Our home study will soon require updating since it is almost a year old, so I contacted our home study agency to ask a few questions. I learned that the social worker who wrote our original home study gave birth to twin boys a couple of months ago and our home study update will be completed by a new social worker. I have mixed feelings about that, simply because we are comfortable with our first social worker and it will be somewhat awkward meeting with a new person. But I am sure it will all go fine.
Our adoption agency has also issued an update for our dossier requirements – the dossier is a compilation of official documents required to complete the adoption in Taiwan. Since we will be updating our home study in a couple of months, we will go ahead and update the dossier forms at that time as well. As for our timeline for a referral, our agency still projects it will be sometime in the spring or summer next year when we are matched with a child.
I sometimes feel the Grand Holiday Plan is not for those with young children. As I clean, I have what we like to call “un-cleaners” come along behind me creating a path of destruction. I am hopeful the areas we have cleaned will stay clean until the holidays but it is hard with two little ones. With that said, much progress was made on the cleaning front this week in preparation for our daughter’s birthday party on Saturday. The Grand Holiday Plan called for cleaning the Master Bedroom this week and the Master Bathroom next week – I hope to catch up this week by focusing on those areas.
The holiday plan also suggested purchasing gifts for 1/8 of those on our gift list. For our family’s gift list, we have a total of 13 children and ten adults for which to buy gifts. That means I should have already bought gifts for about three people. While I haven’t actually purchased any gifts, I have started listing specific gifts to buy for those on our list and I am waiting to start seeing some holiday sales.
The Grand Holiday Plan also calls for making meals for the freezer. I joined a MOPS group this year (Mothers of Preschoolers) and I am really excited about a couple of the activities that have been planned, which may also be helpful in my holiday preparations:
Cooking Co-op: Those participating will make several servings of the same entree as freezer meals (the number depends on how many women are participating). Then you bring the entrees (frozen) in a cooler to the MOPS meeting and exchange them. It’s sort of like a cookie exchange only with main dishes, and those participating have the option to exchange meals at each meeting.
“Group Cook”: This is where I will get together with other ladies in October and make five different chicken entrees that can be taken home and frozen. There are businesses that do something similar (eg. My Girlfriend’s Kitchen, Dream Dinners) and I have been tempted to try it, but the cost seems a bit high. By doing this through MOPS, I will have to pay towards the cost of the ingredients, and possibly childcare, and the organizer is hoping to keep it less than $50 per person.
I mentioned Oreo Truffles in my previous post and Shannon suggested I post the recipe. I wish I could claim the recipe as my own, but it’s from Kraft Foods. I first tasted these truffles at a baby shower for a friend – you can’t eat just one, they are so good! You can expermint with the different varieties of Oreo cookies, too, like Mint Oreo. Delicious! (FYI: This is not the type of treat that can be made ahead and frozen, but they are so easy to make and everyone loves them. )
Do you have a favorite cookie or holiday treat that you would be willing to share? Post a comment or a link to your blog below with your recipe.
MIX 3 cups of the cookie crumbs and the cream cheese until well blended. Shape into 42 (1-inch) balls.
DIP balls in melted chocolate; place on waxed paper-covered baking sheet. (Tip: Use two forks and allow the excess chocolate to drip off before placing the truffle on the wax paper.) Sprinkle with remaining cookie crumbs.
REFRIGERATE 1 hour or until firm. Store any leftover truffles in tightly covered container in refrigerator.
**Update 12/6/2008: I just read online that these treats do freeze well…I guess I will give it a try and find out!
My efforts for week three of the Grand Holiday Plan were somewhat derailed by a double ear infection, travel to Pennsylvania and potty training. Despite all that, Dave whipped our living room/office into shape and we can now see the surface of our desk again. If we can keep our children from playing in there, it should stay tidy until Christmas.
