Fall Couples Photo Shoot

Robin and I decided to grab our spouses and go take photos of each other at the park. We went to Little Couch Park in Stillwater where there are some really beautiful photo locations. It's also the park where Daniel and I actually met for the first time when I was 14 and he was 15.

Matt and Robin have a fantastic camera. I think it's about 10 megapixels with one of those detachable lenses. Photos taken on their camera just seem to glow they are so crisp and clear. The colors it picks up are amazing. I don't have a copy of those photos yet, so in the mean time, here are some pics taken on our camera.

The Nut doesn't fall far from the Tree

Yup, that's my family. They may be crazy, but they're mine. And this year they ALL came for Thanksgiving. That right there is reason enough to give thanks to God. On average I'm lucky if we all see each other once a year, and normally we're not all together at once. So this was wonderful!

The next morning my mom's sister, Aunt Kathy, even stopped by to visit! The only sad part is that we didn't all have more time to spend together. We are very different, but when we get together I usually laugh more than I have all year. I guess a sense of humor is definitely genetic.

Missing: One Tooth

Gloria lost her very first tooth on Thanksgiving day! She's so proud of that tooth. It means she's finally a big kid like her sister. It's one of those giant milestones signaling the coming of "teenager status" in the very near future... at least in the mind of a six year old.

Granny Jo, my mom, made Gloria's joy complete when she said that for your first lost tooth you are supposed to get $2 from every grownup. In the end she collected $6 before she even got a chance to hide her tooth under her pillow! Then my mom didn't want the other kids to feel left out so she made sure they each got a dollar, too.

Politics and Religion

This year a group of us ended up sharing a table and discussing two subjects that are typically taboo at family gatherings: politics and religion. It was interesting to say the least. At this table we had: one Christian, two atheists, two Hindus, and one Jehovah's Witness. Also there were two democrats, one republican, one that never votes, and two who can't legally vote here.

Despite all our differences we were able to share our opinions, beliefs, and ideas without any disrespect or hot tempers. I was really surprised at how well it worked out. Later that evening I also got to discuss presidential candidates with Uncle David. He loves to talk politics (he's an Independent) but doesn't often find anyone who wants to discuss it with him. He's a big Ron Paul supporter and I'm rooting for Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee. We had quite a conversation.

Happy Thanksgiving 2007!

Happy Turkey Day everyone!

We set the timer and took a picture of the enormous group of people that joined us for Thanksgiving lunch this year. There were 31 of us with some from Tennessee, Colorado, Texas, Kansas, Mexico, and India! God is good and has blessed our family continually this year!

Judah: Basketball Hoop Star

Judah made the basketball team as a starter this year. He's the second tallest guy on his team. I believe it. Our nephew seems to have doubled in height since we saw him last.

I took these photos when he was playing in the back yard with Daniel while we waited for Thanksgiving lunch to be ready. Meanwhile Judah's Dad and siblings were playing soccer over by the volleyball court. Before that everyone was out playing touch football at the school across the street. During all this there were multiple challenge matches of ping pong, pool, and foosball going on. At Thanksgiving there is definitely no vegging in front of the television going on at Daniel's parents' house!

Daniel's New Toy

For his birthday this month Daniel's parents sent him a gift card to buy a little handheld video game he's been wanting. It has several old Atari games on it and can be hooked up and played on any t.v.

It became a running obsession amongst the kids (and Daniel) during Thanksgiving. They all took turns trying to beat each other's scores. We had it hooked up to the little monitor from our car DVD player that we use on long trips. This was Daniel's only gift for his birthday this year, and it's definitely a good one!

Making Muffins with a Mob

After 13 hours in the van we made it to Grandma and Granpa's house late Wednesday night. We let the kids stay up way too late because they were all so excited to see each other. Then bright and early Thursday morning, despite a full day of Thanksgiving cooking ahead of her, Grandma Nancy made muffins for breakfast with about 6 of her grandkids.

She is SUPER Grandma! It may be all the years working as a substitute teacher at the local school or her years of experience as a foster mom, but she certainly can organize large groups of kids without batting an eye. The kids loved baking with Grandma Nancy and the muffins were delicious.

Toe Biter

What can I say? Some kids suck their thumbs. Others bite their nails. My kid munches his toes on occasion. His sisters found this so amusing that they tried out their own toes. I'll save them the embrassment of posting those photos.

