Aedan's Christmas Program, A Surprise Trip to Great Wolf Lodge, and Samantha's Performance in 'Twas the Week After Christmas

Samantha: 102 Months, Week 4
Aedan: 69 Months, Week 2
Owen: 26 Months, Week 4

Sunday started with going to church again, and it was another successful morning. We were glad that the two new little ones seemed to be acclimating so well to our routine as a family.  We stayed in Wilkes-Barre to eat lunch at Wendy's before dropping Samantha off for play practice. Eating out with all five kids actually went pretty well. The two new little ones ate their lunches well and did a good job sitting and waiting patiently for everyone to be done eating. Unfortunately, nap time wasn't the greatest that day because Owen had a pretty bad cold that was keeping him stuffed up when he was trying to sleep. Then, the little boy cried during nap time, which he never usually does, and I think that might have woken up Owen. It's hard when I'm trying to get things done during nap time and those things get derailed by kids that aren't sleeping well. However, I was able to leave to meet someone to buy a new portable DVD player for our van, since the one we have been using isn't working anymore, and then picked Samantha up from play practice, while Ben stayed home with the other kids.

That evening I officially singed up for Beachbody so I could start getting into the habit of exercising again. My sister, Christy, and I were going to kind of be accountability partners for each other, and I was excited to do something more challenging. The biggest thing I had to figure out what was time of day would work best for me so that I don't let it get pushed aside by other things. I need to make it a priority to do it every day because when I let myself skip days it's a lot easier for me to get off track. Exercise is definitely something I need to make more of a priority in my life; I just find it so hard to be consistent.

Monday morning was back to our normal routine of school and Ben's week of finals.  That morning the little girl wasn't listening too well for awhile and ended up going in their room and waking her brother up, which was frustrating, but after eating breakfast she seemed better and everything else went well with getting everyone dressed and ready and dropped off at school. I still had to take her to school because we were still waiting to hear on transportation for school for the little girl. Ben and I decided that this is the frustrating part of fostering: dealing with the bureaucracy and waiting to hear back from people. However, I did receive good news that morning that we officially had respite set up for us on Thursday and Friday, which was a relief to me. Ben and I had our surprise overnight trip to Great Wolf Lodge planned as part of our kids' Christmas present, so we needed the two new little ones to stay with another family for a couple of days, and I was glad to finally hear the details and be able to talk with the other mom and arrange our plans together.

After dropping the little girl off at school and coming back home, I decided to put a show on for the little boys while I did my first Morning Meltdown 100 work out. Owen was still not feeling well with his cold and cough, and he had woken up a lot overnight, so I figured a restful morning would be good for him anyways. The workout was good. It definitely got my heart rate up and I was sweating some. It was a little too fast-paced for me, but they show you how to make modifications, and I had to follow some of those. I don't think I will ever "like" exercise, but I know I need to do it more, and I think I need to do something more intense to get my heart rate up and burn more calories. If I'm only doing 30 minutes a day, I want it to be worth my time. It wasn't ideal to work out during the morning, but I didn't know how nap time would go with Owen, so I decided to try it out.

I usually pick up groceries on Monday mornings, but grocery pick-up wasn't available until later that afternoon, so we set it up for a time when Ben could pick it up after work. Ben picked up the little girl, but she was having a weird day and didn't want to leave school with Ben because she was playing on the computer when he got there to pick her up. Then, she was mad that he wouldn't get her a toy at Walmart when he stopped to get our groceries.

Luckily, Owen took a great nap that afternoon, which I was thankful for. We were going to give him one more day to see how he was feeling before taking him to the doctor for his cough. It was just a really dry cough that got worse when he would lay down to sleep. We were doing all we could with giving him medicine, putting chest rub on his chest, and diffusing some oils to help him breath better. I just felt so bad for the little guy and wanted him to get better soon.

Here is some work Samantha and Aedan brought home from school that day. Samantha does weekly math quizzes and sometimes she doesn't do as well as she could simply because doesn't complete all parts of the question or makes simple addition mistakes. We aren't too worried about it though.

However, this was her next chapter test and she did a great job! These tests are pretty long with lots of questions, and I'm proud of how well she did showing her work and working really hard. We don't need her to be perfect or get all As. We just want her to try her best, and that makes us happy and proud.

Here is some work from Aedan on his letter of the week: Rr.

I'm not sure what exactly is happening in this picture, but I had a conversation with him about his drawings being a little sloppy.

