Life in the Farm

b-day party

This past Saturday we had a birthday party for Sasha.  We were initially talking about having somewhere super fab like last year, but the place we were considering was going to require that Sasha limit her guest list to about 8 friends.  I loved that she decided she'd rather have it at home (which actually turned into Grandma and Grandpa's house!) than not be able to invite everyone she wanted to. Slight hiccup the day of the party...Grandma and Grandpa didn't have power until 2:15pm, and the party was to start at 4:00pm.  Nate and I sat around at home looking at our messy house until about 2:00 and then decided we'd better get cleaning and figure out a way to fit 13 kids plus some parents into our house.  At 2:15, we got the phone call that the power came back on.  Whew!

We arrived at Nate's parents' house and saw this adorable sign, along with really cute butterfly decorations.

We started the party off with the kids decorating party hats while we waited for everyone to show up. Here is Lexi modeling hers...

We then played Musical Pillows, Hot Teddy Bear (teddy bear standing in for potato!) and a race where the kids had to push golf balls with their noses...

After the games we had pizza and my Pinterest inspired Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes.  You just bake the cake right into the cones and frost them, how fun is that?

Then back down to the party room for present opening.  This got a bit wild and out of control, as you might sense as you look at this picture...

No worries, Nate got it all under control with his spontaneous dance party.  Group hug while dancing...

And then I got my favorite shots...the group picture.  You can see that we had many of the same friends there as last year.

I believe Nate just had everyone yell "Sasha has stinky feet!"

Then the clock struck 6pm and everyone left!  It was a crazy two hours, but so fun.  I was struck with the thought of how many great friends Sasha has.  They are such a fun loving, generous and respectful group of kids.  Hmmm...I'm thinking all of their parents have something to do with that!

Sasha got a huge load of Littlest Pet Shop stuff and Nate and I caught her intently playing with them the next morning...

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa (and Aunt Juli) for hosting the party and to our many friends who brought their kids and gave such nice gifts!

circular box braids - hubby home late edition

How do you know when it is time to do a new style?  When your husband tells you in the middle of the day that he will be home an hour late, and you just know you are going to resort to television to keep the kids happy.  And if I am going to have the t.v. on, I'd better make use of the time where Lexi is sitting still!  (Plus, her hair was ready for a new style anyway.)

I tried a new style that I absolutely love.  It starts with box braids that are arranged in a circle, rather than straight lines, and then I pulled it all up on top of her head in a ponytail.  I didn't band any of the braids at the base or at the ends.  I would love to arrange it in a bun-like style on top, but how to do that eludes me.  Anyone who knows how, please give me a detailed lesson!  I know it involves somehow pinning the hair up, but I tried and it looked terrible.  Anyway, I played around with a couple different ways to wear it and ultimately I just want to choose the one that will last the longest.

I took the clips out and tried pinning the hair up, but like I said, I don't know how!  So the picture below is the hair just placed sort of how I would like it to stay.

Oh well, she is cute either way!  :)

running update

Curious to know how the running is going?  Shockingly to me, it has been awesome.  I have kept up with the plan and usually end up running for a bit longer than it calls for.  On weekdays, I have been going out right away when Nate gets home from work and on the weekends I go in the morning as soon as it is light out.  The weather hasn't been bothering me at all, and the other day I ran when it was 12 degrees out! 

I have been amazed at how quickly my body has adjusted to running and built up stamina.  Not super crazy stamina, I'm only running about 11 minutes straight at a time, but for me that is pretty big.   I did notice that I was having foot pain and I am pretty sure I have a mild case of plantar faciitis.  That has been going on for a couple years though, and if I am good about stretching, it is managable.  But I was a little worried that having foot pain would give me a great excuse to stop running.  I wanted to remove all possible excuses, so I went out and bought some new, super nice running shoes.  I have never been a huge believer in the importance of getting a nice pair of dedicated running shoes since I am a cheapo, but there is a first time for everything.  And I have been amazed at the results.  I feel like I am running on a pillow.  The person who sold me the shoes told me that my current shoes are too small, and that I needed to go bigger for running.  So even though I feel a little bit like I am in clown shoes when I run, I haven't tripped yet and I can see the benefits.