Kevin is actually fascinated with all body parts and loves to name them. He knows quite a few, but still gets mixed up on the difference between elbow, wrist, and shoulder sometimes. I'm just impressed that he can tell that "arm" means the whole thing and not just one little part, and that "leg" means the whole thing, too. Yesterday I pointed to my hair while saying, "hair" and he said, "No, head."

His new favorite activity is walking around the house and asking, "What dis?" We always try to answer him. He'll repeat the word and then move on to asking about other objects. He's just an amazing little boy.

Practice Makes... Not so bad

We're getting down to the wire for the Christmas concert. There are only 3 weeks left and I'm going to be out of town for a week. Sunday I found out that the first full rehearsal with the choir will be on my birthday next Monday. So we are going to cut our trip short and try to get back in time by making the whole approximately 12 hour drive on my birthday leaving out at 6 am and trying to arrive just in time for the 6 pm practice.

Last night I drove to my "section leader" Ron's house for some extra trombone practice. I needed his help figuring out what some of the fast tricky sections are supposed to sound like. We even managed to keep up with the music on the CD.

I realized last night that even when he says we are sounding better or makes any kind of positive statement I mentally reject it. I also realized that I react that way any time anyone gives me a compliment or says I'm doing something well. I think it's one of those hold overs from childhood. If you're told enough times that you can't do anything right then you eventually become convinced of it. It's sad because although I reject it, I also desperately crave those "pats on the back". I usually remember exactly what someone said or wrote about me and dwell on it for days. One nice compliment or word of encouragement can completely make my day. So, I'm going to try to tell that interior voice to be quiet and take encouragement with a positive attitude.

One thing is certain, I am improving on my trombone and I absolutely love playing. I get to contribute to worshiping God using the very gift He gave me. Even on Sunday mornings when I arrive exhausted and grumpy, playing in the praise band does a 180 on my mood. I can't help smiling and tapping my feet and that positive feeling carries over into the rest of the day.

Sunday Insanity

Saturday night Daniel worked and then pulled a double into Sunday. That means that I had to ask our babysitter Sarah (in this photo on the left) to come stay the night with us so that I could drive Daniel to work Saturday night. That way we had the van the next morning so we could get to church.

So I got up at about 5 am, got everyone up, dressed, and out the door by 7 am, so that I could make it to band practice by 7:30. Then I played trombone for both services while running back and forth helping Sarah get the kids to their classes and taking them for potty breaks. Unfortunately Latte didn't make it and we had to borrow a pullup from the 2 year old class because I forgot to bring an extra. I've got 300 of those things at home and didn't manage to bring even ONE!

After church we were driving to Broomfield to have lunch with Daniel at his work and I got a bit lost and missed my turn a couple of times. Then, finally some good news, Daniel got off work early and was able to leave at lunch time. So we (turned off our brains) and decided to take all the kids out to eat because we received a reimbursement check from the county. Latte learned all kinds of new rules about restaurant eating like: 1. We don't crawl around on the floor under the table, and 2. We don't burst into tears because we don't like the drink that we got.

So then we rushed home, dropped off the kids and Sarah, and drove back to church just in time for 3:30pm Christmas Concert rehearsal. Daniel took a nap in the van while I practiced. Afterwords we went to Fazoli's, just the two of us, for a belated birthday dinner for Daniel. Then we swung into Big Lots for a little Christmas shopping and to get a "Big Girl Surprise" for Latte who is doing well filling up her potty chart with stickers. Finally, Daniel drove Sarah home and we all collapsed at the end of a long crazy day. I'm tired just talking about it!

