We went to open gym last Friday with some friends to find out more about classes.  She’s really excited!

The kids were so excited that Friday night brought a mix of snow and ice.  We didn’t get much, but it was enough for some adventurous sledding.

Let’s make some memories!

The ice really made us fly down the hill.  Max invited our neighbor but otherwise we had the run to ourselves.  The boys were in their element.  I was disappointed that a bunch of kids weren’t out there with us, though.  I couldn’t understand why a perfectly good icy hill wasn’t being enjoyed on a Saturday at noon.  Especially when zooming down so fast landed you in the prickly bushes?  I mean, who doesn’t love that?

Well, okay.  Not everyone.

But the memory making was a success.

That weekend was h.a.r.d.  This year’s ski retreat, however, has reminded me of all that has changed since then.

She got completely dressed on her own.  After scrambling eggs, frying bacon, and squeezing her own orange juice.  Well, it seems like she can do all of that, anyway.  I can’t believe how much has changed.

1.

2.

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1/17/12 – I couldn’t stop laughing when I clicked on this post that I started to write a few days ago.  It was sitting in my drafts folder and I forgot how far I got down the list.  Ha!! Apparently, I didn’t get that far.  1. and 2. were riveting, though, don’t ya think?

Okay, so maybe I’ll start over with the list.

1.  Mike and Max went to the Caps game on Friday night and there was so much excitement in the air.  Max has become a huge Caps fan, so when he got tickets and a cool hat from Aunt Jen for Christmas, he started counting down the days until January 13th.  And not only was he going to a game, but afterwards he was going to stay up all night with his friends at a church lock-in.  He sanctioned this day as special in so many ways that he looked at me funny when I said we still had to do school on Friday.

But I lightened it up for him quite a bit. We finished our health unit on nutrition, practiced multiplication tables (no writing!), and made a poster for the game.  Not a bad day in homeschool.

The game was fantastic and one of the players scored a rare hat-trick so people threw down their hats onto the ice in his honor.  I was watching the game from home and all I could do was hope Max wasn’t going to impulsively throw his!  No worries, though. He had no desire to let go of his awesome hat, but he did come home with a plan for next time.  He’s going to buy five “cheap and useless hats” and bring a few to each game to throw down on the ice.

That is cute on so many levels.

2.  Onto another subject.  Hair.  Yes or no? Can a 37 year-old wear her hair in a side ponytail?  I’ve never followed hair trends and felt a little silly doing this so I took it out right before I left the house.  I think the twisty-loose-curled-low-side-ponytail thingy looks cute.  But it is appropriate at my age?

3.  Here are a few random memories from the past two weeks.  In many ways January feels like the longest month ever and the winter blahs are prevalent.  All of us have been sick and I’ve been the lucky one to get this cold virus twice.  It has sucked the energy right out of me.  But I love my new camera and can appreciate the sunny days we’ve had this month, bringing lots of light for indoor pictures.

Falling asleep in the chair meant he was asking for it

Painting a sunset (then it was Rapunzel’s tower)

Doing school over here while Max does his work at the kitchen table.  Wait a minute.  Where’s Max??

She made up a game called Take Away (where you have to guess which figure is missing from the line-up)

in this last picture Max is telling me ALL about these Legos…

4.

My sister surprised me with this scarf that she made from a yarn called Starbella.  It’s really soft and the colors are fun, I love it.  She’s going to make a bunch to sell soon so I posted the picture on Facebook.  The scarf got a lot of compliments, and reading them was a fun way to spend a Friday (along with cutting out pictures of food from magazines and making a Caps poster).  When Mike got home he asked me about the scarf and said it looked like silly bands.

It is a wonder why he was an engineer for all those years then left to follow his call into youth ministry instead of into the fashion industry.

I guess I’m glad about that.

After a long break for the holidays, we got into the swing of homeschooling again.  Max had standardized testing (which is optional for parents in Maryland) and we spent a few weeks preparing for them ahead of time.  It was a rough start – like dancing with two left feet, finding the rhythm of taking timed practice tests where no talking or asking for help for answers are allowed.  But Max did far better than I anticipated with the structure and even the material that we never learned in Language Arts or Math didn’t throw him off his feet too much.

So, it had been about two months since we’d tackled his regular school subjects and were on a full schedule.

He seems to do well with checklists and having the freedom to pick the order of things.  He can do more on his own but chooses something I need to help him out with first.  This is hard since Mini wants to do school right around the time I’m teaching math or spelling, but I’m figuring out how my feet are supposed to move in that dance.

Mini wants to do school more and more (like writing), and is ready for more challenging work.  I’ve been busy looking for free resources online.  I am SO thankful for Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations, who shares a ton of ideas and hosts blog carnivals for preschool activities.  She also makes printable packs (!) that are darling and fun.  The latest pack she made was based on the book The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.

We read the book online (love this site I found, especially since the library was out of the book).  We read it for a few days in a row then Mini worked on the printable pack (it only required a few minutes of prep work ahead of time).  Then we did a few easy snow-themed crafts.  Somewhere I saw an idea to build a snowman with the letters of her name.

That’s a glitter craft, by the way.  I’m not sure what came over me.

Mini loves art and doing any kind of busy work at her little table.  I like following a theme and having some structure to the play.  We seem to be having fun together with homeschooling, but every now and then she gets sassy and tells me to get lost, so she can get back to work.

