Homeschool Weekly Wrap Up - Kenya week 3

It was really hard to get back into the school routine after 2 weeks off for Christmas break!  We're still not functioning at top homeschool speed, but we did manage to get through the entire spelling week for all 3 students, which is a challenge at the best of times, so I feel somewhat accomplished.

Kenya is one of our Little Passports countries.  

The kids wish that EVERY country was a Little Passports country.  

The "treat" included in this package was a notepad.  Which is not very special at first glance, but I'd have to say this has been a popular one after all.  This paper is made from ELEPHANT POOP.

They had a great time handing it to the teens when they got home from school and then telling them what it was.  

This week we made clay safari animals.

This is Jack's, um, rhino? hippo?  I honestly can't remember.

He took the picture himself.  

Not sure why they pouty face, Eli was pretty happy with his lion.

The clay was a Christmas gift from grandparents, and ALL the kids enjoyed creating with it.  

This is Annaliese's elephant.

And the rear view.

Samuel had a silver anteater going.

Making our Africa collage on the inside of a grocery bag.

And the finished product.  Now I know why the teacher's guide says to collect magazines and photo-heavy junk mail.  World Vision and Voice of the Martyrs publications have been helpful for this one.

Shhh!  Don't look now, but Brianna is helping Sam with a cooking homework assignment, and they appear to be getting along for the moment.

Back away slowly.

Eli is writing Brianna's spelling words on her back, and she's guessing them.

Hannah is off track until February, so she's been spending a lot of time playing with her new Christmas presents.  She has a great imagination, and it's pretty funny to hear her chattering away in her room while we're doing schoolwork.  

What's this?  The flag of PERU??  In Kenya week?

Well, if you remember the single-origin chocolates I picked up from Trader Joe's before Christmas, it makes a little more sense.  I printed the kids packets to learn about the various countries represented. They finally got tired of waiting for to eat the chocolate and asked if they could start without me! 

So I let them do the Peru pages and eat the Peru chocolate.  It was a hit.  I imagine they'll be working on Ecuador soon.  

Have I mentioned that I really like our Spelling Curriculum?

We've made our words out of Cheez-its crackers, letter tiles, and Wikki Stix.
We've drawn them on siblings, written them in sidewalk chalk, typed them on the computer, written them on white boards, and made them into crosswords.  It sure beats the "write your spelling words in a sentence" every single week that I grew up with.

Next week, we're on to Saudi Arabia!
We may take a little detour into Qatar, as Zachary has been there, and we think Zach is pretty cool.
I wish there had been more than ONE African country represented, but I know we'll get plenty of Egypt next year when we do Creation to the Greeks.

  Thanks for voting us back up to page 2!  Every click counts!

Chinese New Year

We just took down our Christmas trees.  It must be time to look forward to the next holiday, right?  For many families, that's Valentine's Day, but for us, the next holiday is Chinese New Year.

I knew we were getting close when I got an email from sanrio.com with a link to this:  Hello Kitty red envelopes and more.  Cute stuff.

Another email came from Panda Express:  where you can sign up for their Year of the Snake educational materials.

Finally, Oriental Trading Co. came out with a catalog featuring all their CNY "stuff."

Our family will be sending Katie a Chinese New Year care package, through one of the services that has sprung up to help adoptive parents connect with their waiting children.  We will learn about CNY and celebrate our child who was born in Year Of The Snake (I keep typing "Snack" lol.  Freudian slip, much?).  We will, of course, eat Chinese food.  I'll probably dress Hannah in her silks and take pictures.

I'm curious how other families who choose to celebrate CNY do so.  Leave me a comment and let me know if you acknowledge the holiday or not, and what that looks like for your family.  Also, LMK if you have any favorite children's books about Chinese New Year.




Please click for us! Thank you!

This week's baby Katie picture

I think I missed a week in the holiday craziness, so I'll post TWO this week.

This picture is the other one from the volunteers referenced in a previous post.  The lady holding Katie is a nursing student.

 And this one is from when my agency was there in May of last year.  I can't wait to stroke those sweet cheekies and get to know her personality!