Here is some more of his math work on counting sets of ten and practicing sight words.

Here's some more work from Aedan on his new letter of the week: Dd.

Samantha was really proud to show us the 101% she got on her Science Quiz, as well as her 100% on reading packet.

Monday night was our last small group for this cycle, so even though it was a little crazy making sure we had dinner early and got everyone ready to get out of the house, we thought it was important to try it out with all five kids. A lot of people in our group didn't show up, and we didn't have anyone to babysit the kids, so we decided to do more of an informal hang-out which probably was a good idea. Having small group at 6:30 is difficult for our family because the kids are getting tired and we usually start getting everyone ready for bed at 7:00. The little girl didn't do a great job of listening or following directions on what to play with, what not to play with, and tried to go upstairs even though we told her it was off limits. Small group usually goes until 8:00, but we left early that night since we were all just hanging out. Even so, getting everyone ready for bed when everyone was overtired was definitely a challenge. After trying it out that night, on a night when we weren't even doing a normal Bible study video, we decided that it just wouldn't work to take all five kids to small group anymore. It's just too late at night, and it's too hard to keep everyone up late on a school night. Ben and I will have to talk about what we want to do when the next cycle starts up in January.

Tuesday, December 10th was a busy day as Ben took the two new little ones down to court with their parents, while I stayed up in Harvey's Lake to drop off Samantha and Aedan at the van. I then went down to meet up with Ben and everyone else at court, but by the time I got there, the hearing was already over. Then, the kids went straight for a visit with their parents for the morning.

Meanwhile I took Owen to the Mommy and Me Open Gym. He really got into it this week, following along with the music, tapping his sticks, shaking the egg shakers, and sitting on and running under the parachute. After the group activities, he had fun running around, playing basketball, and riding around on little scooters. I was glad he seemed to be feeling better and wasn't coughing as much anymore. He has a blast playing in this gym.

After playing in the gym, we still had some time before picking up the little boy from his visit, so I decided to take Owen out to lunch at Chick-fil-A. Once we got back home, I got both boys down for their naps. Then, I then spent most of the afternoon on the phone while the boys napped, trying to figure out how to get a refill on the little girl's medicine, as we were about to run out and wouldn't have enough to get us to the next med-check appointment. I just kept being told to call another number or was placed on hold for a long time. It's not fun having to get all these things worked out and being given the run around.

Here is some of the work the kids brought home on Tuesday.

I'm so glad that Aedan is doing so well in kindergarten. All this math has come easy to him so far, so it will be interesting to see if things start to become more challenging for him or if he is just one of those kids that will pick up on things and learn easily.

See! He can color very neatly when he wants to!

This was a Unit 2 Benchmark Assessment that was sent home, and I was so proud that he got Proficient on everything. He has learned so much since starting kindergarten, is really picking up on sight words, and he even recognizes other words in stories he reads. He is very interested in knowing how to read like Samantha does, and he loves listening to books read to him, so I feel like his ability to read independently is not too far away from taking off.

Here's another A on a Science test for Samantha. We always help her review and study, but we hardly have to go over things at all. She already knows the stuff from just hearing it at school. It's good for her to be learning study skills though, and for her to feel support from us at home in helping her be prepared for tests at school. She's always very proud to show us these good grades she is getting.

Aedan colored this and I was very impressed by his detail and all the different colors he used. This little boy used to hate coloring and would just scribble on pages and say he was done. Now look what he can do!

Here's some work of his work on the letter Dd...

...as well as some proof that he still can scribble when he wants to.

Here's a couple pictures of our two new little ones playing in the house that evening before bed. They are adjusting well to our home and love to play. The initial work of teaching them what we expect in sitting down to the table to eat, asking to be excused, staying in their bed and in their room at bedtime, answering us when we call their name, and following directions and listening instead of running away was taken care of in the first few days. We haven't had any trouble with getting the little girl to sleep, even though we were told that she would never sleep well at home. Even though it's busy and crazy sometimes taking care of five kids, we seem to be getting into a fairly good rhythm, so Ben and I are happy about that.

