Tree trimming, etc.

With five days off from school and no snowboarding yet thanks to the too warm temps of the past few weeks, we decided to decorate for X-mas to fill up our free time with something the kids were all very excited to do. And it snowed (finally!) which helped us all get in the mood. We've played in the snow, chopped wood for the fireplace, baked treats, bought a tree, hung up stockings (after I quickly sewed one for Princess Eee since I was too supersticious to make hers any of the last three Christmases), played Monopoly, watched The Santa Claus 2, did French manicures, and trimmed the tree.

Princess Eee loves all things twinkly and fancy so of course the sparkling lights outside at night and on our stars in the windows and the decorations on the tree all delight her. She exclaims, "Beautiful!" whenever she sees any of it. Very cute.
#1 was on ladder duty and did a fine job making sure ALL ornaments were not hung in one clump down low.

Zippy is meticulous with his highly developed aesthetic.

The Spark as usual is magnificent with the most delicate ones.

Cupcake participated for awhile but when the only area she cared to decorate got too full, she moved on to playing blocks instead.

Here's the heavily loaded section:

And the manicures a la Mommy. Princess Eee did not partake since she opted to accompany J on a shopping trip yesterday.

Unseasonably Warm

It is weird to play outside this late in November and not even need jackets. Easier, but weird. Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. We had a great day at GrammaRamma and Grampy Dude's. Here are some photos taken in our our yard and local playground from this past week:

The Spark and BFF

These are just too cute not to post so (after getting permission from The Spark's best buddy to include her on my blog,) here are the two Kindergarden pals:

The Last Minute Frock GROSGRAIN GIVEAWAY!!!! (with free bonus pattern in post)

The Last Minute Frock GROSGRAIN GIVEAWAY!!!! (with free bonus pattern in post)

I want this dress!!!! It would fit both Princess Eee and The Spark and they both loooove purple. Plus, I love quick, easy patterns that can help me use up some of my overflowing fabric stash.

Princess Party

Friends, sticker craft, princess cake, castle pinata (I can't get blogger to let me put a tilde on that n), pizza, gifts, costumes, and plain ol' playtime.

The winning tug! (Blogger won't let me put the pictures in the right order.)

Castle pinata:

Chocolate Zucchini Princess cake:

Princess Eee is FOUR!

The birthday girl had a great first day at school without me or J today. She only cried once when she got a little overzealous on the very undersized plastic airplane teeter-totter outside, and tipped it over on herself. There is no one at the school who can balance her out on the teeter-totter, so she ends up pushing up really hard with her legs, and this time pushed it right over I guess. I didn't see it because I wasn't there. But, her ESL aide/translator extraordinaire relayed the event. Those were the only tears shed, and she allowed the teachers & aide to comfort her and moved on. She called me once right after J left her there to ask where I was and where Daddy was, all very matter of fact, and then we all met back at the preschool after lunch to share pumpkin cupcakes with her new friends and bring the birthday girl home.

Family gifts were opened tonight. Her M.O. was rip 'em open as fast as possible and then see what ya' got after.


Okay, it can snow now; Princess Eee is ready!

She wanted to try on all her new clothes, all one on top of the other.

This was this a.m. before heading off to school. I think she believes this hat is just hers and is going to be less than pleased when Cupcake gets to wear it (with one less candle) in exactly one month from today.

Tonight I started her cake for Saturday's princess party. It's one of those really deep pans that is supposed to make the cake look like the bottom of a princess's dress and then the top gets half a princess doll stuck in it. So it is baking and baking and baking and not getting done. I used the same pan a couple years ago to make a snow covered mountain for a snowboarding party for #1, and I don't remember it taking soooooo long to bake. Hopefully the decorating part won't be a disaster.

8 weeks home

arriving at the airport in September

Eight weeks now since Princess Eee got home. And home is currently one of her most used english words. She has started mixing in an english word to an otherwise spanish sentence quite frequently the past few days. "Donde esta home?" "Vamos a home?" "Que es jerk?" (We can thank Zippy for that one.) "Yo quiero juice." And she tries to repeat english that she hears, but she still mostly hears it as sounds without meaning and often makes it into something spanish instead. Example: the Cake song "Race Car Ya-Ya's" will forever be known in our family as "Ernesto's Ya-Ya's."

