November

Where did this month go?

Overall, this has been a good but quick month for our family. 

We had our second post-placement report with our adoption social worker. 

Ivelina also had her second check-up since being home. This time she was screened for tons of stuff which meant several vials of blood were drawn. She also got caught up on her immunizations. She was a trooper through it all!

We finished up Ivelina's psycho-educational testing and had our first IEP meeting at our local school. We discussed a placement for her for next year IF we decide to place her in public school. 

We celebrated our first Thansgiving as a family of three!
We also celebrated two birthdays; our dog turned 8 and Jeremy turned 35!

Much to Ivie's delight, we put up our Christmas tree. This girl LOVES Christmas trees, especially ours. 

Ivelina also got to meet Santa (probably for the first time.)

Jeremy celebrated 35 wonderful years on this earth!

Like, I said, it has been a fun, busy, and very fast moving month for our family.

Here are a few photos to represent our month:

One thing we focused on this month in home school was recognizing and spelling Ivelina's name.

Ivelina coloring in her life-size body.

A Pinterest idea for a puzzle that I actually pinned and then tried with Ivelina. She loved it!

I thought about doing a separate post this month about Ivelina's "Big Body," but I never got around to it. As a part of doing Letter I and a week all about her and her name, we traced Ivelina's body on large paper. She is really into anatomy, so I drew all kinds of different bones, organs, and such. Ivelina colored it in. We cut it out, and Voila!  "Big Body" I never knew this simple activity would bring a whole afternoon of play. "Big Body" played with blocks, watched TV on the couch, took a nap in Ivie's bed, and we made paper clothes to pin on it. It was basically a life size paper doll! 

"Big Body"

Just Big Body taking a nap.

Our little turkey doing some Thanksgiving crafts.

My little family at Thanksgiving lunch.

After Thanksgiving lunch, Ivelina got to take a little tour of the fire station down the road where my cousin works.

She saw six fire trucks, got to sit in three of them, and got to wear a helmet, or "hoomet," as she likes to say.

Our dog Josey received a new bed for her 8th birthday, and she loves it dearly.

We celebrated Jeremy's birthday and Thanksgiving together this year at Baba Gran's house. Ivelina helped make cookies.

I learned about a little place only 15 minutes from us with a free walking Christmas lights display. The family who runs it gives out free hot chocolate to every visitor, and Santa is there!  Ivelina loved meeting him, and she promptly asked for the most random things I'm sure he heard all night:  bath duckies and a crocodile.  lol

Merry Christmas a little early from Ivelina