She completely wears me out, but I think she and I are going to like homeschooling preschool.  (This is a conclusion that has taken me weeks/months to make, after going back and forth about sending her to preschool next year.  I guess I’m thankful that preschools around here are so expensive, it made the decision somewhat easier to make. But truthfully, she has SO many great social learning activities and we’re still going to do MDO and Adventure Club, so is preschool really too much? My conclusion is, yes.  Too many steps in our dance, I think.)

Going back to Max.  He surprised me this week when we started our health unit.  A health unit is required each semester, and I am squeezing it in at the last minute.  I decided to talk about and do a poster on nutrition and the food pyramid. On the day we talked about vegetables, we grabbed a bag of salad from the fridge to portion out a cup and talk about the importance of being aware of serving sizes for everything we eat, both healthy and junk foods.  Next thing I knew, he asked for a fork and dug in.  Even though it was 9:30 in the morning.

He thought this was hysterical.  And he ate the cup of greens.  I’m not gonna lie to you, I kinda like how homeschooling has influenced him to do things like this for fun.

Okay, so there it is.  I’m reflecting again and concluding that yes, I love homeschooling.

So far it’s been a good jig.

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

He couldn’t wait to get home, as fast as our minivan would take us.  An expression of disappointment melted upon his face when I said I had to stop for milk and bread.  It’s snowing, after all; that’s where my minivan automatically goes.  He was relieved to hear that it would be a quick stop at a gas station, then home at last.

Excitement resumed.

The weatherman was right, it only lasted for a few minutes.  But those snowflakes stuck to the ground and it was a glorious few minutes.

On Christmas Eve, Grammy came over for lunch and we opened presents and made sugar cookies.

Mini’s birth mom, Anna, and her family sent some special things to go under the tree for all of us, as well.  So sweet!

Mike was already down for the count and I started to feel sick about the time we were going to leave for our Christmas Eve service, so we decided to stay home altogether.  My mom made a drug store run for various cold remedies and other stocking-related-things that I confessed I needed for Christmas morning (who me, a procrastinator?).  My mom came to the rescue, yes she did.

It’s never fun to wake up Christmas morning with a head that weighs as much as Santa after he’s had a few million cookies, but the show must go on.  I rolled out of bed and met two very excited, bouncy kids at the top of the stairs ready to run down and see their presents and stockings (that were remarkably stuffed more than I anticipated. Who knew!?)

The number one item on Mini’s Santa list was a Doodle Bear so hearing her ask “did I really get a Doodle Bear?!” and seeing her face when she realized one was under the tree was priceless.

And Max got the new Lego Harry Potter game, which made him extremely happy, too.

We spent Christmas Day with Mike’s family and although we tried to keep our distance, we shared our germs with them as a special gift of love.  I know Aunt Jen came down with the same cold but I’m not sure about Mike’s parents.  They aren’t telling

I love this family picture.  Mini’s hands are so cute.

The rest of the week was pretty laid back, giving us the needed time to bounce back to health.  It had some ups and downs (we found out some very sad news about the passing of Mike’s former boss who hired him right out of college and was such a fantastic man to work for).  We are also processing and praying for some other heavy burdens elsewhere, too.

On the upside, we met my dad and stepmom for lunch one day and we just hung around the house all week as Mike worked from home. We had time to cross things off our to-do list (cleaning out closets, finally) and I read a book, had time to play and read with the kids, and did some creative things just for fun. Plus the Caps won twice and Baylor finished off an incredible football season with a bang.

Did all of this happen in just one week?

We had a wonderful time and I have many more pictures to share (a new camera = photos of everything including new flavor of Ranch dip for vegetables).

But that’s for another day.  Today, I need to tell you about the white elephant gift exchange.  More specifically, the gift I brought.

A label maker.

Lame or cool?   Cool, right?  I mean, doesn’t everyone adore a good label maker in their life?

Uh-oh.  Mike’s grandaddy, Ben, ended up with it.  I did not see that coming.  Goodness gracious.  What does a hard-working farmer do with a label maker?

He makes us howl with laughter, that’s what.

Merry Christmas, everyone.  Hope yours is spent laughing with the people you love, too.

Anna

Oh, c’mon.  It’s just easier (and more fun) to take pictures and learn as I go.

I was a little late with the shot but Max kicked the board in two with a loud snap.  He earned his blue sash in Kung Fu.  Way to go, Max!

A friend at church made us these amazing chocolate caramel apples.  I can’t resist all the candy and chocolate that is in this house right now.  I hope there will be a point when I’m actually sick of  eating it, but we haven’t arrived at that point yet.

So, I’m trying to be good at other times.

In truth, it’s about making room not being good.

The chocolate is the priority.

Right, Mini?

Yep.

It didn’t take long until she reached a level of pure excitement over the balloon.  We cheered and clapped about Adoption Day and talked a little about how God made our family.  I think she understands her story pretty well for her age, and my philosophy is to share it like a storybook on a regular basis in the preschool years.  I often say things like “oh, I remember the day when Mommy opened the hospital door and saw you for the first time when you were born…” and things like that.

Last year on Adoption Day I wrote a post about how we share her story at this age, if you’d like to read it.  Here’s a post about the first Adoption Day (the day we went to court to finalize everything).

I realize that I hardly write about adoption anymore, but it’s still something that I’d like to put out there to anyone reading as an “open discussion” thing with me.  If you found this blog and would like to email me about the topic, please do!  I’ve had the privilege of talking or emailing back and forth with women who were in the same place I was in the waiting process before we were chosen by Mini’s birthparents.  I know how hard it is and sometimes you just need someone who understands to be in your corner praying for you.