DIY Advent calendar

 

After looking on Pinterest for awhile I ended up combining some different ideas to make my advent calendar this year! I love it.. although it has kept us very busy, but we've been doing some awesome things to celebrate the season!

I took clothespins and put mod podge on them and sprinkled glitter on them. I hung up some bakers twine and cut some Christmas scrapbook paper to look like tags. I then took some stencils and painted on the numbers, and just wrote on the back an activity we would do each day! Rowan has looked forward to turning over the tag every morning!

 

Some ideas:

• The Nutcracker play
• Watch Christmas movie
• Drink Hot Cocoa
• Polar Express {we drove in our car, hung Christmas lights, and drank cocoa while driving around}
• Read Christmas stories
• Wrap presents
• ELF the neighbors
• Gift for the mail carrier
• Play games by the fire
• Random Acts of Kindness day
• Sing Christmas carols
• Gingerbread hunt
• Write a letter to Santa
• Decorate the tree

These are just some of the things that I included in our advent calendar, but there are so many other options, just be aware of what is going on in your life because I definitely feel like I should have written "drink hot cocoa" on 20 of the 25 days.. haha!

 

 

Homemade for the Holidays!

I've been busy making things for the holidays. One of my favorite things to do!

 

Here I made caramels.... soooo delicious! I followed this recipe, but added sea salt into the mix and then added it to the top after laying it out in the pan. I couldn't get Bubba away from them!

 

 

Vanilla extract that I started 6 months ago.

Original idea

 

These are simmer potpourri bags. I used my dehydrator and dried up some oranges, apples and lemons. I then added cinnamon sticks, allspice, nutmeg and some cloves.

Original Idea

 

These are just salt dough ornaments. Rowan had a great time helping make these! We used cookie cutters and put them in the oven at a low temp and then dried them for a day. Painted, stamped and tied off with bakers twine!

 

Voila!

 

I also planted some paperwhites about a month ago, into some vases from Dollar Tree with some rocks and moss and will be combining all of the above together in a basket for the neighbors!

Chaos... constantly.

Life has been more busy than I've ever experienced.

I feel more like an adult now than ever and I can't believe that Christmas is only 4 days away!

With the upcoming holiday I sit here and I think about all the children who are without homes.. for the holidays, the time where families come together from far and wide. And those children in foster care, many of them don't have families. It just breaks my heart and it drives me even more to work faster and harder to getting our homestudy license complete.. ASAP.

But in the meantime.. things have been so busy, but in such a positive way. I made an advent calendar this year with an activity or something to do each day.. and oh boy has that made me crazy kept me on my toes! Along with all the adoption paperwork, reading, research, fundraising (just beginning this step) and everything else that goes along with the whole process.

Lately, we have been running into a challenge. Keeping this from from certain people and we have discussed back and forth about disclosing the fact that we are adopting to certain people, but then decide against it. I get nervous that something might happen or fall through and I just don't feel ready to tell most people. But running into some situations where I feel like we almost are deceiving our friends has been hard. We haven't lied, but at times I feel terrible about misleading or making them think otherwise.

I am so looking forward to the homestudy being completed. When I feel that we can start letting people know, more than the immediate family.

PRIDE training was very interesting and I found that there were times where it was very depressing, scary and horrifying thinking about certain situations or that our future child could have gone through such a horrible life before they become a part of our family. And that we would miss out on all of that!! It just breaks my heart, but at the same time, my heart swells with happiness thinking about expanding our family and having another child to LOVE!

I also felt that PRIDE was a good tool, even just as a parent, I felt that I learned some new techniques and gained knowledge on understanding how children work or what they need or how to handle certain situations. So all in all it was good, but they do prepare you for the bad, so that when you get anything better than that, that it just seems that more awesome!

 

Right now I'm starting to expand some research on fundraising.. trying to find some good ideas and websites that can help with that.

There are grants that are available to apply for, but most of them require a completed homestudy and we just aren't at that point yet.

I hope to do a post just about fundraiser ideas!! Coming soon... {fingers crossed}

 

I will be starting up school again in the new year... this 2 month break is exactly what I needed!!

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

He's Home!

The wait is over and he made it home safely.

We are so thankful and grateful to God for bringing him home and in one piece!

 

I have so many photos from the redeployment ceremony, but here are a few!

 

Keep in mind.. this was VERY early in the morning! And waiting up all night.. not knowing when they would arrive.. and just more waiting... for that phone call!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pride training!

We did it!!

We completed those long hours of training towards our foster licensing! 

 

We did the weekday orientation and then the double weekend of 9-5 sat and sun, back-to-back weekends..  i was SO happy we chose that route instead of a bunch of weekday evenings. This was definitely the better choice.

 

Plus  we met another couple who are also signed up with our agency! It was to be able to talk about specific training classes and requirements from our agency together.

