The recovery effort....

So much to do, so little time. I see my last post was the day before our first holiday guest arrived. So much to tell!!!!

First up...Ballet Magnificat's A Christmas Dream. Wow. It was so awesome this year. Sarah was glued to it every moment and recognized the steps from her class. The last 2 years the ballet seemed painfully long due to Sarah not being fully into it. It's just not as much fun if you are having to tell your child to be quiet and sit down every 5 mins. But this year, it went so fast! I can honestly say we had a wonderful time together...just Sarah and me. At the end, the entire company danced to a praise and worship song and the ballerinas came out among the audience. Oh the glory!!! Sarah thought it was soooo cool! And I didn't see much of it because I was with my King. :)
Then there was a book signing by Kathy Thibedeaux. Sarah was in awe!!



Here she is with one of her best buddies from our homeschool group.




From there, it gets blurry. :)

This was Sophie's first Christmas & first Christmas home. I had to keep reminding myself of that because it's hard to imagine life without her. Next week will mark our 1 yr Familiversary with her. Which explains why 2008 was gone in the blink of an eye. I have had some deeply intense memories of our time in China in 2008. I close my eyes and see eyes looking back at me, they are not Sarah's and they are not Sophie's. I'm here Lord, send me.
Back to Sophie. She loved the whole Christmas thing. I'll admit to very little decorating. Fact is, very little of my decorations meet the current safety standards set by the Food and Drug Administration. Sophie is still very, um, oral. Although she's getting better about showing me what she's about to try or currently sucking on. *sigh*
She loved opening presents. But was not about to stick her hand down in the stocking. She just kept saying "ugh-ugh". And shaking her head no. She also enjoyed picking up trash and throwing it away...my heart skipped a beat! Her favorite item by far was her Melissa and Doug cutting food. Wooden food that you cut with a wood knife (pieces held together with velcro)...complete with a cutting board. Hours of entertainment!! And in a very close second is the dollhouse. I'm not sure what to make of it, but she constantly puts the whole family in the bathtub. And also likes to set up all the chairs for "church". So just when I'm feeling good that she enjoys worshiping so much, I have to figure out why we all need a bath. Hmmmmmm
She went to Christmas Eve service. She adored being dressed like Sarah and sitting like Sarah and reading the hymnal like Sarah. She made it about 30 mins and enjoyed the rest of the service in the hall with Daddy. :)

Take your breath away, don't they? This was at the Christmas Eve service.



A couple of shots from Christmas....




Then we had our friends from MD here. With 5 kids ages 8, 6, 5, 4, 1.5 (includes Sarah and Sophie) our house was full of laughter!!! They all had such a good time and are really starting to become real friends with real little conversations. Not to say there weren't some stressful moments for the moms, but the kids really never had a problem with each other in the 4 or 5 days. How cool is that???












And we finally started back with school this week. Sarah is, I'm sorry to say, a genius! Just when I think I'm about to teach her something new she does it like it was last year's work. We are having trouble with telling time on analog clocks. She reminded me we don't have one like that. Hmmmmm.....that would make it hard to understand that between 1 and 2 are 5 mins, huh?
We are making colored sugar this week. My goal is to do more science experiments this year.
And she is dying to start a new chapter book read-aloud. We started Tale of Desperaux and Mrs Piggle-Wiggle and I just couldn't finish them. I'm going to play it safe this time and read Boxcar Children.

It's horribly cold outside this week, so we are facing a lot of indoor time. Poor Sophie. She's sooooo tired of the living room. I know I am! There are only so many things to do. We've mastered all of the running into the couch techniques. Have avoided needing stitches from the fireplace. Broken the train table to an unrecognizable form. And the girls now recognize Barefoot Contessa, Rachel Ray, and Paula Dean from the "after nap monotony". It's time for spring!!! Lady bugs, butterflies, blue birds.....hopefully by then Sophie will be over the urge to eat them or their poop. *big sigh*

Ok, so I'm mostly caught up here now. I think I did a pretty good clean out of the PC and it might be more cooperative now. Time will tell.
Until next time!