Travel Group Reunion

Betsie, Julia, Abbie

These little princesses were all born within 10 days of each other and lived in the same orphanage for their first 10.5 months.

A little over 2 years ago, six families from all over the country shared one of the greatest adventures ever...the journey to China to meet ~ and adopt ~ six orphans from the Hunan Province. Our journey together began with a really LONG layover in an airport in Chicago, followed by two weeks of sight seeing, memory making, scary traffic, assertive street vendors, laughter, prayer, lizards, chicken knuckles, and tears.

On Saturday, for the first time since that great adventure, three of those families spent the day together in the Atlanta, GA area. It was so special to see how the babies, now preschoolers, had changed and grown. It was fun hanging out with people who became very dear to us two years ago. And I was so happy that I got to introduce my other two girls to them as well as meet a few of their family members as well. I can't wait for the next reunion (in Florida, right Heather?)!

And Now...The Smile Award

(Laura, Nikki, Michele, Candace, Amanda, Deleise, and Heather P, scroll down to the I Love Your Blog Award post.)





Sheri also nominated me for this award:

This award comes with another set of rules:

1. The recipient must link back to the award's creator. (It's on the award.)

2.You must post the rules to receive the award.

3. To receive the award, you must pass it on to 5 others.

4. You must fit the characteristics of the award recipient. (below)

5. Post the characteristics of an award recipient.

6. Create a post sharing your award with others.

7. Thank the giver.

And here are the characteristics of award recipients.

1. Must display a cheerful attitude (not all the time - we're all human!)

2. Must love one another.

3. Must make mistakes (This must be what helped me get this award.)

4. Must learn from others.

5. Must be a positive contributor to the blog world.

6. Must love life.

7. Must love kids.

I am passing this one on to Heather (who I get to see on Saturday!), Leslie, Jill, Marcy, and Hollie.

Now on my To DO List: Accept and Pass on Blog Awards!

Sheri has given me TWO blog awards today. I would pass these on to my husband, but I am guessing he'd rather me not.



Here is the first award. I'll do the second one in a separate post a little later:

The rules for the I Love Your Blog award are:

1. Link back to the person who gave you the award.

2. Include the award on your blog.

3. Pass it on to 7 worthy bloggers with links to their blogs on yours.

4. Notify your recipients

I am passing the "I love your blog" award on to Laura, Deleise, Michele, Nikki, Amanda (who thinks no one reads her blog and who tagged me for another post but I haven't done it yet...HA!), Heather P, and Candace.

Monday To Do List

Let's see how much actually gets done...

1. Change the sheets on Mary Evelyn's bed.
2. Have the girls clean all the junk out from under their bunk beds! (Gonna start that as soon as this post gets published.)
3. Help older girls pack for a night at Mimi and Papa Bill's house.
4. Go to meeting for new co-op and get pics made for the security system they have there.
5. Deposit check from Betsie's birthday.
6. Drive girls to my parent's house.
7. Usual daily maintenance of laundry, dishes, etc.

I'll let ya know!

Our First Break

We are now officially taking our first break from school. We completed our first 6 weeks on Friday and will be off for the coming week. I have made a to do list a mile long. Actually, I made an index card for Monday through Friday and wrote on each day what I hope to get done this week...things like shoe shopping for the girls, a haircut, going through all the kids' clothes and figuring out what fits, what can be tossed or given away, etc. Always a big chore. Lots to do.

Even with all that I hope to accomplish next week, it feels SO GOOD to have 6 weeks of the new school year under our belts just as the schools here are starting back. We have had a great start. I wish I could show some of what we did, but now even my cell phone is acting weird so I can't even use that camera! When we start back, we will study Canada and then Brazil before we take another break.