Wednesday morning was a bit of an adventure because a long time ago I had made an appointment to take all three of our kids to the dentist for a check-up. It's always hard to find appointments outside of the school hours, but they were able to get all three in at 8:00 on that Wednesday morning. Ben's schedule allowed him to take the little girl down to school to drop her off, and I took all four of the other kids to the dentist. It was a bit of a zoo trying to wrangle everyone. They took Samantha and Aedan back to their rooms, saying they would come and get me when the dentist came in to talk to me about how their teeth were doing. I went in to another room with Owen and the little boy, and they brought a toy in for the little boy to play with, but he was too nervous to let me put him down for very long. We tried to get Owen to sit in the seat by himself, but he wasn't having that, so I was able to sit in the chair and hold him on my lap so the dental hygienist could check out his teeth. However, he went lockjaw and refused to open his mouth for her. We tried to be silly, we tried to help him by giving him cool glasses and by promising him a special toy when he was done, but none of that worked. He was just not willing to open his mouth at all. I was able to stick my fingers in his mouth and for a few seconds she was able to see his front teeth, but that didn't last for very long, so she basically decided we would wait six months and see if more time would allow him to be more amenable to having his teeth checked. Samantha and Aedan both checked out great. They had no cavities and were told that they have done a pretty good job of brushing their teeth. Aedan had a pretty wiggly front tooth on the bottom that they said would come out very soon. I was glad that everyone's teeth looked good, especially Samantha's, since she had so much trouble in Michigan when we had to get all that dental work done on her.

After a successful, but crazy trip to the dentist, I dropped Samantha and Aedan off at school and then went back home with the two little boys since we didn't have anything in particular to do that day. That morning I finally got a call from the transportation people for our little girl. They said they have a van, but they have to redo their whole route so they wouldn't be able to start until the following Monday, which was very frustrating to us, as we were going to be out of town with our three kids from Thursday into Friday, and our two new little ones would be in respite care. I basically begged them to at least have it set up for Friday, and they said they would call and ask, but wouldn't make any promises, so it looked like we would have to wait even longer for her to have transportation to her school.

With Christmas coming up faster than we would like, we knew we had to figure out plans for traveling as well. We just didn't want to bombard the caseworker with too many things at one time, so once the respite was arranged for our overnight Great Wolf Lodge trip, we decided to start the conversation about what we should do with our Christmas travel plans. At court on Tuesday it was determined that the parents could have an overnight visit from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day, but with how the holiday fell right in the middle of the week, that would make it really hard for us to travel to see family like we were planning on. Plus, the dad expressed that he didn't really like the idea of us taking the kids that far away for that many days, even though it is our legal right to take the kids wherever we see fit, even out of state, really without the parents' permission. I felt like there was just so much to juggle around, and Ben and I were going back and forth about what the best plan was. We were originally just planning on taking our two new little ones with us on our trip, since we signed up to take care of them, and we didn't think it would be very nice to leave them behind with people they didn't even know over Christmas. Plus, we didn't think that finding respite care over Christmas break would even be possible. However, once we heard about the overnight visit and the parents' request for us not to take their kids out of state for that long, we decided to look into seeing if respite care would be possible, and if that would be the best option, especially as a way to show respect to the requests of the parents. Honestly, part of me didn't mind the idea of having them in respite over Christmas while we were gone so we could continue our trip to see family as we planned. I felt like we might be biting off more than we could chew in taking them with us. The little boy would probably have been fine because he's pretty easygoing, but the little girl would probably have a hard time with new places, new things, and a lot of unstructured time around people she doesn't know. It's hard enough when we just travel with our own three kids sometimes, let alone adding two other kids into the mix that aren't used to traveling long distances and sleeping in different places. Ben and I both agreed that it was important for us and our kids to be around family at Christmas, so our caseworker said she would work on finding respite for us.

Wednesday was a really hard day for me where I just felt overwhelmed and like I hadn't been doing a good job of staying on top of things. Things have been so busy with having two extra kids in the house, and just all the arrangements you have to make when you first get a placement. Plus, things were busier with Thanksgiving and Christmas thrown in the mix, as well as our trips where we were trying set up respite and get all those plans sorted out. I was feeling guilty for very rarely actually playing with our kids. I felt like I had so much more time to play with Samantha when she was little, and even with Aedan, but now with Owen, it's just hard to find the time to just sit down with him and play. I felt like I should be able to handle things better by now, like I've been a mom long enough that I thought I should have a better system in place. I was definitely feeling frustrated and discouraged as a mom that day.

