Looking forward to quieter weekends

Last weekend was CRAZY!  Reggie had scouts Friday night and we took a tour of the quarry in Pleasanton.  It was actually really interesting and we learned and saw how they moved the sand up the conveyer belt to get it to the plant a mile and a half away.  When we drove up to the plant, they taught us about cement, concrete and asphalt and showed us the different types of sand/gravel they have there.  We also learned they test it daily (who knew?) and they have a long term plan for the giant holes they are making.  Turns out it will be where our water is stored eventually.  I thought it was interesting....Reggie thought it was short and I could tell he wanted to hear and see more.
If you look closely, you can see the 3 giant loaders (that look very small).  They are 86 feet down and it has taken them 15 years to get this far.

 Now you can see how giant it is!

We were up bright and early the next morning for Reggie's swim meet in Hayward.  Ryan stayed back with K because he had his last soccer game and a visit with his family :o).  We missed swim warm ups which was o.k.. because I didn't want him to get all wet and then have to wait and hour and a half for his first event.  That sounds more damaging than good to me.  Anyway, I have never seen anything quite like it.....People everywhere camped out for the day.  There were 1000 swimmers!!!  It was hard to hear the announcer, so we never knew which event was going....thank goodness for other parents!  After his first 2 events, we were out of there.  Seemed silly to sit for another 2 hours for one more swim.  He did good, but I forgot to tell him he was supposed to go fast!  He did fine, but I have seen him motor much faster in practice.  Our previous respite provider, Kelly, lives just down the street, so she came to watch and it was fun to visit and catch up :o).

From there Ainsley and I went to visit some friends in Pleasanton.  We don't usually have playdates on the weekends, but it worked out nicely.  Ryan and Reggie got some one on one time and went to Boomer's to miniature golf and ride go carts.

The next day we went to church and then headed to Sacramento for Ainsley's gymnastics meet.  It started at 3 and she was a bit off.  I am hoping for an earlier start at state.  Her coach said it is good she is strong because she muscled a lot to avoid falling and she ran out of time on the beam.  We watched her floor routine and she was fighting to go over on her handstand and she held it for way too long and we could see the judge laughing in the background!  Surprisingly, she scored her highest score ever on floor (9.125) and bars (9.05-she had to muscle that too).  Maybe the judges like to see that??  Her all around score improved again, but the competition was crazy!  The girls didn't get too many medals which was good preparation for the state meet that is coming up.

We didn't get home until 7:45, which was really 8:45 with the time change and we were all wiped out.  Ainsley got home later because she went to eat with her teammates.  

I am very glad swim meets are over, soccer is over and we only have one gymnastics meet left...yeehaw!

Fall is in the air

We officially turned on our heat this morning!  We had the pellet stove on a couple times last week, but it is just getting too chilly at night.  I am pretty sure there was frost on the neighbors roof this morning.
It has been such a beautiful fall so far and I just went for a run on Saturday in a tank top and shorts, so it is still getting quite warm during the day, but there's a new chill in the air.   I think it is time to pack up the shorts and get out the pants....seems crazy that it is already Nov. Our fruit trees have also noticed the weather change and our oranges are turning orange and our lemons yellow, so they should be ready in the next month or two.
I am loving our new house because the sun beams in the kitchen in the morning and the living room in the afternoon and it just makes everything feel a little warmer :o).  This time of year it is so nice to have some natural sunlight, especially since daylight savings is now upon us.  Yesterday seemed like the longest day ever and the evening even longer (it probably didn't help that we went to Sacramento for a gymnastics meet!).

Halloween!

Well the Halloween festivities this season kept us quite busy! K and Ainsley had field trips to the pumpkin patch, but poor Reggie was bummed he didn't get to go.  It is good he has friends because he ended up going with Caleb the day before Halloween and he was just happy to leave with a pumpkin (I had gone to Safeway, Grocery Outlet and CVS and no one had any big pumpkins left!).  

All the kids had parties and then the usual parade and assembly :). It was really surprising that Reggie was the only minion. He was done with his costume after the parade...too bulky and it hurt his head, so he decided to be Darth Vader for trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. Of course if Reggie wasn't going to be a minion, Khalif wasn't either, so he decided to be SpongeBob! 