So to recap, I am still in the phase when it is fun!  I actually look forward to doing my run, and it obviously helps that I only run every other day.  Maybe I will actually keep it up once I make the goal of a 5k...

NEW thing #3

Yay!  I got permission from Nate to talk about NEW thing number 3!  Thing number 3 in my new thing series is all about home.  And where that home is.  When Nate and I moved into our house in the Farm, we planned on being here for about 5 to 7 years.  I think we are on year 8.  And we feel just a bit squished at this point!   We have been casually looking at neighborhoods for about 2 years, and actively looking at houses for a little over a year.  

First we had to figure out where we truly wanted to be.  We considered and talked, considered and talked, and came to the conclusion that we love the Farm.  So we are staying in the same city.  Our number one location criteria for a neighborhood is the level of diversity, plain and simple.  We absolutely will not live in a neighborhood where there are not a large number of families of color.  No thank you.  And while the Farm in general has a diverse population, it seems to me to be a bit segregated by neighborhood.  So obviously we had to find a neighborhood that matched that criteria, plus that had the types of houses and feel that we wanted.  

It didn't take long to find that neighborhood, and it is about 2 miles away from where we live now.  And in case you were wondering, we found it through a suggestion of a friend and then confirmed we liked it by driving through it about a bazillion times.  Once we narrowed down the neighborhood, we just started watching and waiting.  Turns out lots of other people want to live in this neighborhood too, and we made two offers on houses that other people made higher offers on.  We looked at many houses in this neighborhood and almost every time, there were other people looking at the house the same time we were.  Also, most of the houses that have gone on the market in this neighborhood are typically sold within 2-3 days.  And I thought it was supposed to be easy to buy a house right now!  We did get encouragement from others to look elsewhere because it was taking so long, but Nate and I knew where we wanted to be.  And we were willing to wait for it.

A house came on the market a couple weeks ago, we looked at it one day and made an offer the next. We really weren't all that hopeful because we knew there were other offers and we had always been low in the past.  You can see where this is going...our offer was accepted!  We had the inspection today and everything looks as we had expected it would.  So it looks like we are moving!!!  We have a lot of work to do on the house, so we don't plan to move in for a couple months, but I am VERY exciting to get packing!

Thanks for all your interest in my NEW things series...you all are great!  I'll be back with lots more updates about everything I'm sure!

 

NEW thing #2

Okay, here's the biggest one.  I wanted to save this for last, but Nate has requested a few more days before talking about what I wanted to write about next.  So here it is in a nutshell...we will be adding to our family in the relatively near future! 

Here's the background:  Nate and I have always said we wanted lots o' kids.  We anticipated many years ago that we would build our family through both birth and adoption.  Through a combination of life circumstances, our dear Sashita came to us unexpectedly through adoption.  More life circumstances, and along came Alexis, also through adoption, but in that case it was expected!  And then we lived some life as a family of four, which has been quite a joy, but also quite challenging.  After lots of discussion, Nate and I have come to the decision that we are ready to add to our family and that we want to adopt again.  But this time it is going to happen a little differently. 

One of our goals in adoption has always been to adopt where there is need.  Plain and simple, the need is the greatest for children of color.  And even more so, children of color who are part of the foster care system.  So...we are jumping into the world of foster care and foster care adoption.  This has been a unique experience for us, because while I know private adoption backwards and forwards, I really don't know all that much about the foster care system.  It has actually been sort of nice to NOT know everything, because when I know stuff, I want to control it! 

We selected our agency based on friend recommendations and have liked them so far.  We have completed the trainings required and we have had a caseworker out to our home once.  Most of the paperwork is done.  We have a little bit of waiting to do before we are licensed and have a child in our home, but my guess is that time is going to fly by.

