Perfect Entertainment!

For when we need some peace and quiet, and/or the kids are bored:

The TV, of course, was the top priority. The furniture (seating, anyway) is ordered, but the bean bags work perfectly for the kids!

Dance Photos

Well, we've survived dance photos - the first real test! Not much time to write today, but here are a few photos from the morning.

Hair & Make-up done, ready to head to the studio:

Both girls ready:

Couldn't get Josephine to stand still, she was so excited! This is her ballet costume. Tap is the same, except caramel tights instead of pink, and a hair ribbon instead of the chicky hat.

Kaylen's tap costume:

Kaylen's ballet costume:

Kaylen's jazz costume - her favorite of the three costumes:

Adoption Update 4/18/12

In my last post about our adoption process, we found out that our time in IBESR could be as short as 2 months.

I will admit I was a little skeptical, after having been in IBESR for 10 1/2 months with Elijah & Josephine's adoption. Even so, when the two months came and went a week and a half ago, I was a little disappointed. You try hard to not get your hopes up, but you do. But then when the thoughts of disappointment come, the very next thought is, duh!, it's probably not likely - we've been through this before - we have no idea how long it'll be. Then back to All in God's timing. The back-and-forth thoughts are endless!

I tried to use the time praying, instead of dwelling on the process itself. I printed the list of kids in process, and prayed over each one, for their families, the GLA staff caring for them, their waiting families, and the offices that dossiers go through waiting for signatures or other action.

So a week and a half after our 2 months passed, I had gotten busy and gotten beyond that disappointment. Much to my surprise, I had an email today around lunchtime that we had a message from our adoption agency on our portal page on their website. From my phone I could only see part the subject line: "New Message from Bethany: Ou...". Turning my phone sideways revealed the remainder of that subject: "...t of IBESR!" I couldn't believe my eyes. I immediately logged in to our portal page to read the rest of the email. I think I had to read that email three times because I was so excited!

Then I called Jock. I asked him if he was at work or at home. He was working at home. I asked him if he was sitting down or standing up. He was sitting. I asked him if he was ready to start screaming. He said, "News about our adoption?" Um, yup - we're out of IBESR!!!

So here's the details... We were one of several families adopting from GLA, whose dossier exited IBESR at the same time. GLA is going to coordinate travel schedules between all the families, and probably prioritize which families travel first based on when they entered IBESR - a couple of these families have been waiting since last summer because they needed dispensation. But even so, we anticipate we'll travel "within the next three weeks or so". Yup, very specific. We were asked to let our agency know which week(s) would work better for us, so we're officially working on travel plans!

We can't wait to travel to Haiti again, and to meet our youngest son!

Basement Nearly Finished

Thursday and Friday evenings, most of the day Saturday and even part of today, they were working hard on our basement.

The bottom two treads of the stairs were replaced and the railing was installed.
The doors over the access panels to the heater/humidifier and electrical/cable panels were installed.(No, that carpet piece is not purple - it's a dark red - and will be our family room "area rug" for now.)

The bedroom window is framed out.
The doors have all received their final coat of paint.
I *think* all that's left now is to put another coat or two of paint on the stairway trim and railing, finish the sheetrock and paint on the outside of the bottom two steps, and carpet the stairs.

Then, of course, furnishing it, but how soon that goes will depend on where we end up with the budget.

Dance Recital - HELP PLEASE!!!

So I just got the girls' dance recital handbook today. I'm a bit overwhelmed. I suppose if I re-read it several times in the next few weeks, I might figure it out. Let me just say, that weekend in early June is going to be one VERY LONG WEEKEND!!! But it starts long before that...

Costume fitting is next week during class, then photos with each of their groups the last Saturday of this month. Yes, hair and make-up done, and new/unwashed/unworn tights, no panties, steamed costumes, etc., are required for photos as well as recitals. Yes, Kaylen's going to look so pretty for her soccer game that afternoon after photos! :)

Then in June - recital weekend! Rehearsal starts at 3:00 on Thursday afternoon. Josephine's first dance rehearses at 3:30, so we'll have to be there right on time. Kaylen's dances are at 4:50, 7:05, and 7:50, then Josephine's other dance rehearses almost at the end, at 8:25. That's going to be the longest day EVER!!! We'll have to find a time in there to go have dinner and wiggles - but not too many wiggles because we have to keep the hair/makeup perfect. I guess I'll take the afternoon off work to pick them up from daycare and get them ready.

Recital itself will seem like a piece of cake after that! Except that Josephine will be half asleep. She's usually in bed around 7:30, so hopefully being up late Thursday night for rehearsal and Friday night's performance will not mean that the Saturday afternoon performance is a disaster. I'm not sure having the two preschool classes (J's and another one) performing their tap routine 2nd and 3rd to the very end is a great idea, but we shall see.

But really, I'm having the most issues with the hair and make-up rules. I don't think they considered a child with very dark brown skin, and super-kinky hair.

