Just Stuff

We are finished with adoption class. But as I think I said last time, they've said they aren't going to even get to our paperwork until January at the earliest. So I just need to focus on other things and not sweat the wait. 

The good thing is that I know a social worker in another county that I had the privilege to meet at a writer's conference. She is genuinely a good person, and she let Parris' case worker know we are interested in him but that our county is in no hurry to get to our paperwork. She sent our 2008 home study, but that is 8 years old. The twins weren't even home yet. Jessica was a junior in high school, and she now pregnant with her second child! I wrote a description of our family now and included a couple of pictures, and she sent that too. Unfortunately, she hasn't heard back.

We really haven't done much this week. I signed up for nanowrimo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it's a commitment to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. That comes out to 1,666 words a day. I am at 34,263 so far, and pretty much on target.

Yesterday there was a write-in that went to three places. The writers started at one place and wrote (or drew), walked to the next place and then to a third place. Jasmine and I caught up with them at the third place. We took a couple of pictures outside and a couple inside.

Ha! Check out all the sugar in this picture! Jasmine helped me with it :)

We are coming up on crazy times, as are the rest of you I'm sure.
We have friends coming for taco soup tomorrow night and hope our adult kids can join us. Jessica is hosting Thanksgiving.

The big Christmas parade is Dec 3, and I think both girls are in it. Kayla can't really play the music, but I think they are going to let her play with the older band anyway. It's a title 1 school who just hopes the kids show up for school, and she will have lots more chances to succeed without having to be the best of the best.

December 4th is Jasmine's carols concert, and the 5th is the festival of choirs. 

The 8th is Kaleb's band concert.

The 9th is the Millville parade, and all the schools bring their preschool and kindergarten children. I think every school band in the county is there for it. I find it a lot more fun than the long. boring Christmas parade.

The 10th is breakfast with Santa. After breakfast with Santa, Kaleb has a swim meet and the parade of boats is that evening. It turns out the 10th is family day where Hunter works, so River can't go with us.

The 13th is Kayla's concert.

The 16th is Rick's work party, and the kids have early release on the 21st.

So that's what is ahead for us!

What's next up for you?

Veteran's Day

We had beautiful weather yesterday for both Veteran's Day Parades. The first was the big one downtown. Jasmine marched in that.

Here are some photos of her band.

Jasmine with percussion friends

Jessica was with us at the parade and then brought the dogs over to run.

Tyler took them on the trampoline, but they just sat there.

The twins eating banana popsicles in the treehouse.

 In the afternoon the puppies went to the local parade. The pictures aren't that great because they were taken on iPad.

 Looks like Travis got some beads!

 Caspian

Sasha doesn't look too thrilled!

Coming up still this week we have the local rodeo. At this point I am planning on taking everyone, hoping that it will be a fun shared event. We are meeting Jessica and Hunter there.

Jasmine will be traveling with her band to the football playoffs.

Sunday we will be hosting Jessica's baby shower. Her friend Delisa is technically in charge of it, but her house is too small.

Saturday we will be decluttering for the shower.

Mardi Gras parade adventures

Yesterday was the Mardi Gras children's and pet parade. We don't take part in any of the adult activities and have not actually done any of the parades since Jessica last marched with the flags with police explorers, but I decided to go this year.

And I got the bright idea to take the dogs! What I didn't realize is that when they said "pet parade" it meant you could pay money and march down the street with your dog as part of the parade. Our dogs were not at all excited to see other dogs walk by. In fact, there was quite a bit of barking, growling and doggy attitude from my three. It's also hard to grab beads while holding a dog.

But don't they look so sweet and innocent? Not sure what Sasha is doing with her head though.

I can understand my puppies acting like puppies. But what I don't understand is why some parents let their kids be rude and greedy. And why is it that I always get next to a kid who is determined to get every single thing thrown!!

In the children's parade they throw very little candy but do throw stuffed animals and beads. And the boy next to me was about five and felt he was entitled to all of it. My kids seemed to be invisible. I finally told them to stand out in the street and wave like crazy like the other kids were. Personally, if I were throwing stuff, I'd throw it to the kids who were just waiting quietly, but not so for the ones throwing in this parade. Mine waved a little but just aren't the kind to kill for beads.

Not so with the family next to me. First a little girl in the parade goes up and gives the boy a stuffed animal. He says, "I don't want this one." Hands it back to the girl and grabs the other one she was holding. She was about 6 and looked ready to cry when he did that. The boy's mom did nothing. Personally I would have made my child give it back.

Then some beads were headed toward both the boy and myself. I was holding Sasha so didn't put much effort into getting them, just put my hand out. They hit my hand, but he snatched them. When I turned to look at him, he says, "Ha. Ha. I got them" in a really mouthy tone. Seriously there were lots of things I could have said to him at that moment, but I just looked at him a few seconds then said, "I guess you're just more aggressive than me. It didn't matter that much to me." (or something like that) And I gave his mom a look. She wasn't even embarrassed.