Other recent blog-worthy highlights are:
1. The birth of a new niece! Jason's brother and his wife just had their first baby (a girl) last week.
2. I was able to spend Tuesday with a friend that I had not seen in 8 years! We had been quite close from college on into early married life but then lost touch about 4 or 5 years ago. It did my heart good just to laugh with her over some of the funny memories we share.
3. We went to my grandmother's 87th birthday party today. Jason took some pictures with his phone so maybe I can post some of those later. My poor grandmother was not able to recognize many of us as her memory is so poor now, but I hope she felt loved as we celebrated her life and influence on all of us. I had a wonderful time catching up with aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.
4. We are planning a Disney World trip in a few monhs with my parents, aunt and uncle, and my siblings and thier families. Have you ever tried to make dinner reservations for 19 people at Disney World? Crazy!

Devotion Time

We are studying the book of Matthew. I thought this was a sweet scene in our home tonight so I went and grabbed the phone for a picture (camera still not working). Sorry for the grainey looking photo, but this made me smile tonight.

What Would You Tell A New Homeschooler?

One of my friends is about to begin homeschooling. Her child has already been in school, so if you have experience pulling a child out of school and then beginning to homeschool that would be great! I know sometimes that is different than starting with a pre-K or kindergartner.

I suggested trying NOT to be overwhelmed with the gazillion choices for curriculum and joining HSLDA, but I am wondering what others might suggest!

Got any special nuggets of wisdom for my friend? I'll point her to this post if anyone decides to comment with suggestions.

Thanks!

Hanging Out at the Library

Where would we be without our library? And where would the library be without all the books we help them buy with our late fees?

Happy 3rd Birthday Betsie!

These pictures are from first thing this morning. Family is on their way over here now for cake and ice cream...more celebrating to come!

Week 3 of Exploring Countries and Cultures

Well, I really wanted some good pictures of the girls doing their various assignments and projects this week. Unfortunately, even though the camera battery is in good working order now, the lens won't open. So...if you don't want to read about our school week, I understand. Visuals are so much more fun.

School is still going so well. I can't believe the difference in last year and this year. The hard parts are not necessarily gone...I just feel that God has given me some tools that help. And he has let me be encouraged enough to persevere. Today was probably our hardest day yet, but still, we hung in there and got our work done. By the way, when I say hard day, it is never about the academics...always about the attitudes or atmosphere in the home. Or the interruptions. Rachel answered the phone today during school and by the time I was able to get off the phone, Mary Evelyn had left the white board where we were reading and headed into the back yard. Those kinds of things do not help. I think we are clear on letting voice mail handle calls during school from here forward.

In our Bible time this week, we read about D.L. Moody from the book Hero Tales. I love this book now. I tried to use it a few years ago, but I think the girls were too young. We are really enjoying it now though. We also began a biography of Cameron Townsend. It's really good too.

For geography we began our journey around the world right here at home...the good ole USA. The girls can identify many more states on a blank US map than they could just a week ago. For science, we focused on deserts (and will for a few weeks to come). We'll continue to hang out in the states next week, plus we'll have guests! My nieces and nephew are coming to visit so they may be doing a little summer school whether they like it or not! (They are wonderful so I am sure it will be fun...better check and see if I have enough craft supplies though!) We will also celebrate Betsie's birthday next week.

One final tip of the "here's what is working for us" sort. In the past I have often saved the fun school stuff for last. We would do the least favorite thing first in an effort to get that thing over with. This year I am finding the opposite to be working. We started this morning by completing a floor puzzle of the United States together (a fun activity). It helps get all of us in a better mood from the start. We ended with the least favorite subject. With Mary Evelyn, it makes her work a little faster and keep her focused. I can remind her that if she sticks with me and finishes up, she can go play. It works so far! Just wanted to share in case it helps someone else.

Beautiful Girls

We had each girl's picture made recently. They were all so good. Here are just a few of the ones we bought.

I don't know how to make these look better since they had to be scanned. But I love the pictures and the girls in the pictures. I'm so glad we had Betsie's picture made pre-haircut. And that is Mary Evelyn's dog Foster with her. Notice he is all dressed up to match her! And Rachel is becoming such a grown up beautiful young lady!

