School Conferences Complete

I’m sorry for the delay, I know I kept everyone on the edge of their seats waiting to hear the verdict on my little turkey (yes, I know it is a chicken costume, but we don’t happen to have a turkey costume).

Anyway, D’s teacher was filling me in on his progress.  She discussed how he was doing with letter sounds, writing, math, etc.  The whole time my heart was beating hard, and I know I was gripping onto the table waiting for her to drop the bomb that D was so scared of me finding out.

About 3/4 of the way through the conference I stopped her.  I told her that D was incredibly nervous about this conference, and that he kept asking if he was going to be in trouble, leading me to believe that something had happened.  She laughed, and said, “I have noticed that he can worry sometimes.  No, he really is fine!”.

Wow! Now, on his new progress report he still got a “Needs Improvement” on pretty much everything that involves self-control, but that was not a shock for my ever active six year old.

Phew.  I guess we dodged a bullet this time.  I feel sure it will not be the last of his conferences that I go into with trepidation, but this time we are okay. 🙂

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School Conferences

I have conferences today for my 3 younger kids.  For K and Hannah, who are only 3 and 2, this should be just a formality.

D has me nervous though.  As soon as he found out that I was going to be meeting his teacher, he started asking me, “What if she tells you that I have been bad?”.  Hmmm. Multiple times I have tried following that up with, “What kind of bad?”, but he won’t give me a good answer to that.

Last night he said, “Mommy, who are you going to believe; me or my teacher?”  Well, you are in kindergarten buddy.  I think I am going to have to go with the teacher on this one.

So, now I am really nervous!  What exactly is she going to tell me??

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Crazy Kids

I never know what I might come across after the kids go to bed at night.  Here are two of my favorites from yesterday:

Someone, who said they ate all of their spinach, obviously did not.  She pulled the old “hide it in the cup trick”. After a little detective work it turns out that this was Hannah!  I think she learned this from my husband.

Here is what I found when I went upstairs:

That is my little guy’s toothbrush, attached to the wall.  I guess you never know when you might need to grab your toothbrush in a hurry? 🙂

 

Hannah strikes again.  Apparently she thought she could “help” Z with his homework. See the nice “H” on it?  At least she left her signature, so I know who the little helper was.  I hope his teacher will accept an apology letter from me…

 

 

 

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Our Circus Has Its Own Animal Act

(Thanks Paul O. for this awesome title! 🙂 )

Happy New Year to us, our family has increased by one.  Yesterday we brought home this sweet girl.

We have been talking about getting a puppy for a while, and were planning to get one at the beginning of next summer.

Well, plans change quickly around here.  I saw some puppies outside of the grocery store that I fell in love with.  We didn’t end up with one of those, but then I got the fever.

My wonderful friend, Julie, got the fever by proxy, so she helped me find a litter of lab puppies needing homes.  I took Z with me, telling him we were going to run an errand, and we went to check out the puppies.

There were 4 puppies, but only one was awake.  She ran right up to me, and I was a goner. She had to be ours! 🙂

We brought her home and surprised the other kids.  K was thrilled.  D was happy enough. H hasn’t really seemed to notice.  Our 12 year old dog, Parker, luckily hasn’t seemed too bothered by her new sister.

I wasn’t really planning on the kids naming our new addition.  After all, their first suggestions were; Spyro, Skylander, Puppy, and Dora respectively.  Today, however, the 3 oldest kids were outside with her, and somehow came up with the name “Clover” together.  It just stuck.  I like it, and I love that it came from the kids.

So, here is Clover.  We are totally in love. 🙂

Hopefully Parker will get used to her. 😉

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My Wonderful Husband

I have a wonderful husband.  Like a really, truly, fantastically wonderful husband.  He is incredibly thoughtful and giving.  This Christmas, he really outdid himself for me.

Let me back up. Since we were first thinking about adopting from China, I have been reading various blogs of other adoptive families.  There are a few blogs that I continue to read faithfully.  The blogs that are currently my favorite are the few that mix two of my favorite passions; adoption from China and photography.  Since K was a baby, I have been diligently working to become a better photographer.  As I watch my children grow so quickly, I have a deep desire to capture as many moments as humanly possible.

So, one of my favorite blogs is: The Long Road to China.  The woman who writes this blog, Lisa, is a mom of 3 kids, one from China, and a FANTASTIC photographer.  I have been taking some online classes from Lisa over the last few months, which  has been great!

So, one of the great things about Lisa is that she donates a portion of her proceeds to benefit orphans in China.  Here is a section from her blog:

“Through this project “Visions of Hope” my passion for photography and adoption will be brought together. I will teach others about photography and how to use their cameras to capture those special moments and then donate a portion of the proceeds from these classes to Half The Sky which will ultimately benefit the children that are still residing in orphanages throughout China.”

So, that lets you know a little bit about the wonderful person that Lisa is, and if you know me, why I have loved getting to know her a little bit.

For Christmas Lisa and a few other adoptive moms  did a fund raiser to raise money for different organizations in China.  One thing that Lisa donated was a weekend with her, learning photography.

I have never wanted to win a contest so badly.  I entered myself multiple times.  I made Jeff enter.  I begged my mother and my siblings to enter.  Of course I knew it was a long shot, but I was still disappointed when I didn’t win (although she raised a good bit of money for orphans in China, so who can feel disappointed about that? 🙂 ).

After the contest, my wonderful husband contacted Lisa, and told her how badly I had wanted to win, and asked if there was any possibility that she would offer another weekend class that he could give me for Christmas.  She said yes; so I am headed to meet her for a weekend in April! 😉

I can’t remember being so excited about a gift.  I think I was jumping and screaming.  I know that Z said that I was acting like a little kid.  The smile did not leave my face for days. 🙂

So, thank you to my wonderful husband.  I love that you know me so well, and that you made this happen for me. 🙂  Thank you, Lisa.  I can’t wait to start sharing my new and improved pictures!

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