In looking ahead toward the evening, we planned to take everyone to AWANA, even our two new little ones, and I was looking forward to having a break just to hang out and talk with Ben, to reconnect over dinner and enjoy a meal where we could talk and not have to keep getting up to get something for a child. It would be pretty difficult to find a babysitter willing to watch five kids, especially when one is quite a lot of work, so we wanted to take advantage of our "free" night out. However, part of the way through dinner we got a call from someone at AWANA saying that we needed to come get the little girl. I had to go down and pick Samantha up from play practice, so Ben went back to the church to see what was going on with the little girl. He said it was the biggest meltdown he had ever seen her do. She was carrying on and screaming and crying, and it took a lot for him to get her to calm down. She just wasn't listening to the AWANA teachers and started running around and touching things she shouldn't. She tends to get tired about 7:00 every night, so it is difficult to get through to her after that point. It was just too much for her to handle, and there aren't enough AWANA teachers to give her one-on-one attention. I don't know if she will ever get used to something where she has to sit quietly and listen. She doesn't do well in unstructured, group settings. I felt sad that it didn't work for her to go to AWANA because that meant that Ben and I aren't going to have a chance to spend time just the two of us for the foreseeable future.

I arrived home with Samantha shortly after Ben arrived home with the four kids from AWANA because it took him awhile to be able to get all the kids out to the car with the little girl freaking out so much. Ben and I then worked together to get all the tired kids to bed as quickly as possible, and then we started on our job of packing for out Great Wolf Lodge trip, as well as getting our new little kids packed up for their stay at respite care.

Here's a little video I took of Samantha singing on stage at the end of our play practice when I went to pick her up that night. She was so excited when she saw me standing off to the side watching her sing. She's the cutest reindeer I ever did see!

Thursday was going to be a whirlwind of a day, but one I had been looking forward to for quite some time. Ben and I decided to book an overnight stay at Great Wolf Lodge as part of the kids' Christmas present, but we kept it a surprise because we thought that would make it even more special and fun. That morning I had Bible study, so we arranged for out two new little kids to have a visit with their parents. The little girl was going to have to miss Thursday and Friday of school anyways because of transportation not being set up and being in respite care, so we figured it would be a good day for a visit. Ben was able to drop them off that morning before working on campus for a few hours, and then I picked them up after my Bible study was over. From there, I drove them up to the respite care home they were going to be staying at, met the foster mom, went over some details with her, made sure they were all settled, and then drove back home with Owen. We ate lunch quickly, got our things packed in the car, and then went to school for Aedan's Christmas program.

Aedan allowed me to help him get dressed that day, and he looked so handsome in his button-up shirt, sweater vest, and khaki pants. Owen was definitely starting to get tired, as it was his nap time, but he loved that we were at Samantha's and Aedan's school, and he was so excited to go sit on her lap. These two definitely have a unique bond. We often say that Owen is like a mini-Samantha personality-wise.

We were all so excited when the classes filed in for their program. Aedan is in the front row in the red sweater vest. Man, he is such an adorable little boy. I couldn't help but beam with love and pride when I saw him up there.

Before the program started he was wiping his hands on his pants like he was nervous, but he did an awesome job singing all the songs. He knew all the words and all the motions, and I just loved watching him perform. He loves to do well, even though he sometimes gets nervous when he thinks all the attention is focused on him. I had to split up a lot of the videos into sections so I could upload them, but it's definitely worth it to watch him perform. I was so proud, and so glad the whole family was able to go watch him.

After his program was over, everyone went to the cafeteria for some crafts and activities. Samantha was excited to be next to him and help him if he needed anything. He got to make a candy cane with beads and a pipe cleaner, a snowflake magnet, and a card. He was very intent on making his crafts nicely, and it was hard not to rush him along because of the fun we knew lay ahead of us.

We told the kids that they had doctor's appointments we had to take them to, so we signed them out of school already. Samantha was very confused and concerned because we didn't tell her why they had to go to the doctor, and that sort of thing worries her. However, once we got to the car, we finally told them what we had been planning all along. It took Aedan a minute to process what we said, but then he was super excited just like Samantha. We haven't ever kept this big of a surprise from the kids before, so it was great to see their reaction.

