Life in the Farm

more b-day celebrating

Our precious Sashita turned five on Thursday!  We took her out to dinner with her Grandparents and Aunt Juli that night, but all the birthday celebrating proved to be too much for the Cole girls.  First Alexis was sick on Thursday, then Sasha threw up on Friday night, and I have felt terrible all weekend.  But if you want a smile, check out Aunt Allie's blog post.  She and Todd came over on Friday afternoon to take Sasha out for a special birthday treat.  Sasha is one very loved little 5 year old!  Nate and I did a video interview with Sasha on her birthday and I am hoping to post it soon, but that requires the editing talents of Nate, so I am at his mercy!

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!  :)

 

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.

baby blitz

Babies, babies, babies are what's for Christmas this year!  We have several beloved friends who either just had babies or are having one very soon, plus my third nephew came into the world yesterday!  My brother Zack and his wife Michelle had their second little guy and he is such a precious gift to our family.  Sasha and Lexi have been blessed with three boy cousins...Charlie, Beto, and now Grady!  It seems like every day I am telling them of a new baby who has arrived.  And to make things more exciting, My brother Joel, his wife Lora and baby Beto are coming to the states for Christmas and we will be seeing them and meeting Beto for the first time this Saturday.  It is going to be a memorable visit for sure!

Welcome to the world precious Grady, Luca, and Julian!  :)

best buds

Nothing like a little reading time when you first wake up!  I was looking for the video camera and couldn't find it, so a picture had to do instead.  So precious.

getting in the spirit

I love traditions.  We had an awesome time the day after Thanksgiving putting up the Christmas tree and decorations with the girls, which is something we do each year.  But it seems to get more fun, since Sasha gets more and more able to really help.  This year I sat on the couch with a bowl of homemade broccoli cheese soup (finally found a great recipe!)  and watched Sasha decorate the tree.  She did a pretty good job too.  We also started a new tradition this year when we gave the girls the Little People Nativity set.  After the tree was set up, we put the gift under the tree and let them open it.  They have been playing with it like crazy, and then we will put it away after Christmas and they will re-discover it next year!

Alexis showing off her letter ornament

The magical moment of opening up the nativity set!

One of our December traditions is the Christmas Countdown Calendar.  You can read about when I made it here.  At about 6:55am today I remebered that I wanted to have it up on the wall before Sasha woke up.  So I interrupted Nate's quiet morning time and had him trudge down to the basement and retrieve it and hang it.  He did it with a smile, of course!  All of the parts of the Christmas story are in the boxes, but there isn't an activity in each box.  So I quickly looked on Pinterest and found a craft that both girls can do that wouldn't drive me crazy.  And so began the morning of bead ornament making.  You can read about our first day doing the calendar two years ago  here. 

Here are the girls showing off their beautiful ornaments.  Although technically Lexi just threw beads all over the floor, I did the candy cane, and Sasha made more of a necklace than an ornament!

I love this time of year.  And I love to do fun things with the girls that are just a little bit different than our normal day to day routine.  But most of all, I hope the girls grow up with some great memories, and that they remember the REAL reason for Christmas, which is not just fun traditions, but is the birth of Jesus!

 

Grandparents visit and Halloween recap

It was a whirlwind of Halloween craziness here the past weekend.  My parents arrived from MN on Friday afternoon and the fun began.  On Friday night, we went to a local community center that has a water park area.  Going to a water park was not actually high on my list of things I wanted to do right now, but we had purchased a Groupon-like coupon that was going to expire.  Thankfully there was a hot tub Nate and I could sit in while my parents could play alligator and go down the slides with the girls!  :)

Saturday morning brought Rock-o-ween at the Fisher Theater.   I took Sasha and Alexis last year and had a great time, so this year Nate and my parents came along as well.  We got there strategically early to do the face painting and all the other activities before the concert at 10am. 

Thank goodness we did that, because as we were leaving the concert around 10:45, the place was packed and you could hardly walk.  We made our escape and went to Good Girls go to Paris Crepes, which is somewhere you really need to go if you live around here!  We also gave my parents a little tour of Detroit.

