SO negligent!

I have been so negligent in posting to my blog, and I'm sorry. It's time to pick up the (keyboard) and put it to (...screen?) and just make it a near-daily thing.
Tonight I got to see Sebastian. We had a fantastic visit, thanks to the new care provider, a friend from church. He finally had a proper coat on, thanks to a friend of the care provider. We have been wondering when he would actually have a coat on for this whole winter. We made the pasta that I had made last weekend, and a pumpkin pie with crumb topping for the crust on the top and bottom (recipe below). We did his homework and played a game called 'Go Fish' with plastic fishing poles and 22 fish in a rotating game board that makes their mouths open and close as they go around. It takes some skill! Sebastian got to learn about winning and losing properly. After three rounds where we had a tie, a win and a lose between the two of us, I explained that I was happy when he won, so he should learn to be happy when I win. He gave me a hug and said he would try. He loved the pie so much that he had seconds and took the remainder home to the care provider's family. The care provider was very very happy about the pie and the homework help, and I thanked her for being the one to care for Sebastian, because she was really wonderful when she was volunteering as the nanny over the past year. She works for the church, and reads stories to Sebastian, and has him talking about God again, instead of talking about Wii and XBox and getting beat up by his brother. I was so apprehensive before, but it really is wonderful. I will be sad when she can't care for him anymore, as she can only keep him for a couple of weeks.
Now on the other side of the topic, I found out that my mom betrayed me by allowing the boys father and family to have visits outside of the permission of Social Services. They seem upset with me that I won't allow my boys to go live with the paternal aunt, who is a casual meth user and sued me for protecting Ethan from his father when we had a restraining order. I feel so violated that she did that. And to top it off, she abruptly moved the children out so she could return to Montana, without more than 2 changes of clothes. She returned about 1/8 of the kids clothes to me, and kept or donated the rest. One thing they didn't have any shortage of was clothing.
I got to see the girls on Tuesday, and both were sick, dirty and hungry (they must have played well at daycare). They have been sick for most of the year. Since they've been moved, they were a little antsy and Abi threw a huge fit for about 5 minutes. I dealt with it very nicely. :-) Good thing since I'm out of practice.
That's about it! Hope to see you tomorrow or the next day!

Crumb Topping for a pumpkin pie.
Make your regular pie filling like you always do. We like pumpkin, but apple, other fruit pie fillings, and some puddings work. Chocolate pudding tastes funny, but cheesecake, banana cream and, in a really odd mood, citrus flavored pie fillings are good.
1 c. flour
1 c. packed brown sugar
1 stick of cold butter.
Sometimes I add cardamom or cinnamon.
Cut all together with a pastry cutter until it resembles crumbs. Works great in a food processor, but the butter melts. Press 2/3 to 1/2 of it into a pie plate, bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees.
Fill the pie plate with pie filling. Put the rest of the crumb topping on top, spread out to cover nicely. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or 450 for 30-40 minutes (it only took 30 for mine, but it was pretty shallow).