7 Quick Takes

1. I am so happy my friends are getting to enjoy time with their newly placed foster daughter.  They have been longing for this for a long time.  And they still need lots of prayers that her residence in their arms becomes more permanent.  May God's will be done.

2.  Alex made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on two consecutive evenings when he was presented a dinner he did not like.  I was a little worried that a dangerous precedence had begun.  My rule has been that if he tried dinner and felt he could not eat it, we would make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich after everyone was done eating.  But, this night he wandered away from the table and exclaimed, "I am going to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."  I thought, "I have to see this."  I said, "Okay. If you make it, you can have one."  He gathered the ingredients and made a super sloppy sandwich.  It was cute and awesome.  The next night he did the same thing.  The two dinners were a bit on the grown-up side.  He has not rejected dinner and made a sandwich since.  The second night Kristiana wanted to be like Alex too and had to make her own sandwich.  But, mommy commandeered the making of that sandwich part way through.

3.  Annie loves Lady.  Annie is such a dog girl.  Every chance she gets, Annie has a petting session with Lady.  She even talks to Lady as she pets.  She smiles and says, "Yaydee! Yaydee!"  It brings us so much joy watching this exchange.  And Lady is very patient.

4.  This week, Annie is sleeping on her own.  Our solution to our cuddly bed-buddy was to put her in a full-size bed and cuddle her before she goes to sleep.  Then she sleeps through the rest of the night.  I am hoping this becomes a permanent solution.  (Grandmom and Granddad, set up the bunk beds for Christmas.  Annie needs her own bed.)

5.  Have you noticed that we have not written any Icons lately?  Ever since the last time when baby was painted instead of the Icon I have not allowed any painting.  I am afraid my fragile state could not handle it.  I have been going to the local kid store where they have free painting on Fridays, so that the kids can get out their creative painting talents in a controlled environment.  I have been pleasantly surprised by the experience.  The first time we went, Kristiana asked me to draw her a mermaid and she spent over an hour meticulously painting it.  So each time I go I draw her a new picture.  Alex has also been very creative and painted whatever comes to his imagination. He painted a rocket blasting off into outer space, monkeys playing in the jungle, a robot, a jungle and a rainbow (with the colors in proper order and no one helped him. :-)

6. We had fun dressing up this week.  We have two adorable princesses and one cute skeleton.  Alex thinks the human anatomy is fascinating, but he did not wear the mask because it was scary and it was not his intention to scare.

7.  Well, I am running into some not so fun pregnancy symptoms.  Firstly, I am now back into having pregnancy insomnia.  I am utterly exhausted, yet wake up to pee in the night and then cannot shut off my brain.  I should probably get up and read or write.  Secondly, I had a day this week I could feel the pregnancy hormones raging.  I was emotional, my belly hurt and I could not stop falling asleep.  But all is well that ends well--a cute new human in our arms.