A Few Fall Photos

We picked up Great Grandma Norma and took her to the park to play. The kids rode bikes and scooters and brightened GG's day.

Sadie's class made turkey tail hats during their Thanksgiving party. Mama got to help out!

Thanksgiving at the P-Pod. Shenanigans abound.

With all the wonderful things to do and see at the Safari Park, all the kids want to do is ride the carousel.

Grandma took Benji and Sadie to the Old Globe Theater to see The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. It's now an annual tradition for the 5-and-older crew. Of course they had to dress up.

I grew up in a home where we always had real trees, and the smell of a live/cut/dying evergreen tree is a hallmark of my Christmas experience. And by golly I wanted to have that for my kids. But, man oh man, getting this artificial tree a few years ago has been one of the keys on the chain of holiday sanity for us.

So for now, this is how we do it.

Every now and then this occurs: peaceful playing by the fireplace, the whole lot of them.

PRICE. LESS. This was taken after the kids' (Benji and Sadie) Christmas concert. Sadie's not tired or punchy or anything...

A Boy and his Grandpa

We went bowling for Auntie Rosie's birthday and this is now one of my favorite shots. Benji used to call my dad "Gumpa." We are sad it didn't stick, but we still pull it out every now and then.

Catching up: Last March and April Stuff

Now that we have settled into school routines and made it through some major events this fall, I can sit down and catch y'all up.  So let's go back to March and April of this year.

Hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's house

Hiking at Lake Hodges

(Miss Bella Roux is on my back, and I am the one with the camera, so...there's nothing of us.)

The Mama Getaway

I went on a weekend retreat in the mountains with other adoptive mamas. We meet regularly as a sort of informal support group for each other. If you add up all our kiddos, we represent international adoption (Ethiopia, India, Honduras) and local adoption (through the county, and through private, open adoption). One of the mamas was even surprised by pregnancy - and it turned out to be twins!  Altogether we have 14 kids. You can imagine how much we adored a weekend to ourselves. These are some phenomenal women who I am proud to call friends.

Wild Wonders

One of the most fun things for me (and Benjamin) is how as kids get older, they have exciting enrichment and learning opportunities outside of school. Thanks to a Groupon discount, Benji got to attend a day at this animal conservation compound during spring break. Kids got to feed some of the exotic animals which included a cheetah, a kinkajou, a tortoise, and a whole lot more. Super duper fun.

Safe Swim Day

Another awesome opportunity in the neighborhood is the annual Safe Swim Day. The kids got free swim lessons at the event and then, because it was close to Easter, they got to collect floating eggs and exchange them with the Big Bunny for a prize.

This Girl

Being that (up through the summer) she's usually on my back, we don't get as many informal photos of her. So here you go! Our sweet Itsy B - last April.

Fall Fingerpainting...Outside

Starting Brazilian Jiu-jitsu

Benjamin recently started learning Jiu-jitsu. It's not a kicking-punching martial art, but rather a wrestling sort of one. This has been so good for him.

This is a work in progress, but he has been learning to get beaten without losing his cool, to take a fall without freaking out, and to keep going to the very end. His class is mostly girls, but there are two other boys who weren't there the day I took pictures. He goes to church with two of the girls and to school with another two.

In the video you can see some of the drills and then the matches he was in one day. In one photo, he gets bested by a girl named after the Tarkheena warrior girl in The Horse and His Boy. She is tough. All us moms sit around and admire her. At the end of that day he received his first stripe. And since then he has decided he doesn't want to do it any more. (Ha!  We've got to help him grow through this tendency to sabotage himself.)

If you get the chance, ask him how to do a leg sweep or if he's up for the turtle drill. He just might show you.



P.S. Yes, the soundtrack is full of bagpipes. Let's just say that's a little shout out to his Grandma Karen. It adds a twist that you wouldn't have if the music was all gongs and flutes.