We had the Houghtaling's and Caldiera's over and it might have been the quietest, best group of 9 kids ever. Their rooms weren't even messy!!! It was nice to actually sit and visit during dinner without any interruption. I'm still not sure how that even happened :). We made pulled pork in the crockpot and that was the easiest dinner and super delicious. Ryan found a recipe online and that was his baby. I am thinking he should do that more often :)!!! 
After dinner we went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood and ran into K's soccer coach and his preschool teacher. Rachel and Shannon dressed up as jellybeans and they had balloons that kept falling out of their costume so it created a little bit of entertainment when the kids would stomp and pop. By the end of our loop they were completely out of balloons...brilliant planning by Diana!

When we got home they all spread out and checked out their loot. They were excited to get a couple full size candy bars! I got a few of my favorites too. On Saturday I decided I was done with candy. We still have to go through the kids and figure out what we're going to keep and what we're going to send off to the troops :). 
We really had a fabulous time!!!

Security system

We had ADT come out a couple months after we bought our house because Ryan felt better about having an alarm system when he traveled.  It isn't my favorite and I didn't feel it was necessary, but we found out last night how well it works!
We have a remote control that turns it on and off, as well as having a panic button that dials 911 immediately.  We keep one of the remotes in our room, so we can turn it on late at night and off early in the morning.  Last night Ryan hit the wrong button and the alarm system was blaring.  I fall asleep in about 30 seconds, so woke up really confused.  He tried to turn it off, but was also a little out of it (he fell asleep and then realized he didn't turn it on, so that is when he hit the button).  He ended up going to the kitchen to try to get it off and when he got back to bed, he told me that he saw a police car with its lights on rounding our corner.  He thought that was pretty strange.  About 2 minutes later we had big, bright flashlights shining in our bedroom window.  Then we heard him over his radio say he saw two individuals in the window (which was us), so I asked him if he needed something and he asked someone to come to the door.  Ryan explained he hit the wrong button and away they went.  I guess ADT called his cell phone before they dispatched the police, but it was on vibrate, so we didn't hear it.  Pretty amazing that they were outside of our house in the time it took Ryan to get to the kitchen and turn off the alarm!!!
It took awhile for me to fall back asleep and I couldn't stop laughing at Ryan not realizing he was the reason the police were driving by.  An interesting evening to say the least!

Gymnastics update and grandma/grandpa visit

Ainsley's last meet was our only home meet and the parent group puts it all together, so Ryan and I were there for several hours setting up and the next day working stations and then putting everything back the way it was supposed to go.  We really found out how dirty the gym was :o(.  Things went very well and Ainsley continues to improve each time she competes, but the judges were scoring very, very low.  That isn't good for qualifying for state, but somehow she managed to squeak it out and was very excited for that.  She placed 2nd on beam and floor, 4th on vault, 3rd on bars and 3rd all-around!  We did trophies for the all-around, so she got her first one.  She told me the other day how much she loves the meets!  When Ainsley's session was over, she wanted to go back to watch the older girls and she was in heaven.  I wasn't supposed to stay and clean up, but I couldn't get her to leave.  She was having so much fun and I remember those times, so I let her stay for awhile :o).
Thank goodness for Kierra's mom...she takes beautiful pictures of the girls.  I have tried, but mine never turn out, so I have been downloading hers!

Bar routine:

Floor routine:

