When Mommy's Away...

In Daddy's defense, he was making dinner...during part of the time she did this...

When I first saw it, I thought Daddy had purposefully painted her face because the whiskers (mustache?) are so perfect!

She even decorated her neck...and hands (the hands were the most difficult to clean), but was careful not to get any on her clothes!

I asked her if she was trying to color something specific on her face. She said, "Yes." I asked what, and she replied, "I don't know. Just anyfing pretty."

At least it was a marker and not scissors...

Splish-Splash

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. Since the potty party days I have pretty much cut out all computer time while the twins are awake...and I've also started to make a point of using naptime to 1) complete some of the adoption education 2) accomplish at least one household chore 3) nap myself...which only leaves the evenings. And, in all honesty, the time I'm currently spending on the internet is way down. I like it because it's nice to detox from the web world. But I'm way behind in things like returning e-mails and updating the blog. I'll try to figure a better balance. It doesn't help that we've had a slow string of sickness (Lucas...then the twins...then me...all strung out to equal a lot of sick days in a row), which means not many activities to post about!

But I've been feeling the guilt. Guilt for not posting. Guilt for not doing anything worth posting. Guilt for being a bad mommy (I always feel like the worst mom when I'm sick. I'm usually too tired to come up with fun things to keep them entertained, and they inevitably get into something they shouldn't because of a lack of constructive activities to distract them, and I get upset, and they end up watching tv so I can rest without them getting into trouble). Guilt for focusing so much time and energy to completing the home study that I'm sure the twins are feeling the void. Guilt for having a week go by where I took no pictures to document this week of their life (can you tell I get a little irrational when I'm sick, and that adds to the incessant guilt?). Lucas had to be gone tonight and I wanted to redeem the day with a fun activity.

I've wanted for a while to try making this cool shower puffy paint I found once. I loved the idea of a fun activity for the kids that would simultaneously clean part of my house! Plus, it was perfect for tonight because the prep would be easy, but then they would pretty much be self sufficient and contained in the play. It was the perfect recipe for a fun end of the day with an under the weather mommy!

We used the blender to mix the soap and water to make the paint. The twins LOVE pushing the blender buttons, so that was half of the fun of the activity!

Ryan was super into painting...even though he had trouble figuring out how to get the paint out of the plastic baggy.

Allie wasn't into painting with the bag at all. She immediately opened the bag and started scooping it out and spreading it all over.

It wasn't long before she was painting her brother...

Ryan discovered that, if he put it in his water bowls (filling them and dumping them out already being a favorite shower activity), it would change the color and he could dump yellow water everywhere! Mixing the perfect paint/water combo became his focus.

It wasn't long before Allie joined and my two shower scientists were working on the perfect chemistry of combined colors and water.

Ryan holding the bowl under the water to create the sudsy concoction.

While Allie adds a little last-minute pink to the mix.

It kept them busy for a long shower, which let me relax and just look on with a smile. They were extremely excited and pleased with the special surprise. I was thrilled when I simply ran the water around the shower and cleaned up the full mess! Here's hoping that tomorrow we have a better day...or that I'm at least able to move past the guilt that so easily piles on when I'm feeling less than my best.

p.s. The performance of the Sesame Street Live that we saw used the song "Splish-Splash," which means it is on the cd that the twins listen to almost daily. It is now one of their favorite songs and their favorite to sing at bath/shower time. Thus the title of the post :)

Clearing My Brain and Catching Up

Sorry for the absence. Even more sorry for the lack of pictures. I have a million pictures from the last few weeks...on my new phone...I have not yet figured out the best way to get said pictures off of the new phone...so you are stuck with these from our recent Valentine's photo shoot (I decided not to do Christmas cards, but to send out photos randomly through the year. If you didn't get a Valentine, don't despair. A random photo card will appear in your mailbox eventually!)

At first I couldn't even get anything that would remotely work...

We've had a crazy busy couple of weeks, starting with the move of our dear friends (the first friends we had here. Sob.). I'm still in denial they're gone. They only live about 30 minutes away and so far I've seen them just as much as when they were here, but I'm still sad.

Then we had our home visit with our social worker as part of our home study. As I'm sure you all can imagine, inviting a social worker to come to your home for the specific purpose of evaluating it and you to see if you pass as being a fit home for more children is incredibly stressful. And even if everyone tells you that you will be fine, you can't help but wonder if their job is finding things wrong, can't they find things wrong anywhere?

I told them to just "look normal..."

After looking in every single room of my house (even storage, even the furnace room, even the garage!), and going over all of our finances (we're talking every penny here), and asking a few more questions, she told us she was very pleased to recommend us for adoption and be part of our process! Yay! Now that it is over, I have to say that I really like our social worker and I almost feel more confident in my parenting now that I have a social worker backing me up with her support!

Some of our favorite moments from the home study:

- Ryan yelling from the bathroom "Miss Peggy, I pooped! Come and see!" And when she, of course, didn't come in, he ran out, jumped around her, and yelled, "I pooped, Miss Peggy! I pooped on the potty!"

- Allie correcting the social worker when she said, "Oh, my gosh." Allie says, "Oh, no! We say 'Oh my goodness.' If you say 'Oh my gosh,' again you will have to go in time out." We have never threatened time out for saying anything other than "Oh my goodness," but Allie apparently felt the need for consequences...

- In a conversation about the colors on his plate, Ryan held up his pea and said, "Green is poopy." Then Ryan and Allie both started proclaiming over and over and over "Go big green is poopy!" See...during the football season, the day that Nebraska beat Michigan State, I taught the twins to say "Go big green is poopy," so that we could call Uncle Logan (my football nemesis), and tell him. The call was never made, the phrase stuck, and I worried about what awkward moment it would come out. I hadn't thought about it coming out during the home study. It was awkward.

Kissy faces. Allie is too eager...Ryan is not eager at all...

At this point, the only thing left in our homestudy is the education portion. There is a lot. 2 books (1 is almost 500 pages), a 10 hour online class, an online seminar, several websites, some worksheets, and some exercises. All while gathering together the last of our paperwork. This is why you haven't heard from us in a while. Every spare moment goes to educating myself about adoption. It is a bit overwhelming. I swing between feeling like I am in way over my head, to feeling so honored that I get to be a part of this amazing thing, to being so incredibly sad about the time I am missing with my children and the things that could be happening to them during that time. It is intense. Thankfully, my personality and parenting style naturally fits with a lot of what is needed in adoption parenting, but it really is a whole different ballgame than parenting bio children (which I hadn't thought much about before). And the balance of both is something I'm glad I have time to consider and "plan" ahead of time. If anyone is interested in reading any of the info to have a better idea of the struggles our children (even if they are perfectly healthy children) will face, and what our lives will look like post-adoption, let me know!

From kissy faces to kisses. Getting better...

And then we swung into Valentines, with a big party for our moms' group at our house, and a fun day for the twins. I'm exhausted. But after tonight we have a few days to rest and regroup (i.e. read like crazy to try to finish our homestudy quickly before anything else requires our brain power). Oh, and Ryan and Allie are crazy cute right now. Doing so many hilarious things. But that will have to be another post...because I'm officially falling asleep and I still have to put the kids to bed!

Perfection! All it took was 200 pictures, bribery with suckers, and Daddy holding the computer over my head with a favorite muppets short playing on youtube!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!!