Great Wolf Lodge is only about an hour from our house, so it was the perfect amount of time for Owen to take a little nap on our way there. In Michigan, we would have to drive three and a half hours to get to the one in Traverse City, so the kids were pleasantly surprised when we got there so much faster. Once we got to the hotel, we brought our stuff in, got checked in, went to our hotel room, and everyone got dressed in their bathing suits as quickly as possible so we could get to the pool. Samantha had to leave to go to her play practice, so we wanted her to be able to swim for awhile before she had to go. (We tried to see if she could skip practice that night, but it was the last run through of the play before opening night the next night. Plus, they were going to be doing a cast picture, so we decided it would be best for her to not miss practice, even though she would be sad about missing time to be in the pool.) Before Ben took her back for practice, she was able to go on a couple big slides with him while I stayed with Aedan and Owen. We spent a lot of time in the pool for younger kids. The boys went down the little slides together, played basketball, and just had a great time jumping around in the water. We also went up into the fort where the boys found places with spray jets and buckets of water you could dump on people. Owen ran back and forth in a rainbow water sprinkler and was having a blast slipping and falling. Once it got to be dinnertime, we stopped and got some food from the stand that was right within the water park. The kids' meals were huge, so the boys did not eat everything, but they ate enough to give them energy to keep swimming.

After we ate dinner we went back into the water, going around several times in the lazy river and going down the family slide together a few times, too. The first time down the family slide, Owen looked a little nervous because it went faster than what you would expect, but we were in a large tube with a bottom, and I was holding him close to me so he wouldn't slide around inside. Then, once we got to the bottom, he looked at me and said, "Again!"

We stayed in the pool until about 7:00, our last thing being swimming around in the "hot pool" as Aedan calls it. Then, we went back to our cool loft hotel room to get dressed in pajamas and get all the beds set up for bed time. They have a cute little story time at 8:00 that we went to. Aedan and Owen are sitting on the floor right in front of the little girl in the pink. Once that was over I got a free refill of coffee in my Great Wolf Lodge cup, and we went back to our hotel room to get the boys to sleep.

We had two bathrooms in our hotel room, so I put Owen's pack and play up in the downstairs bathroom to give him a little more separation from everyone else. He has been waking up crying most nights, requiring Ben or I to go into his room to hold him for a few minutes, and I didn't want his crying to bother Samantha and Aedan from sleeping too much. Aedan was very tired, but I could hear him whispering to himself for a little while before he finally fell asleep. Samantha didn't get back until about 9:00, and she did a great job getting ready quietly, but Ben and I were up in the loft in our bed and could hear her rustling around and jingling around until almost 10:00. Silly girl, it's always hard for her to settle down for sleep when she gets somewhere and has to go straight to bed. It doesn't help that we were sleeping in a different place either.

We always encourage the kids to sleep in, but most of the time that is impossible, especially when we are some place exciting. They were awake around 7:00, just like they always are at home. Owen woke up first, and I tried to get him back to sleep to no avail, so I just brought him upstairs, hoping that he could lay quietly with us for awhile until we knew for sure that Samantha and Aedan were awake. After that, we got shoes on and went down to eat breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts with everyone wearing their wolf ears. I love these three kids so much, and it was wonderful to have this time as a family of five again.

After eating breakfast and everyone woke up a little more and got more energy, we got our bathing suits on and then went to the lobby to watch the little animal show, followed by time to dance around in the "snow."

Merry Early Christmas, Kids!

We were waiting outside the doors at 9:30 when the water park opened, and we couldn't wait to spend the day there. Since we were in the water all day, I didn't take very many pictures, but the only time we were out of the water was when we stopped to eat some pizza for lunch. We went on lots of slides together. Owen was even brave enough to go on all the slides he was tall enough to go on, and some of them were pretty intense for a two-year-old. Aedan had a bad experience on one slide where he and Ben flipped off the tube at the end of the ride, and then he didn't want to ride on another slide again. However, I was able to convince him to try one more with me, and he realized that he wouldn't flip over every time and was okay with going on more slides with us. There was the scariest, fastest slide there called the Double Barrel that I wanted to try, but you couldn't ride it by yourself, so after a little convincing, Samantha decided she would try it with me. She was very, very nervous, and I have to admit that I was a little nervous too because it had a pretty large drop, and it was called Double Barrel because you went around two barrels, and you went pretty fast. Plus, most of it was in relative darkness, so you didn't really know what was coming next. I think the hardest thing for me is that it was going so fast and the water was pushing you so hard, that I was afraid I would fall off the tube, even though I was holding on to the handles as hard as I could. I tried to talk reassuringly to Samantha though, telling her how brave she was being, and how everything was going to be okay. Then, once she got to the bottom, she was glad she tried it and wanted to go on it with Daddy as well. (Meanwhile, my heart was racing. I'm not quite the daredevil I used to be.)

Besides for slides, the area of the water park Samantha and Aedan enjoyed the most was the wave pool. They probably could have spent all day here, and it was so fun to watch them jumping into the waves together. Aedan would often run at the waves and punch them like he was a super hero.