I've been tracking our dossier on the DHL website, and it made it to Hong Kong, so it should be delivered in Beijing in another day or two.

Something I read recently reminded me that I can celebrate every day during this awful waiting time because each day we are one day closer to getting to Katie than we were the day before.  That is so encouraging to me.  God knows how long our wait is going to be, and however long that is, today, it's one day less than it was yesterday.






Thank you for taking a second to click for us!  We've slipped to the 3rd page of blogs.  I'd love to get bumped back up to the second page, as this site is a significant source of traffic for my blog.  Part of fundraising is exposure, right?

Somewhere Between

It's coming out on DVD soon!  

Paul and I had a chance to go see this while my carpool kid from Zach's days at BCS was home from college for the holidays.  He babysat the clan for us while we went out on the town.

The movie highlights 4 teens adopted from China, being raised in various parts of the US.  One of the girls found her birth family on a return trip to China, which, of course was fascinating to watch.  I think we will see more birth family reunions as Chinese adoptees come of age.

It was also neat to watch some of the opportunities the girls had.  They talked to adoptive parents in Spain, fellow adoptees in England, and adoptees from Korea who do not support international adoption.  

Paul and I both enjoyed the movie, and it was thought provoking and discussion inspiring.  It made me miss China!  We went for Chinese food after the movie and had plenty to talk about.  I would suggest that all parents with internationally and/or transracially adopted kids see it.  

Thanks for clicking for us!  :)  

Most excellent adoption news

Six months, 2 weeks, and 1 day from the day Paul looked across the table over fish and chips and said to me that fateful word:  YES.  Today marks the biggest milestone since that day:  DTC, or Dossier To China.  All the paperwork we've been compiling is finally on it's way.

Realistically, it's about the half way point, time wise.  Emotionally, this is huge.  From here on out, it's just a matter of time, money, and a few more pieces of paper back and forth from both China and immigration.  The next thing to happen is we should receive a Log In Date.  This is when China says they've received it and put it in line to process.  This generally happens in about a week.

This is it!  I'm so excited!  I can RELAX, knowing that there's nothing I can do until we receive our LOA from China.  That's taking a couple of months these days, so I am telling myself not to even think about it until after Valentine's Day.  (We'll see how long that lasts, lol!)

Celebrating!




  Thanks for clicking for us!

I guess it's back to the grindstone

The thing about homeschooling is, you're always learning, even when it's not a school day.

Over Christmas break, we've been learning how to care for turtles, 

thanks to Sheldon, one of Annaliese's Christmas gifts.

(Isn't he the cutest thing??  I'm smitten.)

And we added to our collection of Wedgits this Christmas.

When Zulily had them on sale, I couldn't resist.  I picked up a pair of Building Boards and a purple starter kit to go with the primary ones we already had.

Brianna discovered a way to make structures that stick together.

Math skills, right?  Problem solving?  

I had high hopes of things I wanted to accomplish while we were "on break."  

But we didn't.

And that's okay, too, I guess.

The kids had fun playing together, and that's what counts.  

I leave you with this poem I was thinking of last night as I contemplated the return to homeschool today:  

I will not yell in class.

I will not throw things.

I will not get mad.

I will always be good

Because I am the teacher ...

I am the teacher ...

I am the teacher.

                                   --Author Unknown

From the Sewing Room

A friend asked me to sew costumes for a play her girls are in.  

The only 8 year old body in my house is a BOY, so he was not delighted to model for me, lol.  

Not pictured are a brown skirt and another apron.

Brianna recently finished a quilt.  She hasn't decided yet if it's going to be for Katie or for Project Linus.  I used to make blankets for them every year, but I just don't sew as much any more.

Hannah had pajama day at school recently.  

Like any good Sewing Mama, I whipped these up the night before.  Felt strange to get her up and tell her to change from pajamas... into pajamas.  

Hannah has probably a dozen of these little peasant tops I've made her in size 4, some, from before we even got her.  This is a size 2, for Katie.  I have a feeling it will be the first of many, too.  

