Um...what's happening to our food budget??

I just have a few random photos to post before I head to bed. I haven't downloaded the camera in a few days, and I need to get around to doing that tomorrow. (Maybe?) These pictures were taken before it turned cold again, and now our Haitian kiddos are freezing. Adah wants the water WARM before she washes her hands, but we're trying to convince her that waiting for five minutes for the water to heat up is not good for the budget. Somehow I think she doesn't get that. Daniel was making fun of her whining to get her to laugh, saying, "Wah wah wah - dlo fret, wah wah wah - dlo cho," and she thought it was HILARIOUS. (dlo-water, fret-cold, cho-hot) She repeated it over and over in the van on the way out to piano lessons this afternoon. And when Shiloh exited IHOP this evening and whined about being cold, Adah chimed in with, "Shi-loh, wah wah wah - fret!" Yep, she's catching on to English really well, since she understood what Shiloh was saying in English and managed to make fun of her in Kreyol with that knowledge. :)

And speaking of the budget, these kids are eating their way through it! We're being very careful not to let them overeat while still letting them know that they can have plenty of everything, and they are both champion eaters. We planned to go out for Indian food tonight, but it was CLOSED (*sigh*) so we ended up at IHOP. When we were done, everyone's plate had been cleaned. Adah and Abigail helped me with my pancakes, Jackson and Nathaniel helped Shiloh with her eggs, Nathaniel helped Daddy with half of his meal, and Cora helped Jackson out of one pancake. Everyone seemed to have enough by the end, but next time we're ordering Nathaniel his own meal. On Saturday he will have been home for two weeks, and I think he's gained weight in that two weeks. He's scrawny, so that's a good thing. We have to beef him up for his hernia surgery in January. The surgeon told us that it was not going to close on its own because it was too large, so he's going in in January.

In other totally random news, our neighbors across the street are returning with their new daughter from China in two days!!! We are so excited to see them. The reason we were out and about tonight was to get to the party store to decorate their house for the homecoming, and the girls are thrilled about the lawn sign we found announcing, "It's a Girl!" How neat that we are sharing this experience together. We have commiserated with one another about the length of the weight (21 months for the both of us), the problems with USCIS, and the problems with international adoption in general. If our government and the governments involved would listen to us, we would have the problems solved. :)

Oh, and I don't mean to make everything here sound all peaches and cream all the time. I really must learn the Kreyol words for "please stop whining!" :) Our spunky, opinionated daughter decided that she wasn't happy that we told her not to climb her sister's ladder to the top bunkbed. She decided she was so unhappy with us that she would not eat her lunch, and when lunch was over and put away, she then whined that she didn't have her lunch. Ah, Adah, you shall soon learn that you are not dealing with amateurs and we love you too much to let you get your way all the time. And besides that, haven't you heard of rule number three in the Houseworth house? :) Don't worry, anyone who thinks we're heartless since she just came home just under two weeks ago...we gave her plenty of snuggles, kisses, backrubs, and funny faces to cheer her up. She just wanted to whine. She quit whining to hear a movie I put on and then resumed whining when it was over thirty minutes later. That cracked me up.

Okay, I REALLY have to go to bed now. We have a full day tomorrow.

Love,

Casey