It’s The Thought That Counts

This week our thoughts were on sweet little Ty joining his family.  We were so excited waiting for Friday morning when we knew there would be a blog post about how it went, and hopefully a picture of Ty with his Mommy and Daddy! 

In short, it went great and Ty is very happy with his new family.  Which is why I can now tell this story…It was Thursday night at 9:30 our time when they were united.  I told my family all week that we were going set off a Chinese lantern to send good wishes to Ty at that exact time.

 

At 9:30 I made everyone put their coats on over their jammies, made Mark leave his TV show he had just sat down to watch, and we headed out to the driveway.  Mark was lighting it and we were all saying “Good luck Ty!”, “We’re thinking of you!”, and “Congratulations!”.  We were a fellow adoptive family, supporting another adoptive family.   

Everyone was bubbling with excitement thinking about what was happening at that very moment half way across the world!  The lantern slowly rose into the sky…

Then I heard Mark say, “This is bad”.  The darn thing blew right into the tree across the street.  Lexi started crying, I got my cell phone out ready to call the fire department, Mark ran to get a hose, and the neighbor boy came running out yelling, “The tree’s on fire!”.  Mark turned to me and said, “This could be a bad sign, you better not blog about it until you know things went okay”!  

  

We stood and watched it for quite a long time.  It would die down and we would start to go in the house, and then a slight breeze would come and the flame would grow again.  Even after it truly died down, we kept checking out the window to make sure it was still dark!  The next morning the remnants could be seen in the tree.

 

This morning when I took my run I saw it laying on the sidewalk and picked it up and threw it away.  So, the good news is even if I almost burn down the neighborhood, I clean up after myself!

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The week was busy with my working full time added to the usual hustle and bustle of our family life.  Lexi had a recorder show at school.  I love her being the middle kid.  At these events the principal will often ask at the beginning, “Who is here for the first time?” and “Who is here for the last time?”.  I can answer no to both.  I’ve seen the show and will see it again. 

We had a random warm night that allowed for barefoot play in the driveway.  Sof was a happy camper with her bucket, soap, and brush helping Daddy wash the car mats.

Lexi headed to Girl Scout camp this weekend.  God bless the troop leaders and chaperones.  I wasn’t one of them:)

That’s a bearded dragon on my baby’s head.  Yuck.  We missed her, she didn’t miss us much:)  We had two birthday parties in 24 hrs. this weekend.  Saturday night was a surprise 40th party for Brian, and Sunday morning was Kaitlyn’s 6th b-day at Pump It Up.  Let’s just say I went from birthday cake shots, to kids and bounce houses.  More on that later…it deserves it’s own post.  Farewell sweet weekend!     

Random Happies

This is Ty.  His forever Mommy and Daddy are leaving for Korea tomorrow to get him!  His forever Mommy is my teaching partner by day and friend by night:)  If that’s not a happy I don’t know what is.  You can follow their journey HERE.  

This is Ty with his foster mother.  What a wonderful woman she must be to love this child so wholly and freely, only to hand him over to an American couple never to be seen again.  She has been fostering babies for 20 years and Ty will be her last one.  How bittersweet for her!  I wish I could tell her how loved this boy already is! 

Back to happies…yes, I said happy.  Sure, I feel bad for sweet Ty, that he fell and bumped his eye the other day and required 5 stitches.  Poor baby:(  I certainly wouldn’t wish that on him:)  I do, however, think he’s a busy boy full of wonderful trouble.  I am tired of hearing which book his forever Mommy is reading on her Kindle, while I’m trying to tame the beast we lovingly refer to as Sof.  Welcome back to the “toddler in your home” club sista!  Glad to have you.  Your Kindle might now make a good toy for big sister Libby.  Hee hee, it’s making me laugh…that’s a happy:)

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It’s been nice out.  We have had a mild winter and a beautiful spring so far.  It just makes everything in life more bearable!  The kids have slipped into late evening playing outside.  Sof is loving the freedom of running from bike to scooter to sidewalk chalk. 

    

Notice the handle bar is turned the wrong way, and her shoes are on the wrong feet!  So summer!

    

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I’m a sucker for anything that involves Sof “mothering”.  She uses her high pitch mama voice with real babies, the cat, and any inanimate object that’s smaller than her.  She rarely holds a baby doll though, and only occasionally will pay attention to a stuffed animal.  This week she has taken to what she calls “Baby Penguin”.  So cute.

  

Hope your week is full of random happies! 

Bulldozer or Scaffold

Scaffold is a term we use in teaching all the time.  We scaffold kids in reading, scaffold them in writing, and then we let them loose to do it on their own.  The idea is that we are there gently pushing them up and up as they work, there to catch them if they fall.  With each lesson you push them higher and higher until they are flying on their own. 

In the past I would say I have been a scaffold to my sis in entertaining.  I owned a home young and have many years of experience in hosting parties.  My sis is all grown up now, and has had her own home for quite some time, and has hosted her share of parties at this point.  I’ve helped with menus, answered questions about time, and helped with just how much food to get.  Now, she’s flying just fine on her own.  So, a month or so back when we she started talking about Natty Bug’s first birthday party, I didn’t think much of it.  Fast forward to last week.  The party was a week away, sis and fam were over for Easter, and we started looking online at cute ladybug themed parties.  I caught the (lady)bug.  We started making lists of what sis is going to look into for HER kid’s party, and I casually threw out that might do some shopping to see what I can come up with.  Good bye scaffold, hello bulldozer.  I done lost my mind. 

We spent all day Friday making ladybug Oreos and preparing pots for the kids to plant grass seed in.  We spent Friday night at the mall putting together the finishing touches on the kids outfits.  Red, black and white required:)

          

 

It was the nastiest morning you can imagine.  Fifty something and rain.  Just before the party started though, the clouds parted and the sun shone down. 

And then it was party time!

    

          

  

     

  

 

   

    

 

 

Happy 1st Birthday Natty Bug!