I order my kids' jeans online from Old Navy.  I had a $5 "reward" to spend recently and found these cute little ruffle butt leggings for $3, so they were essentially free when I was ordering other stuff.  Once they arrived, I took them into my sewing room to find a print with that shade of turquoise in it.  I happened across this print that my friend Suzanne had given to Annaliese years ago.  It was perfect.  

Bloomers I bought on clearance, and another peasant top.  I may may a little white eyelet sundress to go with these bloomers, too.  The top seems a little bright to me.  

And yes, another peasant top.  I'm more about production than variety, I guess.  

When I saw this Ruffle Butt diaper cover on Zulily in China flag colors, I had to have it.  Unfortunately, Katie had nothing to wear with it.  I kept thinking I'd find some cute little t-shirt to go with it, but since that hasn't happened, I pulled out some old striped PRR fabric and made this instead.  

I was recently searching the sewing room for some PUL for a friend.  I didn't end up finding any, but I did find some Valentine knit that inspired me for Hannah, and something cute for Katie, so hopefully I'll have a chance to get those things cut out soon.  It feels good to be sewing again after such a long break.  I used to make the vast majority of the kids' clothes, and I do love seeing things I made in the laundry.  

  Thank you for taking a moment to click for us!

New Fundraiser!

CLICK BELOW!

worthyoftheprize.com: January Chosen Child Family!

After 3 totally unsuccessful fundraisers (Scentsy, 31, and Adoption Bug), I've been feeling a little like my efforts aren't having the desired results.  However, in the last few days, I've not only been featured on the above blog, but also had 2 friends make donations to our adoption fund.  It's such an encouragement!  I need to "keep on keepin' on."  

I'm working on 2 adoption grant applications now, so we'll see where those go.  Please pray that God would open and close doors as He sees fit.  

In the meantime, we'd love for you to visit Worthy of the Prize and consider purchasing a Chosen Child wristband or a Chosen necklace from CAP Creations.  If you can take a moment to share either our blog or our fundraiser page, that would be great, too!  Thank you!  We so appreciate your support.

  It only takes a second to click for us!  :)

Hannah's Visit at Shriners

Today we went to Shriners to see Mr Rick.  He's Hannah's prosthetist.  

Hannah is getting a new leg soon, that will have a different type of knee.  

The leg she has now has a locking knee that she can unlock when she sits down.

The new leg will have a knee that bends when she walks.  She'll probably fall more in the beginning, as she gets used to it, but better to do it now, while she's still close to the ground, Mr Rick says.

The first step in this process was casting Hannah's stump to make a mold for Mr Rick to build her new leg around.  

This involved a lot of waiting, during which time, Hannah surprised me by showing that she knows all her letter names, and most of the sounds they make.  We passed the time coming up with other words that start with those letters.  She has learned SO much this school year!  

Hannah did not care much for the casting process!  

They put on meshy "tights" first, slip a rubber tube down the side, then wrap wet, pre-plastered gauze around and around her.  After it dries, Mr Rick cut it off through the rubber tubing.  

Then we went to the play room, where the older kids got to brush up on their Spanish skills and kick it old school with a Nintendo 64.  

Hannah likes to ride around in these Little Tikes cars while her leg is being worked on, because it gives her easy mobility.  During this time, her leg was getting lengthened and patch on the inside was being ground down to accommodate a place where she'd grown and was rubbing uncomfortably.  She has a "perma-bruise" going there.  I hope this gives it a chance to clear up.  

I talked to Mr Rick about how her knee joint put holes in all her pants.  Seriously, every single pair of pants she has has holes in the right leg.  Some worse than others, but it's maddening to take new pants out of the wash after the first wearing and see how much the holes have unravelled.  He was able to come up with a possible solution for us.  She now has a strap velcroed onto the back of her leg over and under the knee joint that will bend when she bends her leg.  Hopefully, the strap will take the abuse, and the pants won't have to.  In theory, we might someday be able to pass pants down from Hannah to Katie, if this works.  Presently, they all end up cut into shorts after a few wearings.  

The unfortunate news is that Hannah is facing another surgery at some point.  

