Lesson Learned

Last night, I watched Harry Potter 5, as I have only seen the end, and wanted to see it all. The kids joined me (mom and dad were at the store) when it got dark outside. After a while, they started falling asleep, so we said a small family prayer, and they went off to bed. As I was tucking Dante into bed, he told me "Mindy, do you know why I dont like to watch Harry Potter before bed?"
"No Dante, tell me why."
"Because it gives me bad dreams"
So, trying to be comforting, I explained to him about how we can pray before we go to bed to not have bad dreams, and how if we have a bad dream, we can pray for comfort and to not have any more. He seemed to accept it, and went to sleep.
This mornong, Rachel came into breakfast and proceeded to tell us about a bad dream that she had. Dante piped up and said "you should have prayed to not have bad dreams"
I was both amused by his response and was pleased he listend and learned.

rantings

so, we got a call from rachel's dad (chirs) sunday night. he told us that his wife's family (the hawks) want to start taking rachel every weekend, and if we ever wanted rachel on a weekend, we would have to call them and see if it was okay with them, wich doesnt make sense when we have her living at our house anyhow. we tried to talk the hawks down to every other week, because we want to be able to see her on the weekends too, instead of just during the week, when we cant go and do anything fun with her (she would go with them from friday afternoon after she gets home from school, to sunday night at bedtime. all she has time to do here is go to school, come home and do her homework, and then its bedtime. we dont want to be just the disiplanarians, and have them be the fun grandparents. we want to be able to have some fun with her and see hersometimes too). they wont bend, and take her just every other weekend, so their other idea is to take her permanantly, for everything, she would be moving out of our house. one problem we have with that is that chris will be comming here in about six months. she's insecure about life as it is (hence the thumb sucking, as mentioned earlier), why move her twice, when she could be moved just once, when chris came. chris's wife (krystal) wants rachel to be able to spend time with the hawks's, to get to know them better. thats not a bad idea, but she's told us that she is kinda scared of her grandpa hawks (according to rachel, he is kinda big, and in a wheelchair, and thats what scares her), and she would be more comfortable getting to know him if krysyal was here, but krystal is in DC with chris (he's in walter reed hospital). another thing is that they have dogs, and rachel is allergic to dogs. apparantly when she went to spend the week with them over christmas, she was on benadryl the whole time. sorry, that shouldnt have to happen. are they willing to give up their dogs to have rachel come live wit them? the answer to that was no, they are going to keep their dogs, and just keep rachel on benydryl. a stupid idea, because she cant remember what she did over christmas from being on benydryl. her school performance would go way way down. the last issue we had was that rachel has been living here for about four-five years. over that time she's grown to be like a daughter to not just me, but to mom and dad as well. they want to take rachel in about...oh...a week. now, we were just getting used to, and were fine with the idea of rachel leaving to live with her DAD in six months. thats time enough that we can still have her, and see her, and all that. the thing about the hawks is that if she leaves to live with them, we wont ever see her again. they dont like her living here with us, and try and take her all the time. i think i've mentioned that we werent sure if she would come back after both thanksgiving and christmas with them. we know for a fact that if she were to live with them, we would never ever see her again. and then she's just leaving in a week?! oh, and to top it all off, (this doesnt really have to do with this subject, but i need to get it out) when she went to spend time with them over thanksgiving and christmas, the time they wanted to come pick her up was inconvienint for our family. they were NOT AT ALL willing to see that we cant really do it then, can you come pick her up at a different date and time? both times, we had to rearrange our lives to make accomidations for THEM and yet they never do that for US. ajslfjasdlfjasdlfjasdl;fja;sd lfjk! chuffers! sorry. anyhow, to finish this up, and not make it horrendously long, we want her to live here, and they can wait to have her (we would make acceptions for some weekends, but not every weekend) for the six months till chris and krystal get home, when chris and krystal will be living out near the hawks', and they can see her every single day if they want, and we will never see her again, but cant they wait for the six months? cant they see that those six months should be ours? chris was supposed to call last night to tell us what was going on, but did he call? nooo, he did not call. so now we are stuck wondering what is going on with rachel and everything else. grar

cookies

i'm so proud

sometimes, being rachel's "mindy-mommy" is a lot of fun. sure, there are times, many many times, that its been frusturating, but recently, its been a lot of fun, and she's made me proud.

as i've been looking for missionary clothes (not nearly as easy as you might think), rachel has come along to give her opinion, and then, just to be fair, we'll go and look at rachel sized cloths. lots of the cloths that they have out are immodest, and for the most part, rachel didnt, i thought, care about if it was modest, or immodest or what. but, she surprised me. as we were looking, she saw some really cute shirts and said "oh, those are cute mindy. but they are immodest." and she moved on to something else. one of the floor models they had was wearing a shirt, actually modest, but its shoulder had slid down. rachel, once again surpriseing me, went over and fixed it and then said "there. now she is dressed modestly" i was so happy and proud, and muchly plesently surprised.

not only has she been doing this with clothing though.

her dad and K, have recently made arrangements for rachel to go with her grandma and grandpa H to California over thanksgiving. when she found out that she would be gone over a sunday she asked her dad "is there a church in california?" me and me mum and dad were all very surprised to hear her ask it. we had thought that, especially after living with some of her parents, she didnt care much if she went to church or not. it was so exciting to be able to hear her ask that, and to show that she does care, and that she really would like to go, no matter what.

on a different note...

yesterday was the primary program. my sunbeams sat there so well! i was so happy that they were able to sit there and were as good as they were. sure, a lot of it probably had to do with the fact that their parents and grandparents were there, but one boy, KS, he honeslty doesnt know how to sit still, and he was sooo good! i was so proud to be there teacher.