One year ago today…
Today…
We met Reed and Lena one year ago today!
We have a lot to be thankful for today! Happy Thanksgiving!
Category Archives: Everyday Life
East Coast Adventures
Somehow we made it here after 24 hours of driving. Actually, not all 24 hours were spent driving… a few were spent in a certain Indianapolis suburb and other time was spent here and there are rest stops and gas stations. What’s the deal with the Indianapolis stop, you ask?
We got to stop and see Dasha! Dasha was in the same baby house as Reed and Lena. She is so precious… she is one of the kids who really stuck out in my memory at the baby house and she is now so different and seems so comfortable at home with her family.
Her brothers were great, too. Matthew and Sam took some time to play football with the little ones… Lena really took to them and was enjoying their company. Caleb was just adorable.
It was a really nice place to stop. Norm made us some yummy breakfast and we got to know each other a little better! I love “comparing notes” with other adoptive families and hearing how things are going.
Reed and Lena were so happy to get here. Lena, especially, crashed into bed that night with a big smile on her face. They jumped right back into playing with their cousins too.
These two in particular just clicked! She is about 18 months older than him, the same age as his friend Alina. Reed really likes to chase her and I think she really enjoys it too. She likes to be an animal and he pretends to be the hunter.
Every night they crash! I walked in to grab my pajamas the other night and Reed was not in his bed! I started to worry and looked around, wondering where he had ended up. Then, I saw this. When I finished getting ready for bed, he was back in the right spot!
We are having a great time. Lots of adult company and lots of company for the kids.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Remember, you have until Tuesday, November 29, to order your shirt. Uh-oh, too late.
Geocaching and Mario Karts
This is my first post, a while ago Molly asked me to explain more about geocaching. Somebody once defined it as using multi-million dollar satellites to find tupperware containers in the woods. That really sums it up pretty well. A geocache is some sort of container such as a Lock&Lock container, an ammo can, a pill bottle, or some other container that somebody has hidden. It might be in a park, on the side of the road, on a hiking trail, in a crowded city, anywhere that they want to place it that is legally allowed. After they’ve hidden this container, they post the coordinates on geocaching.com and the coordinates can then be downloaded to a GPS. Once they’re in your GPS, it tells you which direction to go and how far away it is. From there you just follow the arrow, and once it gets close to zero then the geocache should be close, most of them are within about 30 feet of where the GPS puts you. A lot of the containers in the woods are larger and covered with rocks or pieces of wood, the ones in urban locations are usually smaller. Once you’ve found it they contain a log that you can sign and some of the larger ones also contain toys that can be traded. More information is also available here.
I’ve found that what works best for the kids is to look for ones in parks that are larger containers because they can find them much easier and they also like to trade out little toys. I also prefer walking in the woods to a crowded spot in the city. Winter is really the best time to go because there’s not all the bugs and growth. We’ve been doing this for almost five years now and we’ve found over 1000, but we haven’t been that active recently. Last year we found 71, and we’ve found 85 this year, you can see our profile here. This is a picture from February when we went to pick up our dog from Texas:
Also, here’s a video I took last night of our kids and their cousins in the basement. We were using their plasma cars, and it reminded me of Mario Kart. The video is a little hard to follow because I was trying to hold the camera and steer with the same hand. Look for the crash around the 10 second mark:
Beautiful Fall Day
Today was a beautiful fall day. The Kansas River was so low that you could walk across much of it and there is an island in the middle of the river. This island has a geocache on it and Aaron and Reed love to do geocaches, so off we went.
Standing on one bank, looking at the island.
Standing in the middle of what is normally the river.
Playing in the sand.
I love this photo.
Bushwhacking through the woods on the way back. Ladies led the way!
Looking at some mushrooms on some logs.
Do you see Lena, mountain climbing up the side of the levee? Yes, that is a nice gravel path that you see to the right. Yes, Aaron and I took that path. Yes, she insisted on crawling up the levee by herself.
The Preschool Halloween "Parade"
Today was the Preschool Halloween “Parade”. The kids all dressed up and walked down to a nursing home and a bank. I didn’t try to explain Halloween to my kids ahead of time. Instead I went with costumes I thought they’d enjoy. Actually, I thought that Reed would really like to be Buzz Lightyear. I figured I’d do something easy for Lena. But, then I got an idea…
Toy Story theme! My kids LOVE Toy Story. It is one of the first movies that they would sit down and watch. Reed could be Buzz, Lena could be Jessie, and oh, what the heck, I have cowboy boots already, I’ll be Woody…
(I forgot to put my hat on before this picture)
I was the only person (including the teachers!!) over the age of 5 to be dressed up. Oh well. My kids thought it was hilarious.
The kids had fun. Of course, the kid who most enjoyed it was Lena. She really liked being with the big kids and singing their songs. She tried very hard to do the motions and sing the words with them. Reed did not want to participate at all. I asked him about it later and he told me that he wanted to watch everyone.
Thank you to my mom and sister for helping us put the costumes together! My sister borrowed the Buzz costume from a friend of hers for me. She also sent us the boots. My mom found Lena’s chaps as well as some other cowboy stuff at a thrift store for us and also got me a dollar store cowboy hat!
a moose in moscow 