These are Quynsie's awards from her English class this past week. Yes, I have blacked out and covered the logo and name of the school for a reason. You just never know what kind of crazies are out there. Better to be safe than sorry.


This is Carson's kindergarten graduation announcement. It is bitter sweet. I love watching our kids grow and learn, but he is our baby and he is growing up so fast. I can't believe that in just 95 days, he will be in first grade! Yes, he is in all day kindergarten so that won't change, but for some reason 1st grade just screams big boy at me!!!
We have had him in our home for more than half of his life now and sow we have seen this boy learn a lot of firsts. Riding a bike for the first time, tying his shoes for the first time, dressing himself for the first time, walking into school for the first time and now graduating kindergarten. I just can't believe it!!!


Going on a date!!! A free date that is. Our mortgage lender (who is my long lost cousin) invited us to attend a magic show at Thanksgiving point with his company and we accepted. We knew that we were going to need a night out away from the kids and the mess that we have caused in this house from moving just to replenish our energy and thoughts. Thanks to Joe's mom for watching the kids for us tonight. She is not our normal babysitter so it was good for the kids to get to spend time with her as well. Normally my mom watches them because she is closer for one and for two, she doesn't work. Joe's mom is a school teacher so she doesn't have as much time to watch them. Anyway we had a great time.
We got home, had family prayer and sent kids to bed and now I am blogging.
It sure is nice that I have been able to keep on this blog nightly. I learned my lesson a few months ago when I had like six months to catch up on. After that, I was like no more of that stuff. I will keep up more often.
Besides this blog is for journaling and also for the kids birth family to see what the kids are up to and all of their accomplishments and occasionally our normal day to day life. The good and the ugly at times.

Speaking of ugly times, here is a good one for you...

I have no doubt that our kids do this just about every night. Although Nadia is not involved as much now unless she is doing it alone because she is upstairs in her own room. It is more Quynsie and Raven now...LOL...just kidding, I hope not. Generally when they stay up, they are plotting ways to make up for their transgressions.

I am sure Quynsie was plotting a revenge on me this morning. I got mad because she did not fill out her honor society volunteer hours like she has been asked to do multiple times and on the way to school, I said something I shouldn't not have said, but it just came out. I said that she does not live with her birth family anymore where she can make her own decisions and do what she wants, when she wants, and how she wants. She is not the boss, adult, or parent. She is in a home where she is able to just be a kid and when she is asked to do something, especially for school, she needs to get it done on time.
I did apologize to her this afternoon when I picked her up from school. I was feeling pretty bad. She even said thank you mom for apologizing. I think it is good for the kids to see that we are human and make mistakes as well and that we can apologize to them when we do make those mistakes.

I knew that adopting kids, especially older ones, was going to be a challenge, but I was not prepared by any means. It has been a learning curve that is for sure. I guess the important thing is that we are trying.

Which leads me to the next part of the post...

 

I don't talk much about Joe on this blog for some reason, but he is the most amazing daddy! He is soft and gentle when disciplining. He is more level headed than I am.
He is more capable of getting through a disciplinary situation while being calm. He can get Nadia to snap out of her tantrum much faster than I can. He is firm, but loving. I generally start out loving, but I quickly lose my patience and have to walk away from the situation before I lose my mind. I have to calm down and allow her to calm down before I can even talk to her. You can't talk sense into nonsense. There is no reasoning with two angry people. Patience definitely was not one of my strong suites or virtues I was born with. I really am trying harder to stay calm in the frustrating moments.
 

It feels good to finally get a couple of boxes of stuff out of here.

 I took them to the DI just can't take all of the clutter around here. I'm sure as we continue to unpack we will find more stuff to get rid of and I'm ok with that. You would think by now we wouldn't have anything left to get rid of but the truth is we had 3 trips with the 26 ft uhal trailer plus various other trucks. We have a ton of crap. That is soon to change because I can't take the mess anymore. Our kids are going to be learning what hard work is this summer as well. There is going to be tons of yard work and I am not going to put up with books thrown all over the living room and they will be put away properly. They are getting ruined. At our other house, we did not have a yard to work in really. They need to learn some responsibility.