Do they always have to share?

So something I've been thinking about since Christmas morning - Do our kids always have to share?  I know it's probably very strange for a mom to think this but hear me out.

Both my girls got Baby Alive's for Christmas.  They each do a different thing.  Baby Cakes makes noise when you move the bottle to the baby's face.  Fancy Pants jumps up and down in your lap when you press it's hand.  They both love their babies! 

Somehow Fancy Pants found a way to turn her baby off.  She didn't realize that's what she'd done, but she was upset it wouldn't work and decided she wanted to play with Baby Cakes new baby instead of hers since it makes noise.  So she began to monopolize Baby Cakes new toy. 

A similar thing happened on Christmas morning, Fancy Pants got a car for her doll house that Baby Cakes liked.  Baby Cakes got a Little People horse and carriage, but it doesn't make the cool sounds the car makes so she began to hog her sister's new toy, making Fancy Pants very upset.  We redirected Baby Cakes to her horse and carriage and explained that Fancy Pants wanted to play with her new toys herself first.

So what I am really wondering is - shouldn't there be some time frame after Christmas or a birthday for the child to enjoy that toy without having to share it constantly with their siblings?  My girls are only 15 months apart and we are always looking for ways to make sure they feel like individuals, not one of a set.  They should be allowed to have their own toys that are not community property.  I know this is easily solved by having people buy them only the same exact things so they don't get upset that they got different toys.  I think this creates it's own set of problems and doesn't do anything to encourage sharing.

What do you do for this sort of thing?  For now we just monitor the girls and if we feel one is wanting more time with their new toy but the other is monopolizing the toy we redirect and explain it's new and special to them.  I'd love to hear what others think about this subject though!

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Mothering in a Shoe now has 25 fans on Facebook thanks to a friend who was able to think of a way to get me the last fan I needed!  So now I am able to share a direct link with you to my facebook page and also add a box to the blog. 

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Christmas Cooking

Traditionally we have crock-pot chili on Christmas Eve and Chicken Bouillabaisse for Christmas dinner. This year however, as I was looking for recipes for these things a little slip of paper fell out of my soup/chili folder that changed everything! We are going to have an Italian Christmas this year. I recently made my grandpa's sauce recipe, plus his stuffed mushrooms and a few other recipes. I also learned how to make fresh pasta a few months ago so we are kind of on an authentic Italian kick lately. So here is our menu and baking schedule for the next few days and a couple of recipes. Tomorrow we are making our gingerbread houses (from graham crackers this year unfortunately not from scratch) so I planned in an easy dinner for tomorrow too.

Thursday
Pumpkin bread
Sugar cookies
Gingerbread Houses
Split Pea Soup & Rolls
Friday
Crock-pot Chili
Baked Potatoes
Any baking we didn't get done Thursday
Saturday
Breakfast Casserole
Panettone French Toast
Antipasto Plate
Spaghetti House Minestrone
Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli, from scratch
Profiteroles w/whipped chocolate wine sauce for the adults, chocolate syrup for the kids

Recipes

Pumpkin Bread

This recipe was passed down to me from my mama... It's my favorite pumpkin bread, probably because I grew up on it :)  I often double the recipe and make a lot of small loaves so I don't remember how much this makes.  I want to say 2 large or like 6 small.  I'll let you know after I make it Thursday.

3 1/2 cups flour
3 cups sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup oil (I successfully put apple sauce instead one year and probably will this year too)
2/3 cup water
2 cups canned pumpkin
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup walnuts (optional.  I opt OUT!)

Combine flour, sugar and baking soda in small bowl, set aside.  Combine oil, water, vanilla, pumpkin and eggs.  Mix well until smooth.  Add dry ingredients, mix.  Add nuts.  Bake for 1 hour at 350.


Antipasto Plate

This isn't really a recipe.  I just gathered random things.  I got prosciutto, a few different types of salami, marinated mozzarella balls, mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto, garlic stuffed olives, hot peppers, sun dried tomatoes, artichokes, Parmesan cheese, grape tomatoes, crackers and hummus.  I will just fill up the nice cutting board and we will snack on this through the day on Christmas.


Our very favorite place to eat in Italy was the Spaghetti House.  We loved the owner, Paulo.  He knew us by name and we'd even have a tab with him and just pay our bill monthly.  We got to know his kids, his little boy Luca was adorable.  He also got to know TJ and would give him special little treats when we'd eat there.  We have so many wonderful memories of this place.  I loved the minestrone soup so much that Paulo talked is brother the chef (before he fired him) into giving me the recipe.... which is true to Italian form and has no measurements! 

