Dennis' First Thanksgiving

Dennis has been home for 10 months now, but this is still his first Holiday season with us. He was very excited about Halloween last month, and while not quite as excited about Thanksgiving, was still pleased with the holiday. He is now asking every day if it's Christmas!

 

The preparations for Thanksgiving began the evening before when Dennis had some fun with the left over apple skins from the apple corer peeling machine.

This will be apple pie tomorrow, Dennis!

He didn't actually participate in the cooking, however he does like to hover near whoever IS cooking and at least feels like he's part of the fun! One of the many great things about D's personality is that although he sometimes cannot physically participate in some of the things, he is more than happy to just stand by and enjoy the fun anyway! Always has a big smile on his face!

 Dennis prefers the big sisters ... and he is the preferred brother as well!

 Amber and Dennis getting ready to go outside and ride bikes.

 He doesn't let a little thing like him being on a trike while the girls are on bikes slow him down! He seems to understand his limitations, but does not let that effect his joy in life!

 "I'm gonna get you ..."

 Skidded out when Mama moved out of the way!

 Look, Mama - no hands!!! (Taking after Ashley)

Amanda & Dennis by our newly planted Christmas tree that I won through Dutchman Tree Farms online.

This goofy face on Dennis is because he kept saying "I'm big" and wanted to show Amanda how to jump from the ledge onto the rings. He made it, but didn't try it a 2nd time!

 "My baby" he says, but in reality Princess is Ashley's baby!
 

 "MOVE IT ASHLEY"

"Mama, I'm driving"

 Dennis and me with the very last of the fall leaves - 

everything else is bare bones!!

Getting ready for turkey time!!

Dennis' first round - he liked the turkey and had more, but they all had to have just a small scoop of everything to try it first. Notice his hand on the Matrinelle bottle? Each person at the table had their own bottle!

Gus got some leftovers, too!

Some more Thanksgiving Day Fun!

Not sure what the deal is with #1 and #3 being party poopers!

You can read more about our Thanksgiving fun on Amber's blog here:

http://piecesofmyheartukraine.blogspot.com/2011/11/first-thanksgiving.html

and see all the pictures on Facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2687464067275.147298.1276629484&type=3

Photo Journal

November 2011

Ashley & Dennis @ Ruby Tuesdays after family portraits

 Ashley & Dennis @ the sushi place for Amber's 1 month adoption celebratory dinner

As you can see, Dennis is the brother that Ashley prefers - and he clearly does not mind!

 Amanda & Dennis "helping" me put the food out for Amber's welcome home party

 

First Halloween

For Dennis' first Halloween, he chose a Spider Man costume. Sam wanted the black Batman (aka, The Dark Knight). We looked at the options on line and that's what the boys picked. I took Amber to Party City to buy the costumes. (Amber starts school next week). They didn't have them, so after we bought butterfly for Amber and a fairy one for Amanda, we went to Target and found the right ones for the boys. We also bought about 10 bags of candy and 5 pumpkin buckets for trick-or-treating.

Amanda as a fairy princess

When the day/night came, they actually had school that day, we had take-n-bake pizza for dinner and then they dressed up as quickly as they could!! Dad took them to the community center for trunk or treating and then went to our friend Jamie's house and walked around her neighborhood. They hit a couple of homes in our neighborhood, but it's not big on trick or treating.

 Sam & Dennis being goofy doing action shots

Mom held down the fort at home. I only had about 5 groups of kids come to the door. I think the barking sounds coming from inside our house helped out a lot!

All 5 - Angel, Spider Man, Bat Man, Fairy, Butterfly

Upon their return home they dumped all their candy out on the table and were given until 9:00pm (almost 35 minutes) to eat as much candy as they want/can. This is a tradition handed down by my mother-in-law so as to avoid any more candy being eaten in the following days/weeks after Halloween. My husband was all over the idea. And, since we have candy stealing issues in our house (won't name which members of the family), I agreed that it was probably the best plan.

 See the parallel post on Amber's blog here: 

http://piecesofmyheartukraine.blogspot.com/2011/10/first-halloween.html 

 

The rest of the Halloween photos are on FB here: 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2567921838794.144567.1276629484&type=3. 

Watch the Halloween/candy eating video posted on youtube: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4V0N3THC4c&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 It is really funny!!!

But, what's even funnier is the Jimmy Kimmel Live video about parents who told their kids they ate all their candy!!! Watch all the way to the end, the last two boys are HILLARIOUS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YQpbzQ6gzs&feature=share

SNOW IN OCTOBER!!!

Throw that snowball D!!

My apologies for not having updated the blog very much; my husband mostly took that over since we got home in January. We've been a bit busy as of late. If you aren't aware, we went back to Ukraine in September to adopt a girl we hosted over the summer, named Anya. While she is not Dennis biological sister, Snezhana, she is from Ukraine and speaks Russian with him. He likes her alot! :) If you'd like to read about our journey to adopt her, go over to my blog here: http://piecesofmyheartukraine.blogspot.com/

Dennis & Amanda ready to go play!

Anyway ... back to the point of this post! Yes, is it October 29th and we had our first snow of the season today!!! My mind is a little foggy about if we had snow in January of this year, but I'm thinking we didn't. Sometimes we have snow in early spring and its still on the ground at Easter. I'm not thinking that happened either! At any rate, this is the first snow of the fall/winter season and unusual for Virginia to have snow this year on in the season.

We had to dig through the boxes in the basement to find our snow clothes that we'd put away from last year. Since we didn't have any snow yet, we hadn't bought D any snow pants. In Ukraine I had bought him snow boots, so we got those out and they still fit!

I was unsure if Sam's snow bib would fit D or if D would end up wearing one of Amanda's pink ones (she has 2)!! Ended up that Ashley's brown ones we could cinch up by the straps well enough for him to use them - wheph!! So, they bundled up and went out to play.

 Dennis & Amanda making and throwing snowballs

I have a good excuse for not being outside this time. I have a broken bone in my foot, so I'm in a walking boot for now. I took most of the pics from the cozy house, but a did venture onto the porch for a few!

I think Dennis loves the snow! You can view all our snow pictures on FB here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2558644646870.144192.1276629484&type=1

First Pumpkin Carving

Even if you don't participate in Halloween, it is still time for pumpkins and harvest, and then Thanksgiving. Of course they already have Christmas decorations up in the stores!!!

  Amber helping Dennis with the pumpkin carving

Dennis came home in January, so this year has been and will be year of firsts for Dennis. We started with his birthday party in January, then Valentine's Day back in Feb, followed by first Mother's Day, Easter, Father's Day, 4th of July (during which his sister was being hosted by us), first day of school, and now we have arrived at Halloween.

Brian took the kids to pick out their own pumpkins. Sadly, not from a pumpkin patch, but from the Giant grocery store. Pumpkin carving kids, complete with sample images to use, were also purchased. After watching all the other kids choose their images and create jack-o-lanters, Dennis chose a cat for his pumpkin carving.

Due to his CP and lack of fine motor skill set necessary to puncture holes or use the small cutting tool, Amber carved his pumpkin while he watched. Thankfully Dennis has a very laid back personality, so his physical struggles do not usually frustrate him very often. Today was one of those days and he was happy to just watch while she crafted a cat for him. At one point he tried to help and accidentally knocked off the cat's tail - oppps! Dad to the rescue used a large staple to re-attach the tail back on the cat.

If you're interested, the rest of the carving photos are on FB here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2556193905603.144105.1276629484&type=3

Bunny ears go with everything, if you're from  Ukraine!