Families with Children from China CNY event

Yesterday was a special day.  It was our last chance to celebrate the new Year of the Horse.  It was a day to make new friends and enjoy Chinese culture.

Katie and Hannah started off with some coloring.  The girl helping Katie lives here in town and goes to Sam's school.  My bigger kids, Eli & Brianna, had fun hanging out with her, and some of the older kids.

 Coloring horses.  It was so nice to see other families like ours, with a mix of white and Chinese kids.

These 3 kids did a sword dance.  Very cool.

Sam photobombed the picture I was trying to take of Luke.

Jack looks on while Sam and Eli try out the dancers' swords.

Brianna showed off her Chinese yo yo skills.  She asked me to bring her one of these from China when we adopted Hannah.  Even though she has her own, she doesn't play with it very often, until she comes across one in a social setting like this one.

Fortunately, it seems she hasn't lost her touch!

The kids got to make dumplings.

And eat candy.  Somehow I missed getting any pictures of the lunch, which was awesome.  Eli and I could eat chow mien almost every day and not get tired of it.  In fact, when we got in the van to leave, Katie said, "I love noodles."  Me too, baby girl.  Me too.

Sam got a little bored during the performances.

Personally, I really enjoyed them.  There was a violinist, an accordion player, some traditional Chinese instruments, and even a dancer!  I wish I could have gotten better pictures.

The Chinese food and Chinese music makes ME homesick for China.  I can only wonder how the kids are reacting on the inside.  Is it just a fun day?  Or does it stir up memories, echos of another life?

And the ever popular "group shot."  My big boys were off and playing, so they're not included, although they were welcome, which I appreciate.  There are about half a dozen white kids in the picture.

I commented to another mom, "Reminds me of the Red Couch pictures."  (You'd have to be a China AP to get the reference.)  She said, "Yeah, there's always one screaming."  Whoops, that was Luke.  I handed him to Brianna, and he did a little better.

See the little girl in the red shirt in front of Brianna?  SEVEN YEARS her parents waited for her.  They were LID before Hannah was even born, and they came home a month after we brought home Katie and Luke.  I cannot even imagine.  One year made me crazy enough, thank you very much.

The girls stenciled some bookmarks with characters.  I helped Hannah by outlining hers, then letting her color them in.  There are a lot of brushstrokes on some characters!

Luke likes Paul's mustache.  Paul usually checks to make sure Luke's hand is dry before letting him do this.  Luke was starting to lose it by this time, and we ended up leaving because he was screaming.

Okay, see the little girl with the blue dress and pink bow on the other side of Hannah?  She's close to Katie's age, and her hands are also affected by ABS, or amniotic banding.  We had the coolest moment where Katie and this little girl were checking out each other's hands.  It was very sweet.  I love giving Katie a sense of community that includes other kids like her in more ways than one.

It was a lovely day with other adoptive families.  I hope that our FCC group becomes more active.  I think most of my kids (not just the littles) would enjoy more events like these.


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Weekly Wrap Up 24 with Field Trip

This was a fun week that culminated in a fun field trip!

I'd collected enough boxes for the kids to get out their box play connectors again.

Brianna made quite a structure for herself and Katie.

Who really IS having fun in there.  

I found this Ancient History memory game on zulily.com (affiliate link).  

From Aqueduct to Zeus, we had fun chasing people and places around the table.

Great Wall and Great Wall, it's a match!

Eli was dragging a bit as we started, but after some lemon oil, he perked up.  

Brianna won with the most matches.

I was actually really surprised to come in second!  My memory is lousy, so Eli was ahead of me during most of the game.

Checking out all the cards was a great conversation starter.  

Eli got a new bundle of paracord.  I talked about his obsession a bit HERE.  

The new pieces inspired him to replace the tattered box he was using with this one and organize them in color groups.  He made me a pink & red bracelet for Valentine's Day.  

The weather got nice enough for us to do some of the outside activities we've been putting off in the rainbow science kit from Magic School Bus.  

The kids looked for rainbows on bubbles.

We determined which card (black or white) would be warmer when left in the sun, and why that is.

