Furry Friend

One morning last week, I was walking around the house and opening our shades.  I opened up one of our front window shades and was startled to see this...

I yelled down the basement stairs for Andrew (I do love that he works from home) because I had a friend on her way over and I didn't know what to do (besides grab my camera and take pictures!)  Andrew came up and started tapping on the front window.  That is when the animal (who was definitely asleep) moved and we got a look at his face.

It took quiet a bit more tapping and loud noises to get this guy to move but eventually he left.

Honestly, before this, I had no idea that raccoons even lived out here.  

You learn something new everyday!  

H Activities

Here is a little of what we did this week for H.

 Spooning erasers.  Malia put one in each heart, then two, three, and four.

 She hung felt heart ornaments.
First the way she wanted and then she copied my pattern.

 I gave her four different kinds of heart stickers (felt, foam, squishy and paper).
She designed Valentine's cards with them. 

She started getting really silly and was cracking herself up by putting the 

stickers on her face and then asking me where they went.

I combined a few ideas I had seen for this activity.  I cut an egg carton in two and put sight words on Malia's half and colored shapes on Davey's half.  I would use my words to describe where I wanted them to hammer.

 

Davey joined us for hand-print painting.

 One of Malia's favorite activities was hammering tees into play dough.
She asked to do it multiple times.

We used leftover supplies from her party and made more bracelets with heart beads.

Not pictured:  Fun with a hula hoop (hopping in and out of it, throwing bean bags into it, pretending to hula hoop).  Playing Hi Ho Cheerio.  Eating hot dogs.

Sweet Sisters

I love my girls.  It is sweet to see their relationship grow.  Here are a few sweet moments I have observed recently.

Davey sitting on Malia's lap after dinner reading a book.  

(Davey is shirtless because she made a mess of her shirt at dinner.)

Holding hands while watching movies.  

I am not sure how this started but whenever Davey is afraid that a movie is going to have a scary part, she asks to hold Malia's hand.

Banana Bread with Dad

Andrew is way more adventurous than I am when it comes to baking with the girls.  At least once a week he has the mixer down on the floor, surrounded by ingredients and the girls.  His specialties are pancakes, waffles, and banana bread (but he whipped up some cookies this weekend as well).  

Here are a couple of pictures of them in action making banana bread.  It was hard to get the whole scene but you get the idea.

 

Park with a bit of snow

Last Saturday we headed up to our neighborhood park because it was supposed to be a reasonably warm day.  Upon arrival, we saw that while there was not any snow on the equipment, the ground around it was snowy.  The girls didn't mind the snow, it only added to the fun.

 

 

 

 

 Malia spent a lot of time following Andrew's tracks in the snow.  

Line it up

Lately Davey has been really into lining up her toys.  Here are a few examples.

 

 

 (She is half in her pajamas, half dressed for the day in this picture... happens a lot around our house these days!)

This does not mean that she is an orderly or neat kid though.  She still likes to dump out whole boxes of toys, just for the sake of dumping them.

  

She dumped out this blue bin of toys in order to make herself a reading seat!

Where we stand.

Almost a year ago, I wrote the introduction to our adoption story.  I thought I would write a little update and let you all know where we stand.

We started our training last January and completed in in September.  Our original thought was that we would have our home study in October/November and be certified foster parents by the end of 2011.  Things did not go exactly as planned but we have adjusted (and have a real peace) about our new timeline.

This past week we had our second and third home studies.  Now we will wait 2-3 weeks while they write a report and submit it back to our county.  Unless something weird happens, we should be certified in about a month.

After we are certified, we have no idea how long it will be before we get a placement.  It could be the next day or eight months down the road.  And when we get the phone call, we will most likely have just hours before the child enters our home.

When the child enters our home, we have no guarantee that he/she will stay long-term.  I wrestle a lot with God on this one, but I have no doubt that it is what he has called us to do.  To enter the unknown.  To be willing to love in the midst of the unknown.  To surrender control.

I have been so blessed by this process already, and we do not even have a child placed yet.  One of the neatest, most reassuring things to me has been how Andrew and I have stayed on the same page throughout this journey.  On the overall big direction.  On little decisions along the way.  It has been an amazing gift.

So we move forward not knowing what is ahead but trusting that God is in control.  And our prayer is that through it all, He would be glorified.

G Activities

Here are some of this things we did last week.

 We made green, glitter, gel bags.  Instead of just putting green food coloring in, I did blue and yellow so that the girls could see how green was made.

 Davey got her own bag.
Here she is playing with it the following morning at breakfast.

 We made a graham cracker house with green frosting.

 

 I saw a cute idea to add googly-eyes to magazine pictures here but did not have any great magazines around, so instead Malia put googly-eyes on a Maisy book we had.  It turned out really cute and Malia really enjoyed the activity.

 She put together a giraffe puzzle that I picked up at a resale shop (for $1).

 We played this gingerbread dice game.  The hardest part for Malia was not counting the dots on the dice or finding the number, it was having the patience to color in the whole space.

 We read The Gingerbread Boy and The Gingerbread Baby 

and she made her own gingerbread man out of play dough.

I have this set of 12 gingerbread people and we spent time sorting them.  

By boy and girl.  Shoes, no shoes.  Hat, no hat.  Etc. 

She really liked drawing on my big white board (thanks Ali!)  

I even convinced her to write her name which she normally refuses to do for some reason.

"Crystal Soil"

I ran across something on Pinterest recently that looked interesting.  The substance goes by a lot of names but I ordered "Crystal Soil".

Here is what you start with.

 Add water. Wait a few hours and this is what you get.

 I set up this little station for Malia.

 She loved it.  Played with it for probably a good half of an hour.

 It is a neat sensory activity.

 And also good for find motor skills (as she spooned some of them out.)

When Davey woke up from her nap, we revamped the set up because she was a bit wild and was sending the balls everywhere.  I put some in a cake pan and she loved them.

I highly recommend this activity as long as you know that they are slippery (and can shoot across a room with little effort) and if they are squished hard, they do break into pieces (which makes a bit of a mess).