Are you thinking of adopting?

Before we adopted I always wanted to know "what are we signing up for?" and "what are we about to have to deal with?" Well, for those of you about to embark on your own adoption journey, here are the tough truths that we are dealing with, even though for the most part we are a big happy family. Everyone's journey and experience are different, but here is our story. 

1.  Even though on paper our little girl didn't really have any apparent or official 'special needs', we realized right away that she has learning and developmental delays and handicaps. For 7 years she was in a fairly nice foster home that seemed to take care of her needs, but it seems like there wasn't a lot of interaction or learning going on. The synapses between her right and left brain, her ability to reason and have common sense, and her short term memory were definitely underutilized. A lot of the developmental stages that we saw in our biological son at age 2-4 started to materialize with our 7 year old daughter when we brought her home from Hungary. We've had to go through stages of years 2-6 in the past two years, sort of fast forwarding through them. Now she is age 9, but mentally it's like dealing with a child who is a few years younger. My optimistic hope is that she keeps fast forwarding and developing past these limitations. We continue to homeschool, which I think has been great for her - one on one attention and customized learning have been wonderful. We have gone through preschool curriculum and are now almost through 2nd grade (two years behind her peers, if she was in normal school). 

2. I always imagined adopting an older child, and bringing them home to give them 'a better life' than they may have had before, and seeing how appreciative they were. This definitely is not what happened with us. Any visions of saintly parenthood are dashed whenever we ask her to do schoolwork or chores, or anything 'hard' and she whines that in Hungary she never had to do school. Or chores. Or anything. (with a sassy look). AND she misses all her dozens and dozens of toys that her room was filled with, and is pouty when we are at a store and won't buy her everything she wants. "In Hungary I had all the toys I wanted." she says. Well, that's about all she had....but we aren't the type of family to spoil or lavish our kids with a bunch of 'stuff' so she lives with the feeling of being deprived, when before she thought she had so much more.  (She does have her own room filled with toys and games now, but that feeling never leaves her). 

3. How long does it take to 'attach'? Well, for years we worked ourselves up to loving the idea of meeting our new child for the first time, and much like being pregnant for 9 months you love the 'idea' of this new person before you even meet them. So the first time we saw her when we visited her foster home in Hungary our hearts attached to this little person already, and we chose to love her. 

Now, the actual fuzzy magnetic feeling of 'love' is sort of a different thing...and while with our biological son we have all of the history and bonding in our past from his infancy that gave us this unfailing bond that gives me a warm feeling when he hugs me, and I always want to cuddle him. With our daughter, meeting her for the first time when she was 7, we missed all that history and bonding. We've had to sort of force the affection, because we know it's important to build bonding, and have come to the point where she is comfortable hugging (standing near us while we hug her, and sometimes sort of touching us with her arms). She told us that she never had any affection before she met us, so it's still kind of weird for her. But she says she likes it - so we keep doing it for practice. 

It's very difficult to love someone, and pour everything into, someone who is not appreciative of what you are doing, and constantly is ungrateful. Well, that could almost sound like any child....but this is different. Blank stares, unreciprocated hugs, never apologizing, no verbalization that she likes to be around us, and rude demands for her immediate needs. We've just had to buck up, and show her love anyway. How else is she going to learn what it means to love, and how much God loves her? It's hard. Really hard. But we choose to love her anyway, and she is worth it. 

4. How will my biological son get along with her? This is one that we have been blown away by - how well they always get along. From the first time we met her, our son has been simply smitten by her. He has taken her under his wing, and still continues to do so every day. He has never been jealous of her, and he says that he just loves having a little cute sister. They play so well together, and don't fight for attention or toys. 

5. The biggest thing I struggled with when we started exploring adoption was "How in the world are we going to afford this?" We felt like God was leading us to adopt, so we just obeyed and prayed for Him to provide. We used our savings, sold stuff to earn money, had fundraisers, asked our church for help, asked relatives and friends on facebook to contribute, took out a home equity loan....and still were short of the $40K it ended up costing. Right up until THE DAY BEFORE we left on the plane to fly to Hungary we were $3400 short. We desperately prayed for God to somehow provide, because to us it seemed utterly impossible. Well, that day, I got a call from some organization and they told me that they had been praying, and they felt like God was leading them to send us $3400 by wire that day. Yes, God provided every penny we needed, down to the penny. In His time, not ours. We just obeyed, God provided. He does that!

