Valentine Mystery Dinner

The youth group at our church hosted a Valentine's Day Mystery Dinner as a fund raiser for their upcoming mission trip. There were lots of skits and musical numbers to watch. The dinner was one of those where the menu items are all code words and you have to select what order you want them served in. So you may have one course with no silverware and another with odd food combinations. It was really fun. I especially enjoyed the men's synchronized swimming at the end!

Zippity Zoo-dah!

We went to the zoo with a lady from church who recently became licensed as a respite care foster home. We're hoping to occasionally have her provide respite care for our foster daughters. This was an opportunity for her to get to know them. We didn't expect it to be so snowy that day. In spite of the snow, the kids had a great time. The zoo had lots of special events to celebrate Chinese New Year. Apparently it is the year of the rabbit, so there were lots of rabbit crafts to make. All the kids got temporary tattoos and watched the dragon dancers perform a dance inside of giant dragon costumes. It was nice, for once, to have an extra adult available to take a photo of our whole family while we were there. The kids all liked KaraMae a lot. It was a cold, fun day.

Happy Valentine's Day 2011

Valentine's Photos 2011

Ballerina Baby

Katie's Valentine's Day Photos. This was the first time she really posed for me without being asked.

In Concert

Daniel and I went to the Winter Wonder Slam concert together. Our friend, Brandy, from church offered to watch our kids overnight. So we left five of them with her and the other three with another foster family from church. We hadn't had a night without kids in close to a decade. We saw Brandon Heath and Toby Mac perform. They were amazing. Brandon Heath's music is so beautiful. I especially love his song "I'm Not Who I Was" because it makes me think of my family. It was such a great night.

Egg Carton Caterpillars

We did a caterpillar art project after the boys learned about insects and metamorphosis. When our three public schooled girls got home they wanted to do the project, too. I keep finding these 8 different caterpillars popping up all around the house. The kids seem to think it's funny to leave them in odd locations.

So Long Cast

Gloria was happy to finally get her cast off the first week of February. She was a little scared, but she handled it like a trooper.

Dude

Shane is one cool dude on his skateboard. Fearless and a little crazy, he's got just the right attributes to become a really great skater. If only he could remember which are the elbow pads and which are the knee pads...

Piggy Tail Power

Ah, the power of piggy tails. Katie's hair was finally long enough to fit into piggy tails without sticking straight up in the air. It totally transformed her look. She went from a shaggy haired boyish urchin to a sweet faced little pixie.

Since this first attempt, I've done her hair almost daily in piggy tails because it looks so darn cute on her. She will even tell me that we can't go outside yet because we haven't done her "pitty tails". She sits patiently on my bathroom counter while I put them in, although she'll let me know if I'm pulling her hair. Next she wants to stand up on the counter and admire herself in the bathroom mirror. Finally, she has to jump down to show everyone else how pretty she looks. She'll keep bugging them until they exclaim, "Woo woo! Pretty girl!"

WoW Museum Birthday

Some friends of ours from church were having a birthday party for their little girl at the WoW museum. It was convenient because our county had given us a free one year membership for being a foster family. Also, their daughter is in the same Sunday school class as three of our kids, Brianna, Shane, and "Boo".

The kids had so much fun. Danya got to milk a pretend cow, Kevin monopolized the Thomas the Tank Engine table, and Katie was a blur running from one center to the next. She ended up with about three inches of sand in her pants before we left. The party went well and even Shane's Options kindergarten teacher came with her daughter.

Daddy Daughter Dance

Danya, "Junie B.", and "Boo" went to the Daddy Daughter Dance at their elementary school. Did I mention that we decided to let Danya try out the latter half of 5th grade? She pointed out that it was her last chance ever to experience public elementary school. I pointed out that she'd be wasting an entire semester academically, but she really wanted to try it. It didn't take long before she was saying she was ready to be homeschooled again, but we are requiring her to finish the semester.

Anyway, the dance was packed. It was a bit strange, too. At one point they gave all the kids rolls of toilet paper to wrap their dads up. And lots of families didn't get the whole daddy DAUGHTER point so there were quite a few boys there. The girls enjoyed dressing up and having their hair done. We didn't manage to get "Boo" new dress shoes in time, so she wore princess dress up shoes. "Junie B." wasn't much into dresses, but she seemed to come out of her shell a little in her sparkly pink gown. I think some of her tom boy front is more of a defense mechanism. It took a while to convince her to let me put her hair in something other than her typical low over the shoulder pony tail. They all looked absolutely beautiful.

The Biggest Loser

Starting on January 1st, Daniel and I decided to challenge each other to lose weight. We started out with mini goals that we had to reach before February 3rd in order to be allowed to use the Toby Mac concert tickets that Daniel surprised me with. My first goal was to get back under 200 lbs. I made it by the end of January. My next goal was to lose 10 lbs. I achieved that by the second week of February. My next mini goal is to have lost 10% of my body weight. I'm half way there already.

