THANKFUL!

I realize it's been awhile since I've updated.  Two months to be exact.  :)  Between dishes, laundry, school work, home study updates, birthday party plans, sewing Halloween costumes, and well, just LIFE, my blog has kind-of taken a back burner.  And really, I'm OK with that.....one less thing on my "list" is fine with me right now.  Buuuutttttt...... many of you have asked about Charles' new job and the status of our adoption, so I thought it was time for an update.

Here's how life has been treating us.....

ON THE JOB FRONT - Charles working again has definitely been an adjustment for the entire family, but we are so THANKFUL he has a job!!!  His new job comes with very early mornings, however, it (most days) leads to earlier afternoons as well.  THAT makes mama happy. :)  Overall, we have seen some wonderful things come from this new position.  Things that we may not ever have thought to have prayed for.  Things that we know could only have come from a detail-oriented God.  So, so THANKFUL!!!  THANKS friends for your prayers!

IT'S A PARTY!!! - Since my last post, we celebrated a birthday around here!!!  My second oldest, Joseph, turned SEVEN!!!  We are so proud of the little man he is becoming.  This year he celebrated with a Star Wars themed birthday party in our backyard.

A Death Star Birthday Cake for one very special Jedi

I had a gazillion more pics, but unfortunately they were lost to an untimely incident between a mug of hot chocolate and my MAC book.   Ahhhh......life with kids.  :)

Joe's most favorite present (besides the gobs of Lego Ninjagos he got)???  Losing a tooth right before bed.  And then, he literally LOST it.  So......he wrote the tooth fairy this little note......

Apparently in our house, if you lose a tooth ON your birthday, it gets you $5.  Lucky dude.  :)

HURRICANE NEWS - Unless you live in a hole, you've undoubtedly heard about a little Hurricane named Sandy wreaking havoc up and down the East Coast last month.  Fortunately, we live far from the coast and didn't experience any damage in terms of water.  The biggest concern where we live was the wind.  More specifically:  trees falling down due to the wind.  And OH!!  were there a TON of trees that fell!!!  During the height of the storm, we took our flashlights, pillows, and blankets down into the basement and camped out for the night.  Despite losing power early in the evening, we made the most of it by eating ice cream (Hey!! You can't let that stuff go bad!), playing Pictionary (by candlelight!!), and reading Detectives in Togas.   Memories were most certainly made!!

When we awoke the next morning, it seemed that everywhere we went, trees were down.  Blocking roads, on top of houses and cars, and resting precariously upon telephone wires.  In my brother's wooded backyard, approximately 20-30 trees fell, all piled up in a neat, not-so-little stack.  This is actually where we spent the week.  Our power went out on a Monday night and wasn't back on until the following Sunday afternoon.  With temperatures drastically dropping, it made for one really cold house.  :)  Honestly though, seeing the stories of the victims in New Jersey and New York, we felt quite fortunate that we merely experienced a slight inconvenience.  We spent the week at my brother and sister-in-law's house. My nieces had off from school for the WHOLE WEEK due to the storm, so we got to spend time with cousins.  It was an instant party!  So THANKFUL for family and friends in the area who helped during this time!!!

IT'S HALLOWEEN!!! - Really, I'm not sure where the year went!  Just a minute ago it felt like the beginning of 2012!!  Before I knew it, Halloween was here, and with it came the costume demands.  So......out came the sewing machine, and with a little bit of creativity, here is what we came up with.....

An Egyptian Princess...

A red ninja...

A green ninja...

And a princess....

SCHOOL - As if hurricanes, birthdays, and job changes didn't keep us busy enough these past couple months, there is always school!!  Our year has gotten off to a great start.  We have managed to keep quite busy.   Here are a few of the highlights so far....

Making mummies using paper mache.....poor Barbie. :)

Haha.  An attempt at marshmallow pyramids....

Class trip to Crystal Caves

Inside the caves with my little love bug.

Apparently soaking a raw egg in vinegar for 72 hours creates a "naked egg" (the shell has dissolved) that you can hold in your hand!  Who knew??!  My kids had so much fun with this experiment!

Field trip to the local dairy farm....

followed by a hayride out to the pumpkin patch.

Gearing up for the Presidential Election....took a tour of the Capital Building in Harrisburg, PA.

