Gotcha Day 2010

So I will post more on Ellie later, but today is the day we are celebrating Ellie's gotcha day-the day she became part of our family!

Her actual gotcha day is Halloween and we have learned in the past that somehow that day gets very busy since it is often during the week. So we usually celebrate the day before.

She gets to pick out where we go for lunch and it is always a Chinese restaurant.

This year Mackenzie heavily influenced the choice by asking Ellie leading questions that would get her to agree to to where Mackenzie really wanted to go.

Mackenzie then sent me an e-mail that said..."please can we go to the empire buffet?"

This is the picture that she attached to the e-mail....

Fall Festival Parties

I am heading up to the school today for fall festival parties.

Ellie decided to dress as an elf and Ainsley as a rock star diva.

I will get to go to Ellie's party and then do the parade of characters walk.

I won't be able to be at Ainsley's party since I have to pick up Mackenzie from school, but that is ok with her since I will get to walk with her for the parade.

Kinman Farms

The whole family went to Kinman Farms yesterday and had lots of fun! A great fall day to go to the pumpkin patch and corn maze! This was the first time we had gone to this specific farm in the fall and the kids liked it. I think I like the Union Corn Maze better but we still managed to have a blast :)

A small petting zoo, a hay ride, a corn maze and pumpkin picking are all lots of fun in the fall for all ages!

Columbus Half Marathon

I was hoping to have photos to post of me but I haven't received them yet so I figured I would go ahead and post without photos. I spent Saturday and Sunday in Hilliard/Columbus for the Columbus Half Marathon. I had been planning to run this event for the last 4-5 months and it was the culmination of 12 weeks of training. I was sick all last week which put a damper on my training, but I was determined to move forward.

So on Saturday I drove to Columbus with Ainsley and picked up my race packet. We then drove to Hilliard where we spent the rest of the day/evening with our friends the Nelles. Kristen invited Ainsley to come and play with their daughter for the day/overnight. The girls had an absolute blast! So much fun! I had a good time visiting and hanging out with Kristen too.

I got up early Sunday morning after a VERY restless night of sleep and honestly didn't feel that great. I got to the start line with no problems and was able to run my first 10K well, but at mile 7 I started not feeling well. I had to stop briefly for a cramp but when I stop it seems to slow me down and I just didn't feel great after that. All in all I am glad that I ran it since I trained so much for it but I didn't meet my goal which was to get under 2 hours. However I did improve my time from 2:22 to 2:08 so that was all I could ask for I guess. Maybe I can get under 2 with my next one! The Columbus half was not nearly as fun as the Disney princess run. But then I guess everything Disney is probably lots of fun. Columbus seems geared for serious athletes of which I don't consider myself one. But it was definitely worth running. I will have to look for another one to run next year...or maybe a triathlon will be next...who knows!

When I get the photos of me from my friend I will post them.

Deer

We have seen a LOT of deer lately hanging around our neighbor's houses. Ainsley has been very diligent at trying to capture them on film.

She has actually gotten some good pictures.

Ready to run

Well I am about as ready to run as I could be I guess.

I have been battling a cold all week which is a bit of a bummer but I feel like I am on the mend now, so hopefully I will feel even better by Sunday.

I am taking Ainsley with me and she gets to hang out with my friend Kristen's daughter, Audra. They play well together and it will be fun for her to get some time away with just me.

So to compensate for being gone with Ainsley all weekend, I will be getting up tomorrow and taking Mackenzie out to breakfast. We are then going to pick out stuff to place in shoeboxes for her Operation Christmas Child class project. She is so excited about doing this as it is the boys versus the girls :)

Ainsley and I will head to Columbus tomorrow afternoon, early enough for me to get my race packet, and then get to Hilliard for dinner.

Bright and early Sunday morning I will be up and getting ready to run. The half and full both start at 7:30 which is actually later than when I normally run for my long runs. I am usually up running by 6 and done by 8 so hopefully it isn't too hot at 9:30 or so when I finish. I would love to get under 2 hours but honestly, I completely my last half in 2h 22min so under 2 would be a pretty lofty goal. My aim is 2h 15min or under.

Any prayers for me while I run would be appreciated!

This was me after my first half marathon in March 2010. Sadly I will not get to see my friend Jane at this one...but hopefully I won't be as sore either!

Days..they are a passing...

So not sure where my time goes exactly, but it sure does seem to fly by!

We finished our last meeting with our social worker last Friday. Now we just live in wait mode for the next 18 months of our life I think...with a little paperwork thrown in for good measure. It is up to her to write up our Home Study and send it off with our paperwork and $ for our I800A. Apparently this has been averaging 4 months. I am going to send off all of our paperwork and "stuff" for our dossier to CAWLI today. So our next step will be getting our fingerprints taken when we receive our notice.

In other non-adoption related news...

Mackenzie made the academic team at Beechwood and is very excited about it! She had her first practice on Monday. She is also getting evaluated for GT. So we shall see how things progress with that also. I have no idea how Beechwood handles their gifted and talented program but I am looking forward to finding out. She has been doing well with school for the most part. Still a big adjustment responsibility wise but she is making strides.

Ainsley is loving school. Or at least the parts of school that involve either hanging with friends or eating. Everything else is non-essential in her opinion. If she has to pick something "academic" that she likes, it's math. I am still working on learning what motivates Ainsley. She does ok in school but doesn't particularly care about all the academic stuff. She does seem to do well with math which shouldn't be shocking since her parents are math geeks. She has started to like to read a little bit more than she has in the past which is encouraging too. She really enjoys gymnastics though and is doing well.

Ellie. Where to begin with Ellie. We are in the process of getting an OT eval from Cincinnati Occupational Therapy Institute (COTI). She has had her two appts and now our formal sit down and talk about it appt is next Monday. We shall see what we find out and how we can best help her succeed academically. She is struggling in Kindergarten a bit. I am not sure what to do about it. Her teacher requested a meeting so I need to set that up today. Her fine motor skills are atrocious because we haven't had the time and/or therapy visits enough to work on OT. When we brought her home, we focused primarily on speech and PT because those were what seemed to need the most work. Speech will be a major issue for years and years. She is making progress but it is very slow and seems to take a lot of time. She also is still behind her peers socially and I think keeping in kindergarten 2 years honestly might have to be the plan. It feels like it is taking forever, but there's no way to force "catch up" that I can find. She still fusses at the teachers on occasion, gets worked up over sirens and lots of loud noises (we have the OT can help us with some of her sensory issues also) and in general is just behind her peers in how she responds to life. I wish I knew how to help her better but right now I am doing the best I can and that's all I can do. I feel that between working and her therapies, I have very little time to actually spend "helping" her work on her letters, numbers, pre-reading skills, coloring, speech, etc. Her OT will take up all the time I have on Monday before gymnastics; I work Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Wed is speech therapy before picking up the older two and Friday we usually get together with her Chinese playgroup. That leaves evenings but by then I am usually busy helping Ainsley with her school work, cooking and cleaning up from dinner and starting the bedtime routine.

And we are adopting again...why?? How do other moms make the time for everything they do and have 6 kids? I have no idea but if anyone has any helpful suggestions please let me know because I sure need them!