I hope to be able to see more of them in the future!

 

I have so much to catch up on and write about. I feel so behind in my blogging and everything that I want to remember and record... the reason why I started this. it's starting to bum me out.

however, we have been so incredibly busy... my life has never been this busy. and i fear wonder how it will be later down the road when we have another child.

 

i'm so excited though! and of course then we wouldn't be going to all sorts of training classes and filling out mountains of paperwork!

 

I look forward to the day that our homestudy is complete.. where most of the annoying paperwork is done. then i'll be anxious... waiting and waiting for my baby to arrive!

 

i can't wait!

 

I hope to catch up soon... with lots of pictures of the redeployment ceremony of Bubba coming HOME!!

 

Down to the wire

So this is it... the final week... before Bubba will be coming home!

 

We feel so blessed and happy that he will be coming home almost a month early!

 

It's been great news that we received two weeks ago and now it's like it creeped up on me and the time is flying by!

 

Everything has been going smoothly so far with his travels and processing, however I got a call today saying that one of his many flights had been delayed. Hopefully, it's only a 24 hour delay and he is able to still come home around the time that we estimate.

 

We are soooo excited to have this chapter over in our lives. To know that we will never have to go through another deployment again is such a relief. Every time I see my daughter get sad out of nowhere or get really angry about her dad being gone, I just know that this is the right decision for us -- to get our the military.

 

one year left. Thank the Lord!

 

 

On a cute note...

 

 

 

I took this picture last week! :)

Pumpkin patch!

so rowan had her first field trip. ever.

its still so weird to me that she is old enough to be having field trips.. even if it is just pre-k.

 

she had an absolute blast.

 

until of course she got lost in the hay maze... and was crying.

but by the time i got to where she was, she was already gone and out the other end. typical.

 

she survived..

and she loved it!

 

Rowan!? Are you in there?

 

i'm waiting for her to start asking to have sheep also...
along with the cat and chickens and monkey she so badly wants.

 

hay ride!

 

embracing the camera!

 

mom i found the perfect pumpkin for me!

 

 

"mom! mom! take a picture of me!"

 

Time for a little photo shoot!

So me & the bestie went out for a little photo shoot at this location that I've been dying to take pics of rowan at.

of course the day we show up, there are about a million people there.

seriously... a cross country meet was going on.

ha.

 

but we managed to get some cute pics of the kiddos anyways!

{even though i have a thousand pics with people wearing track jackets in the background...}

 

 

as you can see.. i've of course tried to hide the fact that rowan cut her own bangs.. i was slathering on the gel to hold those puppies back.. not too bad!

 

 

 

how would this picture not make you smile?

 

Princess Laundry

I was browsing pinterest one day, go figure, and saw this and had to do it with Rowan!

 

I just love having a little girl to do all the fun cute little girlie stuff with.

{But she also loves to play in the dirt and with worms!}

 

of course I have all of these put together into a collage and framed. love it.



My favorite!



I could just squeeze her!

of course she obviously does this ALL the time..

 

 



Look at those cute little legs!!



 

 

 

 

 

oh the life of a princess...

Money managing for kids

I have been wanting to come up with an idea for money managment for rowan!

 

And just haven't put much time into it... well because i just don't have a lot of time these days.

 

and then i saw this over at this blog i read. so cute.

 

so of course i had to do it.

how could i not?

 

 

 

rowan already has a piggy bank that she got from grandma & grandpa for Christmas last year.

It's where all her money has gone and she never really spent any of it.

it all just went into that bank.

 

so i decided it's past due to teach this girl to SPEND... and save and give. duh!

 

so we spent an evening sorting and exchanging. and dividing.

 

so the girl got to spend.

and spend she did!

 

 

taken with my phone

 

she absolutely loves her cinderella walkie talkies.

 

and she is now saving to buy something else that she saw at the toy store.

didn't take the girl long to figure out how to spend her moolah!

First day of Pre-K!!

First day!

 

waving to daddy

 

cheesy smile. attempting a cute pose.

 

 

of course this is bittersweet.

 

i'm excited and happy that she is going to be learning, playing and making friends all on her own!

but this is my baby's first time being away from me on a consistent basis.

of course we decided to send her to preschool a week before she started! this was a very last minute decision that was made, but we are oh-so-happy we made it!

bubba of course was totally bummed that he missed out on her first day of pre-k. especially because it was so last minute that it was planned and wasn't anything he had to prepare himself for when he left.

but he's happy now that she's going. because she loves it.

 

I saw on a blog about doing the first and last day of school pictures.

I'm going to give myself a break being as this is the first time i've ever done it and we had 5 minutes to get pictures taken and had a meltdown during that time. {see the wetness on her eyes?}

soo.. yes. there is a shadow over her face and it's not centered and it's not the ideal picture that i wanted. but life goes on right?