But the thing that really got me was that his mom started darting in front of us to get beads. I'd reach down since they were at my feet but she snatch them before I'd get them. I wasn't in a hurry and I'm not about the sacrifice my dignity for beads. If it were money, maybe :)

 You see how many Kayla and Jasmine have in the picture? This boy had about three times what they have combined. I mean, what do you really do with them. The boy wanted blue beads. They are rare. So the mom started calling out to the people on the floats "Give us blue beads." Then two greens landed ON KAYLA'S SHOES and the mom darted around me and snatched them right off of Kayla's feet!!! I could not believe a grown woman did that!!!! I just looked at her and said, "Oh my." What else is there to say? If she can't tell that she is a totally aggressive greed monster and a horrible example to her greed monster son, nothing I say is going to matter. So I stuck with "Oh my" in a very quiet "I'm so disappointed" tone usually reserved for a child who has done something that is, well, disappointing.

After the parade, we walked around to see if there were any food booths with food we couldn't resist, but we didn't find any food booths at all. So we went to taco bell and went through the drive through. This was very interesting because, remember, we had all three dogs in the car with us. And two of them thought they needed to dive out the window and through the carry out window to help bag up our food. Nope. Didn't happen. But not because they didn't try!

We took the taco bell food home, including a soft beef taco we split three ways between the dogs, and watch A Christmas Carol (the Jim Carry one). 

Catching Up

This is a catch up post of everything from Thanksgiving until now.

Jasmine helps me in the two year old room at church. They love her.

Two Sundays a month Adam & Deja and Hunter & Jessica join us for Sunday lunch. We all like Chinese, but usually we grill something or I have something cooking in the crockpot that's ready when we get home from church. I didn't have anything ready this time so grabbed Chinese on the way home from church.

Deja had never played Rummikub before, but she caught on quickly.

Doesn't Adam look thrilled that we stopped the game to take pictures? Not.

The puppies visited again. They are not even a year old yet!

Look at the size of his paws! If our puppies get a hold of something, we might be able to get it away from them before it's trashed. If these puppies get something, forget it. Especially if it's food.

This is the first time we've gone to breakfast with Santa. I wasn't really sure what it was before so never bought tickets for it. And with only five of us, it was only $25. When there was 9 of us it would have been $45! But it's an okay breakfast (think powdered scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes, boxes of cereal, fruit) plus the kids get a present.

I was really good this year :0

Here's my complaint. For the boys in the 9 and up group they had nerf guns, glow in the dark basketballs, nerf footballs, regulation soccer balls etc. The gifts were out of sight and Santa's helper just chose one and handed it to each child. But you could see all the kids sitting at tables eating with their toys in front of them.

For the nine and up girls, there were only play make up kits. They would have been more suitable for 6-9. Personally I wouldn't give out even play makeup and nail polish to other people's kids because make up is something each parent has to make decisions about. Kayla loved hers (and now she has polish, glitter and eye shadow smeared all over herself), but we negotiated for a boy toy for Jasmine. The younger groups got dolls, play tents, Lego sets (I would have used those for 9 & up not 6-9 because they were big sets), cool trucks etc. The baby toys were amazing too. It was only the 9 & up girls that didn't have any choices and weren't really appropriate.

Fourth grade students have to create something to sell at a business expo to raise field trip money. Kaleb is at a different school and doesn't have to do it. He went on the same field trip last week, and they even ended up having charter buses, but I think the school system picked up the extra expense.

Jasmine marched in the Christmas parade Saturday.

Here's a very short clip of her here at home:

We bought a new smaller tree to replace our old one. Last year we had a real tree but don't want to spend that much money for something we're just going to through away afterwards. In GA we bought living trees still in their buckets at a nursery and planted them outside afterwards.

It came with lights already on it. We haven't put any ornaments on yet.

Jasmine set out three nativities.

We all made sugar cookies.

Ty David called from Kentucky to talk over some Christmas plans. We are making a very quick trip to Disney with a military pass. Jasmine's history fair project is on Walt Disney, so we're going to Hollywood Studios to the display about Walt Disney, how he made his first movies and how he got the idea for the parks. This should count as a primary resource! It's going to be really crowded because we're going the weekend before Christmas.

Jasmine had a choir festival Monday evening. I posted two videos in the last post.

 I got one very bad news e-mail from a teacher today which does NOT put me in the holiday mood!!

I mailed Jeff's Christmas presents today. He leaves for Korea January 10.

Most of my shopping is done. A few last minute things to get and a few things I'm waiting for in the mail.

Saturday night I only slept two hours when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. Sunday Night we were up helping Jasmine finish homework until 12:45!!!!! Last night I couldn't fall asleep until after 2:30, and we have to be up at 5:00. So it took me three nights to get 8 hours of sleep!!

I got my first present of Christmas today. A package from Tyndale, who has published three books I wrote. Their present is almost always my first present.

Cats not included! The back thing is a book with readings for each day of the holiday season. The front one is to hang on the wall. Now to find a spot. Sometime I will post photos of our walls. They are pretty full.

Ahead we have too much homework and too many projects, a dental check up and cleaning, an orthodontist appt, a daytime parade on a school day that all the preschool and kindergarten kids anywhere nears us attend. So there are school buses blocking very small residential roads. There is the boat parade that we've never gone to but might, our church program, the winter band concert, a meds appt, and IEP meeting, our Disney weekend, the rock climbing wall on the way back, and then the Christmas Eve service followed by all our big kids coming over. Then I plan to do nothing for a week except drive three hours so my kids can see a hockey game!

So what's ahead for you?