Our plan is to take placement of one child at a time.  Because who am I kidding, the two I have right now are demanding enough, adding two more at a time would be crazy for me.  We also want to preserve birth order, which means that for our family, it would be best to take children younger than Lexi.  But other than that, we are open.  We are fully aware and in support of the fact that the goal of foster care is reunification with birth parents.  We are going into this with the perspective that we can provide a loving home for a child while that child's parents do what they need to do be parents.  But we also know that there are so many children who need a permanent home, and we know we can be that.  So basically we have NO idea what the future holds. 

We are going to take it one step at a time.  We expect that it is going to be hard and heart breaking at times.  But Nate and I also know we are called to do it.   The thought that has run through my head over and over this past year has been "If we don't do it, who will?  And if we don't do it now, when?"  There is a lot of talk about foster care and adoption, but in general, not a lot of action.  Nate and I have been equipped to do it and we are going to, even though we know it won't be easy.

So, that is NEW thing number 2.  We would greatly appreciate your support, in whatever way you can give it.  Just a couple of suggestions:  Encouragment = good, Negative stories/comments = not so good.   Interest = good, Intrusive, numerous questions =  not so good.  If you've read this blog for awhile, you see that there is a fine line between sharing about our family and respecting the privacy of my kids and their birth families.  I'm sure you can imagine that working with the foster care system will require a great deal of protecting the privacy of any kids that come into our home.  As always, we'll do our best, but we are not perfect, and this is new territory for us.

We will update when there is more!  :)

 

NEW thing #1

It's the start of the new year, which always makes me excited and energized.  I like to look forward and think about what the next year will hold for our fam in the Farm.  I have three completely different NEW things going on in my life and it is time to blog about them!  Two of them have been in process for quite a while, and the third is about 5 days old.  I'll start with the third!

I am an "all or nothing" type of work out girl.  I will take on a new exercise routine and go crazy with it for weeks or maybe months at a time.  Then I get burned out and quit exercising all together for a few months.  This past summer was a crazy, Jillian Michaels work out frenzy which culminated in me getting tired of it and not moving a muscle all fall.  I decided I am ready for a new fitness challenge.  I didn't want to go back to my old ways of the eliptical and 30 Day Shred; I wanted something new and maybe a little bit harder.  Then I came across the Couch Potato to 5k plan.  

A little background.  I wish I was a runner.  Many people in my family enjoy running and I have watched them run their little hearts out in all kinds of weather.  But it seems every time I run, my knees or feet hurt, so I quit.  I also prefer not to go outdoors unless completely necessary during the winter.  So how could I even consider taking on a running plan in January???  Madness!  But like I said, I have always been envious of runners and I needed a new fitness regime.  I like the Couch Potato plan because it starts off very slow and you only do it every other day.  I also like that it gives me a specific plan, because let's face it, if I just go out and run, I will stop after about 2 minutes.  So I started it.  Today I walked for 5 minutes, ran for 7, walked for 5.  Easy Peasy.

Another little bit of info here for full discloure.  It is possible that I might be interested in working out again because the hubby and I are taking a cruise in two months for our 10 year anniversary.  Which gives me 8 weeks.  The Couch Potato plan is 10 weeks long, so I had to start on week three.  But no big deal, because thankfully I am not THAT big of a couch potato, so my skill level pretty much starts at week three anyway.

Okay, I put it out there, now hold me accountable!

twist love

Before I launch in to my NEW things series (three parts, that's right!) I have to sneak in another hair post.  I am seriously getting into twists these days.  In addition to my last post about twists, I did bigger sectioned twists for Christmas and today I gave medium, unbanded twists a try.  The benefit of unbanded styles is it removes the risk of breakage by a rubber band at the head.  The other benefit is that because it isn't pulled as tight, you can be  a little sloppy with the parts because they don't show all that much.  The downside to no bands is that the twists can get loose immediately, so I don't expect this style to last all that long.  It's going to get pretty fuzzy, pretty quick I would guess!  I haven't learned the trick yet on how to do these and get them tight at the top.  

Here is how it looks from the back...