We've gotten so many messages from people about to embark on their own adoption journey, many from Hungary (some who will be staying at our exact apartment that we stayed at!) and I love hearing from you. I love sharing tips and advice, and helping to answer questions...please feel free to message us! 

2 years as a family of 4!

July marks 2 years since we officially became a family of 4, after we brought our daughter home from Hungary. We have seen her change so much since then, we've had some great times as a family, yet we still have our struggles. Here are some of the highlights of fun times from the past year:

First winter in Texas - I think we had 4 hours of snow, until it was completely melted. :)  We enjoyed it while we could, making snow angels and a snowman, and eating it with chocolate syrup.  She really likes playing in the snow and copying her brother.

First Trip Roller Skating - one day when we were perusing a thrift store, little girl saw a pair of roller skates and asked me what they were. I showed her, and she thought it was the coolest idea ever to have rolly things on your feet. She used her own $9 that she had been saving up to buy them, and EVERY DAY after that she spent about 20 minutes in the garage practicing with them. Her coordination is still a little rough so it took a couple of weeks to figure it out, but before long we heard her holler "Look at me! I'm rollerskating!" 

So as a reward for taking the initiative to learn by herself, we took the kids to a roller rink for the first time. This was super fun for about the first 20 minutes, then their feet started to hurt and we go this classic shot of whiny faces. Ha...we had fun though. 

Spring in the Blue Bonnets - We were learning in school about the Texas symbols (bird, animal, flower, flag, etc.) and we learned that the state flower is the Blue Bonnet. It just so happened in April that nearby is the Blue Bonnet festival so we drove there for the day. We romped in the flowers which covered the ground for miles and miles, and walked around a fun little art festival. There was a driving tour that took you around the countryside to all of the Blue Bonnet patches. We loved enjoying natures beauty together.

St. Patrick's Day fun - After learning about the history of the holiday, and how St. Patrick really was a missionary in Ireland, we did some fun dressing up and treasure hunting. I gave them leprechaun binoculars and special glasses there were supposed to help see them, and they went around the yard finding leprechaun nuggets (green baking soda balls with coins inside) that they dissolved in vinegar. 

Fun family outings - The Sprinkles cupcake ATM was the highlight of my day...we've also visited the zoo, and gone out for lobster. I dressed up my lobster because he looked like he was glaring at me, I thought he needed a hat. 

 Six Flags over Texas was a day of discovery - little girl really came out of her shy shell and started being more brave than her brother when it came to rides. She loved the roller coasters! She is a little adrenaline junky, like her dad. Next time we go I know those two will be riding all the big rides, and the boy and I will be chilling on the smaller ones. She said "I want more roller coasters!!"

Swimming fishies - swimming with some of our best friends. The kiddos just love swimming, and are just like little fish. Two years ago our little girl wouldn't even walk into the pool because she was afraid of it, but now she's swimming like a little fish. 

Trip to the farm - Gramma and Grampa had the kids for a couple weeks this summer. It was a great bonding time, a time to learn about hard work and earning a little spending money, learning how to change the oil on a Semi truck, and repair a Combine, and learn about crops. Little girl had a little cowgirl brought out of her with a new hat at the rodeo, and they got to ride in the semi with grampa. Great memories! 

 After two years she has melded into a part of our family, and most of the time I forget that we've only known her for 2 years. She is coming out of her shell and her personality is starting to shine, and we are happy as a family - so glad that God blessed us with our new addition!

A year in review...

 

Wow, how quickly a year passes! We just celebrated Gianna's 9th birthday (her second birthday as a Harrington). A LOT has happened in the past year...here we go!

We relocated to another state back in April 2014 due to a job opportunity...spent a few months in a tiny apartment trying to find a house. Adjusting to the new job, a new state, trying to make friends, finding a church, getting school set up again, finding homeschool activities has consumed us and I literally haven't been on my computer for a year! **One good thing about moving was that now we ALL have a new start, in a new place where we don't know anyone. I actually think that was a good thing for Gianna, where before we were all in our comfort zone and she was the only one in unfamiliar territory. Now we're all in the same boat and can start over together.