And that shiny thing in Eli's hand is a blank disc.  He beamed us all in the face with the sun, probably learning something about reflection in the process, and we looked for rainbows on the disc.  

I let the kids have some time to just play with the contents of the science kit, which is outside my comfort zone, but was a good experience for us all.  

Eli is reading aloud from his new spelling program.  Review coming soon!  Not sure why he decided he needed to read standing on a chair.  

And Miss Brianna has a new piece of jewelry to show off!  

When we were in China adopting Hannah, I bought her a pearl bracelet in Beijing.  It got broken, and in the last 3 years, many of the pearls have gotten lost.  Brianna has a friend in the neighborhood who is a jewelry designer, and she asked for some help recycling the remaining pearls into something she could wear.  This lovely piece is the result.  

There was a Chik Fil A fundraiser for Sam's school this week.  Paul didn't want to take Luke out (I can't blame him; Paul spent most of his birthday outside the restaurant, walking Luke) so I took the 4 older kids by myself.  I worry about how this is affecting our family.  

Friday was our field trip!  When we arrived, I discovered an extra blessing:  The handicapped spaces in Old Sac are not metered!  Both my girls have placards, and I suppose when Luke gets his wheelchair, he'll be eligible for one, too.  

The sky was overcast, and we did get dribbled on a little, but I cannot complain, because California REALLY needs the rain.  

Side view of the old schoolhouse.  It's a recreation, built in the 1970's to resemble schoolhouses of the 1850's.  Although there wasn't a schoolhouse like this inside city limits during that time period, there were several within the county.  In fact, we learned that they usually placed schoolhouses about every 6 miles because it wasn't reasonable for children to walk more than about 3 miles each way for school.  

We joined 7 other homeschool moms and their children for a trip back in time.  You can see framed photos in the back.  Many of them are class photos, others are photos of actual schoolhouses.  

Girls sit on one side of the classroom.

Boys sit on the other.  

The docent did a great job explaining everything from the wood or coal stoves used to heat schoolhouses, to the chores the children would have been responsible for at home, to the period clothing the students would have worn.  

He had many of the students read aloud from McGuffy's 3rd reader, and even had them work some word problems on their slates.  I was inspired by one of the lines the children read aloud, so I came home and looked up the readers online and discovered that they are available online at Project Gutenburg.  This is the one we read from in class.  My students will be doing their handwriting practice from there next week.

They also got to pull the rope for the school bell.  I imagine the residents and shops nearby get pretty tired of school groups ringing the bell, but surprisingly, it was not as loud as I expected it to be.  I'm guessing they've muffled it somehow.

After the tour, I snapped a few pictures, and then we went to the candy store across the street, where the children were given...

...chocolate covered crickets!

According to Eli, they weren't bad.  

Adventurous.  I did not try them.

After our group broke up, the kids and I walked around Old Sac for a while and stopped for photo ops in front of various monuments.  

Somewhere, there's a picture of me and the 7 oldest kids in our family, when Jack was just a tiny baby, on this bench.  Almost 10 years ago, wow.  

For some reason, Jack kept thinking it was funny to hide behind his soda can during pictures.  Color me unamused.

Ev-er-y time we pass this side street, the kids are compelled to point out that it was the hill where Child X biffed it while trying to Heely down the hill.  

We walked past a bear made of Legos that had been entered in the fair.  Something like 80,000 Legos, I think?  

And from the other camera... What Eli built while I was reading aloud one day this week.

Bub is sporting the little cardboard cutout that comes in a pair of TOMS shoes.  TOMS were on Zulily recently, and Bri needed shoes, so she got a pair.  I like the way you can see his reflection in this picture.  

Sam came home from school one day this week with a headache and proceeded to crash out in front of Veggie Tales or something that the little kids were watching.  I covered him up after I took the picture because he looked cold.  

And this was Jack Jack after walking around Old Sacramento Friday.  Eli mentioned that Jack hadn't been feeling well, so I dripped some oil on him while he slept, and he came to find me a little while later saying his skin was burning.  Oops.  So much for not disturbing him!  

Next week, we're going to learn about Solomon (I even queued up a movie from Netflix that loosely ties in) and about Elijah.  I also have a St. Patrick's Day craft planned to try out.  

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