Spaghetti House Minestrone
There are no measurements, just add what you think looks good. Fresh everything is best! I will probably use canned diced tomatoes though.

onion
celery
garlic
carrots
potatoes
zucchini
big bean (pretty sure he means kidney)
black beans
bieta or coiste d'argento (I translated this best I could to mean Swiss chard)
green beans
tomatoes
water
salt
pepper
broth cubes (I use Better than Bouillon)
spinach

I sautee the onion, celery, carrots and garlic in some olive oil then add the rest to taste.

He didn't write this, but if this is served as a main dish they would add tiny pasta to it. If it was served as a first course it was served without pasta.

And obviously parmesan on top is wonderful!

I have a few more of the recipes from above but this is all I have time to share tonight.  If you'd like me to post anything else just let me know!

Craft Time :)

Yesterday while the girls were napping I decided we really needed to do some holiday crafts.  Nothing major or super adorable for people to ooooh and aaaaah over, just a few fun things for the girls to have fun doing.

Squishy Colors (for lack of a better name)

I found an idea in a craft book for helping kids learn color combinations like blue + red = purple.  It was pretty simple and fun.  It called for a cup of powdered laundry detergent, which I didn't have.  I did however have some homemade powdered dish soap that I made eons ago and didn't care for.  Finally a use for it!  I figured I'd use it for something eventually.  I mixed it with water until it was a paste, not too thick, not too thin.  Then separated it into bowls and added pink tempera paint to one and blue tempera paint to the other.  The book I believe also suggested food coloring. 

Then spoon globs of the mixture into baggies, one of each color. 

I let the girls squish the paint around until they made another color.  It worked great and even this morning I asked them "what color do you get when you squish pink and blue together?"  They both shouted "purple!"  I'd say it was a success!

Next we started making some snowmen with construction paper and cotton balls.  We aren't finished with these yet, we ran out of cotton balls.  They will finish them up today after nap.  I took white construction paper and 3 different size round items from the kitchen (the plate to my food scale, a small crock-pot lid and the lid from my cookie jar) and cut out circles, glued them together in a snowman shape and the girls dipped cotton balls (Baby Cakes calls them moth balls, how she even knows the term moth balls I have no clue) in glue and stuck them down to the paper.  I cut out hats, "coal" for the mouth and eyes and a carrot shaped nose. 

(For some reason she felt she needed to use one hand to press the other hand down really hard, in case it didn't stick!)

And last we made some ornaments out of craft sticks and glitter glue.  Each girl got to make a star and a tree.  This was our first experience with glitter glue.  They did pretty well!

I'll try to post pictures of our finished crafts later!

Privacy...

What a touchy subject this is.  I'm going to write this blog in hopes that it helps bring some understanding to why I have decided to condense my facebook friends list today. 

1.  Time management.  Lately I just have too much going on in my life.  Facebook is a huge distraction for me.  I try not to play any of the games, farmville, etc.  I just don't have that kind of time when I am usually running around after 5 kids.  Fewer friends = less time online.  I don't want this to be a struggle for me anymore.

2.  Privacy.  I am far too open for my own good.  God has been showing me lately where I need to hold my tongue.  There are some things I feel like I need to be open about.  Some feelings and experiences that I feel may help others in our situation.  That is what this blog is for.  My facebook does not need to be for this.  I like sharing the way I do, however I feel I need to share with a more condensed crowd about certain things. 

3.  Need.  I've felt I needed to do this for some time now but I let guilt over how it will hurt people's feelings stop me.  I tend to ignore my own feelings in favor of others, which can be a good or bad thing.  But when it comes down to family privacy this isn't something I should waver at all over.  The great thing is though - I still have this blog to keep in touch with people.  I still have email.  And I made a fan page for the blog on facebook to share little updates!  I can still interact with people in that way.  It feels like a win-win for me.  I just pray people will be open and understanding to my choice. 

I'm still trying to figure out how to get a direct link to my fan page, when I do I will post it on here :)

Another Goodbye

Today we say another goodbye to our foster children.  Seems like that's all we've been doing lately.  It feels a little different this time.  I am a strong proponent of the parent's right to do right by their children and get them back, if they truly make a change for the better (with a few exceptions).  I may have not made mistakes such as these parents have, but in my life I have made plenty of mistakes.  If I wasn't given the opportunity to rebuild and right my wrongs then my life would be nothing right now.  Just that statement above alone could make up 3 or 4 blogs worth of explaining.

So with that belief of mine comes a lot of emotions.  I try to always root for the parent if they seem like they are going to try to do what they need to do.  I have very little contact with them, but I do try to encourage them in any way I can.  Send photos, special things to do at visits, letters with updates, etc.  We strongly felt that after we adopted 2 children in 1 year that our family needed time to bond and that we needed to hold off on adopting anymore for awhile.  Out of fairness to our current family and the potential children coming into our home.  So with each new child it was easier to root on the parent, pray for them, etc.  When they didn't do their plan it was so amazing to see the kids move on to adoptive homes.  Incredibly painful, but sweet at the same time.  We were so blessed by our girls, it is wonderful to get to watch another family receive their long awaited blessing.  We were honored to be a part of that. 