The outside was beautiful, but OH MY, the inside!!!!  So fun!  We even got to tour the Senate, House of Representatives, and Supreme Court!

Voting Booth!!!  Tonight's decision??  Honey, I Shrunk the Kids or Orphan Annie and brownies or ice cream for dessert.

 (for the record, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and ice cream won)  :)

The three oldest stayed up late watching the results come in and coloring in their Electoral College Maps.   

Philadelphia Art Museum field trip!!!

By far, the kids favorite was the Arms and Armor room.

Taking a break to play some chess.....

ADOPTION - And finally, our adoption.....all is trucking along there as well.   Due to Charles' new job (and the fact that 18 months are up), we are having to update parts of our portfolio.  Financial statements, insurance information, medical records, FBI fingerprints, clearances, and such.  I'm not at all excited to be back doing paperwork again (it's A LOT!!!!), however, THANKFUL to still be in the process! Once we finish up with our updates, we can be added back onto the wait list at the number we were "frozen" at.  Looking forward to moving DOWN that list again real soon!!!

THANKS again friends for all your thoughts and prayers!  We are certain that without them, we would have struggled much more than we did during this time.  We have so much to be THANKFUL for going into this season of THANKFULNESS.  We even managed to steal away last month for a little date night:

Dead Sea Scroll Exhibit - Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA

Have a wonderful THANKSGIVING!!!

Kirsten

Georgia!!

So, it took a little longer than we expected.  14 hours to be exact, but we had a great trip visiting family down in Georgia.  The kids kept busy in the car listening to books on tape, reading, playing, and counting license plates.......and, oh, the DVD player we bought right before the trip didn't hurt either. :) 

What made this trip particularly fun was that in school the kids had learned about U.S. geography.  They would get so excited to identify landmarks they had learned about.....the Blue Ridge Mountains, Cumberland Mountains, Chesapeake and Ohio canal.  It's made traveling so much more fun.

Here are some pics from our time together....



Eliza, Rosie and Kaya at the Root House Museum in Marietta, GA





Tour of the historic Root House





Hosanna and Sophia playing peek-a-boo around the well.  So cute!!!





Our attempt at a group shot.  Where's Jackson??  Oh, he's refusing to get in the picture despite our coaxing.





There he is, well, the back of him at least.  But now Sophia has had enough.  Good thing she's cute. :)





Learning about spinning wool.





Headed to a park for lunch after our morning outing. 





Kaya and Rosie were inseparable all weekend.





Birthday Breakfast to celebrate Charles and Dan.





There's my sweet Jackson.



Watching the donuts get made.

Such a fun thing for the kids to get to do!!!

Saturday night we packed up a container of [delicious] pulled pork and some rolls and had a picnic in the park.  Rebecca's dad sings in a do-wop group that happened to be performing that night.



The kids had a blast dancing to the music.  I believe the exact quote was, "That was the most fun ever!'





Kaya, in her element.



The kids were in their glory all weekend playing in what they referred to as "the swamp."  Really it was just the creek that runs through their yard, but it certainly impressed the kids.  And yes, that is my son wearing a polo and khakis.  Don't judge. :)

1-2-3 JUMP!!!!



The Swamp People.....Kaya, Jackson, Ezra, Joseph and Rosie.

So there you have it.  A weekend of fun, family-time.  Hope yours was a great one too!!!!






Kirsten

Hello again!!

It's been awhile....and quite frankly, I've been enjoying the break.  :)

Since my last post, life has just been, well,  really busy.  Here are a couple of the highlights though....

Last year, in the beginning of September, Kaya had decided that she wanted to go for something called, "Memory Masters".  It is a really big honor within Classical Conversations (the homeschool group that we are apart of).  MM is completely optional.  It is an oral exam in which the student must recall from memory EVERYTHING they have learned this year.  This includes: skip counting through the 15's (plus the squares and cubes), geometric formulas and equations, listing all 44 presidents of the United States in order of their terms, recalling a 160 point timeline beginning at Creation and going all the way to the Obama presidency, the periodic table of the elements, human anatomy, 24 history sentences, with dates, of major historical significance, conjugating irregular verb tenses, locating all 50 states and their capitals on a map, locating major geographical U.S. landmarks (rivers, mountain ranges, prominent features such as the Grand Canyon, etc....), memorizing John 1 in Latin and then translating to English, and many other terms to be defined.  All together, the facts that the student needs to recall total over 500.  In order to get MM, students need to be able to answer EVERY question correctly.  No room for error, people!