Gianna and Avery are still best of friends, it is so cute watching our biological son and adopted daughter (age 9, a Harrington since 2013) get along so well all the time. They are constantly together, and he is always showing her new things and teaching her how to do things. 

The fun thing is that she has integrated into our family so well, no one can tell she is adopted. Everyone tells us she looks so much like my husband. And his personality has rubbed off on her so she's cracking jokes like him now too. Too cute. 

Christmas 2014 was a mix of loneliness for all our old friends, and a special treat with my parents visiting us (a very rare treat!) for the week. They love both kids so much, and we had a great time playing board games, driving around and looking at Christmas lights, and eating...and eating...we like to eat!

Christmas morning was fun, it was our second Christmas with Gianna, and this year she understood more and we could teach her more about our traditions (singing Christmas carols, reading our Christmas books together, watching classic movies, decorating the tree and talking about memories for each ornament, hiding the pickle in the tree, the advent calendar...) And she could tell us more this year about what she remembered from her first 7 Christmases in Hungary (getting lots of toys for presents, eating Turo-Rudi candy a lot). She tells us she likes all the fun traditions she is learning.

Teaching his sister chess...although she isn't quite to the point where she understands and remembers each move, she catches on to the simple ones just fine. We still are helping her through some developmental delays, but she is making fantastic progress. 
 

Her first time on a large animal of any kind, Texas longhorn! Took a little coaxing, but she was brave and got on as long as I stood beside her.

Silly girl...she thinks she loves coffee and asks for it all the time. But it's actually hot chocolate, and sometimes I sneak just a tiny bit of coffee in it. One day I actually let her sip my black coffee, and she realized it really wasn't coffee she liked. :)

It took about a year, but she is finally finding her creative side. She gets ideas from big brother, and then makes her own fishing poles, satchels from boxes, and calls gramma on her play phone that she made out of cardboard. She is always so proud of what she makes, always bringing stuff to us to show us what she did. She loves the praise!

New glasses! Her eyesight was very bad when we adopted her, so we got her glasses right away. When we moved to Texas and saw a new Dr. he adjusted her prescription even more and she says she can see "way better! I can read the letters on the wall!" Wow. Seeing for the first time really, that's cool. We have to have her wear a patch over one eye for about an hour a day to help correct a lazy eye... I crocheted a purple one with a flower for her to wear.

 Daddy is teaching her how to play the bass guitar. Dexterity is another thing that she struggled with a lot, so we deliberately work on tiny motor skills and she is making great progress.

 Her other gramma and grampa came to town too, and the trip to Sam's was fun too. She loves helping at the grocery store.

 School is in session 5 days a week at home. She is learning to read finally, and we are getting to addition and subtraction, money, time, and fractions. The learning curve is starting to go up...although we always struggle with memory and have to go over things many many times before they stick.

 A rare snow day in TX. They sure do love the snow, and begged me to cover them with snow. "It's warm in here!" they said. Sure, warm in the snow...ok. She tells us about how she used to play in the snow in Hungary, so she really likes it.

 Another deliberate plan to help her overcome fears. With limited experience, we took for granted that every kid likes to play around and be adventurous...but she was very timid. We have been helping her be brave, going up escalators, asking people for things, jumping from rock to rock, and now...AT LAST! This is her first brave task that she did all by herself. She crawled up and said "look daddy! I can do it!"

 Homeschool art class, learning pastel painting for the first time. We fell in love with it, and bought the video series and now we do weekly art projects as a family at home. We do acrylic painting, pastels, pencil drawings, sculptures, etc. We all love it!

 Field trip to the wildlife park. Another practice at bravery, petting unusual animals. We saw lemurs, monkeys, and all sorts of fun things.

 I share these "struggles" with you in case you are in your own adoption journey, reading this blog. I believe there are always struggles you will deal with when you adopt, whether it is a baby, or an older child as in our case (at age 7). It's harder raising her than it is to raise our biological child. It takes extra patience, extra time, extra money for medical purposes...but it's nothing that we can't handle and are sort of just getting used to. It's an honor to be useful in her life, to enrich her mind, and to be her parents. When we see her reach new milestones, and hear her tell us how proud she is of herself, and see how much progress she is making...it's all worth it. And now, a year and a half later, she actually initiates hugs. Happy day.