This has been mentioned several times before, but today was the first time I really "got" what they're hoping to accomplish by it.  Mr Rick thinks they may STAPLE her growth plates to allow her stump to straighten out as she grows.  Otherwise, she's looking at a more complicated surgery to straighten it out all at once.  Unlike if you or I had an above knee amputation and was left with a straight stump, Hannah actually has a jumble of bones including a knee and an ankle in there.  

Her x-rays are fascinating.  

So, the long and the short of it is:

We go back in two weeks for a test fit of the new socket.  

After that, Mr Rick will build her new leg.

She may need a few physical therapy appointments to help her acclimate to it, and then again, she may not.  She's pretty adaptable.  

We see her surgeon in March.

At that point, hopefully we'll have a better idea of the time frame for our China trip.  

MY ideal, would be to do the surgery before we leave, so I don't have to be away from home overnight right after Katie comes home.  BUT that's without knowing how long recovery may take, and how long she'll be unable to wear her leg.  It occurrs to me she'll need a new socket after the surgery, too.  I can't leave Hannah and go off to China while she's gimpin' around on one leg.  So later may be better.  Fortunately, it's not an URGENT surgery, but I'm guessing it will happen sometime this year.  

We already know Katie will need some surgical attention, too.  

I can easily see 2013 being another "Year Of The Surgeries" like 2011 was.

In 2011, Hannah had her foot amputated, Annaliese had eye surgery, and Zachary had skin graft surgery following bad burns.  

What I learned from that was to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Not to stress about the big picture, but to do the next thing.  And we got through it just fine.  All the pre-op, post op, follow up, therapy...  We did it.  

I made Hannah a little book after her surgery.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Start your own Shutterfly Photo Book today.

I'm going to have to get it out and start reading it to her again and talking about what's coming.  Hopefully this will help prepare her. Shriners has a great Child Life department, too.  They're really good about doing some play therapy and showing what to expect.

  Thanks for taking a moment to click for us!  You can vote once a day!

Slow and Steady

This is what I feel like, trying to get our dossier assembled and out the door.  It's been 6 months, 1 week and 2 days that we've been in process.  For-ev-er in the life of a 2 year old, really.

Yesterday, Paul and Sam made the trek down to San Francisco to authenticate the last piece that needed authentication.

Today, we took passport photos.  Fortunately, Staples is open on New Year's Day, so I was able to make the final 30 photocopies and take the whole mess to the post office.

It will get to our agency on Friday.  I am SO glad to be done with this part!


  Thanks for clicking for us!

I get it now

As a young homeschool mom, I never understood the line in the Christmas song, It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year that says, "And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again!"

I liked my kids.  I was with them all the time, and yes, sometimes I needed a break, but I felt that if they went to school all day, I'd miss them.  Besides, I was Doing What I Was Called To Do.  I was a Wife and a Mother.  Yeah, I had a lot to learn.

That was years ago.

Fast forward to now, when I've had a week solid of a high-energy teen boy who is usually in school.  Suddenly, it makes perfect sense to me.  I really am looking forward to school starting again.  I miss our routine.

Yet another example of how I've had to learn the hard way not to judge other parents for doing what works for them.

It's hard.  As moms, we have sooo many influences telling us what we should be.  In just the last few weeks, I've read (and maybe this is my problem; I follow too many blogs) that:

--I should be successful if I want my children to be successful.
Um, okay?  I'm not sure that success if what I want for my kids, and I'm not sure how one would go about defining what successful looks like.  Seems pretty subjective to me.

--The old idea of the Proverbs 31 woman is bunk.
This was actually encouraging until you get to the part where you're supposed to train your husband to praise you for everything you do.  If you've met my husband, you'd be laughing.  He's hard on everyone, and very hard on himself.  You do what you're supposed to do, not because someone is going to tell you you did well, but because that's what you're supposed to do.

--That we should do something about Russia's ban on US families adopting from Russia.
This is frustrating, because no one seems to know exactly what it is that we should do, just that we should do something.  I agree, but I feel pretty powerless.  My heart breaks for the families who have already identified their children, maybe even visited them.  God's heart breaks for those children left in bleak circumstances I can barely bring myself to contemplate.

