Goodmorning World

I woke up early this morning and thought how I should use my time productively. Don’t you like how quiet it is in the world before the day really begins? Maybe only you morning people know what I’m talking about. You sleep-in people are just laughing. 😉

I could feel the crisp air outside, unseasonably warm, yet still cool. I didn’t even have to be out there thanks to large sliding glass doors. A train or two announcing their presence in the distance. Yes, the sweet sounds of morning.

The agenda today is one of delighting in fellowship. I look forward to spending some time with “the cousins” at a local children’s museum. We usually have homeschooling today, but thus is the joy of homeschooling that we bumped it to yesterday to accommodate a little over-due visiting.

As a gracious part of Matt’s parent’s Christmas gift to our family, they gave us season passes to a local children’s museum and then expanded the pass to include a whole host of nearby museums and attractions (like zoos) around the United States. Such a thoughtful and blessing-filled bunch they are, those Grandparents. “The Cousins” have a similar pass and thus play dates in the quiet mid-morning hours of the weekdays have spurred and continue to spur from such delights.

Last night I wasted a few hours on the couch beside Mr. Right, soaking in American Idol (really the auditions are the best part of that show) and “The Finder”. It’s not something I pride myself on doing, sitting and watching TV for two hours, but sometimes the cleaning and homeschooling prep is done and it’s nice to do something together. Hopefully we’ll get back to our Lego video games soon. =) It’s fun to whack someone to pieces (literally) in laughing play. I love how we can be “kids” together.

Read some encouraging reports on an old friend’s adoption blog. Ironically enough, I watched her children when they were younger than mine are currently. That’s one crazy thought that ages me. I’m excited to track their unification story as they bring home their newest family members from Haiti – a sibling group of three, adding to their bio three. Such a wonderful time of celebration and love.

Got report that my dear friend, Theresa, has malaria. Thank the Good Lord for medicine that makes Malaria common-cold oriented to dear African missionaries. God is such a good God to give those willing to serve “the least of these” a safety net too. Praying rest and healing over Theresa.

This weekend holds another Upward basketball game – this time scrimmaging my Matt. Hehehe. Let the competition begin. Kidding – that’s nothing like Upward. But we can sure pass silly glances back and forth during the game of “you’re going down.” My sweet little team is so pumped up to hear their names called and enjoy their moments of glory. Hoping my girls will be cooperative and kind to Mama amid their involuntary personal cheer leading recruitment. They’ve done decently at cracker and coloring book distractions amid my “coaching techniques”. (“Get on out there and play kids…. good luck, have fun!”) I’m proud of my “try to sit still” toddler and “I just want to be a part of it all” preschooler. They have had many examples of patience and grace from the “player’s bench.”

Hope you’re able to get out and enjoy this unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having. The neighborhood has been thoroughly graced with our “let’s take a walk” presence lately – let alone the park. Though I must say that as she is beginning to come into her own personality, Ms. Rachael, has voiced her “inside over outside” opinions over the past few days. It doesn’t change her UV ray needs, but alas, her bookworm character is almost fully emerged. I can foresee many book picnics in seasons to come for my pasty-white brunette. Oh, but Blondy? She’s too busy exploring all the new things she can do “all by herself” to slow down for any foolish indoor play.

We “rode” our bikes over at the church gym yesterday. My preference was outside. Rachael’s preference was inside watching a movie. So we compromised and we got indoor gym play. The bikes are only as fun as pedaling frustrations. But the bleachers? Oh they are a whole new level of joy. For 20 minutes there was bleacher play: walking the bleachers, crawling through the bleachers, crawling under legs on the bleachers. Repetition, repetition, repetition. And the joy thereof. Activity comes in all forms – I’m just thrilled for activity.

And speaking of activity, I better get my devotion time in because activity will be waking in an hour.

Thanks for sharing in this journey with me.

How have you been journeying lately?

