More Christmas Pics

As promised...better Christmas pics!

These aren't the shoes they wore to church!

For New Years Eve we will be going to bed early and catching an early morning flight to California. Happy New Year!

Whirlwind

The last two days have been a whirlwind. We are leaving for the wedding in two days! There has been so much to do. We got way behind in laundry over the holiday and spent most of Friday catching up on that.

Because I don't know if I will be staying for an indefinite length of time (more on that when I know more), we have been deChristmasizing our home. Yes, I made that word up.

We have also been doing lots of last minute wedding stuff and just to make things fun, trying an elimination diet for Mia. She has geographic tongue (as does Anna). I had never heard of it before these two came along. It is supposed to be painless and no big deal. But for a small percentage it can become painful and progress to fissures in the tongue. That is where Mia is at. We don't know if it's diet related, but on the forums for this issue several people have found relief through eliminating different foods. The pediatrician's only solution is steroids. Not going there right now!
I hope we can figure this out!

We have still tried to have a little fun. Today it was only 31 degrees so we went swimming at the rec center.

Cute little short stuff was done early and spent the last ten minutes drying off.

They have also been making their own fun. The love all the walk-in closets in the house and use them as their "houses" or "jails". Sometimes they camp out in the pantry.

The countdown has begun. Six more days!

Christmas 2013

This is the first Christmas post. These are my pictures. So don't expect much! Beth will send me hers later which I'm sure will be so much better!

Beth, Greg, Becky, Arek, and Maks came in Christmas Eve morning. All the flights were not only on time, but early! We got right to work when they got here. Making cookies? No. Decorating the tree? No. Preparing the prime rib? Heavens no, Dan does that! We worked on wedding table assignments. Everyone's favorite Christmas activity!

We took a break and went to church at 4:00. We ended up in the hallway due to the crowds and the kids being so tired. There were no speakers so we might as well have been at home!

After church, Bill, Dawn, Wade, Nicole, Emma and Jayden came over for dinner. Little Jayden is sooo cute!

Christmas Day was the usual: a present opening, puzzle solving, pajama day.

I got Dan AnkiCar. The big boys played that.

It was nice enough to even enjoy a little outside time.

We all enjoyed this special time with the big kids, although we missed Joey, Brittany, Avery and Ben. There will be more and better pictures in another post. Merry Christmas!

The Six Days of Christmas

We have been pretty busy around here. There are Christmas activities going on everyday. But everything is pretty subdued…just the way I like it!

Saturday:

We put together a Hello Kitty gingerbread house.

First we had to lay down the frosting.

Then set up the walls.

Next the roof and decorating!

And last…let's eat it! Wait. Let's look at the ingredients. BHT. BHA. Red dye #5. Yellow dye #2, on and on etc. For various reasons I'm not ready to get into right now, we are avoiding these things. So cute little house went in the trash. And true to form, the girls never asked about it.

That night we went to Dan's company Christmas party at the science museum. How many people get to watch an IMAX movie at their company party? We had fun!

Sunday:

Dan took one of the girls to breakfast with Santa. The other one did not get to go due to some behavior issues. She has a hard time connecting cause and effect. Not uncommon with adopted children. But we are working on it!!!

Monday:

Dan had a work dinner so I decided to take the kids out to look at Christmas lights while they ate dinner in the car. Since they go don't usually go out after dinner they had no idea that everyone's house was decorated! They loved it. After a while Anna fell asleep.

Tuesday:

Our financial planner had a Christmas party. I didn't really want to go, but because we have only signed up with him recently, Dan wanted to meet some longer term clients. We were very pleased! Everyone was nice, conservative (financially wise), and hard-workers. And I met a retired art teacher who teaches art in her home. Score! We were given a pair of Tiffany wine glasses as a present. I know a couple that might want to use these at their wedding. Coming up. Very. Very. Soon.

Wednesday:

The girls had Pajama Day at school. The parents were invited for the last 15 minutes to watch the kids sing Christmas Holiday songs. They did great!

Today:

We went to to watch Elf at someone's house in our homeschool group. The girls really are enjoying getting to know some of the kids in the group. After that, we participated in Operation Santa Claus, a charity event we do every year where we bring gifts and groceries to a family in the area.

Last year this was a tough time for us without any of the older kids coming out and living in a condo that was rather small and just not home.

This year is also tough. Although the girls are coming out, there have been some illnesses in my family, some very serious, that are on my mind. I'm trying to stay positive! We have two family-type Christmas parties this weekend which I think will be a lot of fun for the girls, and for us!

ABC Day

Mia is two thirds of the way through the All About Reading, pre reading program. That means she has learned all the capital and lower case letters. She knew a lot of them before we started, but this was a more formal, structured approach. So I decided we would have a little party. Gotta keep homeschooling interesting!

Our ABC day started with Sesame Street x and o's cereal. I looked for Alphabits cereal but couldn't find it anywhere. Do they not make it anymore? Why we waited for Anna to wake up, Mia and I played tic tac toe.

Can you guess which cereal belongs to which little girl?

Hint: If the fruit rhymes with the girl's name, it's not hers.

After school time, we played ABC Bingo.

Well, Anna played for a few minutes and then did her nails...with abc stickers, no less!

For snack we had mini cupcakes with abc flags.

In case you were wondering if there was possibly any more junk they could have eaten today, the answer is YES! We had to have the classic ABC's and 123's from Chef Boy Ardee for lunch. Can anything smell worse than that when you open that can? But they loved it and we'll be back to our regular diet tomorrow.

Tomorrow we start the third part of the program, letter sounds. We are also going to start Handwriting Without Tears.

Mia is officially enrolled in the homeschool program through our district for next year. She will be in kindergarten and will go to school Tuesday and Thursday from 11:15 to 2:40. She will have lunch and study Spanish and Science.

Happy ABC Day!

More Holiday Activities

The week before last we did a few more Christmas activities. I took the girls to our community kids' holiday party. It was at Little Monkey Bizness, one of their favorite places! They got to play for an hour.

Then it was on to the party room for treats. They were so happy to go in there - the elusive party room!

Someone else came to visit too. I have told Mia that Santa Claus is make believe fun. (I never liked lying to the older kids.) But she keeps coming up with evidence that he is real. Haha. Joke is on me.

A few days later we went to our monthly preschool program at the arts center. This time it was a sponge painting activity.

Can you guess what we are making?

Beautiful poinsettias!

We have a few more activities coming up next week, but the best one will be the older sisters and their families coming for Christmas!