Daniel has really made good use of the treadmill we got in November. He's up to running 2.5 miles in 31 minutes. I'm really proud of him. He's been such an encouragement to me. Our big goal is to reach our total weight loss goal by this summer. If we both make it then we will take a big 15th anniversary trip, just the two of us (assuming we can get someone to watch the kids for a few days), probably down to the beach near Galveston, TX like we did a few years ago when I was pregnant with Katie. I'm really proud that every week I have consistently lost at least a pound since we began this weight loss plan. We aren't following any specific plan, just eating sensible portions and exercising more. That, plus a LOT of prayer is getting us there.

Mask Mania

After reading about masked balls in their Story of the World history book the kids took one of the projects in the workbook and went wild with it. This photo is only a small sampling of all the masks they made. I told them we couldn't keep them all, but having a picture means we'll always remember what they looked like.

New Faces in our Family

Today we had two sweet little faces join our family. The caseworker says it may be long term, so we'll be enrolling them in school this week. For their online nicknames we've decided to call them "Junie B." and "Boo". The older one loves Junie B. Jones books and the younger one reminds us of Boo from Monster's Inc. They remind us so much of two little girls we had at this same time of year three years ago.

The sisters are 6 1/2 and 10 years old, first and fourth graders. Our girls are super excited to have girls their age to play with. They are in the dining room right now giggling up a storm and playing a board game called "Faces". The oldest girl is a musician, so I know we'll get along great.

Game Frenzy

For awhile in January we were on a crazy game kick where we played a board game, cards, or our new dice game "Farkle" almost every day. We're planning to put up a board in the dining room to keep track of our top Farkle scorer. I gave Daniel the game as a stocking stuffer for Christmas, but had no idea that it would be such a hit with the whole family. We've even roped friends into playing it with us.

One lazy Saturday I pulled out a game we haven't played in a long time called "Acquire". It's actually out of print now. The manufacturer stopped making it a few years ago, although you can still play online versions. We introduced Danya to the game and she came pretty close to winning. It's all about buying and selling shares in hotel chains and is loosely a stock market game. It's so nice having an organized game and toy storage closet. We're finally enjoying our stockpile of board games.

First Snow in December 2010

The winter weather kindly held off for a few days after Christmas so that the kids could enjoy their Christmas presents outside. But when it hit, boy was it a doozie! Daniel and the kids wasted no time running out to have fun with their snow shovels. Last year Daniel got them all kid sized shovels, so they get to "help" him clear the driveway and sidewalk. They had more fun burying Danya in the snow. Katie was fascinated by it all and kept walking into the deep drifts and then yelling out, "Ayuda me!" which is "help me" in Spanish (Thank you, Diego and Dora).

Christmas on Wheels

This Christmas was all about wheeled gifts. Danya, Gloria, and Brianna all received roller blades. Shane got a Spiderman skateboard and gear, and Kevin got a Superman bike, his first two wheeler. Katie didn't exactly get anything to ride on, but she had a large collection of Little People that came with vehicles. She also got a kitchen that the kids play with pretty much every day.

We were also blessed with a snow-free Christmas, which meant that the kids all got to run out and try their new Christmas presents right away. After helping them for about half an hour, the girls seemed to be doing alright on their own. Danya and Gloria used to have shoes with wheels in them called Heelies, so they were pretty confident in their skating abilities. Maybe a little too confident.

A short while later Danya ran screaming into the house that Gloria fell and broke her arm. I ran out to find one of our new neighbors helping Gloria to take off her roller blades. She was cradling her left arm and crying hysterically. Nothing seemed to be broken, so we just gave her an ice pack and made her take it easy for the rest of that day and the next. Monday it was still hurting her, so we took her for x-rays at the hospital in Brighton. It turns out she buckled the bone near her wrist. It's not a true break, more like it's jammed and the bone has bumped out a little. She had to have a cast for several weeks, just to protect it while it healed, and she couldn't do any lifting with it. What a crazy end to Christmas this year!

Christmas Eve PJs

Continuing our annual tradition, we all got new p.j.'s for Christmas Eve. Katie opened hers and yelled "cookie pants!" Shane and Kevin were excited to get Batman and Superman. Gloria of course had Bobby Jack monkey p.j.'s. For Danya, though, we were a bit stumped. She has informed us that she's too old for Tinkerbell now. So we took a gamble on Hello Kitty p.j.'s. They were a hit! She loved them.

Then Daniel surprised me with a set of super soft purple pajamas and we surprised him with two new pajama tops. One was Popeye and the other was Mighty Mouse. He loves them and wears them everywhere. I sort of wish he'd keep them just for sleepwear, but he does look adorable in them.

WOW! Free Membership!

Our foster care family worker hooked us up with a free one year family pass to the WoW Museum in Lafayette. We'd been there once before a few years ago with friends, so we knew it was great. When the family pass arrived we invited our friends, Brandy and her kids, to come with us.

The kids all had a great time checking out the new centers that had been added and revisiting some of the classics like the bubble maker. It was especially fun enjoying the museum with friends. Daniel, the kids, and I all worked together to build a log cabin out of giant wooden connector pieces. But the most fun part, according to the kids, was the room with the balls that taught them about ramps and inclines.