Random Q&A about Me

My sister-in-law Jennie
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sent these questions to me in one of those email forwards that I never forward. Instead I thought I'd post the answers here.
What time is it? Almost my bedtime, 9:53pm
What 's your full name? Jessica Lee Elliott (but when I was baptized Catholic at the age of 12 I got to choose a saint's name as a second middle name: Bernadette. I don't use it anymore since I'm not Catholic.)
What are you most afraid of? Failing as a wife and mother, and disappointing God
What is the most recent movie that you have seen? Daniel and I watched "Ocean's 13" after the kids were in bed last Tuesday
Place of birth?A hospital, of course. Oh, and in Virginia.
Favorite food? Giant soft pretzels
What's your natural hair color? Dark brown, but I've been in denial ever since it changed from blonde when I was about 20 years old. I'm going to dye it back to brown soon.
Ever been a Neat Freak? On my good days.
Ever been skinny dipping? I plead the 5th in case my children ever read this.
Love someone so much it made you cry? Many someones
Been in a car accident? Yes, but never seriously injured and none that were my fault
Croutons or bacon bits? Neither since starting Weight Watchers
Favorite Week Any week that Daniel has vacation and can be home with us
Favorite restaurant Pizza Hut or maybe Olive Garden
Favorite Flower None...except maybe Daisies because they always make me think of Glenda
Favorite sport to watch Tennis, except during the Olympics, then I like ice skating and gymnastics
Favorite drink Pepsi One
Favorite ice cream Strawberry shakes
Warner Brothers/Disney Disney Pixar! Danya thinks that Latte looks a little bit like Boo from Monster's Inc.
Ever been on a ship? I've stood on one while it was docked
What color is your bedroom carpet? Light brown
How many times did you fail your driver's test? None, although if the tester person had realized I was the same lunatic he had passed on the road minutes before, I might have failed that time.
Favorite TV shows I don't watch t.v. anymore, but I used to like Boston Legal in it's first season
Last person you went to dinner with? Daniel, of course
Park or Zoo? Parks because they are free
What are your favorite colors? purple and blue (Glenda knows why!)
How many tattoos do you have? 12...just kidding! none
How many pets do you have? None now, but in the past I've had two dogs and two hamsters
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The chicken on day 5
What do you want to do before you die? See my family members become Christians (Mom, Dad, Shane, Toni, I pray for you daily! I love you and don't want to spend eternity without you!)
Have you ever been to Hawaii? No, and don't particularly care if I ever get there.
Have you been to countries outside the U.S.? Yes, to Mexico. I'd still love to go to Prince Edward Island, Canada someday to see the Anne of Green Gables locations. Also, a walking tour of Ireland would be a dream come true, but will probably never happen.

Twins...Or Not

Here's a picture of the girls that I took tonight when I noticed that for some reason they completely changed their outfits right before bedtime so that they matched.

Speaking of twins, I got a phone call this week that was heart breaking. This entire year I've looked online at a couple of adoption websites like adoptex.org and adoptuskids.org searching the listings of children and trying to find the "perfect" siblings group. I like to imagine them in our family and think about which rooms they'd sleep in. I've even submitted inquiries on a few different ones, but no one ever contacted me about them.

Until this week. I got a phone call from one of the sites where I had submitted our information on a group of 4 kids, ages 4 to 7 with a set of twin boys in the middle. The person calling asked if we were still interested because they were considering us as a possible match. These kids are in Colorado, but not in our county, so I had to tell her that we can't take a placement outside our county until the end of January. And with Latte, we might also be ineligible because they probably wouldn't want us to have two separate fost/adopt placements at the same time. She said that you never know, these kids might still be available then, so keep an eye on the website. What I've decided is that I have no CLUE what God has planned for me, so I'll just sit back and enjoy the ride in the meantime.

Feeding Himself

Kevin is learning to eat with utensils. He'll let us feed him a few bites but mostly wants to take over and do it himself. It's quite a messy process. We are now giving him between one and two baths a day and several wipe downs with wash cloths and wet wipes.

He's also been picking out his own clothes. He'll open the drawer and pull out the outfit he wants to wear. He even throws the dirty clothes in the hamper. Today he discovered the joy of undressing himself. He walked into the kitchen and yanked his shirt over his head. Then he toddled off to his room and came back with a new shirt that he demanded I put on him.

Tonight he stripped completely and headed over to Daniel for a diaper change. I guess he was letting us know that he was saggin' and he didn't like it. He definitely gave us a look as he grabbed a clean diaper and brought it to Daniel. He thinks he rules this place. He understands the word "No" just fine when he uses it, but not when we use it. Instead he will cry and march right back over to the thing I just told him not to touch...for instance, my printer, my scrapbook tools, my pictures, my camera, my dinner...

Military Night

Wednesday was "Military Night" at AWANAs in honor of Veteran's Day. Teams earned an extra 100 points for dressing up in anything military, camo, patriotic, etc. Two kids that won prizes came dressed as tanks!