We played in the fort, went in the lazy river, played in the little kid pool, and Owen even took a nap for about forty-five minutes in my lap while Ben went on more slides with Samantha and Aedan and then rode around and around on the lazy river with Aedan while Samantha went on slides by herself. It's so awesome that she is getting old enough and responsible enough to do stuff like that now. She just had to check in with Ben every time she was finished with one slide. Saying we had a wonderful day in the water park would be a vast understatement. No one wanted to leave, but we knew we had to get everyone dressed, eat dinner somewhere, and get Samantha back to the KISS Theater for 6:00 call for her first show. We had a blast at our overnight visit at Great Wolf Lodge, celebrating Christmas early with our three wonderful kiddos.

After dropping Samantha off for her play, we drove to pick our two new little ones from respite care, drove back home, and tucked everyone into bed for the night. We were pretty tired, but taking this surprise trip to Great Wolf Lodge was definitely worth it.

We could have all stood for extra time to sleep in on Saturday morning after a busy few days, but the little girl didn't sleep well at the respite house. The foster mom said she woke up at 3:00 a.m. and started looking around the house for her cats. I have no idea if she went back to sleep or not, but at our house she knows the rule is that she is not allowed out of her room until the bunny clock changes. It was apparent that she forgot that expectation because Ben and I were awoken shortly after 6:00 a.m. to very loud noises in the upstairs bathroom, which is right above our bedroom. At first I thought it was just someone going to the bathroom, but the noise continued and I went upstairs to see what was going on. She was playing around in the bathroom, stacking step stools on top of each other and playing with everyone's toothbrushes, along with turning on the lights and running the water in the sink. I was pretty frustrated with her because the bathroom is right in between Samantha's and Aedan's room and Owen's room, meaning she was waking them up as well with all the noise she was making. Since it was too early, I made her lay back down in her bed, telling her she had to stay in bed until the bunny clock woke up, but us going back into her room woke up her little brother, and once he wakes up he cries very loudly and there is no getting him back to sleep. I didn't want him to wake everyone up, if they weren't already woken up, so I got him up and had the little girl stay in her bed.  She ended up falling back asleep, which wasn't quite fair because she had already woken up everyone in the whole house, making everyone tired and grumpy from not getting the sleep they needed that night.

With how busy life had been lately, we had not yet had time to make our Christmas cookies. Ben lovingly made the dough on Friday night (even though he was tired) so it could be refrigerated overnight. The kids helped cut out the shapes, and we baked all the cookies on Saturday morning. Then, once Samantha's play was over on Saturday afternoon and Owen was up from his nap, we had the kids help put sprinkles on to decorate the cookies. The little girl helped as well. This is one of their favorite Christmas traditions. The kids always have a lot of fun decorating the cookies with sprinkles, and Samantha and Aedan even helped us wrap the cookies in plastic wrap once they were all decorated. They are quite the helpers in the kitchen!

Ben and I took turns watching Samantha in her performance on Saturday. I took Aedan for the afternoon performance, and Ben went by himself for the evening performance. We didn't think it would work to bring our two new little ones because they wouldn't sit still, and we weren't going to want to deal with that when we were trying to watch Samantha. Between the both of us, we tried to take as many videos as we could of her lines and songs so that way we could show family members. She absolutely loved being in this show. She was Prancer and had a handful of lines. She knew every word of every song, and she listened to it so much at home that I think Aedan knew all the songs as well. I was beaming with love and pride as I saw my sweet little girl performing on the stage. She has always loved being a performer, so doing this play was right up her alley. She even made a comment to me that "The world is her stage!" She is not nervous at all performing on stage like this. In fact, she comes quite alive, and I'm so glad she had the opportunity to be a part of this production. I see many years of theater in her future! (Again, I had to split the videos up quite a bit in order to upload them, but they are well worth watching, as she (and the other kids) did an awesome job.)

Here's our adorable little Prancer with a brown painted nose and all, posing on the stage after the Saturday evening performance. I'm so proud of her, and I love supporting her in her passions and interests. I can't wait to see the wonderful things this little girl will do and accomplish as she grows up. Although I'm sometimes sad to think of the fleeting passing of time, I'm excited about seeing her interests and personality develop. She is strong, smart, confident, capable, sensitive, empathetic, friendly, caring, and curious. I am so proud to be her mother and to be blessed with the task of raising her.

(Blog about December 8-14, 2019)