 

i mean i can't let my perfectionism overcome everything.

at least it's something :)

 

So with all the time consuming cute ideas on pinterest to do for a first day picture I came up with this idea the morning of because I just ran out of time! But I ended up loving this because every year I can showcase her handwriting and how it improves over the years!

 

 

 

FIRST DAY OF PRE-K

Puyallup fair

Rowan and I decided to take on the fair!!

 

We had such a great time, but we both were wishing that Bubba could be there with us! SOON THOUGH!! But we don't let the deployment stop us. That's something that I learned quickly. Still have to go out and do and live!

 

 

SWINGS!!

when she got off her butt was soaking went.. i'm pretty sure she peed her pants it rained the night before

 

 

Tilt a whirl.

Me: rowan smile!

cheese!

ride starts!! ahhh!!

snap.

doesn't get any more real than that.

 

 

walk on water..

uh yeah.

awesome.

i only wish that i could have also done this.

i mean seriously.. trying to roll, walk or anything was completely hysterical to watch! it didn't look like an easy task.

 

 

fun. fun.fun.

train ride.

 

we had such an awesome time and spent 6 hours there scarfing down scones, elephant ears, pizza and grease! We both loved that she had grown a few more inches from last year and was able to go on some more rides this year!

... ya know one can only take the stationary motorcycles for so long. ha.

Love her.

She's amazing. :)

 

 

a little overdue

So not much posting leads to a gap in my garden tours and updates.

 

So at this point this is where we are at:

 

 

These were harvested just this morning. Some cherry tomatoes. Two very tiny yellow pear tomatoes and 2 red tomatoes. To be honest I didn't even know they were growing. I had to use my machete scissors to get through the jungle of tomato plants I have growing.

 

I just snapped this pic. This is still on the vine, but I will be harvesting it in the next day or two. I'm really excited about my zucchini because I've never grown them before!

 

 

here's my zucchini and pumpkin patch. oh and onions.

did i over do it? yes.

will i ever plant onions with vine growing or crazy bushy plants. no. i've ruined most of my onions this way because they have gotten bent over. boo.

 

These were harvest about a week and half ago. we've only had the one harvest of beans so far.

first time growing them.

a perfect serving for me and my sugarplum.

 

 

And my crazy out-of-control hyped up on miracle grow tomatoes.

no seriously, i haven't even used miracle grow on these.

 

they are insane. and i don't know what to do with them. they are tied up with so much twine that it's a jungle. literally i'm pretty sure i saw a monkey sleeping on a branch.

 

next year. no cherry tomatoes.

or at least have an acre to grow one bush.

 

 

First meeting!

So I've decided to finally write about the first meeting that I had with our adoption specialist.

Of course it won't be nearly as cool as the original post I did, but I need to get SOMETHING down. Before I forget more than I already have.

 

So in a nutshell:

 

It went great.

She came and she was awesome.

Immediately I knew that she was the right person for us to work with. SO happy about that.

 

We sat down at the table. I of course FORGOT was too anxious and nervous and didn't offer her a glass of water until she had talked so much her was drier than the Mojave desert and she had to ask for one.

mortified. ugh.

 

I did send her off with some homemade chocolate chip cookies, hoping that made up for it.

 

but my feelings.. well to be honest i've forgotten some. which i didn't want that to happen because i wanted to write this blog so that i could chronicle our experience, my experience. and feelings so that I wouldn't forget.

and guess what has happened?!?

 

So from what I can remember I felt overwhelmed.

She went over our schedule and I was given a lot of paperwork.

 

I had some questions and so did she. What I didn't know was that this was considered our first interview and I of course thought afterwards that I could have had better answers! I wasn't prepared, but was more nervous then anything. I think that if I was prepared I would have sounded like a crazy person!

 

I wish that I could remember more. Rowan behaved well. The specialist was great. I feel like she is the right fit for us. Which is exactly what I need because this whole process is intimidating and scary!

 

So at the end of the meeting we were given some homework:

1. read or watch three videos on adoption {I have already read two books and have three more books coming in through amazon next week}
2. get past three years of tax returns
3. rowan's immunizations charts submitted {done!}
4. complete autobiographies {Jessica done!}
5. find 4 references! {in the process}
6. start on our family photo profile book
7. Research medical conditions - what we are willing to accept - fill out form

So our list is different than others. In the fact that bubba is deployed and won't be back until December. So we have a shorter list for now to work on while he is gone.

We do of course have our entire to do list, which is so long you don't even want to know right now, but this is our shortened list for the meantime.

 

Our Carrot Loot!

Being as I was boycotting blogging because I was upset that my entire novel post was deleted, my garden has continued to grow and my sugar snap peas are even done! But here's a peek at a little bit of what we've been doing!