I put a cornrow down each side to keep her hair off her face.  Plus I knew that even if the twists didn't hold, the cornrow would!

In case you can't tell, Alexis still has absolutely no interest in allowing me to take pictures of her hair.  This took me about an hour, which included taking out previous braids and doing this style.  We'll see how long it holds!  

Christmas part 2

My last post didn't even begin to describe post-Christmas, which was with my side of the fam.  My parents came into town in the afternoon on Christmas and stayed for a few days.  The best part of that time was a hotel meet up with Joel, Lora, and Beto!  They are in GR, so we got together in Lansing for a day of hanging out with my little nephew.  

Here are the cousins...

Aunt Allison with Beto

The girls spent hours in the pool, which amazingly did not translate to falling asleep early in our hotel room.  Oh well.  I know by now never to truly expect that they will be asleep before 10pm when we are all sharing a room!  

After saying goodbye to our Nica family, we returned to the Farm for some hair washing and styling after all that pool time.  Love seeing Lexi with free hair, and this picture doesn't even begin to capture what it really looks like after a wash and detangling session.  That lucky girl has lots o' beautiful hair!

We visited the Wizard of Oz exhibition at the Henry Ford, took a winter walk, read lots of books and played with lots of Christmas toys.  The best surpise for Sasha was that Allison gave her an American Girl doll.  Sasha had been asking and asking for one, but there was no way Nate and I were willing to spend that kind of money on a doll at Sasha's age.  But she was lucky to have a very generous aunt who was willing to share hers!  :)  Unfortunately I don't have a lot of pictures because I was relying on the pictures my Dad took and I totally forgot to copy them onto my computer before they left.

And now our Christmas has been (mostly) documented!  For New Year's Eve we cleared our house of all the clutter, made fondue for dinner and were in bed before midnight.  I will be posting soon about some NEW things for the Cole fam in this new year!  :)

I know I am way too late, but...

I am pretty sure that everyone is sick of Christmas pictures, but since I have been MIA for a while, and my girls were stinkin' cute, I'm going to have to post some.  I really, really, really, planned on blogging more these past couple weeks, but with the fam here and all the craziness, I just couldn't do it.  

So here are my favorite Christmas pictures...

I bought both of their Christmas outfits at Mom 2 Mom sales this summer...love that!

You could say there was a bit of excitement before the Christmas Eve service

We spent Christmas Day at Nate's parents' house with his sibs.  Here are the ladies...my sis is in there too!

And the guys...

Sasha amidst a gazillion presents

Tiana nightgowns from aunt Allie

And princess dress up clothes for Alexis.  Sasha of course got in on it too.

If you want more details, you can read an aunt's perspective here.

twists!

Twists are probably one of the most popular hair styles for little girls with curly hair, yet they have always eluded me.  I see them everywhere, and they are always talked about as one of the easiest styles you can do, but for some reason they never looked good when I tried them on Alexis.  Until today that is!  I normally don't style during the week, but Lexi's last style gave me a full week and a half, which doesn't normally happen.  I loved it, but it meant that she seriously needed a new hairdo today!  Below is a picture of the style that lasted 1.5 weeks, cornrows leading into two puffs.

We didn't have anywhere to go so I took my time this morning and decided to give twists a try.  The biggest difference between these twists and the ones I have tried in the past is that these are technically rope twists.  So that means that I twisted the strand of hair one way before I twisted it over the other strand in the other direction.  This gives it much more definition and I think it helps it hold better.  I also found that this is the perfect use for a styling cream I made.  A few weeks ago I used an electric beater to mix coconut oil and shea butter together into a light and fluffy mixture.  I have been using it different ways on both girls hair, but using it to define and moisturize the twists in this style worked awesome.  I don't often use rubber bands like this anymore because I worry about breakage, but I decided to do it after seeing so many other little girls with a version of this style.  I think it turned out so cute!

I let Lexi play with the clips I wasn't using to get her to sit still for the pictures, and I think this is her way of letting me know she was done being my model!

All in all it was a happy hair day!