Trick-or-Treat

We thought for sure Finn was going to be freaked out by all the decorations and costumes of Halloween, I have to avoid the Halloween aisle at T@rget because she gets so scared. Apparently if you give her a reese's cup, she isn't scared of anything and she can go for hours on a sugar rush. Good times.

Happy Halloween from our littlest Pumpkin!

Ballet school dropout

Proof positive that signing Mina up for ballet was a completely self serving Mommy idea. She has a recital in 6 weeks and I am anticipating her participation, it is sure to be a hysterical Mommy moment that will be retold well into her adulthood.

Boo-boo Princess.

Mina skinned her knee at the exact same time that I should have been pulling dinner off the grill, isn't that when all the boo-boo's happen? I think she was actually a little excited to get a real band-aid worthy boo-boo. She has a band-aid fetish, she always has imaginary boo-boo's.

No offense girl, but maybe it was your choice of shoes?

Oh, yeah, she will be talking about this for weeks!

Finn immediately climbed up on the table to kiss her boo-boo, Mina yelled at her and I burned dinner. A day in the life.

Punkin heads

We take our pumpkin carving pretty seriously around here,

I will admit that the only holiday traditions that I don't enjoy - carving pumpkins, and making gingerbread houses. The mess:fun ratio just doesn't pay off in my opinion, but maybe that's just because I have clean up duty? I am lucky enough to be able to take photos and not have to deal with smelly pumpkin guts.
Although I did have the pleasure of sifting through all of the guts to clean off the seeds, which I will roast up tomorrow. Collin would cry if he didn't get his pumpkin seeds.

We have a pretty focused crew, I think I am the only one that doesn't have the attention span to put 2 hours into carving a pumpkin.

Sorry Finn, you best get used to people doing this to your irresistible cheeks, I love how it doesn't even phase her.

Overall a successfully messy afternoon.

Common bonds of motherhood

I think every mother of a toddler knows this feeling... The sun has yet to come up and you hear your two year old awake in their room. You asess the situation and decide that they sound like they are playing quite happily, so you just lie there, blissfully. 15 glorious extra minutes, and then you hear it... a crash. Traquility ends as you run into their room. You then realize your 2 year old was trying to climb their closet shelves to get to their shoes (a.k.a. their favorite toy box). Thankfully she wasn't hurt, she had a smile ear to ear because she was sitting in a pile of mismatched shoes. Her shelf broke and all her bins fell to the ground.

I am still thinking the 15 minutes of peace was worth it? I obviously need to come up with a new closet system.

Yesterday was the perfect day for a fall corn maze. One of our first chilly days.

Meet the newest member of the "Grandpa Fan-Club"

I thought kids were said to grow up slowly, so slow that you didn't even notice until you looked back years later. If you stare at this kid long enough you can actually see her growing, like someone is sucking the "kid" straight out of her.

And then her and her goofy brother pull one of these and you feel much better about the world.

Fun times.

6:30 a.m.

It may not be a pretty hour of the day, but it is definitely the most peaceful. The calm before the storm, everyone still quiet and happily snuggled on the couch, hair a mess, jammies still on, random shoes laying in the middle of the couch, eating cinnamon waffles (the frozen kind from a box, the kind I used to swear I would never feed my kids). It's the little moments, I love these little twerps...

Fun morning

The little girls and I had a fun morning while Papa and the older kids were at the soccer fields. We drove into the city to meet our favorite children's book author/illustrator, Grace Lin. We LOVE her books. Her stories are sweet and fun and best of all they usually have themes of Chinese culture. So needless to say we love these books. The girls didn't really understand how cool it was to be meeting her, so of course I took some photos. Finn said, "What up, Ms. Lin" and gave her a fist bump. Not really, it was more of a grunt and then she put up her fist in approval... Way cute. I'm sure one day soon they will think it is neat that all their Grace Lin books are signed and she even drew cute little pictures in the books for them.

Uncharted Waters

I used to think I knew everything about parenting a two-year old. I used to say parenting a toddler was the easy stuff...black and white. You can't hit your sister, you can put your hands in the toilet, you can't pull items off the shelf at T@rget, if you are throwing a tantrum you go into time out until you chill out and then we will talk it out. Black and white.

Lately I've been treading in a lot of gray areas, that is what happens when you have a toddler that does all the fun things a normal toddler does, but to the extremes.

Extremes not out of being naughty, but out of fear, nervousness and anxiety. I have read several adoption parenting books and Mina seems to have text-book attachment issues.

She tests me daily, sometimes I pass, sometimes I fail. I am having to parent her in a way that feels completely foreign to me. I don't have all the answers anymore. We have good days and really difficult days. Discipline doesn't work with her, it sets her back. Discipline is how I work, I used to say, "If you can't control your 4 yr old than you won't be able to control your 14 yr old" Set the standards early and your kids will know you mean business and you will save yourself a load of problems as they grow. My approach is being tested, I am trying to work it out. I am nervous and hopeful at the same time. I love her with all of my heart and I am committed to figuring out what makes her tick. She is most definitely a sweet, vivacious, funny little girl with a smile to light up a room. We just need to work some stuff out. And then there is this child, the one who seems to feel the most comfortable in her own skin. Sure she's still a baby, but I have a feeling she is going to be a mellow one.. I pray that she will be a mellow one.

busted!

Mina would like us to believe that when we put her to bed she stays in bed. She knows how to be sneaky and quiet. But somehow a Mama always knows....(the shoes never lie)

If it's Saturday, we are probably here.

I like it here especially when the weather is as perfect as it has been. My happiness is largely based on the weather... What city in America is blue skied and about 70 degrees year round.. that is where I want to live... I also love watching my kiddos play soccer. I've mentioned before that Jackson and Kobi are complete opposites, they prove it once again on the soccer fields...Jack is a competitor. He loves the game,,,, any game...

Kobi is NOT a competitor, It makes me sad that this is very likely the last season of soccer she will ever play....

"Mom, those boys kicked my leg when I was trying to stay as far away from the ball as possible."

She found out her school is offering a pottery class and she is over the moon about it. I can't say I blame her. We will have to save her little pink shin guards for Mina and Finn.

And this guy, he got a black eye during wrestling practice the other day.. It goes great with his shaved head (thanks to the mohawk from last week).... What up tough guy...