Now however, we are ready to add to our family again.  I think with that guard down it gets harder to root on the parent.  I don't want to be the type of foster parent who thinks all birth parents are horrible or who talks nasty about them, judges them, etc.  I try to have a realistic compassion for them.  It was a lot harder to do this time.  I fell so in love with these kids.  I didn't hope the parents didn't do their services.  I just hoped we'd get to keep them long enough so that if they didn't do their services we'd have the opportunity to adopt them.  They aren't going back to the parents, but to family and when I think about it as the foster parent I want to be, it is a good thing for the kids.  When I think about it just with my heart alone.... it hurts.  A lot. 

The bottom line though is this - I want God's plan for their lives.  And it very well may be to go back to a mom and dad who have grown up some and learned how to be a mom and dad.  Knowing that I love them so much, that they are leaving sooner than later may be God shielding me from an even bigger heartbreak in the end.  I want God's plan for my family too.  And while I am certain I could provide a happy life for these kids, I am also certain that the right kids will come to us, the ones God has planned for us.  And just as I would not trade our girls just to take back the pain of our infertility, I would not give up any of my precious moments with my Raspberry and Little Bear just to get rid of the pain of their leaving.  They have blessed my life and I have poured all the love and prayers I could into theirs.  That is what is most important in the end.

Wordless Wednesday

I've not done "Wordless Wednesday" before, although I see it done quite often on blogs and enjoy it!  Today is a good day to start as I have some fantastic family photos to share.  All these photos were taken by Jennifer @ A Moment in Time Photography.  We met Jennifer and her husband through our foster agency and they are adopting a sweet little one we used to foster!  We had a great time, if you live near Jennifer you should definitely look her up for your portrait needs!  I think she travels as well :)  Since that's quite a few words for Wordless Wednesday I leave you with the photos.  Enjoy!

Christmas Card

Family Wall Blue Christmas Card

Shop Shutterfly for elegant custom Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Here is the card Tony and I finally agreed on!  I made about 5 of them and this was the winner!!  (And I know it has everyone's names on it, it's ok this once!)

It really is a wonderful life...

Yesterday we got to see our family photos!!  They are beautiful!  I was hoping I'd have the disk to share with everyone right away, but we don't get it until our prints come in.  I am so thrilled I can't begin to tell you!  I just can not wait to get the photos up on my walls and out to family.  I love my family and truly love my life, I am excited our photos really show that.  It took us almost 2 hours to decide which prints and what sizes we wanted up on our home.

On top of that I also need to pick out a Christmas card.  When you have 55 beautiful pictures to chose from how do you decide which ones to put on the Christmas card? 

I finally decided I wanted to use shutterfly.com (which wasn't entirely because they have a great offer for bloggers going right now), after searching at least 5 different websites for cute designs.  One thing I love from Shutterfly is the ability to narrow down my selections.  I chose 3+ photos, put the size I wanted, and that I wanted a flat card, not folded (less $$!)  Even narrowed down that far I still had over 200 to chose from.

Here are a few of my favorites (click on the photo to go to the page and see their pricing info and details) -

They have many super cute cards, these were chosen because of the number of photos on them mostly.  I also love the religious one, after all Jesus is what Christmas is about!  If you only have one photo to display there are some REALLY cute cards on their site!

I am thinking I may order some Thank You notes as well, to put even more of our photos on!  May as well use these beautiful pictures right??  I like this one -

So... a vote - which card do you like the best??


(Full disclosure - shutterfly.com is giving away free holiday cards to bloggers who blog about their products.  I didn't chose them soley on this deal.  I did spend about 3 hours today (stomach flu) on etsy.com, walmart.com, cvs.com, and numerous other sites looking for the perfect card!  But just wanted to be honest about the offer!)

The Waiting Ones

This year God has really put on my heart the children who will spend Christmas waiting for a family.  Since our last little boys left at the beginning of November we could have chosen to spend the holiday season without any foster children.  That just doesn't sit well with me though.  I want to share my home with these children at this beautiful time of year.  I think of the kids sitting in shelters all across the US.  I think of the stockings our church made for the Children's Home in Dallas and that may be the only gift they get this year.  I think of all the kids sitting in orphanages all over the world - will they even know it's Christmas?  Do they even get to know the true meaning of it?  What about all those families whose hearts long for a child on this special day? Some waiting with a photo, knowing the child they are praying for and can't wait to hold is sitting alone.  Or the ones who may not have a photo or even any hope left, but just want a child. 