Spring Sprinklers

Back in May, wildfires rushed the canyons and neighborhoods in our part of the county. It was a long week. Long because of the uncertainty, the friends and businesses forced to evacuate; long because of the unyielding heat. Long because much of life - schools, extracurricular and social activities, and in some cases, jobs, were on hold until the burning could be controlled.

We were home in a stuffy, sweltering house with not much to do for long periods of time. Where could we go? Parts of freeways were blocked off, air quality was terrible, and places with air conditioning, like the mall, were packed.

And while it seemed so contrary to the worry and the waiting, we needed to bring some joy to the moment. We needed to get wet. We needed to break through it all and laugh. This is what happened.

Catching Up - Spring Break and Mud Party

Day Three of Spring Break involved mud. Lots of it. We invited our friends over to make mud pies, enjoy a volcano, and squish dinosaurs through a prehistoric landscape of sorts.  Before we look at those scenes, however, let's talk about Mentos geysers, which was the way I intended to kick off this day of messy fun. I was hoping to be really impressive.

I did some research, you see, some research on how to make one of those Coke bottle explosion things...which I learned was actually not an explosion but a geyser. And I consulted Pinterest for the details on exactly how to get the best results. What I came away with was this:

1. Use a liter of any dark cola - the brand did not matter, but the dark brown colored ones worked better than, say, orange soda.

2. Make some sort of chute that would get the Mentos into the bottle fast and almost all at the same time.

3. Watch out. A geyser could be eight feet tall.

Em...not so much.

After moving all the kids back with all my safety first talk I dropped those suckers into my 70 cent bottle of el cheapo cola and...

Wah, wha, whaaaaaaaa...

It was a wimpy fizz that lasted about six seconds.

So we moved on to the vinegar and baking soda volcano which was not particularly impressive either, but allowed the kids to interact with it more which is always a good thing.

Baking soda and vinegar volcano

We built up the mud around a glass jar and the kids took turns pouring vinegar into the mixture and watching the foam erupt.

They just kept pouring and playing.

So these photos just show our mud pit area. I am so in love with how green the area is now. It was all brown and dead about two years ago.

I think we'll be doing this again!

Catching Up - Spring Break & Shaving Cream

The week that Benjamin had off from school for spring break, I wanted to have some fun. We had originally planned to go to the mountains, but that didn't work out so I needed to get creative.

On Monday, we went to the beach with Grandma and Grandpa V.  But on Tuesday, we had a backyard bubbles and shaving cream party and invited some friends.

Kiddie pools were filled with bubble bath and food coloring. Kids' hands were filled with shaving cream.

It was madness.

And oh, so fun!

At the Maple Street Fountain

One of our favorite hey-it's-hot-and-we're-tired-of-being-at-home things to do is visit the Maple Street Plaza in downtown Escondido. If we even drive past the place, the kids want to hop out of the car to put their feet in the fountain. So over the summer this was one of our hot spots.

The plaza recently came about as an attractive corridor to encourage foot traffic between City Hall and the downtown strip, Grand Avenue. It also serves as a place for bands or food stands during festivals. It cost a pretty penny and has been the subject of controversy, but I love it. One of my favorite things about well-designed urban spaces is the proliferation of artsy, interactive, pretty places for the community to gather. The idea has not caught on so much around here, but we show up!

At the Playground

Yesterday I realized that Sadie has never been to play at the park. I mean, she has been to the park in the baby backpack, before she was able to swing or crawl around...but I had not taken her to play now that she's old enough. How sad, I thought. How lame. I must get my girl to the park.

So today we went. And I put out a call on Facebook to see if any of our friends or cousins would be available...and they were! What a lovely visit it was.

Mmmm...picnic lunch of oatmeal mixed with pureed peas.

Starting off with lunch - a PBJ sandwich and some Greek yogurt.

Sadie Lou LOVED the swing!

Little Girl was laughing uncontrollably...until I pulled out the camera.

Big Brother had fun pushing Sadie on the swing.

cousins Jona, Nitaya, Felicity and Benjamin on the seesaw (Auntie Florence and Eli in the background)

"pumping" on the big boy swing

cousins Felicity and Nitaya