On Saturday night, my mom and I had to rehearse for our big dance off, which you can read about here.  You can see me a little bit in the video...I'm the one with the lame costume!  But I will say that I did a good job on the dance, so it was okay that my costume definitely left something to be desired.  The entire dance is on my FB page if you want to see it. 

On Sunday, Nate had to work and the rest of us went to church.  One very exciting new development with our church is that I can now actually sit through a service without a child!  Sasha loves Sunday school, but Lexi just would not let me leave her in the nursery.  A couple weeks ago we tried her in the preschool room with Sasha and she did awesome.  Ever since then, she has marched right into the preschool room and had no issues.  After church my mom and I headed to get ready for the dance off and the rest of the fam came later to watch.  It was so much fun.  I have always wanted to be in a flash mob, and while this wasn't technically one, it was the closest I think I am going to get.

On Monday morning, we hung around at home and got ready for Halloween.  My mom and I raked leaves and my dad carved our pumpkins while the girls ran around wearing angel/fairy/butterfly wings.  I spent a good amount of time making delicious things in the kitchen, like pumpkin bars, pumpkin doughnuts, vermont cheddar bread and bagels, apple cider, and chili. 

the girls with grandma

We sent Sasha off to school and we had a quiet afternoon before the Haloween fun began.  We invited our family and some friends over for dinner and for trick or treating because our neighborhood is pretty fun on Haloween night.  Daniel, who is Lexi's age, and his parents came over, along with Charlotte from Sasha's school.  Jackie and her family came over too, which was great.  At first we all stayed together, but Sasha and Charlotte were going at a much quicker pace, so we separated then.  I just love Haloween and seeing everyone out in the neighborhood.  Such a good community time!

Our little strawberry

Fairy Girl

There are a couple houses in our neighborhood that like to be scary...here is Sasha completely freaked out after one of them...

All in all, it was a great visit with my parents.  They are heading to Nica tomorrow to go see this little guy!

the Coles go camping

This weekend we accomplished one of my goals...a family camping trip!   Many people thought I was crazy (Nate included) when I told them we were going camping in this cooler weather, with little kids, but we had an awesome time.  Thankfully I have a lot of friends who are also as crazy as I am and they were willing to join the camping adventure.   We decided to camp somewhere that didn't require a long drive, so we went to Holly Recreation Area, which is about an hour away.  Next year we may attempt West MI, but it was really nice to have such a short drive this time.

Here are Nate and I setting up the tent.  You will notice that we look a lot more clean and refreshed here than we do in later pictures!

Sasha plays football with the Van Andel boys

All the kids together, plus Sarah who couldn't convince Daniel to stay in the pic.  As you can see, Sasha and Alexis were the only girls the first night.  Thank goodness the Reid family came on Saturday to add a little girl power!

Friends!  :)

One of our friends brought their three dogs.  Sasha quickly appointed herself as the dog babysitter.

Malia arrives and Lexi is overjoyed!

Our most feared aspect of the trip was the sleeping.  Night one was not pretty.  Sasha didn't fall asleep till around midnight and then woke up at 3:00am saying "I'm bored" and refused to go back to sleep for about an hour.  (Imagine her voice which was a very loud, crabby, whine, and you'll get the picture).  Then Lexi woke up and I think she was a little freaked out.  She wouldn't stay in her sleeping bag and wouldn't stop moving, and had sort of a mournful cry.  We also had a lovely chorus of crying babies/children going among all of our tents.  Night two was a lot better.  We were all asleep by 10 and there were only a few, very short wake ups.

Despite the sleeping challenges, we had such a great time.  We ate TONS of yummy food, and I introduced my friends to the delicious banana boat...a banana stuffed with marshmallows and chocolate, wrapped in tinfoil and put in coals of a campfire....mmmmm!  The kids had a blast running around and playing with each other.  It was a great bonding experience and we all agreed we are doing it again next year!