I had to accept the cold, hard fact that I will not be receiving the 2011 Mother of the Year award. Shaling was visibly disappointed on Christmas Day when Santa didn't come. I signed all of the packages from Mom & Dad. I honestly hadn't given it a thought, because she figured out the tooth fairy the very first night she lost a tooth at home (and that was back when the language barrier was HUGE). I didn't realize Santa was still real. Yes, I am properly shamed for screwing that up.
The kids spent the nights of the 25th & 26th with Grandma & Grandpa Coonrod. They were supposed to spend the 29th with Grandma & Grandpa Barkley, but I screwed that up too, by scheduling a playdate on the 30th. It was going to be a major challenge to get them home from Carlinville on time for that playdate. So, we currently have it planned for them to stay there on the 15th of January.
We spent New Years Eve at a fantastically fun house party, where the adults sat around playing board games and the kids watched movies, played video games, and lit sparklers when the ball dropped in New York. Through it all, Shaling has had some basketball practices, Dad has watched a lot of football, Preston has been building some complicated Lego sets, and I've done some trivia and movie nights.
Life has started getting back into a routine today, but will progress that way even more so tomorrow, when the kids return to school. As I posted about in an earlier blog entry, we celebrated the one-year anniversary of "Gotcha Day" on the 27th of December. On January 7th, we'll celebrate one year of Shaling being home in the United States.
Here are some random pictures of our 2011 Christmas.
Grandma & Grandpa Barkley's house
Great Grandma Coonrod's house
Home
Grandma & Grandpa Coonrod's house
P.S. Exactly one year ago today, we went on a dinner cruise down the Pearl River. You can read about it (and see a picture of Shaling eating chicken feet) here.
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