We have hired a spanish speaking ESL teacher to be with Princess Eee at pre-school starting later this month when we have done enough visit days together to actually drop her off there. Hopefully she won't need the aide for very long. Princess Eee will be starting this Monday at a tiny little co-operative pre-school with 8-12 kids, but either J or I will stay there with her for this week. So far on the days we have spent there together, she loves it. She will be nervous when we leave, but she has been so resilient and quick to rebound when upset, that I don't think the transition will take too long for her. She will go three mornings, learn some more english, and make friends around her own age. And I will have six hours a week without any children, one morning alone with Cupcake and one morning alone with Princess Eee. That makes four mornings when I don't have to keep them from killing each other.

This coming week is birthday week for Princess Eee so there will be new photos next weekend. She is having a few other princesses over for feasting and merry-making next weekend, and even J and I have courtier attire for the event. (The boys are getting shipped off to a dual playdate luckily.) After celebrating three of her birthdays without her, this will be an exciting week. I didn't have to limit myself to choosing gifts that could be easily shipped internationally, and this year I get to wrap them all since they don't have to clear customs!

home for eight weeks!

11/11/04

Five years ago today we received The Call from our dear friend and social worker, Jackie. I had the boys with me at a friend's house since #1 had no school for Veterans' Day, so Jackie called J at work. He called me at the friend's house and I got the boys in the car as fast as I could and drove to J's office where Jackie was about to email the first photos we ever saw of The Spark. I will never forget how slooooooooow that drive felt. It was like running in water up to my neck.

We got to J's office and stared at his computer screen waiting some more. Then we saw The Spark's sweet little face! She was about four months old in the referral photos. We had the agency send all her records to us via email too even though they were all in Chinese and the translated copies would be sent in the mail when they were finished. But our friend Lucy worked upstairs from J and she's Chinese. She was excited to help us read the reports. We printed it all out and sat on the floor in J's office crying with happiness at getting to know who my daughter was and with sadness as Lucy told me the details of The Spark's first few days in China.

We signed the Letter of Acceptance and sent it right back to our agency. The boys and I went home and looked up tons of information about the little bits we knew about The Spark. Things like what the characters of her name meant (Clear Sky) and all about her province (Hunan). So here's to The Spark, sweet, smart, silly, and sparkly, on the anniversary of her referral day

Progress?

Just the girls and I all day Saturday, hanging out in various costumes, many layers of costume actually. Meanwhile the boys had a great day snowboarding, came home for a quick dinner, and then went to a ski/snowboard movie premier. Only one snowboarder appeared in the movie so they were a bit disappointed. Here are some pics of the girls in the yard.

Lovin' the new, beautiful coat from friend Wendy!!!!!!

Big sis showing the littles how to do ballet:

And thoughts on progress... the youngest four have been playing a game of pretend in the family room without any screaming (knock on wood) for 45 minutes now. Cupcake is the baby patient and the other three are her caregivers. I have also overheard them discussing when her appointment for a flu shot is, so I guess there is some doctoring involved as well. But, no one is crying. They are playing the same game together. They are working out their disagreements
without a lot of Mommy intervention. Ahhhhhh, progress. Princess Eee might just be feeling a bit more settled today. And the others might just be feeling like she is really their sister today. Wouldn't that be nice?

great card from a great friend

And the inside reads: The trick is knowing when to keep the real answers to yourself!

Hot Date

I had the pleasure of going out on a date with #1 last night. We had dinner at the restaurant of his choice, one that we do not take all the kids to now that there are five of them. One where I could order something tasty, and he could still get Mac-n-Cheese but for twice as much $$. He then vetoed my idea of taking him to big-kid-only movie because the only choice was A Christmas Carol, and he said it was much to early for anything Christmasy. I should have taken him into Rite Aid first where the X-mas paraphernalia has been on the shelves since before Halloween. So instead we browsed at the local bookstore until closing time. And we had J's iPod in the car so #1 got to school Mommy on cool new tunes: The Dead Weather, Kings of Leon, the Hilltop something-or-other rappers from England.

And today it's just me and the girls since the boys headed to Maine for some early season snowboarding. Ahhh...my single parent winter weekends are beginning already.

more from Halloween

Here are some pics from just before Trick-or-Treating. Zippy changed his mind and instead of a vampire ghost, he was a basketball player.