Back to School!

Well...technically we are never "out" of school, since homeschooling is just our lifestyle...but we've got some new fun classes for the kids that we started this month!

1. Swimming at the YMCA for the boy....they bumped him up to Swim Academy since he was getting bored with regular swimming lessons. He's quite the little fish. This picture was them playing through the glass during the 10 min before her class started...no matter where he is he's always interested in entertaining his little sister.

2. Gymnastics at they YMCA for the girl...when we got her 6 months ago she had very little muscle or coordination, and now that we've helped her build muscle with riding a bike, running, and stairs all over the place she's ready to work on coordination. We watched a bunch of gymnastics videos online to show her what it was, and she was just amazed at what the girls could do. She's had her first 4 lessons and has really taken to the beam, even though she can hardly walk across it. We work with her stretching every day, and daddy even brought in a 4x4 board into the living room so we have our very own "beam" for her to practice on. Gracefulness is quite a ways off...but at least she's having fun doing something physical!

3. Co-op classes. Our city has a homeschool co-op group that gets together every Monday for a high school style class schedule, taught by mostly parents. The boy has P.E., Chemical Analysis, Public Speaking, and Chess.  The girl has Public Speaking (mostly like show and tell and stories), and Hands On Geometry. I pack up their lunch and book bags every Monday and take them to their classes, and eat lunch with them....then daddy comes for the afternoon classes while I go back to work.

4. Computer Programming for the boy. This kid loves anything electronic, and keeps a healthy hunger for it since we only allow a limited amount of 'screen time' each day, for tv or any type of video or computer game. I introduced him to the www.khanacademy.org classes for computer programming (sneakily just telling him that we're just going to look at something really cool, and that we can even learn how to make our own video game someday!) and we watched the intro together. He's hooked, and can watch a new video every day as a reward for finishing his schoolwork now. Yes, he can do additional school as a reward for finishing his school. That's how we roll :)

5. Scotch tape for the girl. Not really school...but apparently she's never seen or touched tape before. I just discovered this today as I asked her to tape something together for me, and she just looked at me holding the dispenser like it was some sort of spaceship part and laughed because she didn't know what it was. So we had a little lesson on tape. Hey, valuable life lessons here!

6. Fixing hair. Wait...this one's for daddy. I forgot to fix her hair one day, and daddy went a little crazy with the barretts and rubber bands...using EVERY single one all at once. The boy was impressed, as you can see. At least it held up in our windy weather!

7. We have regular school in addition to all this...book work at home with mom and dad...and a handful of other cool websites that teach kindergarten topics, or typing, or multiplication, or health topics.  In 6 months we've started from preschool level with Gianna to completing her Kindergarten curriculum and being able to read 2 and 3 letter words, and spell them just as well, and adding and subtracting. It's as if we started completely from scratch with her academically, and fast forwarded her to first grade in 1/2 a year. Although progress has been slow and frustrating at times, looking back and seeing this progress is encouraging! We are so proud of her, and she is so proud of herself which is even better. :)

First Christmas as a family of 4!

My favorite parts about this Christmas:
1. Gianna loves to cook with me (and so does the boy, although he will never admit it...and he'll never know I blew his cover with this picture, mwah ha ha), and we made chocolate covered chocolate pattern cookies with sprinkles. I wanted the moose shaped cookie cutter...you know, for Christmas?? (Now that I write that, I don't really know how moose are Christmasy. ??) But the boy wanted the BAT cookie cutter, and then we ended up with BATS, FROGS and BUTTERFLIES for cookies. Oh well, they tasted amazing though!

2. Lefsa arrived in the mail from Gramma!!! Every year she sends up a stack of homemade lefsa around Christmas time. I remember making it in her kitchen every year when I was a kid, and the taste of fresh hot lefsa with butter and sugar is like no other treat on earth. Everyone knows not to touch my lefsa...but when I'm feeling generous I'll share just a bit with the kids and they say "mmm!!" and roll their eyes in pure pleasure with the taste.