The Grand Holiday Plan called for cleaning the entryway/foyer, making a batch of holiday goodies and an extra meal to freeze, buying canned food items, and buying all of the supplies for homemade gifts. I always give our neighbors a tin of holiday goodies at Christmas – last year I made Oreo Truffles and they were such a hit, I will probably make them again this year. I would love to make homemade gifts for our families but I am not very crafty or creative. I may look into making floral wreaths or another type of decorative household gift. What homemade gifts have you given family and friends at the holidays?
Regarding the potty training, I have to say Jelly Bellies are the best! We have been rewarding our daughter with Jelly Bellies whenever she has success on the potty. She loves choosing her favorite ones, and it’s been great in helping her learn all of her colors, too. We’ve been in potty training mode for six days now and she is doing great.
This week, the Grand Holiday Plan tackles the living room and delves deeper into holiday preparation with a family values checklist and gift ideas. I have to tell you that I fell behind this week on the deep-cleaning part of this plan, but just being able to check some of these holiday preparations off of my list helps me feel like I am already ahead of the game. Here is what I have accomplished this week:
Cleaned and took inventories of our two freezers
Evaluated our family’s values and holiday expectations with Dave
Printed Christmas card addresses to review and update
Started brainstorming gift ideas for family members & neighbors
Next week, it’s on to cleaning our foyer and baking some holiday goodies and an extra meal for our freezer. Hopefully I will be able to spend a little more time catching up on our living room cleaning, too. And if you are interested in participating in the Grand Holiday Plan, jump right in…if you’re a little behind, that’s okay. The plan is not as overwhelming as I thought it would be before I started.
Dave puts our daughter to bed most nights and last night he shared a sweet story with me after she was asleep. She had the hiccups last night, and was having trouble settling down for bed. My husband suggested they pray together, and ask God to take away her hiccups. Do you know, when they finished praying, her hiccups were gone?! What a good reminder that God does answer our prayers!
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” – Matthew 7:7-11
CBS also reported on its website that more than $700,000 has been donated to Shaohannah’s Hope since May. The Chapman family established Maria’s Miracle Fund at Shaohannah’s Hope following their youngest daughter’s death. Shaohannah’s Hope is a foundation, started by the Chapmans several years ago, which helps off-set the financial barriers to adoption by providing grants to families.
Several months ago I posted a video on our blog about a family adopting a little girl named Lucy from Taiwan. Well, Jackie and her husband Jeff are in Taiwan now getting ready to pick up Lucy in just a few hours! What a long journey it has been for this family. It is so wonderful to see families united with their children.
Here’s the video again, in case you missed it. Jeff wrote the song for his daughter during the long wait to bring her home. Maybe he will write another song after they get home? I hope so!
This week was the start of the 18-week holiday prep plan, and the focus was on organization. The plan suggests creating a Christmas organizer or notebook to keep tabs on gift lists, addresses and your calendar. I like the lists this plan provides on the website for holiday prep. I work better on the computer, though, and decided to make an electronic notebook. I have compiled my master gift list electronically in a spreadsheet, and added two categories to the ones already suggested by the Grand Holiday Plan. I added a category for budgeting our gifts, and another for actual amount spent. The spreadsheet also allows me to add up our “budget” and our “actual spent” categories so I can see how close I am to staying on budget. With our adoption on the horizon, I am already on the lookout for deals on holiday gifts!
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The plan also suggests working on a list of addresses for mailing Christmas cards. Fortunately, I maintain an electronic address list, so I am already one step ahead. It was nice to look over this week’s tasks and see that I already have some of the initial tasks completed or underway.
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As for the deep-cleaning part of this week’s plan, the focus was on the front porch. I found a friend on the front porch this morning – this praying mantis pictured below. We thought our daughter would like to see it, since she enjoys the DVD, Milo, the Mantis Who Wouldn’t Pray, but I think she prefers the animated version because it’s a little cuter. Oh well…the same thing happened when Dave showed her a real caterpillar. She was so used to seeing Hermie and thought the actual caterpillar was a little too small!
