Music in the Morning

Homeschool families work hard at providing enrichment activities for their kids. Here are Luci and J.T. entertaining me with some music before breakfast. (Did that sound snooty enough? Really, they found the flutophone and whatever it is J.T. is holding in boxes we were unpacking yesterday. They are trying hard to annoy me, and before I could get my morning cup of coffee!) Another find in the boxes yesterday--a big farmer costume left over from Halloween. Luci had a ball trying to walk in this thing.

It overcame Bryan and he couldn't stand up.
J.T. did a little better; here the kids are posing as American Gothic.

We cleaned up part of the garage yesterday, in order to be able to pull the van inside. (Don't tell John we cleaned out half the garage! It is a surprise. When he gets home from his Army training on Saturday, we hope he is happy with the work we did. He has no internet access where he is, so I don't have to worry about his seeing this blog before he gets home.) The garage is still half full of boxes, but gradually we are putting things away in the house and some things go into the basement. I managed to find a van-full of items to take to charity. Better to bless someone else than fill up the basement with things we will never use again. Oh--and I ought to tell you that I don't ever, ever de-clutter any personal items of John's. He knows his junk (oops, I mean possessions!) is (are?) safe.

J.T. found a cap of John's and the kids all posed in it. (Yes, we keep his current cap in a box in the closet, well-protected! This is an old one.)

Cute, but somebody shut that door!
Did anyone hear me? Shut the door! Oh, my goodness--I sound just like my mother!

First Hair Cut

We finally got Luci to sit in Miss Rita's chair without screaming and squirming. We talked about getting her hair "done" for a few weeks, and Luci kept telling me she wanted Rita to put a bow in her hair. So, armed with a lollipop (Luci's never, ever had one) and a pretty blue bow, Luci willingly climbed up in Rita's chair Friday.

St. Patrick's Day

Our Children's Museum is celebrating all things Irish...and have limericks in their art room. Here is one I posted on their big bulletin board two weeks ago, and the director of the museum told me today that they all love it--even brought tears to the eyes of a couple of them! Here it is:





There once was a little girl
Who was born on the other side of the world.
"She's like no other,"
Said her proud mother--
"Luci is our own precious pearl."

Pal

Pal, our sweet yellow Lab, died this week.

She was hit by a car late Monday night. We had a funeral Tuesday afternoon. We all said something we loved about Pal, and each child laid a dog biscuit on her grave. Then we sang a song and found some big, pretty, red rocks to mark her grave. She was a special dog, a good friend to all of us. Pal was the gentlest, calmest Labrador Retriever I have ever known.

Three of the photos that follow are snapshots of pictures in one of our memory books. Pal was such a tiny thing when we got her in June 1997! Bryan named her for Pal, the dog that Arthur has in the Arthur series on PBS. After a few weeks, she was no longer tiny and Bryan, who had just turned 5, could not figure out why she couldn't look like

Arthur's dog forever.

Bryan training Pal

Is the baby gate keeping J.T. in, or keeping Pal out?

J.T. was just 11 months old when Pal came to our house.

Just 4 months after that first picture! Look closely: Don't you love that tongue?

This was taken in 2002, when John was overseas on his first trip. Bryan and JT are on the big swing that John put in the enormous tree at the end of the driveway. This is John's favorite picture from that time, showing the love of Pal for our boys.

What a sweet, loving dog.

Lessons

We've been studying "Life and Culture in Bible Times" this past month. Especially interesting was learning about the food eaten then, and still enjoyed today--not much has changed. We made some flat bread last week, and here are the results. This is pretty fun!

This was Luci's first time to work with dough. She really had a good time.

Watching it bake.
The boys like it!

Oh, Dear. I had this on the blog before I noticed it was sideways! Here Luci is telling me, "I don't yike it. No biscuit!" Even sideways, you can tell by her expression that she'd rather be making the bread than eating it.

Adoptions from Abroad

In 2006, over 20,000 children were adopted abroad by US parents. Here are the numbers from the US State Department, listing where most of the children came from:

China...............6,493

Guatemala.......4,135

Russia..............3,706

South Korea.....1,376

Ethiopia.............732

Kazakhstan........587

Ukraine.............460

Meet Dr. Heath!

Heath is now Dr. Heath--he called John a few minutes ago to give him the good news! The Doctor with Sophia
Dr. and Mrs.

Congratulations, Heath and Shanna

Heath received his PhD and

Shanna, her PhT (Putting Husband Through)

It Finally Happened!

It really happened.

Finally!

What?

Luci told me, "I Lub You!"

No prodding. No encouraging her to say it. Just from her heart! And, along with it, a big hug!

Movie Making!

