So how's the adoption going?

I'm celebrating!  Our last piece of homestudy paperwork has been submitted!

We should see a rough draft of the homestudy next week!

Things are starting to come together in other ways, too.

One friend loaned us this changing table.  

I made the blanket; it's similar to the one I made for Hannah, flannel front, minkee back.

Another friend gave us this dresser.

Which just happens to match my dresser, which is nice, because it's in my room.  

I made this little shirt and bow set.

I am putting it up in my Your Adopt Shop storefront.  I figure if it sells, GREAT!   We are going to be paying immigration application fees soon, and every little bit helps.  If it doesn't, then Katie can wear it.  

Katie's top drawer.

When I was a little girl, my mom lined my drawers with the wrapping paper from her baby shower presents.  

This tissue paper was used to package something I ordered for Hannah from Totsy right after we brought her home, and it was so cute, I kept it.  

Since ladybugs are a symbol of hope in the Chinese adoption world, it seemed very appropriate to use it for Katie's drawer.  It makes me smile to see ladybugs peeking out from under Katie's little pile of clothes.

I hate to ask, but, please, please take a minute to click the box below.

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Weekly Wrap Up, homeschool week 5

Hola!  Viva Mexico!

This week is week 5 of our curriculum.  The children were issued their "passports" on Monday.

This week and next week, we are studying Mexico.  

Our craft this week was these lovely Ojos de Dios, or God's Eyes.  

We learned some Spanish words, including colors.

This is timely, because Josiah is taking Spanish in school this year.  

Because I tend to take a theme and r-u-n with it, we watched some Netflix movies about Mexico.  From educational movies, like National Geographic, to, um, less educational movies.  ;)

A friend mentioned Little Passports on facebook recently, and I was intrigued when I checked them out.  They send a package each month with a different country that their characters are visiting, and you can learn more about that country.  Well, that corresponded really well with what we're doing for school this year, so I thought I'd give it a shot!  I emailed them because we would be needing our countries more than once a month, and they were great to work with.  (Our curriculum highlights each country for two weeks.)  

Brianna is unscrambling letters to find the name of a country.  

And one of the fun things about Little Passports is the toy/craft/game they send in each packet.

We also got to put the Mexico flag sticker on the map, and add Mexican flags to their flag holders.

In science, we're studying deserts.  So we drew turtles and used thermometers to discover whether our turtles were warmer in the sun or shade, and near rocks or not near rocks (and accidentally "in plants" or "not in plants" when one of the turtles that wasn't weighted with a rock blew off the porch rail).

We checked our turtles several times over a 24 hour period.

And recorded our findings.

Meticulously.

Isn't her haircut cute?  :)  I look silly in short hair, but she really pulls it off.  

And she was impersonating a school kid when we walked Hannah to kindergarten.  Hannah had left her backpack in the van (she tends to fall asleep in the van after school by the time we get the big kids and get back home) and Brianna retrieved it and wore it.  

Hannah was not amused. 

On the way back from taking Hannah to school, we stopped at the park to do nature drawings.

Which rapidly turned into "PE."

Or maybe even "survival skills."

I'm really enjoying these guys this year.  

This crazy project is going to take multiple days.

Bits of newsprint

Slimy starch

Letting it dry well between layers. 

I love "catching" my kids doing something that could be labelled educational.  :)  This was just free block play.  

Looking forward to next week's tissue paper flowers, and Brianna and I are going to try to get into the sewing room and make a poncho or two.  

And because it's fun to read about what OTHER homeschool families are doing, I'm linking up with some other MFW blogs here:  http://discovertheirgifts.blogspot.com/2012/09/mfw-creation-to-greeks-week-1.html  Check it out!  

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Your click on this box may help drive more traffic to my blog.  Which means more people who will see our fundraiser page and possibly help us raise money for our adoption expenses.  You can click the box once a day.  Thank you!  

Another Update on Paul

Today marks 5 weeks since the accident.  Paul's recovery has gone very well, and he's been released from physical therapy with full range of motion.  He heads back to work tomorrow on Light Duty.  Please be in prayer for our family as we adjust.  This is the longest Paul's been off work, ever.  (His paternity leaves have ranged from a few days to a month, depending on his job and our circumstances at the time.)

We were really counting on overtime to help pay for our adoption, so this has been difficult for us, financially, but we're trusting that God will provide.  I'm planning to add more homeschool items and more hand made items to our Your Adopt Shop over the next few days.  If you can share our blog fundraiser page with others, we'd really appreciate it!  Thank you!


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Your click on this box may help drive more traffic to my blog.  Which means more people who will see our fundraiser t-shirts, necklaces, coffee, and Your Adopt Shop storefront.  You can click once a day.  Thank you!  

Perspective

A friend recently posted a picture of her "big family" on Facebook.  I laughed when I saw it, because she and her husband have four kids.  To me, that's a nice, medium-sized family.