When Mini Jedi was little Christmas was so much fun!  As the years grew on with no more children it became a little bitter sweet for me.  I had brothers and sisters to play with all those new toys with me on Christmas morning.  Mini Jedi just seemed so lonely and the thought of him never experiencing a Christmas with siblings was so heartbreaking to me, knowing how special it is.  I'm so thankful for the children I get to share Christmas with now, not just my girls but my foster children as well.  It is so special, words can't even begin to describe the joy my heart has waking up on Christmas morning with a full house.

Yesterday this song came on Air1.com's Christmas station.  Within the first minute I was in tears... it is one of the most touching songs I have heard.  Is someone out there waiting for you this Christmas?  There are so many waiting...

A Bittersweet Goodbye

So yesterday I shared about the great gift that was placed on our porch.  I should also note, I'd been outside checking the mail less than 2 minutes before Tony came home.  When I checked the mail it was not there.  When Tony came home it was.  It has to be a God thing that neither of us saw them.

Here is a picture of my old rocker -

Let me tell you a little bit about our history, me and this rocker.  Tony joined the military when I was 7 months pregnant with Mini Jedi.  By the time he got out of basic training I was 36 weeks along.  He moved to Keesler AFB, Mississippi.  We had agreed I'd have Mini Jedi in California and come when I could to Mississippi.  It wasn't what we wanted at all, but we didn't know anything about Air Force life yet.  A week after Tony got to Keesler he called me and said that he'd talked to housing and they had a house for us on base!  But I needed to come that week.  Wow. Talk about hectic, I was now 37 weeks pregnant.  I somehow managed, with the help of my in-laws to get everything organized to go, get a plane ticket, my brother and uncle were all set to drive my stuff the next week.  At 38 weeks pregnant I got on a plane and flew to New Orleans.  Tony wasn't allowed off the base yet, so I had to find the right transportation to get to the base in Mississippi.  Oh, I was 19 years old and never traveled by myself, although I had traveled quite a bit with adults.

I got to Keesler and the van dropped me and my bags off in front of this little food/hangout place.  I had no idea where to find Tony, he was supposed to find me.  So I sat down on the bench and waited.  Me with my 38 week stomach and all my bags.  Everyone stared.  I'm certain they were thinking "oh some poor Airmen is about to get the surprise of his life!"  One guy even asked if I was ok.  Finally Tony came and we took the bus with all our bags (Tony wasn't allowed in a car yet I think) to our new home.  When we got there all that was in there were a few mats to sleep on, all the way down on the floor and a card table and folding chairs.  Tony had to go back to his dorm every night, for the first two weeks I stayed there alone.  I'd never lived alone before.  I was so afraid I'd go into labor at night and have no idea what to do! 

So the next day I walked around, got the layout of the base.  We were right down the street from the Commissary and BX, maybe 1/4 mile.  That afternoon the doorbell rang.  I opened it and there is the UPS man with a huge box.  He brought it inside for me and I thanked him.  I opened it up and there is a gliding rocker!  I was so thrilled! Tony's mom had it sent from Sears, she must have paid extra for it to get there that day.  I couldn't wait for Tony to come by for his nightly visit to put it together, I quickly got to work.  This was before the days all the tools you needed were in the box.  I had no screw driver but I was not going to let that stop me. I went in the kitchen and found a butter knife and put it together with that!  I was so thankful for that chair and wishing a bit that it had come with an ottoman when the doorbell rang again.  UPS.  He forgot the 2nd box with the ottoman!  I put that together with the butter knife too.  So for the next week I sat in that chair and rocked Mini Jedi and read all sorts of books and magazines and waited for our stuff to show up, Tony to be allowed to finally move in and the baby to make his appearance. 

Giving up my chair is bitter sweet.  It is time, I know it is time and I already love my new one.  But I rocked all my babies in that chair.  Even Fancy Pants who came to us at 18 months old.  After I'd rock Baby Cakes to sleep with her bottle I'd grab a cup of warm milk and rock Fancy Pants with her cup.  I didn't want her to feel left out.

It's been "mom's chair" for the past 11 years.  It's gone everywhere with us, Italy, California, England and Texas.  It's a well traveled, well loved chair.  It's always been my favorite piece of furniture in the house.  After we put the new one together (it came with an allen wrench, no butter knife needed!) Tony put the old one on the back porch.  It felt a little sad.  I had to remind myself - it's a chair, not a person, I'm not hurting it's feelings.

I sat down in my new chair last night for the first time and it is very nice and comfy.  Raspberry started fussing so I picked her up and rocked her.  She was asleep within 5 minutes.  I rocked her before bed to, but had to keep reminding myself - this new chair doesn't squeak, it's ok to rock in it!  I keep bracing myself for the awful noise and am so pleased when it doesn't come.  I know I will love this chair just as much as the other because it's really the act of mothering that is special to me.  I love caring for my kids, I love rocking them and cuddling with them in our special spot.  And now we can actually rock in it without a horrible sound coming out.  I am thrilled to have a new chair and am looking forward to the memories I'll have of it in years to come!