3. Being off work for two weeks. Hubby and I have gotten through another season of "Heroes"...just cuz we can stay up super late. It's like date night every night after kiddo bedtime, it's wonderful. I actually have had time to READ a couple of books too, what a treat! I slept til 10:30 today, and so did the kiddos. Awesome! And a lovely side effect as well: bonding time with Gianna. She is talking more and more, and since we've been spending most of our time together while daddy catches up on sleep and goes to the gym, we are getting closer and she talks to me a lot more. She actually told daddy that she wanted me to help her get ready for bed and not him when he offered to help. She reached out and put her hands on his shoulders and said "i love you, but not you today. I want mommy, maybe you tomorrow". Sorry honey, but that was fabulous!

4. SNOW! We had a rare white Christmas this year! I thought I just had to have memories of our awesome snowy mountain vacation in Colorado, but we actually got some here. I actually like shoveling snow, and Gianna actually likes to sweep snow off the steps, so we had a fabulous time together out in the cold.

5. Bath crayons. Santa really hit it out of the park this year with this stocking stuffer. How many hours of entertainment can a few colored pieces of soap offer? At our house, at least 6 for each kid, so far and still counting. This was only the beginning...we kept this superhero scene going for several days and they kept adding on when it was their turn to take a bath.  Yeah, we have squirt guns in the tub too, to squirt the fish of course.

6. Suspense. Santa came and dropped off a couple of presents and filled the stockings...but we have a rule that we have to all be awake and finish breakfast first before opening presents...and daddy has to read the Christmas story from the bible and we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus. THEN we can open presents one at a time. So while I was making breakfast the kids just sat in front of the Santa gifts and stared at them...and touched them gingerly...and looked at each other and giggled...then stared again. For a good 15 minutes, it was priceless.

7. Traditions. We hide the Pickle ornament in the tree, and the first one to find it gets to open the first present. We read a bunch of Christmas books that I keep collecting. We watch A Christmas Story on Christmas Eve, and the Grinch, after we go to church. Then Christmas day we order Chinese and bring it home, eating it while we watch The Nativity. We have several Advent calendars that involve chocolate (yes, I'm breeding chocolate addicts like me). And the rest of the day Christmas day we spend putting Legos together and playing with all the toys together. No chores or school, the best part!

8. Another addition to my obsession with A Christmas Story...Gramma sent cool hats (that are actually really neat, and the kids love them), but Gianna's is strangely similar to the "deranged Easter Bunny" suit from the movie. Cracked me up. Yes, the boy is still smitten with his little sister, as you can see from the side-eye grin.

9. The Sugies (our Sugar Glider pets) discovered Pecans, and can't get enough of them. Strangely, I can't get enough of the sugies, I'm crazy for the little things. I could go on for a while about why they are so cute and how much I love them...but I'm fully aware of the fact that no one else understands this creepy fetish of mine, so I'll just let the picture speak for itself.

10. So thankful for all the Grammas and Grampas that the kids have, they all are such a blessing in our life.  From the stacks of packages they sent, the cookies they baked or lefsa they sent, the cards reminding us how much they care, and everything else they bless us with. Christmas would not be the same without them. Here's a 'squdge' from great gramma on Christmas Eve, the kind that only great grammas can give, along with the pinch on the cheek when they say "oh, you're getting so big!"

Overall Gianna has been so excited and happy about Christmas, and just in awe that she had so many presents from grammas and grampas. She still says she misses her 'old home' and some of her old toys..and after she got a Hello Kitty scrapbook for a gift, we sat and put her old baby pictures in it, so she could have her own personalized life book. It ends with the first family picture we got together on "Gotcha Day". She looks at it every day, with a small tinge of sadness, but also a sense of pride that she has a past she can be proud of and that we are happy to talk with her about. She is also excited about all the new memories we are making as a new family. We are so happy to have her in our family, and we make progress bonding every day!

First real family vacation

Yeah, we spent 6 weeks in Hungary to finalize the adoption....which was like a European vacation in itself except that we didn't quite feel like a family yet. But now that we've been home since July and have had a chance to bond together and get into the routine of real life, we are on our first REAL family vacation. We came to Colorado for the week to try out skiing and play in the snow, and feel like we have a White Christmas.

First I hear some of you asking how in the world we afforded this, being too poor to be able to afford our adoption in the first place. Well we paid for this trip a few years ago, and we had to use it up by the end of the year or we lost it. So we are using it....and cooking in our room most of the time to save money on food. All the ski gear we had to buy is going up on ebay when we get back!