When I had Zachary and Annaliese, my grandmother told me I had, "One of each, a boy and a girl, a millionaire's family, made to order."

When we had Josiah, this same grandmother consoled herself by saying, "Two boys, an heir and a spare!"

I sent her a birth announcement after Sam was born.

At my grandfather's memorial, I showed up great-with-child (and I really can't remember which, but I *think* it must have been Eli).  She spied me across the room, scowled and said in that "old people who speak louder than they realize" sort of way, "She's having another one?!"

Now that I'm older and wiser (snort) I realize it was about perspective for her, too.  She had 2 bad marriages.  Her first husband had an affair with her best friend.  Her second husband was an alcoholic who had a hard time keeping a job.  She struggled like heck to raise her 2 kids in dirt poor conditions. At the time, I didn't see it.

It's merciful she went to heaven before we started adopting, because she was very narrow minded and racist, and would never have understood us adopting a "crippled" "commie" baby.

This isn't meant to be a "bag on grandma" post.  It's about perspective.  Understanding that what seems normal to us may not seem normal to someone else, and vice versa.

This hit home for me this morning.  I follow a bunch of blogs.  Friends, adoption, foster care, large families, etc.  As I was scrolling through new posts this morning, I came to one picture that just looked institutional to me.  I found myself thinking, "Twelve kids!  That is a ginormous family!"

Hello, pot?  This is kettle speaking.  You're adopting #9.  You just convinced your husband, against his better judgement, to have the homestudy written for 2 kids, "just in case."  You, my friend, are every bit as much of a freak, it's just that your kids aren't all under the same roof at the same time.

I'm sure I have friends who think we have "a ginormous family."  But, to me, it's normal.  I can do 7 kids.  I've been doing 7 kids since Furby was born, with the exception of the 9 months between when Zach left for boot camp and when we traveled to pick up Hannah, when we only had 6.  (Only 6 kids.  Are any of you laughing at me?)  Since Annaliese is so close to spreading her wings and leaving the nest, it's likely that the overlap between Katie coming home and Annaliese leaving (if any, depending on adoption timelines and Ese's plans for next school year) will be fairly short.  The dynamic will change, but the number of people in the house doesn't actually swell that much.  I'm still counting the same number of heads on outings, still doing the same amount of laundry, still buying the same amount of groceries.

Perspective.

This whole convoluted thought process is a good reminder to me to not be so swift to make judgments on those whose choices are different from mine.  I know I hate feeling like others are criticizing my choices without seeing things from my point of view.

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Homeschool Week 4

I'm really enjoying homeschool this year.  

Part of the reason is because I don't have 2 kids fighting All Blessed Day Long any more because one of them is in school.

I'm also liking having us all learn and do TOGETHER.

This is our second (and final) week of learning about the United States.  

Did you know, that you can use 4 crayons/markers/colored pencils to color a US map and not have two touching states be the same color?  

It may take a couple of tries, but it can be done!

Eli is hiding his self inflicted black eye (it's really a cheekbone bruise).

Third time is the charm (with a little help from sis).

We also made Calder mobiles.  

And Greek bookmarks (we're reading the book of Matthew in the Bible, and it was originally written in Greek).

 

And today, we did Navajo inspired sand paintings.  

Which is awesome, because I bought all this craft sand YEARS ago, and we never use it. 

Their first pictures were things a Native American might draw.

Bri was a master at mixing colors.

Her "turquoise" looked like a globe before stirring.

My sand painting (excuse the goofy "are you going to take the picture??" look) 

Then they decided to start making whatever they wanted.  

With Eli, that always includes explosions of some sort.

Furby made a flag

 

Brianna's painting has hot colors on the left and cold colors on the right.  

I think one of the biggest reasons I'm enjoying this year is because I'm learning along with the children.  Having taught the SAME curriculum for 14 years, I was pretty sick of the same stories, the same projects, the same lessons.  

In a snit once, I remarked, "This is not about what I know, this is about what YOU know!  I've done first grade 6 times!  I know this material!"  It occurred to me that I didn't sound all that bright, if I had to do first grade half a dozen times!  

However, MFW is keeping me on my toes.  I'm learning to lay out all the books we'll be using the night before.  I'm learning what I can delegate to Brianna (like choosing two art projects from several options).  We're getting into a rhythm with our spelling curriculum (story and pretest Monday, 2 pages Tuesday and Wednesday, journal on Thursday, tests on Friday).  

If I could just read ahead a *bit* farther in the lesson plan book, so that I could have things on hand when we get to them, that would be great.  Once we pick up some yellow cake mix, Bri can make our "America" food:  New England Pumpkin Cake.

Trampoline Update

They like it!

They've been on it every day for the last week.

ALL of them, from Annaliese down to Hannah, are happy to have it.

Sure, there have been a few tears and mishaps.

This guy gave himself a black eye with his own knee, lol. 

But overall, I'd say it's been a great investment.  

Even if it does make me a little nervous sometimes.