Holidays Approaching

I haven't written much lately as I have been busy running around. Everyone had appointments this last week along with me getting some shopping done. Is it me or has everything doubled in price since last year. We usually do a great big Christmas. I don't buy toy's throughout the year and we don't do big gifts for birthdays. I stopped doing big birthdays after I realized some kids were getting the short end of the stick. For example in January the kids who had birthdays wouldn't get as much because we had just had Christmas and everything they had (with in reason) wanted was given at Christmas. But by March when we had our taxes back the kids who had birthday's got a much bigger gift. So we decided to just do smaller birthday's all together. That way everyone was treated fairly. And believe you me, they keep up with what is fair. I've had one to even count her gifts to make sure she got the same as everyone else. It didn't count that some cost more it just has to be the same amount. She is older now but at 10 that was so important to her. Same kid got upset because she didn't have the biggest piece of cake at her birthday. Which is traditionally the way we do it. The birthday kid gets to cut their own piece of cake. Well her peice of cake was about one fourth of the cake and I made her cut a normal piece of cake. The next kid's was a little larger and BAM! We had a meltdown on our hands. I think this all ties into not having enough as a young child and not being able to do anything about it. This is just a small problem that is dealt with when you adopt and older child. They suffer so much before you get them that it takes a long long time to overcome not having enough, being cold, being hungry, being scared, and on and on. I could write a post about each and everyone of these issues as we have dealt with all of them. Most have overcome, some still are working on it.

Christmas is such a happy time for our family. The kids do have some acting out behaviors due to missing birth families and not knowing what could have been. I love Christmas and I think my attitude rubs off on the kids which helps them to overcome some anxieties. I'm going shopping just picking up the best deals and beating the Christmas rush. I still haven't bought my turkey for Thanksgiving! I have the ham and most of the trimmings. So I'm off to shop, one of my favorite things to do!