mission: accomplished

I love our social worker! She's fantastic. She's about my mom's age, she said she's a grandma, so when Brecken was being a total show off, she just laughed at him. He was the one to give her the grand tour of the house. He was quite proud. :)

She asked us all the standard questions, said she loved the story of how we met, asked what we did around town, what we liked about where we lived, stuff like that. She asked about the fire extinguisher and the locks and the outlet plugs.

We talked about race and gender and all that sort of stuff. Brecken said he wanted a baby brother. :) She was here for two hours and we had a lot of laughs. She's great. She asked if we'd be ready for a baby as soon as the home study was completed (the three interviews- not just today) and we said yes, and she said she has seen that happen. We're not getting our hopes up, but wouldn't that be wild if it happened like that?!?

AND... here is the best part. We still have to have two interviews. She said we are more than welcome to go to where she lives (1.5 hours away) on a night, have the one-on-one interviews, and then stay the night at a hotel and then the next morning get the 3rd interview done and we'd be certified! AND, she'd totally do a weekend. YES! So Saturday Feb. 5th, after Josh's game that afternoon, we'll head over, do the one-on-ones, and then the next morning be finished! Hooray!

She disclosed to us that she knows one of our references. I thought it was cool- one of Josh's good friends from growing up is a minister, and he actually was the one that married us. She goes to his church! She loves him and thinks he's great. One point for us. :)

I'm soooo glad it went well today. Huge lift off my shoulders. Not that I ever thought it would go badly, but you know how it goes.

eeek!!!

Tomorrow: BIG DAY!!! Social worker sounds nice, but you know how it is- someone important coming over to your house and your house will never seem clean enough. All the books say "they won't do a white glove test", and "they aren't expecting your house to be ready for a photoshoot for Better Homes and Gardens"... but let's face it. You don't want to look like a slob, either.

I had asked for a half day off tomorrow, since she is scheduled to arrive at 2:00 p.m. My secretary thought I said a WHOLE day. Turns out, it's a blessing in disguise. I can drop my boy off at preschool AND pick him up, which is something I never get to do. Plus, I get 3 uninterrupted hours to do all the last minute picking up, sweeping, vacuuming, hiding the crap (!), and all that grand old stuff, before she gets here. Maybe I won't feel so rushed. Or maybe I'll just have that extra time to get scared.

Either way. I'm nervous.

home study: scheduled

Wednesday is the big day.

I'm so nervous.

Must get my house cleaner than ever!

I've spent the past two days doing nothing but hanging out with my boy while Josh was away for basketball. Have to get it all in now, as tomorrow will be my turn to leave. It's time for our annual All-State Music Conference, and it's a long trip this time- all the way up to Cody! Then I ahve to stay because I have a meeting in Jackson on Thursday- so I won't get to see either of my boys until Thursday night. :(

So yesterday and today, B and I did laundry, vacuumed, (he helped with both!), went to the lake to see the ice fishing derby all set up, he had a couple baths, blew bubbles, we watched PLENTY of cartoons, and we pigged out on junk. It was a good two days. :)

scooters in the snow

It's tough to be a kid in Wyoming, where you have so much snow all the time. Especially when your birthday falls right when it's getting ready to start being winter, and anything you get for your birthday and Christmas that might be an outside toy can't be played with! The past two Christmases, Brecken has gotten some great riding toys- a big boy bike (last year) and a scooter (this year). The poor kid tried riding it in the snow the other day and realized how hard it is. :(

Enter: DADDY'S SCHOOL! We're very fortunate to be able to load up B's stuff and take him to Josh's school so he can ride around the hallways and the multi-purpose room. We did that today so that he could run around a big area and use his scooter too. It is a great option for the winter and it makes me very glad we have that building available to us. :)

amazing progress

Brecken showed amazing progress with his sensory disorder over Christmas vacation. I'm so dang proud of him.

*He tried 3 new foods, and loved 2 of them. (Potato Oles from Taco Johns and garlic bread were the fantastic discoveries- he SCARFED them down after trying both of them on two different days! Stuffing, on the other hand, he was not a fan of. But heck- he tried them!!!)

*He wore "dress" pants to Christmas Eve service. They were not sweat pants, but had sweat material inside. But they were new, different, and he wore them.

*My sister gave him some brown cords that were too small for my nephew, and he wore them ALL DAY!!!

*Then, my mom got him two new t-shirts that she found, and he wore one of them! I was so proud of him.

*He went sledding! He was extremely timid at the beginning, but by the time we left my parents' house, he was going to the top of the "mountain" and taking a running start!

*AND, he let us finally give him a hair cut.

Small steps, but they are HUGE steps to us.

Interesting, however, that he won't wear the new clothes to school. He doesn't want anyone to see them. Baby steps.

He was still quite clingy to us when we got to each of our parents' houses- enough that our families noticed. He warmed up quickly though, which was a relief. He didn't have a ton of issues with the noise this time around, which was good since it was PLENTY noisy this Christmas. :)

So proud of my little guy!

See? New pants and a new sweatshirt, too!