Just trying to help...

I received an email message from Donovan's Pre-K teacher this week.  Seems Donovan was caught crawling under the stalls in the girls bathroom after lunch.  (what?!!!!) 

After a discussion about why this was completely inappropriate, the teacher learned that a little girl in another class had actually gone into the bathroom and locked all of the stall doors.  Donovan apparently overheard a girl at his lunch table talking about how she was not able to go to the bathroom because the doors were locked.  So, being the caring and chivalrous child that he is... he had simply gone in there to fix the problem. Of course, the thought never came close to crossing him mind that there could be a problem in providing this kind of assistance.  I'm learning that is a boy thing - why think through consequences.  It takes too much time and ruins too much fun.  Still, lesson learned... I hope. 

Things that go bump in the night....and the trouble with monsters

We have moved into a new sleeping phase with the boys.  At first, it took them some time to get adjusted to their new home, which is understandable, and we were up MANY times during the night.  I would often get only 1 or 2 hours of sleep.  Then things settled in and it was much better.  Donovan would sleep through the night and Jonathan might wake up once, sometimes twice, but would easily go back to sleep. 

Lately, Jonathan seems to have become keenly aware of the sounds in our house while I am putting him to bed.  He listens to everything.  I have started to play Baby Bach and Sleepytime classical music CD's to help him relax and cover up some of the other noises.... the other noises are mostly Daddy and Donovan getting ready for bed.  It helps and he loves the music, but his eyes will still immediately fly open as he tunes into any sound that he can hear over the music.  I still rock Jonathan to sleep and I enjoy that tremendously.  I plan to continue to enjoy it as long as I can.  I'm so thankful that God allowed us to have some of the "baby time" with him.  He's growing and turning into a little boy so, so, so fast. 

Donovan has now moved into the "monsters" phase of sleeping.  We check around the house, look under the bed, talk about how monsters aren't real, we pray about it and talk about how the Bible says we should keep good thoughts in our heads, etc., but he's still getting up during the night.  Last night he got up after being in bed about 5 minutes.  He said he knew he was going to have a bad dream about a volcano and that the bad dreams are in his tummy and that they come up into his eyes.  Then he said that he knew as soon as he went to sleep, the volcano in his tummy was "gonna blow".  I tried a scientific approach...

Me:  Volcanoes have fire right?
Donovan:  yes
Me:  Then take a big drink of water and put the fire out since the dream is in your tummy.
Donovan:  Okay.  Cool.  Good idea Mommy. 
Me:  Good night. 

5 minutes later....

Donovan:  Mommy... I did what you said, but it didn't put the fire out.  I'm so surprised.  I still had a bad dream.
Me:  I'm surprised too.  You can't have a bad dream if you haven't even gone to sleep.  Go to bed.

He's a very creative child.  :)

Happy New Year!!!

Kevin and I are so excited to see what God has in store for our family this year.  It has definitely been non-stop excitement since the boys arrived.  They are so energetic, enthusiastic and full of wide-eyed wonder and curiousity about everything.  They are growing and changing SO quickly.  I just can't imagine what this new year will bring.  We have been talking and making our own plans.  But, as we definitely learned in 2009, God is in control and has His plans, which far exceed any expectations of our own.  May God bless us all in 2010.

Our first Christmas with the boys

It was such a beautiful Christmas at our house this year.  On Christmas Eve we baked our cookies for Santa and left them on a special plate with milk.  Kevin and Donovan left reindeer food and water for the reindeer on the back patio.  Donovan made the reindeer food at school and thankfully his wonderful teacher warned us not to sprinkle it in the grass.  Apparently it causes an uncontrollable weed growth problem that lasts for years and years.  The boys sat in Kevin's lap and he read them the real Christmas story about Jesus and also "'Twas the Night Before Christmas". 

Then, we tucked them both into their beds wearing their special Christmas pajamas.  After waiting for awhile, we started our Santa work.  We planned ahead and the "some assembly required" items were already assembled during evenings earlier in the week, so that part was done.  Have I mentioned how much I do NOT like the straps and twist-ties on the children's toys?!  Urrggh.  So frustrating.  Did you know that if you order on amazon.com, you can choose to have "frustration-free" packaging that doesn't have all of that stuff?!  Oh yeah! 

We went to bed around midnight.  Jonathan woke up around 5:00, as usual (he's a morning person), but I was able to get him right back to sleep.  He woke again around 7:00 and this time he asked "Santa come to my house?"  We said yes and Daddy and Jonathan went to wake up Donovan (not a morning person).  Being mult-talented and able to juggle several things at once (ha ha) I readied the video camera and the regular camera. 

