Quiet Book

So I told you that I have been brain storming ideas to make things for the kids to do on our plane rides coming up. I decided to make a fabric doll house for Ev that after unsnapping it folds down completely flat. Her dolls fit in it great as does her furniture.

For Elijah I have been trying to figure out for a while now what to make him. I make Ev stuff all the time but she is all girl and it is easy to come up with a doll dress, dress for her or something else cute. Then it dawned on me. The kid loves sports as you all know but there isn't much for his age range. What could I do for him because all he is going to want to do is throw baseballs on the plane... and no one but him will like that. So I was looking at some of my favorite craft blogs for ideas and I came to a blog I really enjoy(homemadebyjill.blogspot.com) You should check it out. She's got tons of great ideas. So I went looking back a few months on her blog when she was making a quiet book for her little boy. Then it hit me- make a quiet book with baseball, football, basket ball stuff. He loves books and loves sports so that began my 12 hours of creating a book for him. I started during nap time then it extended through the rest of the night as the kids were entertained by dad and watching me and I worked until 2am. Yikes, I know but I wanted to finish it so we could try it out today at church. He loves that I put a baseball on the front and didn't want any one else touching it!

I started simple with some basics then my creative juices started flowing. I am pretty proud of my basketball hoop. I took one of Elijah's old socks and cut off the bottom and sewed it to the goal. I then sewed it shut at the bottom and put a snap on it to hold the basketballs inside. The kid loves to take things in and out so this is great for him. Elijah loves looking at Todd's Sport's Illustrated magazine so I cut out a few pictures and used the plastic from our bread bag (that we had out because Todd was fixing hot dogs while I was working)to put on top of the picture and then I added the felt behind it and sewed it all together. I am hoping it helps make the pictures last longer. So far he loves to hold the pictures and say baseball over and over. I did make it simi educational so he has to match the baseball pictures to the baseball part and the football pictures ot the football part. Then I made a small baseball glove and used a button to fasten the ball to it. He isn't ready to button yet but when he does he will like that one. I'm excited that Elijah has something to play with now.

Sorry for the quality of the pictures they were all taken at night.

What to do when it is too cold to go outside? Elijah is loving his paint with water book. I love that he can paint and not get messy. Ev is listening to one of her Clifford's books on Cd. She LOVES them, thanks Grandpa and Grandma!

The kid's hair is getting longer as is mine. Elijah's is getting more curls and Todd's is getting more red! (He dyed it burgundy red) :)

Good News

Today we got notification that our Texas child abuse checks came in. So we are very excited to now have a completed home study. YEAH! From here we have to get our fingerprints done and sent in our 1-800 form. We are hoping to get our fingerprints done while we are in Bangkok (in a few weeks) because they have an American Embassy. We will also take some documents for our dossier to the Embassy to get notarized.

We also found out today that with our co. they will give us up to $4,000 toward adoption expenses. This is on top of 30 days of maternity leave. What a blessing!

Extending time...

A week or so ago we found out that Todd has to go to a meeting the last week in February so that means we have to extend our vacation time. There are pros and cons about this. We are planning on leaving the 1st of February to go down south to a very warm place. YEAH FOR WARM WEATHER!!! We are going on our 4th straight month of cold. This month is the hardest for expats living in our city. Most people leave to go to warm places but we are not leaving until February. We will spend a week at an International hospital to do well kid check ups (poor Elijah is going to get his immunizations for 1yr olds plus 18month olds.) Remember we lost all our immunizations back in August when we were gone from our home and the power went out. Poor kid doesn't know what is coming to him. We will all go see the dentist, I will have a few doctors visits and we are planning on having me get Lasik surgery done. We will get into the city very late and bright and early the next morning I will have pre op and then the surgery sometime that afternoon/evening. I am not suppose to wash my hair for a while nor swim for 2 weeks. We are thankful that Todd's parents and sister will be joining us at the end of the week and will travel with us to the beach. Sadly I won't be able to swim but everyone else will. We will then travel to the city where Elijah was born and hang out there a week waiting for Todd's meetings. Then the following week he will be in meetings as I watch the kids. We really love this city so we are hoping to go see the Elephants, take the kids to the Night Safari and go to as many Western food restaurants that we can! We bought tickets during a special fare so it will take us 3 days to get back home. Not fun! :( But it does mean I will get to go to IKEA on the way home. I am brainstorming things to make to occupy the kids during our 8 flights, 2 three hour bus rides and such. After 30 days away from home we will all be wanting our beds. So far I have made a doll house for Ev to play with on the plane. She has these little dolls and a plastic doll house and furniture. We can't take everything with us so I made a doll house that folds down flat. She loves it so far so I hope that will keep her entertained on the planes. After all I will have a 21 month old on my lap. :)

We also found out the due to a situation in America China has delayed time for all families adopting. Our agency told us that China terminated working with this one agency because of what happened in America. Sadly this affects us but we are still hoping it won't put us back too much. Currently we are waiting for our Texas child abuse check to be turned in. Once it is our home study will be complete and it can be notarized and sent off to be translated. This country will shut down for most of the month of February due to the Chinese New Year celebrations. We really desire our Texas paperwork to get back to our agency this week so they can send it off. We would love for China to have our paperwork BEFORE the New Year (which starts February 14th).

Jaozi and Chopsticks

A week ago our helper made some jaozi for our family. All of us but Todd LOVE jaozi so we were all thrilled to have it home made. While I was watching and learning how to make it I brought out some kid friendly chopsticks for Ev to try out. She did really well with them and once Elijah saw her using them he wanted to try. He did a great job too. Not bad for a 1 1/2 yr old (his form is a lot better than Ev's.... he is so good with his hands!) Maybe playing baseball all day has really helped his eye hand coordination. :)

Here they are using their chopsticks. I have video of them too but for some reason the past few weeks I haven't been able to load videos.

New Bedding

In an attempt to make our oldest cooperate with us for nap time I quickly finished a quilt/blanket I have been working on for almost a year. The day after Christmas I worked through the morning and through nap time to complete this. I couldn't stop there so I made a new pillowcase cover as well. All my efforts didn't pay off however. Little miss I want my own way wasn't phased when she got new bedding. I also used my new Christmas present (Martha Stewart's Craft Encyclopedia) to make some tissue paper ball things to hang over her bed. In hopes that she would like to sleep under her stars and colored tissue paper things and in her new bedding. I made the blanket/quilt out of Ev's old dresses and clothes. And when I had her curtains made I asked them if I could also buy some extra material to make things with.

31st Birthday

Friends of ours and their daughter who is 2 months older than Elijah came over and watched the kids for us so that Todd and I could go out on a date for my birthday. We were really excited because our friends were staying until after bedtime so that meant that Todd and I didn't just have to eat and run home fast to relieve the babysitter. They blessed us by feeding and putting the kids down. We were excited with the larger amount of time we had so we thought we would try to go bowling after eating and then head to a coffee shop to watch TV on our computer. But, sadly there are no longer any bowling places here. We took our small 10 inch computer with us and via our sling box watched some HGTV. Todd kindly watched two shows with me. :)

We had good food. I ate eggplant parmigiana and Todd had a hamburger at the Italian restaurant and I got a brownie while Todd got cheese cake and a smoothie at the coffee shop.

Here we are at both places.

My mom has spoiled me on cookie cakes my whole life so I had to make myself one yesterday too. In my spare time I decided to pack up all the Christmas decorations. Usually I keep them up for a long time, but not this year. However I did rearrange the living room furniture. :) Priceless!