There's a "No 'wispies' please." note in the handbook. Josephine's hair takes me about 6 hours to style, maybe longer considering I'll have to probably put it up in tiny braids that can then be styled similarly to the yet-to-be-determined hair style. So, I'll probably have to do her hair either the weekend before photos and the weekend before recital -or- take two more days off work to do it the day before photos and recital. Her hair gets "wispy" (or in her case, I call it fuzzy) within hours, and definitely overnight. So the "No 'wispies'" is probably not going to be possible for her. It's not like I can just slap more gel on in about 5 minutes and we're good, like I probably can with Kaylen's.

The make-up will be interesting too. Considering I rarely wear make-up myself, and I don't believe I've ever applied eyeliner, this is going to be tough. Any offers of help out there???

Josephine's make-up is a completely different issue altogether. Again with the non-consideration of a student with very dark brown skin. I don't really have issue with the red lipstick. And I totally get that white girls totally look washed-out on a stage under lights, so they need make-up. But Josephine's going to look like a clown if I use beige or brown eye shadow and taupe eyebrow pencil on her - maybe the blush too. The black or brown mascara and eyeliner will not even show up for her. Her eyes are already accentuated by her dark skin making her eyes look bright-white. I'd LOVE ideas from women with dark skin who wear make-up, or moms with kids with dark skin who've had to do dance make-up like this. I'm completely out of my element here! The handbook does say we can discuss make-up colors and brands at costume fitting, but I'd like some thoughts before then so I'm not coming from complete and total ignorance!

HELP!!! Maybe I'm over-reacting, but I'm soooo not cut out for this dance-mom role! Any suggestions from you seasoned dance moms?

Relationships

(Looking at the photos of all four of my kids on my cell phone.)
Josephine: "I like my brudder, named James. He's cute!"
Elijah: "He's a boy, not a girl."
J: "I know. Him's cute."
E: "He's a boy brudder. I got a boy brudder. You got a girl brudder."
J: "No, we're getting a boy brudder, he not a girl. Him's my brudder too."
E: "Nuh-uh. Mom, Josephine said she not getting a girl brudder?"
Mom: "Um, no, James is a boy, and he is going to be Josephine's brother and he'll also be your brother and Kaylen's brother."
(Elijah rolls his eyes back, silly confused.)
Mom continues: "Josephine is your sister, and she's going to be James' sister, and she's your sister. YOU are Josephine's brother and James' brother. Boys are brothers, and girls are sisters."

Yes, we're a little confused about sister and brother relationships.

We also still get confused about husband/wife vs mom/dad relationships too. We still ask on a regular basis when we see a friend without their spouse present, "Where's your Mom/Dad?" when they mean, "Where's your husband/wife?"

Palm Sunday

A few times per year, the kids in our church sing, up front, with the praise choir. Usually it's just one song before they're ushered to their classrooms, and usually it's right before a special holiday. Today was no different... except...

When it was time for the children to go up front, Josephine did NOT scream and cry for me, in terror of the loud music! I did go into the sanctuary before the service - when the praise band was practicing. I'd been there Wednesday evening when some of the kids were practicing, and saw where they were placing the preschoolers and elementary kids. The preschoolers were in front of the monitors (that feed the sound back to the musicians so they know what they sound like), so hopefully in a less-noisy spot. I explained that to her and pointed out the spots, and she said she could be brave but still seemed a little reluctant. Then when I left her in her class, she was a little clingy. Her teacher knows she has trouble with the loud-ness, and I talked to her when I dropped her off, and told her where I was planning to sit, just in case.

She surprised us all! She did awesome! She even thoroughly enjoyed it! She was dancing and singing up there with the best of them. She was so proud of herself afterwards, that she was brave.

A smile and dancing to the music right off the bat - before they even started singing and all the kids were in place. :)

I couldn't get Elijah to smile at me when he looked up at me - looked bored and disinterested up there. But you'll have those days. Kaylen's in the back row in a pink top - she doesn't like getting up in front of everyone either, but does OK in a group. I think she was also tired - as evidenced by the yawn in the next video. ;)


I didn't get a very good video. I couldn't see Josephine very well from where we were sitting - her friend Abby was right in front of her, but you can sort of see her dancing and waving her palm branch. But we can see Elijah & Kaylen singing in this one.

It was such a success for Josephine, that we decided to stay and have them sing for the second service too. Kaylen and Elijah were ready to go home and weren't thrilled but obliged. Josephine was excited! This service, Kaylen ended up right in front of the cross, still in the back row. Josephine is still in the center, right behind a girl in a pink plaid dress (she kept turning around to look at the worship leader). Elijah is slightly right of center in the front.


Second service I got a better video, but then my memory card ran out of space. At least I got a little bit of each of them singing!