Bryan had his first day on a real movie set. He's the one wearing the orange sweatshirt and big green coat. Bryan's friend Bradley is to the left of Bryan. We went by to give the boys some money for lunch, and Bryan was busy running equipment across the street. He was so excited to be working on a professional set! Bryan said the director might use them as extras in a crowd scene, too.

Mom and Dad, Laura and Katie--they are filming at that wonderful, old-timey soda fountain we all went to when you were here last June.

George Lindsey Film Festival at UNA

George Lindsey, better known to most of us as "Goober" on The Andy Griffith Show, grew up in N. Alabama. He played football at Florence State Teacher's College, which was renamed UNA. He started the George Lindsey Film Festival ten years ago, and this year it expanded to include quite a few children's offerings. JT and Bryan went to an animation class at our Children's Museum (remember that place, Papa, Laura and Katie?) and look who showed up! George Lindsey himself, with Ernest Borgnine (remember McHale's Navy?)! Bryan and JT got Mr. Borgnine's autograph, and Bryan got Mr. Lindsey's, too. Pretty exciting for us! In the class, the kids were shown some clips from cartoons the men had parts in--JT is really impressed that Mr. Borgnine is "Mermaid Man" on SpongeBob SquarePants." Here, Mr. Lindsey is telling the kids that doing those movies was a lot of fun.
I was really impressed with Mr. Borgnine, he seemed to be "on" for the kids. Looks pretty good for 90, don't you think? Mr. Lindsey is 72.
This shows Steve Richardson, the teacher of the class. He is also a film producer. Bryan is going to work for Mr. Richardson on Sunday--a little girl from church is a star of the film and Bryan gets to be a gopher for the crew. The movie is called Mystic Swirl, so if you ever hear of that one, that's Bryan's first real movie.
A close-up, and the back of somebody's head.
Was Luci impressed with the stars? Nope. She just played while we gawked. On the way out, Mr. Borgnine saw Luci and stopped to say something like, "what a pretty little girl." Of course she is.

Sara's Here!!!

Sara Kathryn

born February 27, weighed in at 7 lbs 9 oz and measured 20 1/2 inches long.

Heath and Shanna with Sophia and Sara. A good-looking family!

Severe Weather

I can't make this entry without mentioning Enterprise, AL--such a tragedy. I don't know why God chose to protect us from the devastation. I am just glad He did.

Another thing I love in this house is the storm room in the basement. It is a small room with reinforced concrete block walls, and a concrete ceiling. We don't have a door for it yet, that is next on the list of things to do. Yesterday when the terrible weather ripped through Alabama we got our first chance to try the storm room out for real. The doppler radar "saw" several rotations on the map, two of which were coming our way. We gathered important things and ran to the basement. We went down twice, for a total of an hour down there. Bryan, Luci , JT and a bag of very important items. We put helmets on the kids when it seems imminent for a real tornado. Bryan decided to put on a big coat instead, to block out our noise so he could read. We need to get Luci a helmet that fits properly! What's in that bag? A Bible, photo CDs (sure beats carrying all the photo albums!), the "bills to be paid" stack and budget papers, the insurance information on the house and cars, all the flashlights we could find, and of course Luci's Chinese paperwork. (Bunny was in there somewhere, too.)
To make it more a happy place than a scary place, we have a juke box in there! The juke box plays CDs and has a radio built in. We had it set to a radio station reporting the weather. Bryan and Luci take a break in the action to dance to a tune.

JT decided to practice his karate. I thought this picture was so funny! All of those spots are reflections off of dust particles. It didn't look dusty down there. (and you can see the rest of the basement is unfinished, too)
Such a happy crew.

Two More Things

Luci has begun her years of saying the prayer at the evening meal--here is her prayer. Are you ready for it? Don't blink!

"Dear God, Amen."

We hope that someday soon she will put something in the middle.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When you ask a little girl, "Are you a pretty girl?" You just know what the answer will be....

Except when you ask Luci.

"Are you a pretty girl?"

"I'm a Princess."

Really a Sister

It has finally happened. We are a real family.

Bryan and JT have been so good about sharing everything with Luci, being very patient when she gets into their things, letting her have the last French fry, letting her slap them in the face.

It's over. I wondered how long Luci's honeymoon would last. Seventeen months. That's longer than most newlyweds have! This week I have witnessed the boys treating Luci just like, well, just like a little sister.

"Mom, Luci is getting on my nerves!"

"Mom, Luci is hitting me again! Make her stop!" (When she did that before, I did step in, we are not wanting a brat here.)

"Mom, get Luci OUTTA my room!!"

"MOM!!"

Real Heaven.

