Christmas #2

Our second Christmas celebration was with Miss I's birth family!

Miss I and her birth mom

Loose tooth

The next morning, Miss o woke up with her first loose tooth! That was Sunday morning, and she had wiggled it out by noon on Monday.

First Christmas celebration

Our first Christmas celebration of the season was with Miss O's birth family. Here she is with her birth sister and birth mom.

All the girls riding on horsey Mike

Gifts from Miss O's birth mom

Christmas festivities #2

Mommy loves making the gingerbread house every year as much (or more) as the kids!

Christmas season festivities #1

Our Christmas celebrations began with a fun ceramics painting day! The mom of a friend from a homeschooling group has her own kiln, and offered to do a day for the kids. She had a ton of things for the kids to choose from, and both Miss I and Miss O picked out and made gifts for a few people.

Fall recap

Movie night at Grandma and Grandpa's:

Instead of celebrating Halloween, we have a tradition of having a family movie night. This year we did it with Mike's side of the family. It was a fun night!

A fall visit with Miss I's birth family:

Miss I with her birth mom

Miss O with Miss I's birth grandma

Miss I with her birth grandma

Fall fun with friends:

We love getting together with our friends Lisa, James and Will!

Fall Festival fun at church:

October snow:

A day at the pumpkin patch in October:

Ato T refused to look at the camera for a family picture

He wasn't too sure about his first hay ride, but he really warmed up to it by the time it was done!

Petting the animals is always fun!

Gym day with one of our homeschool groups:

Miss I loved learning to play floor hockey!

Miss O having fun on the scooter

Post from August

I'm catching up on some posts because I didn't have a chance to get these pictures on CD until tonight, so bear with me as some of the next few posts will be out of order. Thanks!

Back in August, we had a picnic with families from our Ethiopia travel group. It was fun to see everyone and all their kids again! All the kiddos who were talking said hi to Ato T right away!

Ato T ans his buddy Mr. J

Chaos

Until this year, we have done, I believe, a better-than-average job of keeping Christ the focus of our celebrations. The kids have been more intent on learning about Jesus' birth and why it was so important than they have been on what gifts they will get for Christmas. We have always told them that Santa is not real - mommy and daddy pretend to be Santa after they go to sleep. We read stories about St. Nicholas so they learn why Santa is a neat tradition. We read the Christmas story in many different ways. This year has not been different in our parenting style in that regard. But tonight I noticed that something has shifted in the girls. Santa seems to be much more important that he has been in the past. They are intent on telling us what they want for Christmas. And tonight, everything came to blows when both girls insisted on being disrespectful to their daddy over and over. - They have lost their opportunity to decorate Christmas cookies with mommy.

When these things happen, it's easy for me to begin to feel sorry for myself. Oh, if only Miss O didn't have such a hard time with changes and transitions, if only Miss I didn't need so much attention, if only Ato T didn't need so much help with everything, if only ... you get the point.

As I took some time to talk with God tonight, He cleared my thoughts for me. All of the behavior issues we have had in the past few days are essentially my fault. We went to a play - The Night Before Christmas. Sure, it was fun, but did it focus on Christ's birth? No. Yes, we talked about it before and after the play, but the play itself definitely did not convey the meaning of Christmas to my children. We went to the Nutcracker - exact same problem. We had a Christmas party at our home ... with no one reading the Christmas story out loud. Then tonight we had a family movie night - The Polar Express. A great movie with some good hidden messages - but the messages are so hidden that the only thing my kids got out of the movie is that Christmas is magical because of Santa - not really the message I want my children's precious ears to hear. Do I believe any of these activities are wrong? No. However, when I look my the behavior of my children lately, it's clear that these activities have not contributed to their spiritual well-being. (They may have even taken away from it.)

Don't get me wrong - we have also done a number of activities that teach them about Jesus' birth and what that means to us. I believe that's why I thought all of these other activities would just be fun, harmless things to do. However, Miss O is not your typical child. Any change is schedule is extremely difficult for her. She has become so good at teaching herself to deal with her stress, that it's often easy for us to forget about it - until the behaviors creep up in full force. As I look back on our last 1 1/2 weeks, I know now that I should have been better at sheltering my kids from the business of this season. I pray I remember this lesson next year.

I can't fix the damage I've already done to my kids this year, but I can pray that the Lord leads them to the true meaning of the wonder of our Savior's birth, despite my inadequacies in the parenting I've been doing this season. That is my prayer tonight - and my resolve that the rest of the time we have during this Christmas season, I will be doing everything I can to help my children focus on the birth of our Savior, and the sacrifice He made for us on the cross.

Thank you for listening! Peace to you as we prepare for our Savior's birth!

Rooms

We have been doing a lot of painting, rearranging, tearing up carpet, an d room changing this fall. This began with Miss I and Miss O moving into the same room, so that we could move Ato T's room to the main floor. We got a bunk bed from grandma and grandpa, and even though the transition was rough, I'm so glad we did it! When she first moved out of "her" room to share a room with her sister, Miss I was ofter scared at bedtime, so she would sneak into Miss O's bunk with her to sleep. Precious! They are now fully transitioned, and most of the time they enjoy sharing a room. It's also really nice to have Ato T on the main floor with the rest of the family. Now we just need to work on getting the room to look a little more like a boy's room.

Castles

Early in the fall we enjoyed a unit learning about Castles. Little brother loved watching his sisters build the castle, and then trying to roll or scoot over to it and knock it over!

The building had to begin with some fun in the block box first.

They made 2 different castles. One was with the large cardboard blocks, and the other was with Legos Mega Blocks. They have come a long way in their castle building expertise since last year's castle unit!

PCA's are blessings

Miss O and Ato T have been blessed with PCAs who love them and are a blessing to mommy! The basic reason for a PCA is to help with activities that a typically developing child of the same age would not need help with. Miss O's PCA usually ends up spending time playing with and entertaining Miss O, and Miss I is often involved as well. She's a friend of ours from church. Here she is taking a break from playing a ball game with the girls that she made up.

Ato T's PCA came from our PCA agency, St. David's. She is with us 4 mornings a week. She works on his stretches, rythmic movements, time in the stander, eye patching, feeding, helping him participate in appropriate school activities we do, helping when we take field trips, and helps him with a lot of his occupational therapy exercises. It's really a blessing to have someone to attend to his needs while I am teaching the girls.

Fall homeschool highlights

Our fall was filled with all things normal (relatively), which has been a huge blessing! Ato T has a PCA who is with us Mon - Thurs 9:00 - 1:00, which allows mommy time to do school with the girls, without the interruptions of a little brother. :) Here, the girls are making rolls to conclude out unit on bacteria and fungus.

Apologies

My dearest apologies to you all that the blog has not been updated recently. We were again experiencing problems with our computer. It wasn't letting me log on to blogger. But hopefully the problem is permanently fixed with a new computer! :) Look for some update posts coming in the next few days.