Basement Update

The tiles are cleaned up from the grout now, and they put in the cabinets and finished the plumbing (almost - one drain isn't connected because they were short an elbow). The cabinets and countertops look awesome. The only part not done that's noticeable is the backsplash and sidesplash on the countertop. It was broken into 3 pieces in shipping, so we're awaiting a new one. Next up is the doors and trim - this week! A few photos I took tonight of lighting, and stuff they did this weekend...

Family room floor and light/fan:

Bedroom light/fan:

Bathroom light, mirror, cabinets, toilet, and flooring:

Kitchenette:

Spring/Easter Hair

Josephine's March 3rd pom-pom hair was a hit, so I decided to leave the back in two pom-poms and only did the front half in flat twists with hanging at the ends with green/white beads for St. Patrick's Day. Well, the pom-poms were quite nappy after three weeks, and since the preschoolers have spring photos at daycare this week, and Easter is coming up, we decided to go ahead and redo hair.

The plan... pastels for easter/spring. These are pink, purple, green, orange, and yellow pony beads, and multi-color pastel flower beads as the anchor, held on with yellow bands. I decided to do box braids, and thought I'd pull the front ones back away from her face with some of our cute clips that we don't use very often now that her hair is too long/thick to leave free.
I combed out small sections at a time, to make the comb-out of the pom-poms less painful... and it worked. It was nearly tear-free! I sectioned into clips as I went. Then when all was combed/parted, I started braiding at the bottom. My parts aren't exactly straight or even, but it worked. Note to self for next time: make the sections smaller, because her hair is getting thick! I had a hard time getting the beads on a few of these sections. Especially since I trimmed her ends a month or so ago, I REALLY notice that her ends are thicker too. (I also noticed that I didn't exactly trim evenly - that one on the bottom left is about an inch longer than the other three in the bottom tier - oops!)
This was when we stopped Saturday afternoon. The back was done. The front still looked decent with the St. Patrick's Day twists, so it was a good stopping point for the day.
Sunday's task was to take out the twists, and put in box braids. Once the front box braids were in, Josephine chose which clips she wanted me to put in to hold back the braids from her face.
She wasn't very happy about taking the clips out for her shower and bedtime, but they wouldn't be very comfortable to sleep on! When I told her that she could pick out her clips every morning, she was excited about that.

Exercise

So I decided this spring to let my Farrell's membership expire. I was finding it harder and harder to stick with it. I think it got boring, with mostly the same work-out day in and day out - and I want to do some running.

I did decide to purchase some resistance training bands so I can keep up with some strength training at home. That's something that I've never been good at, but I enjoy (most of) the exercises, and it's important to me in addition to the cardio that I'm doing. I found the best prices I could on Amazon, and purchased the same or very similar bands to what I'd been using at Farrell's. I still have my book with the exercises in them, so I don't forget. The bands also came with a pamphlet showing how they can be used, so I'll be able to mix it up a bit.

Jock and I are both running this spring. He signed up for a 20k the first weekend in June - Dam to Dam (I ran the Dam to Dam 5k last year. Some friends talk about it every year, and he decided to go for it. Yes, I think he's a little crazy, going from little-to-no exercise to trying to run a 20k in 11 weeks. (That's more than 12 miles, folks!!!) He wants to do it and decided just to set a goal. If he physically can't do it, he won't, but he's going to try. I'm glad he's moving and starting to exercise. He's already started running a few days/week on our treadmill, and he's going to work his way up with his mileage. He'll be running outside on the weekends for his longer runs as well.

Yesterday he asked me what were some exercises he could do to strengthen certain muscle groups. I got out my bands, and showed him a few. He has some limitations with his knees and back, but he thought he could do a few of them.

While I had the bands out, the kids were watching, and it became a fun game to try to do some of the exercises (them without the bands, though - they're not made in kid sizes). So it was like I was teaching a little exercise class, right in my living room - fun! Elijah lost interest pretty quickly, but Josephine was really into it. She wanted to keep doing more when I stopped, and has been asking about exercising with me every day since! :) ...and you should see the girl do push-ups - perfect form, and all the way down with upper arms parallel to the floor - on her toes. She's a natural!

I mentioned I'm running as well. I ran two 5k's last summer/fall. My sister joined me for my second one, and we decided we wanted to do a few more this year... Well, we'd heard about the Warrior Dash - a relative did it last summer, and one of my co-workers was talking about it quite a bit this winter. She and some friends signed up for the one in Nebraska. When she told me they added one in Iowa, I texted my sister. We thought about it for a couple weeks, then decided to give it a try. Yes, we're crazy too!

The Warrior Dash is about a 3 1/2 mile run, but on an obstacle course. In addition to the running, we'll have to climb over things, crawl under/across things, jump over fire, and trudge through a mud pit to finish the race. I still am in a little disbelief that we signed up, and a little scared, but it's going to keep me motivated to keep training. I think I'm going to need more endurance than what I need for a regular 5k street run, and I'm going to need that strength training for the obstacles.

So here we go!