Well, on Monday morning she went for it.....And......SHE GOT IT.

It was a fun, but stressful morning for all the moms and kids involved.  8 students total from our campus went for it.  There were tears of happiness, anxiety, lots of hugs, shouts of joy and nerves on end.  Each student tests individually with their tutor, with testing taking a little over an hour per child.  But in the end, ALL 8 students achieved Memory Master.  What a celebration we had after!!!  So, SO proud of each and every one of these kiddos.  Sitting in and testing with these kids really gave me an appreciation of our Creator and this amazing brain He has gifted us with for learning.  Truly a miraculous organ!!

Here are Kaya and I last night celebrating her accomplishment on a Mommy-Daddy-Kaya date at the Melting Pot. :)


                           

She's beautiful, isn't she?? :)

In other news, today is my hubby's birthday.  We are celebrating by heading down to Georgia to spend the week with family.  WE.  CAN'T.  WAIT.  Tonight is birthday dinner and packing the car up.  Then, tomorrow, bright and early, we head out.  12 hours. 7 states.  4 kids.  It will be quite the adventure, I'm sure. :)    Either I'm very naive, or incredibly confident in my children's car-riding abilities.  Haha!  Not sure which (probably naive!), but I do love long car rides and am really excited.  We'll be staying with Charles' brother, Dan (who coincidentally, happens to have the same b-day as Charles, just 5 years apart), his wife, Rebecca, and their 7 children.  It's going to be a BLAST!

Lastly, we have adoption numbers for you from last month.  We moved down another three to.....

#73

Seriously, are we cruising or what??!?  ;)

Thanks for all your continued prayers!!  We have been really blessed by each of you along this journey.





Kirsten 

Happy Resurrection Weekend!

Alright, alright.  So I know I'm a little late in the game, but we JUST pulled out our Easter stuff at the beginning of this week.  With normal housework, homeschooling, testing last week, and just LIFE in general, Easter kind-of snuck up on me.

But it's Friday, and Sunday's coming!

So here's a look back at this week and all the fun things we have done to prepare for Easter:



Seriously.  2 dozen hard boiled eggs.  Eaten up in 24 hours.  Crazy!





Sophie was so happy to be dyeing her own eggs!



I just couldn't resist this sweet, sweet smile from Joseph!



Why Easter eggs?  They represent new beginnings.  A new life transformed by the resurrecting power of Jesus.





Out came the books.  The Resurrection Eggs.  The Jesus Film movie.  My kids LOVED reading, and telling (and retelling!) the Easter story.  Even Sophie.  Too cute!



Every year we do our own Passover dinner with our family.  It has become something our kids talk about all year.  We retell the Exodus story, letting the kids act it out as we go.  Waving the palm branches, painting the doorposts, and parting the Red Sea with a staff.  We talk about how each part of that familiar Old Testament story points to the New Testament Jesus. 



Making Resurrection Rolls!



 

And......eating them. :)



The kids put together a little Easter basket to take to Mimi this morning.  Cute little Easter bunnies making a delivery.  Made alot of people smile. :)



Love this picture!





I so, so badly wanted to make an Easter garden with the kids this year.  Wasn't on the ball enough to plant early though.  Instead, they collected sticks today and made these for our front planter.  Love! 



The eggs, the books, the baskets......they're are well and good, but it's all just a means to an end.  To point to Him.  Traditions that we've created for our children in hopes that they will lead them to Jesus, our risen Lord, who conquered death and rose again on the third day.

Our family has had a taste of this death-conquering Jesus this year.  There IS power in His name when we cry out to Him.  Power to heal the sick.  To make blind men see.  Even to resurrect from the dead.  All we must do is believe. 

Believe in the One who created the universe.  Who spoke life into being.  Who sent His only Son to die on a cross.  For our sins.  For my sins.  Whose blood was spilled, so that I may have life eternal.  And who, on the third day rose, in all power and glory. Conquering death once and for all, for all who believe.

That is what Easter is all about. 

"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

~Romans 10:13

I'll leave you with a song I've had stuck in my head all week (you will have to pause the music player at the bottom of this page before playing the video).  Happy Resurrection weekend!

                       






Kirsten