The boys were amazingly calm when they came into the living room and saw their presents.  I figure Donovan wasn't fully awake yet and Jonathan was probably following his lead.  I expected Donovan to wake up once he realized that Santa had come and the unwrapping frenzy would begin at any moment.... but they both stayed so calm and VERY happy.  It was just precious!!!  They both had such a good day.  Only a few moments of challenge with sharing the new toys. 

Then our family arrived, we opened even more presents.  Grandma bought both boys robots, which definitely rank very high on the favored toys list!!!  She told me about them in advance, but failed to tell me that they shoot out little nerf-like discs, kind of like big washers.  I discovered this when Donovan used me as his first target.  The discs shoot out quickly in succession and I was pelted with all of them.  He definitely thought this was hilarious and decided that everyone should have a turn.  It was so much fun. 

Then, we all sat down to eat the most incredible meal that Kevin made.  He had beef tenderloin and the most incredible lamb chops with cabernet sauce that I have ever tasted in my entire life.  Even way better than the Outback Rack from Outback Steakhouse.  If you haven't had those, you're missing a treat.  I don't know if they are still on the menu, but they still make them and they are wonderful.  However, NOT as wonderful as the ones my incredible chef of a husband made for our Christmas dinner.  YUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!! 

There were also many wonderful side dishes - all prepared by chef Kevin.  I made my great-grandmother's rice pudding and my mom made a banana pudding that everyone raved about. 

It was such a special first Christmas with our boys!!!

Christmas stress

Not our stress.... Donovan's.  Last week during school, Donovan's behavior was suddenly not good at all.  He had been doing really great, so we were quite surprised at this sudden change.  We tried several things to encourage him .... promises of rewards for improvement, talking about Santa's list, we even bought an "elf on the shelf".  Nothing worked.  He says he's been having "bad movies on mine eyes" - his way of saying he's having bad dreams.  I had an idea and I called the boys' former CPS caseworker.  Just as I had suspected, this time last year does not bring happy memories for our boys.  Our passion is to help them heal from the wounds of their past and we know that with God's help, it is going to happen.  So, I started to analyze all of this to see what we could do.  I wondered if Donovan's poor behavior was his subconscious way of creating a reason why Santa didn't bring him any gifts on Christmas - just in case.  We don't know any details of their Christmas last year, but this was the only explanation that I could come up with. 

Kevin and I talked about it.  Being the absolutely brilliant husband that he is, he had an idea.  You see, we have a neighbor who is the most amazing natural Santa I have ever seen!  No elastic banded beard or pillow tummy here.  He's the real deal!!!!  The boys had already met him at Supper for Santa, which was held at Donovan's school a couple of weeks ago.  Kevin stopped by and talk to Santa about the boys and what we thought was going on with Donovan. 

Yesterday, Santa came to our house.  Jonathan had a meltdown and would only look at Santa through the window from outside on the back patio.  He would not calm down so long as they were both in the same house together.  We've been praying for the boys to learn some stranger danger, so I guess we should be thankful for Jonathan's reaction.  Maybe he'll warm up to that concept next year.  :)

But Donovan just LOVED it.  He had a million questions for Santa.  And Santa had been prepared with all of the important prompts, such as already knowing the boys names, he knew all about our elf on the shelf (Kevin named him Elfis .... pun on Elvis) and he even mentioned the letter that Donovan had received from Sprite, the elf that works in Santa's letter writing department. 

In his Pre-K class, Donovan's teacher helped her students write letters to Santa.  She types while they tell her what they want the letter to say.  She types word-for-word, by the way.  It makes the letter so special and you we can heard Donovan's "voice" in his letter.  Students from the Intermediate, Middle and High School campuses then write letters back to each of these children in their Language Arts class addressing the specifics in their Santa letters.  Donovan's letter was answered by an elf named Sprite. 

Well, Santa knew all about it when we arrived at our house.  He also told Donovan that Elfis mentioned that he had a new forever mommy and daddy so he wanted to come and see for himself so he would know exactly where to find them from now on.   

Donovan asked Santa about the reindeer, how he gets through the chimney, whether he has any dogs or cats (he has a dog name "Cookie" by the way - how cool is that?) and he even showed Santa his room and Jonathan's room, too. 