Starting Strong

I know that the real test will be in finishing strong, but for now, I am SO thankful for the way our school year has started. Tomorrow will be day #10 and I am very pleased. Rather than blog about the details of our week (which are pretty similar to week #1 except that I botched a science experiment and had to majorly adapt a craft project), I want to post about why this year seems to be working so much better than previous years.

1. Bribes - There you go. You think I'm kidding? Last Friday the girls had ice cream for LUNCH from Bruster's because they had 5 good school days in a row. Not sure yet what the reward (better word than bribe) might be tomorrow, but if all goes well in the morning, I need to come up with something really soon! Maybe we can just go swimming or something like that.

2. A set start time - We have started each day at approximately 8:45 (with a couple of exceptions) and that has helped tremendously. Consistency always helps but I am not always so great at providing this important element. But we have done well for 2 weeks and I can see how valuable consistency really is!

3. Keeping the girls together for most subjects. This is the biggie for me and it was one of the main reasons I switched to My Father's World. Last year I felt like I was doing two different school times. (I was.) I taught one and then the other. Then I did one level of Five in a Row with one child and another level with the other child (on a good week!). So if I was trying to teach Rachel, I had two other children to possibly interrupt or get into mischief or whatever instead of just one. Keeping the older two together for most subjects means only Betsie has to be directed. And most of the time she is working out of her own little school box. I did remove the scissors from there by the way. I am going to post our general routine at the bottom of this post.

4. Tons of prayer. This should probably be first. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to be nervous about this year. It sure sent me to my knees! And God has been so faithful to allow me to see some fruit already this year!

5. Staying off the computer until the afternoon. And staying off the phone too. My Father's World recommends giving your children your undivided attention in the morning. This seems so obvious, but I confess that I have not always done this. I would get started checking email and then maybe blogs or whatever else. And what were the girls doing during that time? Drawing, collecting bugs, fighting, playing together, watching TV (which they are not supposed to do until after school but who can blame them when I was being such a poor example?). We always got school done, but sometimes not without a fight since I often had to drag them away from something they were enjoying! I think this is one of the essentials to my being a better manager and teacher this year. I blew this the other day (not too bad) and I saw how big of a no no it really is.

Okay, back to #3...I have so far found a few things that have helped me manage to get most of our work done in approximately 2 hours in the mornings. So here is our basic morning routine for school as an FYI to others who may be using My Father's World with two children. It's a routine, not a schedule, so I am just listing the general order that we usually do things.

• Geography. We do this part together.
• Math. This is where I found something that is WONDERFUL! Teaching Textbooks has allowed Rachel to be an independent math student so I can work individually with Mary Evelyn. Mary Evelyn uses Right Start which requires me to be right there with her. It is SO COOL to get math done with both girls in one shot. If one finishes earlier, I have an amazing ability to make her review like crazy until the other is done allowing us to keep going with our little routine.
• Handwriting practice. So far they have just been practicing the letters of the alphabet with Handwriting Without Tears but soon they'll be copying character qualities from Hero Tales.
• Science. We do this together. If there is no science in the schedule for that day, there is usually art or something like that to do together.
• Now I split them up a little. Rachel has book basket time while I do language arts work with Mary Evelyn. Then Mary Evelyn has book basket time while I do language arts work with Rachel. Language arts includes spelling, language lessons, phonics lessons, etc.

All that can be done in about 2 hours. In addition to those two hours, they have some independent reading time in the afternoon. (as in sit somewhere comfy and just READ a book!) And in the evenings we do the Bible lessons/devotions and read chapter books to the girls. That takes quite a bit of time and is a nice way to wrap up the day. But it's all included in the lesson plans.

We have several more weeks before we take a break so I am still praying hard. I really want to be a good steward of the time I have with my kids. So many things easily distract from our school time so I am trying to be very protective of our mornings. I can't wait to see how much more we all learn next week!