The timing was great because my parents were in town and could see her in action.  Their visit went really quick this year, probably because we were running around all the time to get the kids where they needed to be!  The kids had conference week, so they had a couple days off and it was nice that they got to spend a little extra time with grandma and grandpa.  They arrived the afternoon of Sophia's birthday party, so we started out partying right away!!  We also had the babysitter Sunday afternoon, so we went out to dinner and saw the race car movie which was surprisingly good :o).  Downtown Livermore is a really lively place!
Little odds and ends were done in the Casita during their week and a half visit and the finishing touches are all wrapped up.  The biggest challenge was getting the heater installed and messing around with changing it from propane to natural gas and getting the gas hooked up.  I have to say, I am very impressed with Ryan's gas skills, but sadly the furnace kicked on, but the blower seems to be broken and probably isn't worth it to fix since they didn't have the heat on the entire visit!  The weather was very nice and warm :o).  I found one of those infrared heaters at the thrift store for $12, so we are going to give that a try!
The kids went out to visit grandma and grandpa every morning and they really loved having them here.  We went and saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 and grandma got sucked into helping Reggie with his Minion costume.  He is very persistent!  They did a stained glass art project which ended up decorating the Casita door very nicely.  I'm not sure what all they did out there, but I know they had cinnamon rolls, baked cookies, ate candy, played board games and had all kinds of fun!  I took some pictures, but they are on mom's camera, so I realized when I looked to post some that I don't have any!  I have been really bad lately with remembering to take pictures :o(.  Mom, maybe I can walk you through how to upload to the blog??  We'll give it a try soon, so check back for more pictures.

KOA

We took our annual trip to KAO this weekend and it was a blast!  There was lots of build up waiting for this weekend and we pulled the kids out a bit early from school to avoid traffic and we got there nice and early Friday afternoon.  We unpacked and decorated the cabin for Halloween.  Reggie and Kayla were great helpers with the decorations!  

These cabins are very small, but we managed to pack 6 kids and 4 adults in and it went shockingly well (probably because we were only there for mealtime and sleeping) :o). We spent some time admiring all the decorations....the kids spent many hours on the jumpy pillow, some time riding scooters and this year the pool was heated, so swimming was really enjoyable.  Reggie even decided he wanted to brave the haunted house!  He held my hand tightly, but didn't freak out.

People get very creative with their costumes and it was really fun to see all the different ideas.  Minions were definitely the hot pick this year and since there wasn't really a great costume to buy, it was very interesting to see how people made their costumes.  Everyone was very impressed with Reggie/Ryan/Grandma's work on Reggie's and K's costumes.  Trick-or-treating is always fun for the adults....jello shots/hard lemonade...you get the idea! We made some new friends that Brian works with and Ainsley loved their 12 year old daughter Morgan and Reggie slowly warmed up to their son.  The football was a good thing to bring this year (Reggie's new favorite activity!!!) and even the girls were having a good time throwing and catching.  Three more families joined us during the day and it was a mess of adults and kids, but somehow everyone was accounted for and fed :o).  The weather was great and company lots of fun and we couldn't have asked for a better weekend!

Morgan, Ainsley and Daniella:

Video of the jumpy pillow

Reggie's first swim meet:  Well let's just say that Reggie's first swim meet was interesting...  Getting there and situated I thought was going to be the hard part because I had K (Trina and Ainsley were in Santa Cruz at a gymnastics meet) and then the meet started.  It rained the entire time and we're not talking sprinkle, more like a monsoon.  Luckily the swim team we belong to had pop up tents which at least kept us somewhat dry in between Reggie's events.  There wasn't a dry bone in our bodies.  At one point Reggie was drinking hot chocolate in between his warm-up and next event and was shaking like a leaf.  He did well for his first meet and placed 3rd in the 50 free.  His coach was very impressed with how fast he went.  Now we just need to get his flip turns down and his entry dives and he'll be good to go.  The best part was when we were driving home, soaked to the bone and Reggie says "dad I actually had a lot of fun."  That's what it's all about!  I tried to upload a video but it doesn't appear that it will work.  Maybe it is too big.  Next time...

Soccer!!!

K finally has his own activity and he is really starting to like it.  Soccer was a bit rough at first, which is not the reaction I expected at all.  He has lots of energy and is really outgoing and he was in tears the first practice, refusing to play.  The only think I can think of is that the situation was new and totally out of his control, which brought him to a place that he didn't want to go.  We haven't seen his issues in a while, but we haven't done anything out of the norm in a while either.  We worked through it and thankfully he is very food motivated and fairly easy to bribe.  Sounds bad, but when he's refusing (screaming and crying) to put his uniform on before the game, offering a skittle seemed like a good idea.  It is amazing how quickly he can come out of it.