February 3, 2012 0

Back Again

Well I’m back, with the darkage of computerlessness still ongoing, but finding refuge in “stealing” hubby’s work computer in the mornings and evenings. Christmas was wonderful, I’ll drop in a post specific to it’s wonders in a while. And New Years was…. well, normal for our little family of small children. We certainly weren’t staying up since our bunch would be up at regular time. And we figured our morning gales coming over the monitor would sound more like crows cutting into our beauty rest should we have chosen to stay up til the wee hours of the morning. So we grannied it. =)

I am quite happy to have visited with my dear friend, Theresa, as in “THE Will and Theresa” my missionary friends over in Jos, Nigeria. They visited back for “the holidays” and I got to steal me some time of “tell me about your world.” I’m sure they only had to explain their little world once or twice during their visit back to the States (wink, wink). It was so nice to talk about Jos as if it was in my backyard and also drill her about Jos life (sorry Theresa, hehe) without having to wait for an emailed reply.

Rachael’s 3rd birthday was January 5, which felt like an extension of the holiday called Christmas-New-Years. Funny how those seem to come back to back, as if the week between them just vanishes. I’ll post about Rachael’s birthday in another post. Afterall, the firstborn deserves her own post. 😉

But nonetheless, we are just started to get back to normal things here (minus Abi’s recent oogies). I have washed all the dolls, stuffed toys, doll accessories, and dress-up clothes in attempt to clear off some of the “to do” list before homeschool starts back up again. I also got Rachael’s bedding done and my pillow case and blanket. Now all I have to wash are Matt’s blankets/pillow case, our sheets, and Abi’s jumble of blanket heaven. I feel all accomplished because I tackled the pileS of baby/toddler clothes that needed organized into their appropriate storage bins and got the house nicely organized, putting up all the old baby toys and cleaning out the playroom over the “holiday season” as well.

So, alas, here we are at the tale end of cleaning frenzy and almost ready to swing back into homeschool mania! (By the way, I just LOVE the flexibility of homeschool!!!) WOOT!

January 12, 2012 0

Not Another One!!!

Yes, yes, I have another homeschool post. Buckle up, people, these may happen periodically.

I wanted to share a fun little project I did with Rachael. We made a book about shapes. Rachael worked very hard on this book, tracing and coloring in each of the shapes. On the backs of each page we traced and colored six of each shape (repetition, repetition, repetition). I don’t have pictures of Rachael making this book because between instructing and chasing down Abi as she “borrows” items from the table, I was a little busy.

But alas I share with you one of Rachael’s accomplishments:

Her book on Shapes.

These are each of the 8 pages.

These are the backs of each of the pages that had backs to them.

And this is what little-one does most of the time while we homeschool:

She loves her books.

The following two pictures is a placemat I made for Rachael to aid her identifying of numbers, shapes, letters, and her Bible verses. Since I couldn’t find a placemat that had all these things on them, especially not the Bible verses, I just decided to make one. At each meal she can decide which side of the placemat she’d like to face up, and accordingly we get to talk about and rehears that side of the placemat during meal prep and sometimes during the meal itself. Since Rachael just sits at the table nicely many times while we prep/serve the meal I figured it was a good time to use the captive audience wisely. =)

The front: Rachael’s 3 Bible verses. Believe it or not she know the top two and we’re working on the last one, “God is love”. She almost has it down. We put these verses to song and she picks them up lightning fast!

The back: letters, numbers, and shapes. Thus far she can ID A, C, E, H, L, and R (her name) and she can ID all the shapes (confusing some occasionally) and 1-10 with some confusion about 9 and the fact that 10 is ten and not 1 and a 0.

Proud of my little smarty and her excitement for exploring and learning amidst our day of fun and play. She is absorbing much and hungry for much learning too.

Thanks for checking out our little world.

November 14, 2011 0

Our Joy and Pride

No one prepares to be blown away… otherwise they’d hang onto something.

Homeschool has been trucking along with this Mommy creating random letter-focused practice sheets for Rachael to do and coming up with various other curriculum ideas and Rachael just going along for the ride. It’s been fun to be creative and watch Rachael’s discovery and pride in her accomplishments.