I spent an hour before we headed to church working on sewing patches onto uniforms. I am terrible at sewing, so it takes me about 15 minutes per patch. I have to sew 4 numbers on each uniform in addition to badges on the girls' vests, and a flag, leader badge, and training completion badge on my and Daniel's uniforms. Currently I'm about 75% of the way done. I worked on it more today.

Three and One!

Happy Birthday, Daniel!

Daniel turned 31 on Wednesday. The girls and I made him a pineapple upside down cake while Latte was at her visit with her bio mom. When it was time to sing and eat some cake, we realized that we didn't have nearly enough candles. Danya suggested that we put three on one side and one on the other side to represent 31. In the end the kids just decided to cram as many as they could on there until they ran out.

Double Ear Infection

Poor Kevin. He's been hurting for a while now and we just thought it was due to teething. He hasn't been able to sleep, crying inconsolably for hours at a time. He's been cranky and clingy and nothing makes him happy.

Finally, Wednesday we decided to take him to the doctor because he had started pulling on his right ear and just laying on the floor and wailing. Sure enough, he has a double ear infection. So now he's on Amoxicillin and two different kinds of children's pain medication. This is all on top of the bad cold he's had for almost two weeks now. Poor little guy. I wish I could fix it. At least he's sleeping a bit better now.

Sore Teeth & Runny Noses

The past several days have been crazy. Saturday we called the Children's Hospital because Latte's teeth seemed to be hurting her so badly that she would cry when she tried to eat or drink anything. They basically said they couldn't help us until Monday.

Then on Sunday we mentioned the problem during prayer requests in our Sunday school class and one of our friends told us later that Latte had eaten cookies and water with no problems at snack time. It was a mystery. Why did her teeth only hurt some of the time?

Meanwhile Kevin is teething, so he's fussy, cranky, and clingy. On top of that, Latte, Kevin, and I all had a bad cold this past week. We took Latte to the doctor on Thursday so she could sign paperwork to let us give Latte over the counter medicines and to write a prescription for pull-ups. Apparently Medicaid will pay for pull-ups delivered in one day by UPS if your doctor prescribes it.

Monday we took Latte to the Children's Hospital dental clinic where they took x-rays of her teeth only to discover that the problem was not her teeth. She has a huge ulcer on her gums inside her mouth. So acidic foods or drinks were what was causing her pain. For the next week to ten days she can't have tomato sauce, o.j., or anything along those lines. We also have to be careful not to brush her gums when we brush her teeth. I'm just so glad she's eating again and her cold is clearing up....and so is mine!

Boxed In

The kids had no trouble figuring out what to do with all the empty cardboard boxes after we unloaded all the food into the pantry, fridge, and freezer. Danya's box came pre-perforated, and the other kids got Daniel to cut holes in their boxes for them.

It was funny watching all these little box headed children walking around the house. Danya even took hers outside for a while, but the wind is kind of strong today, so that didn't last long.

Stocking the Pantry

This morning we drove to Brighton to see what our first ever shipment from the Food Bank would contain. Daniel helped unload the truck while the kids ran around and I took pictures. We had to park in a long line of cars to get the food. Some of the items were wrong, missing, or expired. Overall, though, we got a TON of food that will hopefully help our grocery bill over time. Here's what we got:
Power Aide -- a case of 20 oz. bottles
Hamburger Helper Mix -- one case
Peaches -- one case of 20 oz. cans
Spaghetti Sauce -- one case of 25 oz jars
Spaghetti -- one case
Animal Crackers -- a huge box, individually wrapped
Cookies -- another huge box
Pretzels -- once case
Biscuit Dough -- one case, individually wrapped
Bean & Bacon Soup -- two cases of 19 oz cans
Whole Wheat Bread -- one loaf for free!
Light Yogurt -- one case

There was also supposed to be frozen french fries, but they didn't make it onto the truck. So that will be credited towards next month's purchase. Sandy, the lady in charge of purchasing, says that there is usually something free like bananas or potatos. This month it was bread. Also, yogurt for some reason was sent, probably instead of the missing fries. Oh, and today I called to make an appointment to get Latte's WIC paperwork transferred over to us here. Next month we should start getting free milk, eggs, cheese, juice, etc. I'm thinking we may eventually lower our food bill to half of what it is now. Currently when we eat at home our meals cost about $6 to feed everyone. I'd like to get that down to under $4 per meal. When you can eat that cheap it makes eating out feel ridiculous.

