry.

We tackled the big corn maze but really just went in one side and out the other and the kids didn't really notice. Hehe

Such a cute face.

We raced pedal bikes with the girls on the back. You can probably guess who won. Mia also pedaled the little kids bikes.

Since it was my birthday, we had pizza and cake with Bill when we got home.

Packed all the candles but three so I got to be thirty! Now, back to packing. We have the home inspection tomorrow.

Changes

The last two days we have been packing packing packing. If all goes through, we will be moving out of this house and into a furnished condo on November 3rd. We should know by the end of next week, once the home inspection and appraisal are done. I think I found a reasonably priced place (there are lot of crazy prices for furnished places) for us to live for a few months near Dan's work, but since I can't sign a lease until the 22nd it might be gone. Not going to worry about it right now.

We went to Chinese school for a few weeks. It sounded like a great idea at first, mommy and me for two and three year olds. Hey, I have a two and three year old. My main reason for going was for Mia to have a regular group of friends to play with since I teach her academics at home. It sounded great. But, they don't play. At all. It's a lot of sitting. A lot of listening to the teacher. A lot of not what I wanted. The one great thing about it was that we met another little girl adopted from the same healing home as Anna - pretty amazing since there have been only 16 adoptions from there.

Zoe is a year older than Anna, but their stays at Shanghai Healing Home did overlap. Hopefully we will see her at some other CCAI functions as we have quit Chinese school.

So now that Anna has speech therapy on Thursday mornings I take Mia to Kidstown every Thursday to play with other preschoolers. She has always loved it there and we all are happy now.

Guess Who's Movin'

Is this not the cutest little storybook cottage?

Well it's not a story and it's not in a book. It's Beth and Greg's first house! In a month it will be all theirs and everyone is excited to visit.

And on the same day they bought theirs, we sold ours. Now we have to look for a place to live until our house is ready.

Good Eatin'

Don't want to be an advertising agent here, but we came upon a family restaurant that works REALLY WELL for us. We usually take the kids out to dinner Saturday night, but this weekend Sunday worked better for us. We went to Joe's Crabshack.

Not being a world traveler, Mia thought it was perfectly natural to have a playground at a restaurant. It was only 50 degrees and shady so we lasted only about 10 minutes, but hey, that's 10 minutes they didn't have to be entertained waiting for their food.

There were lots of tables surrounding the playground outside and we could see ourselves in a few years having a drink on the patio while the kids played.

We got the girls a steam pot to share which worked out perfectly since they are opposites in everything, even food. Mia liked the shrimp and potatoes and Anna liked the sausage and crab. Dan and I spent so much time opening Anna's crab legs that the girls were done way before us! But they were able to keep themselves entertained as we ate.

Anna spent a very long time taking the lid on and off the cup and putting the straw through the hole. If anyone knows how to teach a child with cl/cp how to drink through a straw let me know. I don't know if she just can't figure it out or maybe she will never be able to do it.

Mia spent her time coloring all over paper towels.

And so Dan and I were able to finish our dinner and we're putting this on our list of places we can take the kids for dinner without stressing ourselves out!

The Road to Deckers

The first year we lived in Colorado Dar and Sean came out for the first weekend in October. On that Saturday, the guys went golfing. It was a beautiful windy day and I asked Dar what she wanted to do. She said she wanted to go find some cute little local town. The only little town I knew of nearby was Sedalia and it was REALLY little. We drove through it in about 30 seconds and then saw a sign for the town of Deckers, 27 miles away. So we decided we would go there.

After a few miles the road to Deckers became a dirt road. It was a very winding road and a couple of times we thought we would turn back. But the scenery was so beautiful with all the fall colors that we kept on going. We finally got to Deckers, a cute little town, not. A fly fishing outpost is what it was. There was a small store with fishing supplies, a fishing school and a cafe. We ate some lunch and then went to the store and bought a fishing pole. Yes, we did.

The South Platte River is in the middle of town and there weren't even very many fly fishers that day due to the wind. But we set up some chairs I had in the back of the car and baited our rod and waited. Within ten minutes we caught a small trout! We put it in the shopping bag that came with our fishing supplies and tied it to a chair and put it in the river to stay fresh. Twice the wind blew it down river and we had to chase it to get it back. We laughed and laughed and looked like fools. But we knew the guys would never believe we caught anything if we didn't have the proof.

So the first weekend in October I still take the road to Deckers to look at the fall colors. I never go the whole 27 miles though. It's so much closer to home than driving two hours into the mountains. And it reminds me of the fun Dar and I always have when we are together.

Three Year Olds

If anyone has now, or had in the past, a three year old they can relate to this:

She has a microphone, a megaphone and marachis. Can you say imagination run wild??? She is on the deck calling all squirrels to come to play with her. Needless to say she came back in the house disappointed.

A few days later it was this...

She was trying to use trick or treat bags as wings to fly. When that didn't work she came in the house and put heavy things in them to make them "better able to fly". Hard to believe her dad is an aerospace engineer!

This is one of the things she put it in:

She asked me what it was. I told her it was a bust from an ancient Greek. She said, "No, it's God. Probably this will make me fly."

This is what happens when a child's imagination is way way ahead of her logic skills. It makes for great entertainment!

Littleton Historical Museum Part 2

We went to the Littleton Historical Museum in May a couple of times. But we didn't see everything. And today it will be the last nice day for awhile (possible snow coming on Saturday) so we decided to head over there.

It was the first time we went into the farmhouse. Mia is old enough to understand when I tell her about no running water or central heat. As long as I explain it in three year old terms!

Anna will hold still and pose for pictures now, but sometimes forgets to smile. :)

She is picking up quickly from her sister that all animals are our friends. They loved feeding the sheep the hay that was already in front of them.

Wooden animals and sod houses (did I take a pic of this last time?)

Anna was the first one to run out and sit with the flock of geese.

I'm going to miss the warm sunshine!