We have been slowly working on Rachael’s letters in her name each week. Repetition, repetition, repetition in tracing the individual letter per week, recognizing each capital letter in books and amongst other letters, and learning shapes, colors, and numbers along the way. I’ve been very goal-focused in targeting Rachael’s weaknesses (fine motor control) while blending them into her strengths (identifying shapes, colors and numbers). We’ve had our frustrating days (sigh) and our moments of victories. And then came today’s in which I found myself blown away.

We were sitting down to the normal homeschool with an audience of Abi and Rachael’s newest “goes with her everywhere” stuffed animal. We were working on squares today, Rachael showing off her advancements in fine motor skills over the past 3 weeks of focus and I decided to try it out… Rachael has learned the letters R, A and C (we’re working our way through her name – other letters didn’t really sick). Thus far we have only been tracing them because her fine motor skills are *ahem* “age appropriate”. This is not a problem, but I do like to challenge her. So I decided to try it out… NO DOTTED LINES….

And man did she blow me out of the water writing the letters she knows…

It’s so cool to see her advancements and her increased focus and hear her ecstatic laughter as she masters a skill for the first time.

– love homeschooling.

Some pictures of her work over the past 3 weeks:

Week 1: “R”

Week 2: “A”

Week 3: “C”

We had done other homeschooling prior to this, it was pretty light and didn’t focus on writing at all. Then we took a break from it for a while (helpful of homeschool) after I started getting my feet wet so I could reorganize and so life could happen. And then we started into a more “let’s get ready for our real written preschool curriculum for the winter” process which I have charted above.

But anyway, thanks for celebrating with us on Rachael’s great successes!

November 4, 2011 0

"…Going to Training"

My two year old told my one year old in the middle of her afternoon play, “You watch my babies and I’ll go to training and be back soon.”

Can you tell we’ve been doing our foster/adoptive training for a good while now.

And alas, I finished my last class tonight. Funny how 36 hours can feel like a lifetime.

The final class brings a relief and yet a bit of fear too. You see, God told us to get our license. So we have. We’ve tried to be good kids. But as we finish this process up, it’s kind of like standing on a cliff after climbing the hill in obedience. It’s not a fear of someone pushing you off, God has more love than that. But it sure gives you a thrill at God’s prospect of saying, “Jump… trust me…”

It’s like that moment at the top of a roller-coaster hill when you have that split second somewhere between, “This was a good idea, right?!” and “BRING IT!!!” It’s that healthy wondering of what the horizon will reveal.

So much change has happened to our family over the past 6 months, from no longer watching Lexi to temporarily watching Kevin, to God adjusting our plans multiple times and reminding us that He is more than capable of using any situation to grow and change our family, to babysitting Mom’s cats and then ending up adding one of the cats to our crew, to getting into the swing of homeschool and delighting in Rachael soaring in her learning. We just never know what’s on the horizon. And it’s so exciting not to have the “this will be out of God’s control” fear that comes from a lack of faith, but instead to have a butterflied feeling of excitement and anticipation for what we have yet to see.

It’s like holding your breath and trusting that God will instruct you when to breathe before it’s too late – even if it gets a bit uncomfortable at times. He knows what He is doing. And He sure is moving.

Matt still has a class to go in 3 weeks and then our collective training classes will be complete. We have our list of things still left to get done before getting the final stamp of approval from the county before sending the application to the State for a completed license. But with all that being said, our application/license should be complete around Christmas. Christmas, people!!!! That may feel a bit far away when you look at Halloween and Thanksgiving coming up first, but when you think about the fact that i have started Christmas shopping/looking….. eeeeeek, people!!!! That’s in a blink of an eye.

God is so good to us. God has blessed us so. And I’m feeling like a little kid in a toy store as this adoption process is becoming more of a reality. Whooooo! Stand back and check out what God will do…!!!!!

We’ll be standing beside you, checking it all out and applauding His Greatness,

October 20, 2011 0