What a great week!

The girls had a really good time at dad's house Monday-Wednesday evening.  Heather, our behaviorist, went by Mike's house Wednesday morning and helped him put up a dry erase schedule like we have at our house and helped trouble shoot any issues they could think of.  But all in all, the girls had a great time and by the time I saw them Wednesday evening they were significantly more stable and in a better place than when they do one night over nights.  Nixi was frankly psychotic, hallucinating, tilting her head back and half closing her eyes to only focus on me and not the visual hallucinations of "bad guys going to eat her" while we chatted, but still "stable enough" and that's just our life.  Nonetheless, it was a relief that they were in a good space and that led us into a really peaceful and wonderful Thanksgiving!  My trip to the Sequoias was relaxing and rejuvenating.  We were all in a really great place for Turkey Day.

First thing in the morning Safi asked for the Thanksgiving poem they wrote in school and proudly recited it for me and sister.

During the day we made baby snow owls out of pine cones from my trip and hit the store because Nixi decided she'd like scrambled eggs for dinner.

Safi had a few mini meltdowns over some attitude issues but was able to get it together and apologize on her own for being a butt.  After quiet time the Safi wrote both her and Nixi's lists for Santa.  It was adorable, "So Nixi, what do you want from Santa?"..."Oh, that's a good one!  Anything else?"  Very sweet.  We all ate together at the table...Safi with her quesadilla, Nixi with her eggs, then quesadilla because she had to change her mind again, and me with my corned beef and veggies.  Afterwards we put up our tree, built a fire, and danced to Alvin and the Chipmunks music courtesy of DJ Safi and her tablet.  It was just all really lovely.  The next day we hit the dollar store and bought a ton of Christmas decorations and spent the day decorating the tree and anything that didn't move.

 Ok, maybe we also decorated some things that did move....

The girls spent the weekend with dad, staying over both Friday and Saturday nights.  So far so good.  They came back tonight excited about their first Christmakkuh gifts and seem to be in a good place.  Our Elf on the Shelf made his grand entrance at dad's, taking their Santa list back to the North Pole and leaving Safi Legos and Nixi a Minnie Mouse vacuum cleaner.  Update:  Just put them to bed and they were pretty wired.  I'm hoping that tomorrow isnt a crash and burn day as they'll both be in school.  We shall see.  But I still see an improvement over the one night a weekend at dad's so I'm optimistic that they'll have a great day tomorrow and a good week overall.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and kick off the holiday season!

Sarah