Long Overdue Pictures

Maybe you remember this post, where I said that we had pulled the carpet from the big girls' room and put up bunk beds. At the time my camera was not working so I couldn't post pictures. So this post is simply an update. Please overlook some of the messies in the picture. We live in this house!

Jason ripping the carpet out of the closet. There are hardwood floors under there!

Rachel helping

The bunkbeds are here!

And here is where they will go!

All set up!

And here they are a month later. Rachel has created quite a space up there for herself with shelves, memory board, a lamp, and who knows what else!

This is the rug I ordered after we removed the carpet. It is more purple than I expected so it may end up in Betsie's room after her carpet is taken out. (Her walls are purple.) But for now it looks fine and cuts down on the stomping!

Week One Exploring Countries and Cultures in My Father's World

We had a great first week of school. We went a little light on the three R's and will hit those a little harder next week. I wanted the girls to enjoy their first week back so we focused on the fun stuff. We did still do math, spelling, handwriting, reading, etc...just not in heavy doses and a lot of it was review.

We started our week last Sunday night with the first Bible lesson. We talked about how God made and loves ALL people all over the world. And we began learning John 3:16 (which was new to Mary Evelyn but review for Rachel). On Monday morning we prayed together and went on a prayer walk around our neighborhood. I wanted the girls to see that God loves the people all over the world AND right next door too! Plus I learned from our experience with occupational therapy that some kids learn better after some physical activity. (We always start Mary Evelyn's math lesson by counting to 100 while she swings as high as she can on the swingset!)

Our curriculum is My Father's World and we are doing year one in their five year History cycle. It is called Exploring Countries and Cultures. It is a year long geography course which serves as a great basis for learning history in the coming years as well as giving children and parents an appetite for world missions. (Those of you at North Hills know this goes perfectly with our summer World View curriculum for kids...so cool!)

These first two weeks are an introduction. We are learning about maps in general as well as learning the names of the continents and oceans. We talked about hemispheres, the poles, directions, and the equator. The cool part is that both girls memorized the names of the continents (thanks to a catchy little tune!) and can locate them on the map!

One of our fun activities was making the poster pictured above. Rachel wrote John 3:16 out for us and the girls cut out pictures of people from National Geographic magazines. They also put a small picture of our family on there. This poster will be displayed above our world map in the school room for the whole year...it's the theme of the year.

The girls also enjoyed our science this week. Probably because they got to draw, one of their absolute favorite things to do! Three days this week, I read them a couple of pages from the Usborne Living World Encyclopedia. Then they got to illustrate something they learned and write some sentences about it. I have heard some complain that there are not enough science experiments in Exploring Countries and Cultures, but I was never great at that anyway so this is just the right pace for us. There are SOME experiments (we have one or two next week actually) and the geography is very hands on, so we are happy as can be. With all of that and science at our TWO co-ops, I think drawing is just perfect...and about all I can handle! Their science drawings get filed into the science section of their notebooks. We'll also have a nature journal, which we will work on weekly.

This is Mary Evelyn's picture of a gecko from one of the science lessons. She dictated her sentences to me.

A world map that Rachel labeled with the oceans and continents. We'll add to it next week.

There was more but those are the highlights. I joined the My Father's World blogring so I will try my best to blog about our school year. If you prayed for us last week, THANK YOU! I was a little anxious, but it went so well.

Stay tuned this weekend for updated pictures of Betsie and the haircut that takes your breath away!

How Can A Little Girl Break Her Mommy's Heart?

By giving herself a haircut! All three of mine have done this. And now Bestie has done it twice. But tonight's is by far the worst of all. Time is the only thing that can repair this hack job I'm afraid. You can laugh, but not too hard. And we have a family reunion AND an adoption travel group reunion coming up! Big heavy sigh...

Doesn't she look awfully proud of herself?

(I considered using my prayer request and for sale tags for this post...)