K has played several games and seems to get more excited each game.  He starts out great and then fizzles out a bit, but it is good that he will still run around.  He and some other kids got tripped up in the 2nd game and he fell down a few times.  His memory is nuts, so now he goes near the ball, but doesn't really kick it.  I think it will come with time and as long as he's having fun, I don't really care.  Crazy that some parents keep score at this age!  Fun video:

Many of his teammates went to Lowe's building day after the last game and he and Reggie built a beautiful fire truck :o).  When I saw this picture, I told Ryan he was brave to hold the truck while K hammered it and he said he learned the hard way that wasn't a good idea....K hammered his thumb :o(.

Gymnastics meets!

Ainsley had her first meet last weekend and she was super nervous.  She woke up at 10 the night before, worrying about it and she was up a few times during the night :o(.  Meets are a bit different than when I competed...now they are smart and have sessions, so you are only there for about 3 hours!  But, that means you can get any time slot and we got 5 o'clock on Sunday night.  Not the best for lots of reasons, but we managed.  I think us mom's were more nervous than the kids!

She did great for her first meet and ended up getting 4 medals and 8th all-around.  Yesterday, we had another meet in Santa Cruz (a little over an hour from our house with no traffic) and we got the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Sat. at 8 am.  That was an early morning!  Her nerves were much better and we worked on a few things and she really improved....almost 2 full points better :o).  She got an 8.75 on vault and floor, an 8.7 on bars and an 8.2 on beam.  Competition was a lot tougher and there were lots of girls and way more teams.  All our girls did awesome and we ended up placing 2nd (we must have been really close to first).  Ainsley was super excited because she got 5 medals this time and placed 5th all around.  She still really wants to get on the blocks (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and she still has some room for improvement, so maybe in a couple weeks at her home meet.
They put this picture in the local newspaper and her teacher saw it first!

Ainsley has been loving it and really likes to be part of the team.  We explored the Santa Cruz Boardwalk after the meet for a bit with her friends.  Too bad it was raining, but I guess that was a good thing because it wasn't so busy.  My umbrella was quite the giggling point :o).

I will try to upload her floor routine video in a bit...

Family Dynamics

Having 3 children is certainly interesting and it seems that many times someone is odd man out and it is usually Ainsley.  Thankfully, she is great about playing by herself, but she does get tired of it.  Many times I will play teacher or babies with her or work on gymnastics or paint nails and she loves it!  She will often skip her show to keep playing with me.
She and K play house together and he doesn't mind playing with babies, but he always prefers Reggie.   Reggie and Ainsley have their fun building forts, playing games and doing various older kid things, but the two boys have much more similar interests...a love for lego's, anything Chima or Ninjago!  K can't wait until Reggie gets home to play!!!  He sure loves him!  It is great that Reggie is young minded (that is all he likes to talk about, so it is good he has K because it is hard for me to carry on a conversation about toys)....many of his friends don't play anymore and are all about video games and sports.  Reggie does those things too, but he really does love to play.  It will be interesting to see how things change as time goes on....

Good news!

All that prayer worked!!!  Reunification with his dad is no longer an option...I am sad for him, but so happy for K.  The judge did a great job of laying it all out there, making an appeal almost impossible.  From here, we are assigned a new social worker, who is an adoption specialist and we are applying to be De Facto Parents which allows us representation and a voice in this process :o).  Dec. is the next court date for us and it will be interesting to see how this process goes.  Seemed like the judge was eager to move forward :o)!!!
Celebrating at Red Robin

First day of school!!!

Yesterday was the first day of school!  The kids weren't really excited and kind of seemed a little nervous, asking who was going to be in their classes.  Ainsley was greeted with hugs by a couple girls in her class and she was super excited to get the teacher she got, so she was off and running.  Reggie has Tyler and JD and a few others in his class, so he was also fine.  We don't know much about his teacher, but we've heard you can't go wrong with any of the 4th grade teachers!