Fall Ride

Saturday we took the kids outside and let them ride their scooters, bikes, and trike. Latte has a scooter and a trike. Although we explained that she can't ride them both at the same time, still she was very upset that we let Kevin ride whichever one she wasn't riding.

Danya and Gloria shared Danya's old scooter that we got at a yard sale a couple of years ago for $3. We let them ride around the park and play at the playground briefly. Kevin was so excited about all of these new "cars". He did really well on the scooter, but he didn't know what to do with his feet when the tricycle pedals were spinning since he couldn't quite reach far enough to keep his feet on the pedals.

Pantry in Progress

CAUTION: Kids at Work!

The kids all enjoyed helping Daniel build the new shelves for our pantry. The 3 big kids each got to take turns drilling holes with Daddy's drill. Latte helped him count out how many sheet rock anchors he needed. The shelves are done now and ready for the big shipment from the food bank that Daniel will go pick up tomorrow. I'll list what we get, it's supposedly one of their largest orders ever!

Working on this project seemed to be the beginning of a developing thaw between Latte and Daniel. She has started going to him more for help and she wants to know where he is all the time. He has been including her in lots of little things like taking out the trash with him and replacing batteries in her toys. She lets him carry her, push her on the swing, and help her ride her scooter. She laughs and asks for more when he gives her airplane rides around the house. She seems to be really warming up to him.

Busy Days

We are in the middle of a crazy mini-building project. We're using it as a homeschool activity. Daniel and the girls are building a pantry in our coat closet. We had been storing food in there already on a small shelving unit, but now they are building great big wall to wall shelves!

We need to get it done quickly. Tomorrow Latte's CASA worker is coming out to see our house and check on Latte. We can't have our coffee table covered in food! We also need it done because Tuesday of next week we will be picking up our first monthly order from the food bank we are participating in. There should be between 10 and 14 big boxes full of food that we will need to store somewhere.

This week has already been crazy. Last night Daniel and I got our new AWANA leader shirts and badges and got to go up on stage to receive our certificates for passing the basic training test. Our friend, Deanna is really sweating the test, but it's not bad. Tonight Daniel is joining a class for men only at the pastor's house where he will be trained to read, understand, and teach God's word in depth. Meanwhile I have to figure out what we give Daniel for his birthday next week that doesn't cost anything. I'm hoping we can just have a night of video games and maybe play RISK (the boardgame) after the kids are in bed. That's what we did for our first Valentine's Day together 11 years ago. He loves that game.

I also took Latte to the doctor today for myriad reasons. The doctor says she's doing great and that she's very tall for her age, but she is no longer off the charts on weight. Now she is just on the high end of normal for her height. It's got to be all this healthy food we've been eating since we can't afford to eat out right now.

Play Time

Today the kids were allowed to go wild and get crazy playing in the sand at the volleyball court in the park. They had a blast! Daniel took a ton of photos, but my favorite is this one with the sand flying around Kevin.

Later on Latte declared that she was a cowgirl and rode her horse all over the house. Danya had to convince her that it was best not to bring her horse to dinner.

Leaf Prints

Today for an art project the kids all gathered leaves from our front yard. Then they dipped them in paint and pressed them onto their paper. It's better to press it multiple times because the first time it has a bit too much paint on it. The second and third time you can see the leaf pattern better. Daniel even helped Kevin try it.

Ups and Downs

Today was a long day. Our caseworker came in the morning, and she got us set up to participate in the food bank for foster parents next week. So on Tuesday we'll be able to go to the fairgrounds to get a ton of food for less than $40.

She confirmed what we'd been told yesterday. That is that while we have a fost/adopt "legal risk" placement our county DSS will not let us foster other kids. We told her that we were misinformed and had thought this wouldn't affect us being able to foster. So until we legally adopt Latte next year sometime (hopefully) we won't get any other kids. She did say that she'd check to see if we could still do respite care occasionally.

Later Daniel took the kids to the park, we all made homemade pizza together, and we rented Ratatouille and snuggled on the couch to watch it. It's a really funny good family movie. Latte liked making the pizza together. She scooped the middle out of the french bread loaf, sprinkled the cheese on, and spread the pepperonis on top. Danya and Gloria took turns grating different kinds of cheese. Overall it was a good day. We even managed to call the kids in our AWANA group and get some homeschooling done. Latte likes the Leap Frog Letter Factory video.

