"I make you happy?"

William: "I make you happy?" (When William does something good, we often say something like, "Thank you for following directions. That makes us really happy!")

Me: "Yes, you do."

W: "Elliot? I make you happy?"

Elliot: "You make me very happy."

W: "Mary? I make you happy?"

M: "Yes."

W: (Still in a sweet, pleasant voice.) "Ya'll make me mad. And I say AAAAARRRGGGGH. Then I'm mad at ya'll and you make me mad. But I make YOU happy. Um.... I make you happy? Mary? Elliot?"

Thanks for the honesty, kid.

Flamin' Hot Funyuns

I like to eat Funyuns. I think they taste good, so when I saw a new "Flamin' Hot" style I thought I would give it a try.

Inside the bag I found a little surprise. Usually funyuns are shaped, more or less like onion rings and this morsel was shaped more like a rock or nugget of some kind. "Interesting," I thought "this guy didn't make it all the way through the onion ring shaper or whatever." "It sure is coated with a lot of Flamin'n Hot brand flavoring," I observed. Then, when I picked it up to eat it, I realized that it felt much heavier than a funyun should feel. So, naturally I squeezed it untill it broke. Turns out it is just a giant lump of pure flavoring. Other kids I knew at school have had similar experiences and now I have had one too! There's one thing I can check off the list of trivial things that I always wished I could experience. Just though't I share.

Swimming Lessons

William has completed his first round of swimming lessons. He's doing GREAT! He can't swim on his own just yet, but he's made a lot of progress. Some of the kids in his class were afraid of the water, afraid to go to the instructor, afraid to try new things. Not William! He was always the first to volunteer. The instructor called him "Mr. Ambitious."

The goal at his class level is to be able to swim back to the edge of the pool if he should fall in accidentally. In Florida especially, that's a very valuable skill to have. We signed him back up for the same class level, and hopefully by the end of this class he'll be able to swim on his own.

A Rare Picture of Clotilda

This picture of Clotilda is unusual for two reasons. First, her eyes aren't glowing. In just about every picture that I have of Clotilda, it looks like her eyes are made of LEDs. Second, she's sleeping. Clotilda is a very active cat-- even if we come home during the daytime for lunch, all of the other cats will be sleeping, but Clotilda is up playing.

Maybe she's a robot...

Aimee has moved to her new home.

Elliot called Aimee's adoptions case manager yesterday to ask her when Aimee would be moving to her new home. "Oh, I'm glad you called!" she said, and then proceeded to tell us that this would be her last night in our home. WHAT?!?!?! We sure didn't get much time to prepare ourselves and let the kids know what's going on. The news caught us off guard, but we made the best of it. Aimee and William are too young to really understand what we were telling them, but we tried to explain it as best we could and let Aimee know that we love her.

We dropped Aimee of at preschool this morning, and that was it. We delivered her belongings to her case manager at lunchtime. She'll keep going to the same preschool as William for a little while, and I think that will help with the transition.

So we just have William right now. We'll let you know when we get our next placement!

Forever Family

Aimee will be leaving us soon. :(

She's being adopted by a family that has been waiting a long time to have the opportunity to bring her into their home. Aimee has been "transitioning" into her new life by having lots of overnight visits with the new family and spending time every day with her new mother when she visits Aimee at school. Aimee seems a little confused, but overall I think that she's doing well with the process.

We're so happy for Aimee that she will have a nice, loving family to permanently call her own. Of course, we will miss her. I miss her already when she's gone on her overnight visits, as does Elliot and William. Despite our own feelings of loss, though, it will be a very happy ending to the rough start in life that Aimee experienced.

One time at work, there was a hot air baloon.

And we rode it.

It only takes like 20 min or so to boot up.

Colorful, pretty.

You have to unload one person then load another person immediately, for weight management reasons.

Wink if you're ready for takeoff!

Up and Away!

If you look up from inside the gondola, this is what you see.

Also there were some bouncy things for kids.

Wheeeeeeee!

The "hot" part of hot air baloon really lived up to it's name. It was way too hot up there to be comfortable, what with all the fire and it being a super hot day. It was totally worth it though even though we were tethered and didn't quite get above the trees. It feels like a really slow elevator and is probably the least frightening flying experience achievable so far.

Yoinky Laser Eyes

Sleepy Radar

Happy 4th of July :)

William's advice to us today:

"DON'T EAT FIREWORKS!!!"

Disney

I took the kids to Disney's Hollywood Studios last weekend. We went with my sister Sara and we met up with my cousin and her family. William and Aimee had a great time!

A couple of days after the trip, they were singing together in the car. The song was to the tune of "Jingle Bells" but they changed the words. First Aimee started singing "Tinkerbell, Tinkerbell, Tinker all the way..." So William chimed in with "Stinkybell, Stinkybell, Stinky all the way..."

I'm so glad that Aimee was smart enough to ignore him.