Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Birthday parties, hair, growth, and prayers

I know, this is a super random blog title, but it's what has been going on in our house the past few months.  We celebrated both birthdays since my last post - sister's was in October and brother's was just yesterday.  I'm glad that they are finally different ages again.  It was really weird answering the question "How old are they?" during that 2 month period when they were both 3.  We did park birthday parties for both (only in Texas can you do a December birthday party at the park), and I think they both really enjoyed it.  I did mostly fight the "urge" to go all out and do a cute, themed birthday party....even though he did request a Spider-Man party so that included Spider-Man-ish cupcakes and some Spider-Man napkins from Party City.  The one thing that took a little bit of time was I did make a "Happy Birthday ____" banner for each of them.  And we didn't even get to hang hers up at her party because we didn't get the pavilion that we were hoping to reserve and there was no where really to hang it.  Apparently I also only pick super windy days to have birthday parties, so even though we did hang up his birthday banner it was flapping all over the place and you couldn't really read it.  All this to say is I've now learned that our birthday parties from here on out will indeed have a theme - "less is more." (actually that's a name of a friend's blog...great name I might add!)

Ok, so on to "hair."  It is getting easier!!  No, I didn't say "easy."  I said "easier."  It still takes me a good 2 hours to just style the hair.  That doesn't include the time it takes to take the previous style out the night before.  So, it does take up a lot of our Saturdays (usually that 2 hours is spread out with a few breaks, because getting a 3 year old to sit still for 2 hours is no fun for anyone).  I am super thankful for 2 things when it comes to hair because without them, I would be lost - first is her daycare teacher who will do her hair when I just don't have the time (busy weekend, or on a weekday if her previous style is looking rough), and second is a blog that has saved her hairs life - www.chocolatehairvanillacare.com.  If anyone is doing chocolate hair, I definitely recommend this site, and from what I can tell from her followers, it's not just vanilla ladies out there following her.  She's pretty amazing when it comes to knowledge of how to care for and style "chocolate hair."  I usually stick to the basics and part her hair in sections, rubber band them, and then put twists in with clips at the end, but I have been getting a bit more adventurous in my styles.  For family pictures I just had to try something different, so I did flat rope twists, which probably mean nothing to most of you, but just think an easier version of cornrowing.  It turned out good enough to keep for family pictures, but it didn't last long.  The best part of that whole style was that at the visit that week, the mom told Dave that I would have to teach her how to do that style....what???  I may have finally earned some street cred, I dunno. 

The last 2 thoughts will have to be quick as I need to go wake the little ones up in about 5 minutes.  Growth - Dave and I love to sit and talk about how far they've come.  We got a date night the other night and it was so fun to talk about what they "knew" when they came, and what they know now.  It's just crazy amazing.  These kids have grown so much, physically, mentally, spiritually, socially.  It's so good to think about where they came from because then it makes whatever we are dealing with at the moment sooooo much LESS, because we can say "well at least they aren't doing ____ like they did when they first came."  And I'm not saying this to make us look awesome, because we're just not.  I think they would grow just as much anywhere else....well not anywhere obviously, but you know.  It just shows that they weren't getting all the basics that you truly need - love, conversation, routine, consequences, and most importantly Jesus.

Ok last and certainly not least - their court date is TODAY, so please pray!  From their caseworker's report, it seems that this one is maybe not as big as we had thought as far as discussing their return and what that's going to look like, but I'm still nervous and anxious to hear what goes on...and I understand that it's foster care and anything can happen.  I will write a quick update after today to let everyone know what did, or didn't, happen. 

Thanks for reading!!

Kristy 

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