Icecream and Photos

We went to Sam's today to print some photos of Latte so that I can make a new scrapbook album of just her. She was looking through our family albums with me this morning and wanted to know where she was in all the photos. She was so excited when I showed her the pictures. She kept saying, "That's me! And that's me!" We had icecream and pretzels while we were waiting for the photos to be printed.

I'm hoping to have some time to work on the album this afternoon before Latte's caseworker comes over. This will be her first visit to our home, so we're also trying to make sure that everything is clean and neat. We have visits scheduled for almost every day this week with all the different caseworkers, CASA worker, and Latte's bio mom. It will be a crazy week!

Windy Sunday

Today we had seven kids in our van on the way to church! It's fun knowing that we still have room for three more! We sang songs and did the hand motions. It was great!

Latte did much better at church this morning. We've figured out that she does better if Daniel takes her to class. That way "Mom" isn't leaving her with a stranger. After church we all went to McDonald's to play and have lunch. Latte hid in the back of the van under a bench seat, giggling, and wouldn't come out. So we all went in except Daniel. He laid down in one of the back seats and said, "Okay, we can take a nap while everyone else goes to play." She stood up, saw he was serious, and made a bee line for the door!

We've noticed that Latte is using her words more instead of baby talk or whining and pointing. So many of her issues seem to be solved with simple consistency. She really seems to be fitting into our family well and adjusting to all the house rules slowly but surely. Today we're having Sarah and Shannon spend the whole day with us so that she can adjust to them as "authority figures". Since they will always babysit at our house it should make it less scary for her when we have to be gone.

Fall all Over

This week for homeschool I cut out 3 little pumpkins and wrote art projects on the back of them. I hung them on the wall and each day after we get finished with our work the girls' get to choose a pumpkin. The one we did yesterday was "leaf" hand paintings. Their hands are supposed to look like leaves. They literally got this project all over them. We washed hands between each color of paint, but it was still pretty messy. All 3 girls enjoyed stamping their hands onto the paper.

For Gloria, it was a good motivator to finish writing her letter to Uncle Ben. As part of our Grammar work yesterday, each of the girls had to write three question sentences and three statements. So I had them write a letter and ask the person they were writing to three questions and tell them three things about themselves. For Danya this is sort of review, but she enjoys participating in whatever Gloria is doing. That's why even though Gloria is the one studying the human body this year, Danya got to make a skeleton, too. Latte keeps seeing all the projects we've already done and getting upset that she doesn't have one. I'm hoping that she'll want to keep joining in for all the other projects and school work Danya and Gloria are doing.

We won't start "official" preschool with Latte until next Spring, but that doesn't mean she can't learn anything right now. She's already amazing me with how much she knows. I tried to give her a picture of shapes to color yesterday and she yelled, "No triangles!" Then I was going to talk to her about colors, but while she was yelling about which book she wanted to look at I realized she was saying the color of each book. I guess I'll spend the next few months figuring out how much she already knows so that we can start at the right level for her. On the right is a photo of her leaf hand painting.

Dem Bones, Dem Bones

As it so happens, I was teaching the girls the names of their bones this week. I don't believe in making skeletons scary, so we try to be very matter of fact about it. It's just another part of your body, no more scary than your stomach or your heart.

These skeletons that they made have all the bones labled. The girls cut them out and attached the parts with brads so that they move at all the joints. Then we played "Simon Says" with them. They had to nod their craniums, shake their pelvis, lift their femurs, and wave their radius and ulnas. It was pretty funny watching them. Latte didn't want to play, but I saw her touching her sternum when we did and noting everything we were doing.

Edited in Reply to Comment: I got the pattern that I copied for these skeletons out of one of my favorite resources. It's the October edition of the Teacher's Friend Idea Books that I've mentioned many times on this blog. I just love those books and use them for almost every project or activity we do. Last year (or the year before) we used Learning About My Body which is written for younger kids. The skeleton is easier to assemble and doesn't have the "scientific" bone names on it. If you click the link you can actually flip through that book page by page to see if it's the right level for your kids.

Hang Loose!