A Pair of Shoes

Every Cinderella needs a new pair of glass slippers. Or, as Luci calls them, Bass Slippers. Appropriate for a little girl in fishing country. Have you ever seen a happier face?
Up close--plenty of room to grow.
Here is another picture from last Saturday's Chinese New Year lunch. Did you notice that we also have a BOY in the group? He's up front in the brown outfit. This little fellow happens to have two sisters who were also born in China, all three from different provinces. His parents asked us if we were going back....we told them we are out of money, and too old, anyway. Foreign adoption laws in China have changed, and if we had waited until now to start our adoption, we'd be out of luck because of age. (Well, because of John's age! I am young enough yet, but again, money--or the lack of it--rears its ugly head.)

We also have another fellow in our group, born in Viet Nam, adopted just this last month. That family was not able to make it to the lunch.

Chinese New Year--Year of the Pig

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

or as we in the USA say it, Gung Hay Fat Choy! We celebrated with our Families with Children from China group Saturday by going out to eat at, you guessed it, a Chinese restaurant! There are at least 23 families in this area with children from China, Taiwan and Thailand--that many belong to this group, and most of us met on Saturday. It is an amazing number when you consider the population of this Quad-City area is rather small.

Here are a few photos of the day: Most of the girls looking in the same direction for their group photo. Luci is standing in the middle. We tried and tried to get her to sit down, but she kept popping up.
Luci with her fan. One of the moms gave the kids a present of a little Chinese bag, a red envelope with candy and plastic coins, and a fan.

Kathy and her daughter, Kalyn. Beautiful Kalyn is the newest member of our FCC group. Kathy and Greg went to China in November for Kalyn. Luci and I have become fast friends with this mommy and daughter.
Another try at the girls' photo.
Bryan kept me on my toes. He loves to show off by eating sushi.
JT enjoyed his lunch! He tried the sushi, too, but didn't enjoy it as much as big brother.

Luci tried jello for the first time. (Sorry, Feingold friends! I need to find some jello without artificial colors and flavors.) I was happy that she liked it. She usually does not like anything that is different in texture, temperature or flavor.

Luci with her red envelope--another mom gave each child a red envelope with money in it, a true Chinese tradition that even American children love. Luci can't seem to find her dollar--it is under her skirt.

Growing Pains

Luci has moved on up in the world...well, she's moved on up at the dinner table, anyway. We removed her high chair tray and she is now enjoying being a real part of the "family table."

We still have an area that is not progressing well, and that is sleeping through the night. I guess that is the "pains" part of today's story. Luci had slept through the night 4 or 5 times before we left our old house. Some of that might have been due to her sleeping in our bedroom (in her own crib), where I could whisper, "hush, it's all right, you can sleep." In the apartment, she did not sleep through the night even once. Part of that might have been because her cries would wake more than just John and me, she might wake others in 3 apartments, so I would respond to the noise she made more quickly by picking her up.

Now we are in the house, and have been for almost 3 months now. Luci has only slept through the night once (and what a nice thing that was!) but we are waiting for more. Many families with children from China report that one of the parents ends up sleeping in the child's room, on the floor. So that is where I am sleeping now. Last night we moved the mattress from Bryan's trundle bed into Luci's room (it is a tight squeeze with both of the beds!) and Luci was only up once. Once is better than twice, which is the normal thing here. I am tired, and this is the latest in the quest for 1: for Luci to sleep through the night, and 2: for me to get enough sleep to make it through the next day feeling sane. (Which leads to 3: a happier family!)

School Days

People are always curious about what we do when we homeschool--so here is a glimpse.

JT does, well, schoolwork!


Luci does whatever she can get away with. Here she is looking out the front door's window. If you can tell me what my camera did to this photo, and how to fix it, I would appreciate it. Don't know why it does that occasionally.


Luci found some table items--a cloth napkin is on her head and the netting is a "keep bugs away" item a lady in Zimbabwe made for me. (The lady was a World Bible School student of mine. A group from our church went to Zimbabwe and this lady, Saziso, gave the cloth to one of the ladies to bring to me. I love it!) This is also another one of Luci's "take my picture!" photos.
No, I don't make Luci dust mop. She loves doing it! She found one of JT's slippers to wear with one of her own. When I looked at this picture while putting it on a CD, I was very happy to notice NO dust bunnies in the background. One of the things I don't do very well when homeschooling is housework. So, no dust bunnies is a very nice surprise. (And, no, I don't think Luci did such a fantastic job that she got the dust bunnies herself.)


If you can't find Luci, look in the cabinets.

Or, look for her emptying the cabinets. This is one of my favorite parts of this new house (one of many favorites, actually)--a pantry closet very close to the kitchen. John wondered why I wanted shelving in the coat closet, but every woman who has seen it has loved it.

And here is Bryan, already done with today's lessons. I'm lucky to get a shot of him in something other than pajamas. Bryan loves telling folks that his favorite thing about homeschooling is going to school in his pajamas.