Just before he left, Santa sprinkled some magic dust on Donovan's head and said that it keeps bad dreams away.  It was all so special.  Not to mention how cool it is to have Santa sitting in our living room!  Thank you, Santa! 

To wrap or not to wrap...that is the question

So, Christmas planning is WAY different at our house this year.  The big conversation between Kevin and I today is... should we wrap the boys' gifts from Santa or not?  It's really a tough question. 

The arguments for wrapping include:  the surprise of opening the gift; the focused attention on just one thing at a time; the possibility of keeping the boys from taking each other's stuff (at least momentarily)

Arguments against it include:  does Santa wrap gifts?; the boys waking up, running to the tree and tearing into everything whether it is there's or not; the possibility of an out of control "free for all"...

Hhmmm.  What to do?

So, what do you do in your family?  Post a comment and let me know.

The Real Meaning of Christmas

Donovan and I have had the most amazing conversations lately.  He wants to know ALL about Jesus, Mary, Joseph, angels and God.  We were in Hobby Lobby recently and he was asking questions about Jesus after we walked down the aisle with the nativities.  There was a woman close by when Donovan said "Mommy, where is Heaven?".  The lady looked at me with a smile, kind of like "okay, what are you gonna say now."  But I was ready.  I told Donovan "I don't really know exactly where Heaven is.  But I do know how to get there."  Donovan's reply?  "Tell me all about it, Mommy." 

You'd think we had planned it.  Moments like this just make my heart want to explode. 

I love my boys.  :)

Polar Express

At our house right now, the Polar Express movie is VERY popular.  The boys seem to want to watch it almost every day, which is amazing because they don't really care about television (good!).  Donovan's Pre-K class even wore pajamas to school one day and watched it.  His awesome teacher, Mrs. Bonnin, really makes everything so special.  We love her! 

In Palestine, Texas, there is an old restored train called the Texas State Railroad.  From Thanksgiving to New Year each year, they dress the old train up to look like the Polar Express.  They reinact parts of the movie including serving hot chocolate and cookies while the wait staff dances in the ailes.  The conductor comes by and punches everyone's ticket, just like in the movie, too.  He doesn't have the super-speed ticket punching skills that create letters in the tickets, but that didn't take away from the magic of it all.  Santa and his elves make an appearance, too! 

Right after Thanksgiving, we took the boys to ride the Polar Express.  It was SO much fun.  A very special experience for all of us.  And the hot chocolate was really yummy, too!  It may have to become an annual event.  :)

Here are some pictures of our experience.  If you'd like to know more about the train, go to http://www.texasstaterr.com/.  They do other special events throughout the year! 

I pray that your Christmas holidays have been wonderful so far.  The boys and I are out of school until early January now.  It's Kevin's busy time at work for a little while longer, then he will be taking some time off with us, too!  Hooray!!!!

Waiting at the train station

Watching for the train

Here she is!  All aboard!!!!

Punching our tickets

The boys were ready to go

Hot chocolate and cookies for everyone.  These guys could really dance, too.

Jonathan is not too sure about this guy.

Our first family photos

After the adoption hearing, we did take our first "official" family photo.  But on Sunday after church, we met with a photographer to take our first professional family pictures.  They were taken by the old schoolhouse at the park on North Main (close to Baytown Christian Academy).  Here are just a few of the results!  If you are interested, the photographer's name is Janey Wood and she lives in Mont Belvieu.  Just send me an email at  we3kings1@comcast.net if you'd like more information about her.

My mom's dog

In the midst of what is supposed to be such a joyous season, it seems I have been hearing of so much sadness lately.  Today was no different.  My mom adopted a massive dog - an American Bulldog - through an animal rights organization last year.  I was shocked when she did this because she loved her last dog so much, she vowed to never have another dog again.  Actually, she wanted us to adopt him after my beloved Holly, whom I adored for 15 years, died right after Hurricane Ike.  But we decided he wasn't the dog for us and she adopted him.  It was not without grief, by the way.  Many of the the people she had to deal with made the entire process very difficult.  (Side note - it works the same way for children, too!). 

Finally, he was hers and she let me choose his name.  Since he was partially intended as security, I suggested she name him Brinx.  She did. 

Today, Brinx had to be put to down.  He stopped eating last week and after several very expensive trips to the vet and finally a canine internist today, my mom learned that Brinx had cancer. 

I'm so happy for the time that he had with my mom.  But I'm so sad that he is gone.  What a cool dog he was.  Huge, cuddly and very slobbery - just the way a dog should be!