Then there's the whole Pinterest thing.  I haven't given in to that yet.  I don't WANT another source of feelings of inadequacy, thankyouverymuch.  I don't want to see all the amazing things I could be doing if I wasn't sitting in front of the computer.  It seems like even facebook and blogs have become, "Hey, look how great I am!  I did this!" complete with pictures.  I'm just as guilty.  I've got a post brewing about the things I've been sewing for Katie.  I don't mind people saying, "Wow, she has All Those Kids and still finds time to sew!"  But the last thing I want is for some sad mama in the trenches of toddlerhood look at my blog and feel bad because there's just no way she could sew her childrens' clothes right now.

It's about seasons.
I've been the young mama.  I've walked in awe of mamas with large families.  I remember having "stamp envy" at a MOPS meeting where everyone stamped a blue heart for each of their sons and a pink heart for each of their daughters on their name tags.  My tag only had 3 hearts, and I remember gazing longingly at a mama with half a dozen hearts on her tag.  Now I'm in a different season, one where I have 8 children, with a 9th on the way, and sometimes a couple of extras.  

I remember meeting other moms who had babies in February of 1997.  We had a big meetup in Monterey, and I was so amazed at one of the mamas who had sewn her daughter's dress and matching hat.  I gushed on and on about it.  All the while, thinking, "I'm inadequate because I can't sew."  Guess what?  I can sew.  I just didn't know it at the time.

Paul and I watched 2 families in our small church in Santa Rosa adopt internationally.  I was fascinated, and I remember saying that I would love to adopt someday.  I'm sure both mamas pretty much laughed at me on the inside.  I was perpetually pregnant at the time; why on earth would we adopt?  At that season, when we were breeding like bunnies, and usually broke, it was laughable.  But here we are a decade later, doing just that.

We're all a work in progress.  There's a song I love, called I'm Not Who I Was that's a good reminder of this concept.  I look back at who I used to be and pretty much cringe in embarrassment.  And yet, we all have to go through those times to emerge with the wisdom of age.

If I were to add to a Mama's Set of Commandments, it would be something along the lines of, "Judge not, lest ye awaken later and find yourself doing the exact same thing you're looking down on now."  Like counting down the days until your teenager goes back to school.

 Thanks for clicking!  

New Katie Picture and Adoption Update

With all the excitement of Christmas, I missed posting a Tuesday picture this week!

My Katie girl!  What a little sweetheart!

I have mixed feelings about this picture.  On the one hand, I'm glad to see she's up and mobile.  On the other hand, I'm concerned that she's damaging her foot further by walking on it upside down.  I'm anxious to get her home and start the casting process to get it turned right side up.

We still have Hannah's walker, from before she got her prosthetic leg, so at least Katie will have that option available to her before she gets her prosthetic.  Mostly, I anticipate wearing her in a carrier or using a stroller when we're out, and that she'll crawl at home.  I'm not sure what we would do for shoes if she insists on using the walker outside.  But we'll happily cross that bridge when we come to it!  First we have to get to her!  

Paul took the bulk of our dossier down to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco the Wednesday before Christmas so we could have it processed the slower, cheaper way while we waited for that all-important final piece:  immigration approval.

I had emailed USCIS to let them know we were fingerprinted a little early, and ask if our case had been assigned to an officer yet, but I never heard back from them.  

Christmas Eve, we got an envelope from Dept. of Homeland Security.  I was so nervous that we'd gotten an RFE (Request For Evidence) and that there was some delay we'd have to address, but turns out, it was our APPROVAL NOTICE!  I was so thrilled!  

Yesterday, the kids and I took a photocopy of the approval notice to be notarized ($10) and then ran it up to the Secretary of State's office to be certified ($26).  Now, all that's left is authentication.  Paul will run it down to the consulate on Monday, and do same day service ($50) on this one piece, and pick up the rest of the documents that are waiting for us there.  

Once copies are made, we'll send off the whole thing (13 documents, plus photographs of our family, passport photos, and photocopies of our passports) to our agency on the East Coast.  They'll take a look at it and make sure it's perfect, and then send it off to CHINA!  

The paperchase this time around has been harder, emotionally, than last time.

I absolutely cannot wait for that dossier to be out of my hands.