Danya's tooth was hanging by a thread on Halloween night. I was so glad that it held on long enough to take pictures. It added a funny touch to her costume. Her tooth fell out yesterday. She was so excited! The tooth fairy almost forgot to visit and didn't remember to swap out her tooth for two quarters until almost midnight last night. Now, my girls know all about the "tooth fairy" but we like to pretend anyway. We handle Santa Clause the same way. The only one we don't do is the Easter Bunny.

Yesterday our plans to go play at McDonald's play land with friends got cancelled at the last minute, so Daniel took the kids to the park instead. We also finally received the reimbursement check for the two carseats we purchased for Curly Top and The King a few weeks ago. I excitedly went to the bank to cash it only to discover that our bank had charged us about $150 in overdraft fees. We'd carefully checked our account online on Monday, but apparently, although it listed all our purchases, it didn't actually deduct them from our available balance until Monday at midnight. So we were fooled into believing we had a few bucks left. Every $3 purchase cost us $33 in overdraft fees. Don't you love how banks "protect us" like that? So we are paying our "stupid tax" as Dave Ramsey calls it and going back to paying for everything in cash instead of using our check card.

The Candy

All the kids had so much fun trick or treating last night! Danya, Gloria, and Latte practically ran from one house to the next. They all took turns ringing the doorbell. We had to explain to Latte why it's rude to push the bell 4 or 5 times in a row. Kevin wanted to get out of the wagon at every house, walk up the door, and say, "Hi!" and "Bye-bye!" It was cold out, but not too bad. We all had runny noses by the time we got back home. We made Latte wear an extra jacket on top of the one in this picture.

At a few houses the person with the candy would just hold it out and let each kid grab a couple pieces. Kevin and Latte didn't really get this concept. They thought they were being offered as much as they could grab. Kevin wanted to drop each individual piece into his bag with a line of kids backing up behind him.

The hardest part was bedtime. The kids were all wired on candy. There were still kids outside going up and down the street trick or treating. Lots of parents were driving their kids from door to door, so their car lights were shining into Latte's room. And I think Latte realized that she wasn't going back to her former home. She threw a royal fit for the first time ever with us. More than just her normal "testing". We spent hours going round and round until she finally passed out. It was really crazy since she kept waking up Kevin.

Then Danya got out of bed to tell me I'd forgotten to give her last dose of eye drops for the night. Daniel's phone freaked out so I couldn't call him and I couldn't figure out where he put the eye drops. I finally called Latte's former foster mom and asked for advice. She said that every night she takes Latte outside and shows her the moon so that she knows it's bedtime. I tried that, but unfortunately there was no moon. It's amazing how freaked out a 3 year old can get when the moon no longer exists. Honestly, I figure if I could make it through that, plus the potty training issues of the whole next day (trust me, you don't want to know), I should be able to handle anything.

The Costumes

Danya was a scientist this year because she wanted to be something that no other kids would be. She had so much fun choosing a pair of "scientist glasses". We settled on thick black sunglasses, and then popped the lenses out.

Gloria was a pajama girl. Besides wearing her first ever pair of "feety pajamas" she also carried a teddy bear and used a back pack for holding her Halloween candy. She said the backpack made it look like she was going to a sleepover party.

Kevin was originally supposed to be a football player. When Daniel let him try on Gloria's old Care Bear costume, though, we couldn't get him out of it. He loved it! He went around the house growling at us and we would all act scared. Then he'd laugh his head off and do it again. It was a good warm costume.

Latte wore Danya's old Cinderella costume. She looked beautiful, and surprisingly we didn't see any other Cinderella's while we were out trick or treating. We did see a Snow White and a Sleeping Beauty.

Homeschool at the Doc's Office

On Tuesday we took Danya to the doctor because she developed pink eye. In the van on the way there and in the waiting room at the doctor's office we worked on homeschool. We've been playing catch up a little because I had hoped to be finished with the first volume of Story of the World (our history book) by now.

The doctor prescribed some eye drops for Danya and said that she would be very contagious for 24 hours, and then somewhat contagious after that. She also said there's a very good chance all the rest of us will get it. We all stayed home from the Western Night at AWANA Wednesday night, just in case. But the doctor said we could go trick or treating, so that's good. She also was pleasantly surprised when she asked Danya what she was going to be for Halloween. Danya said, "A scientist" and the doctor actually did a double take. I think she was expecting to hear "princess" or something along those lines.