The fun began when we planned to fly here using our flight benefits, you know, the whole airline employee thing. But since it was bad weather and flights got cancelled we had to drive here...a nine hour drive in only 11.5 hours! Oh well, road trips are fun and you don't have to pack your life into a quart-sized ziplock bag, or get the 'free massage' as I call it, since I always opt out of the laser zapper privacy breaching machine. We actually ended up having a great time, and the kiddos are FANTASTIC travelers, keeping themselves busy with coloring, reading, or watching a movie on the laptop. And our rental car had Sirius radio - and we found the 90's station. Took us straight back to high school. I think my husband turned to me at least 3 times during the trip and said "this is the best...radio....station...ever!" We had the thing cranked up going down I-70 for at least 5 hours of the trip. I mean cranked up, and we were all dancing like dorks to "Tootsie Roll", and "I Like to Move It, Move It". We literally knew the words (all the words) to about 28 out of 30 songs, it was ridiculous. I wish I could have heard some of the other people in the cars we passed as they saw my husband doing the sprinkler in the passenger seat. Lol. Oh....and now the kids know some of the words to songs they probably shouldn't repeat...but oh well. We always have the radio tuned to Christian radio at home, so this was a crazy adventure for us. Ha!

Kansas is a great place to drive across if you want to see the biggest things in the world. World's Largest Ball of Twine. World's Largest Wind Farm. World's Largest Porch Swing (which is actually kind of neat, this old man who lives in an apartment across the street saw me taking pictures last time I stopped and came and brought me a pin with a picture of the swing and told me all about it. Creepy, but cool.) World's Largest Hand Dug Well, World's Largest Tractor "Big Bertha", World's Largest Prairie Dog. There's even a museum with the Smallest versions of the World's Largest Things in Kansas, lol. Now I REALLY actually wanted to stop and see the Prairie Dog on this trip....and we drove right past where it was!! I was so close to checking this off my bucket list!! Hubby just looked over at me and gave me side-eye and enunciated "Its. Not. Real. The fact that they advertise this as a stop is absolutely ridiculous." And on he drove. Sad face. Oh, and random fact I never knew...between Kansas and Colorado there is actually a place called Kanorado? Ha.

All was well until we passed Denver and commenced to drive for an hour and a half on the scariest stretch of interstate imaginable, into the Rocky Mountains. It was dark, and the roads were wet, and a little slippery, and my knuckles were white as speed racer raced around the curves and following too close for my taste. Semi trucks covered the roads, and we saw at least 5 runaway truck ramps...and signs that said things like "Truckers: Don't Be Fooled. 8 More Miles of Steep Grades!", and then signs with a big moose on it...and then after fearing for my life for 45 minutes a sign with a big black skull on it, with snow covering the words. What the heck did that mean!!!??? Time to close my eyes and pray until we got there.


We got here alive. I opened my eyes to evergreen trees all covered with snow and covered with Christmas Lights. Quaint little trendy buildings everywhere covered with Christmas lights, and everything covered with 6 inches of snow, it feels like we are driving around in a magazine. So beautiful! We checked in to our nice little resort that has a Subway onsite, 4 hot tubs, 2 pools, ski rental in the lobby, and within walking distance of tons of cute little restaurants. We snuggled in for the night.

Time for skiing!! Nope. We spent the next day all hopped up on Excedrin and Children's Tylenol because we all had headaches and upset tummies due to the high elevation. Maybe tomorrow.

Time for skiing!! Nope. It's 7 below zero and I'm really not interested in losing digits to frostbite. We spent the day getting all of our cold-gear ready, and getting fitted for skis. Coats, snow pants, wool socks, long underwear, ski goggles, ski masks, gloves, glove liners, hats, sunscreen, chapstick. Rented skis, boots, poles, helmets...well we're broke again. Ramen noodles for the next 3 months. But hey, we get to go skiing!!!