Camp

We were so glad to see Reggie when he got home from cub scout camp at Camp Royaneh!!!  He didn't take a shower the entire time, but he survived!  He said he couldn't find his soap...hmmm.  He at least changed his clothes and remembered his retainer almost every night!  Camping is such a dirty/dusty activity and his clothes were so filthy he looked like he could have been a street kid :o(.  We threw him in the shower right when he got home, made him cut his fingernails and he looked brand new.  His favorite thing about camp was the archery and BB gun shooting.  It was interesting to hear some of the stories.  He doesn't usually chat much, except about toys, but I was hoping to hear all about it.  We were able to drag some info. out of him...like he wouldn't do it again because the boys stayed up so late talking and he didn't get a good night sleep until one of the boys went home sick the last night.  He ate all but 2 meals that looked sketchy to him and had a salad instead :o).  They had a $20 snack card, but he chose to buy a snake light and rabbit fur, so he had no money for snacks.  I asked him if he was starving and he said that he made his stomach hurt at mealtime, eating so much, so he wasn't ever really hungry-that's a Wade for you!

We've had a little adjustment back to reality though.  I think he got used to doing his own thing and when
we asked him to do anything, we got some serious attitude.  I was wondering if they sent someone else's kid home!  It also had some catching up to do on sleep.  It has gotten better, but he is still challenging us...maybe it is an age thing?  We are lucky he didn't get sick (2 of his friends had to leave early) and came home in one piece...another friend broke his 2 front teeth and they looked like fangs :o(.

Switching gears...we just got his test scores from last year in the mail and were pleasantly surprised.  Reggie struggled so much with reading and even a bit with math, but things seemed to click in the middle of second grade and he is actually doing above average :o).    Sorry about the pics...can't figure out how to rotate them.

 Looks like Algebra might come easy to him!

Pray for Tuesday

The time has finally come for the judge to make his decision about whether K will stay or go.  Ryan and I are going to court on Tuesday in hopes that we will help him make a ruling....FINALLY!  It has been 2 years and 4 months since this began and for children under 5, the timeline is 1 year, so we are clearly way past the deadline.  They have the goal of 1 year for very clear reasons...the more time that goes by, the more bonded they become and the harder transition becomes and they want permanency to guarantee these children won't be shuffled around.  We saw how being outside this timeline impacted K when he lived with his aunt and the transition back to us was so very difficult.

There's a lot that has happened in this case and we are all scratching our heads wondering why no decision has been made yet.  The lawyers, social workers and everyone involved is ready to move forward.  Please pray that K won't have the rug pulled from under his feet again.  We can still see the effects of this in his behavior from the 3 times he has already had to move.  God can make anything happen and I know that whatever happens is best....Khalif's bible verse today was, God's plan is perfect, just what I needed to hear! It just might be hard for awhile if our desires don't align with God's plan.  Please pray that we all have peace (Reggie has been really worried about this).

She's 7!

Pre-birthday activities with Aunt Liha and Maggie:

Crazy another year has passed!  Ainsley can be such a sweet girl when she wants to be and I have been reminded of that this week because Reggie has been at camp.  She and K have been like 2 peas in a pod, playing family and they have been cracking me up with their stories about their children (which many stories come from the Wimpy Kid movies).  She has like 10 babysitters for all her kids.  Many of the things I have said to her in the past came out of her mouth as “mother”.  She has a great imagination and can entertain herself for hours in her make believe world.  It is great!
She wishes she had a real baby like Marley:

Ainsley is also getting much more confident…on Monday she told me she was actually excited to compete in gymnastics.  She has so much talent, but is very tentative and it is fun to see her be a little more brave :o).  We’ve been doing handstand contests all summer and I found my balance point, so I think I got her for another year, hopefully.  Here she is doing a press handstand…a skill that takes a lot of strength.  

Ainsley is still as stubborn and determined as ever.  It is very hard to get her to do something if she doesn’t want to.  Reading has come much easier to her than Reggie, but it is still a challenge to get her to do it because she doesn’t want to.  Someday this could be a great asset, but we are working hard to refine this to make sure she understands what is appropriate for a 7 year old! 
For her birthday, grandma took her to get her ears pierced and she loves to look at herself even more now.  Ainsley is still a girly girl, but has realized the need to be practical, so we are seeing fewer dresses and skirts these days.  She is also slowly losing her toothless smile and will look completely different in a couple months.

It will be fun to see how she grows as a 7 year old :o).