Time for skiing!! Yep! We take the free shuttle that stops right outside of our lobby to Beaver Creek Ski Resort to go buy our tickets. Small snafoo with the skis, the boy got two left boots. An hour later we were dressed like astronauts and waddled our way up to the snow. Snapped the boots on and were ready to go! Except the kids were already annoyed, cold, and whiny and couldn't stand up. Boy, we were in for a fun day. We got on the gondola, which they enjoyed a lot and got up to the beginners area. The boy figured things out pretty fast, and started going down the practice slopes. Gianna was not quite as coordinated and I ended up taking my skis off and walking beside her holding her up. After practicing for a bit, hubby took the boy down the green slope and I took her. We thought we could at least get down the Green slope together! Not so much. The ski rescue team had to guide the boy down, and we ended up having to wait for the rescue sled to get the girl down the rest of the mountain, in tears. Not the ski experience I had dreamed of.         After a break at Starbucks we decided to take them back up to the practice area and just stay there, and not try to get DOWN the mountain again. I went up and down the 'magic carpet' practice area, that had a belt that took you back to the top for the rest of the day with the kiddos. Now we started to have fun...and by the end of the day the boy was zooming down the practice slope without poles like a little expert, and Gianna would go down the same one with me holding her hand and learned to snowplow and turn and not fall at all. We were having a blast finally, and then it was 4:00 and the gondola was closing. We had to catch that thing to get down! We got back and waited for daddy...who had been going down the green slope by himself, and had gotten brave and gone down the blue slopes twice. He said it was a lot steeper than he had imagined, and at one point he was going backward and was on his back! He came back with snow all over his goggles and coat like he had rolled down the hill a few times, lol. Glad he got some adventure in though.

Next day, we had planned to go skiing again. But after this fun day of whining at the practice area and not getting to do anything else, we decided it wouldn't be worth paying for it again. Sad face. But we did get to ski, and the kids did learn how, so it was all good. AND I relished the refund that we got back since we never made it past the green slopes; that was a warm fuzzy feeling. Overall the four of us skied for a day for $98, not too bad!

So...what else to do? We are in snowy paradise, let's make the best of it.
1. Go eat at Loaded Joe's and Montana's Steakhouse
2. Sit in the hot tub
3. Suit up in snow gear and play in the snow behind the resort
4. Do the scavenger hunt around the resort for prizes. We won!
5. Sit in the hot tub
6. Drive around some more on I-70 and stop on the scenic lookouts
7. Drive over to Vail to walk around the amazing shops...but for $25 parking we won't be doing that again. 
8. Watch some movies
9. Play ping pong
10. Sit in the hot tub
11. Ice skating at Beaver Creek Resort!
12. Horse drawn carriage to dinner on the ranch, with smores over the fire afterward - Friday!

Loaded Joe's Cafe for lunch

Warming by the fire by the ice rink

One of the beautiful views of the mountains

Learning how to play Solitaire in our room

Ice skating for the first time

Right before I ran into Chris on the ice rink

"Look mom, I haven't even fallen yet! ....oops, now I did."

We are having fun relaxing together, away from school, work, and chores...and it's fun. Beautiful snowy fun. It's a great time to concentrate on getting Gianna to talk. That's our biggest struggle right now is getting her to talk...and when she does getting her to not just whisper. I know she has a voice because when it's tickle time she can really yell "daddy! tickles!!" and is always laughing loud with the boy. So we play games like 'you are the leader' and make her tell us all what to do, like get us to the hot tub, so she has to think and tell us to get dressed, and get the key, and lead us to the hot tub. She has a hard time thinking for herself, so hopefully games like this and Simon Says will help her be able to think for herself instead of just waiting to be told what to do all the time. We don't accept one word replies anymore...we say "I don't understand" if she gives us one word. She is forced to think of the other words in the sentence and talk, and slowly she is getting better and better. Slowly.

The other thing we are working on is affection. Affection is getting more natural for her at least with daddy. He's a warm cuddle bug so she initiates hugs and 'good morning' and 'hi daddy' when he walks in the door, and always goes and sits by him and cuddles, and gives him kisses. I'm honestly jealous, because any affection I give her is unreciprocated, and she doesn't talk to me hardly at all unless daddy is around and he tells her to ask mommy when she goes to him. We have fun cooking and doing crafts together, and she's comfortable with me, and when I'm gone she tells daddy she misses me. But as of yet we are still working on our attachment...and it's a little painful to try to lavish love on someone who is stiff and doesn't look you in the eye. I'm just making a point to show her I love her, and I pray that someday she loves me back.

Tomorrow we head back to real life!