Where has the month gone?

I have not only let my blogging slide, I really haven't even been taking pictures.  I just uploaded photos from both my cameras and there were fewer than 20 pictures total.  For an entire month.  So unlike me.  I think I've got more cell phone photos from Jay than I do regular camera photos.

The routine here has been exactly that...routine.  Wake up Monday through Friday, get Jacob out of bed to get ready for school, send him and Jay out the door, do my day homeschooling the girls and squeezing in errands, and then feeding the family, wash 'em up for bed, read a story, and crash.  As for weekends, I don't know what we've done on the weekends.  Sundays are full with Sunday School, Worship, lunch, Merrilee's Chinese art class, dinner, and Ladies Bible study.  Fortunately I love every one of those activities, so Sundays are my busiest but favorite day of the week.  Saturdays I just go shopping or hang out at home.  Last week it was shopping. :-)

We had a couple of weeks which involved dentists and doctors over and over.  The kids had their dental check ups, and then I had to schedule the older two for getting their molars sealed.  We didn't have that as kids, so I didn't even think of it, but the pediatric dentist highly recommended it for children with deep grooves in their molars.  I guess both my kids qualified, because I had to take them both back again for sealant.

Then the following week Merrilee started with a terrible sore throat.   It continued with coughing for two more weeks, and upon finding that her tonsils were once again swollen, I took her to the doctor where she was given some allergy meds, and a referral for an ENT visit.  Before we could even make it to the ENT she had developed a horrible rash all over her torso.  Although everything pointed to a virus, she was also given an antibiotic.  To make a long story short, she is going to have her tonsils removed April 13th.  Those bad boys have been causing her trouble since she was about three years old, so we've all had enough of it and we're on the road to the ol' tonsillectomy.  She also gets terrible nose bleeds, so we'll see if having her adenoids out as well will help any of that.  Hope it makes a big difference for her.

I haven't said much about our adoption on this blog, but we are making slow progress.  We are almost done with paperwork.  Some delays with fingerprints between October and January had me a bit discouraged, but once they were cleared and our homestudy was done, we've been able to make more headway.  On February 25 we did the last of the fingerprinting in Jacksonville, Florida.  It was a quicky trip, with an afternoon drive down there, 30 minutes at the beach, an overnight stay, morning prints, breakfast at Cracker Barrel, and a dash back home.  Took about 28 hours total.  Now we are waiting on our immigration approval letter.  I had hoped to get it in the mail today, but it wasn't meant to be.  I am still hoping to have it by tomorrow, but won't be holding my breath over it.

We do have the exciting news that two babies are waiting for us in China.  They are both in the Gansu province.  We do not have formal approval to adopt them, since China has not received our paperwork yet, but we have pre-approval and are excited to know we are going to be a family of seven eventually!  The older child is a 19 month old boy, and the younger is a one-year old girl.  Today is her first birthday.  So sad to miss it, but so happy to know she'll be with us for her birthday next year, God willing.

The only other exciting news here is that Jacob lost yet another tooth, this time by chewing on his backpack.  Yep, he's always chewing on something that isn't designed for human consumption, and this time it was his backpack and the little Chinese tag which was given to him as a gift from his teacher's sister-in-law who is from the same province he was born in.  Unfortunately, Jacob does not value gifts, nor momentos that others consider sentimental.  So the little doo-dad from China was ruined, his tooth was broken loose, and I had to see it hanging there floppily, an eerie reminder of Merrilee's nasty loose snaggletooth.  When I brushed his teeth later that evening, that yucky thing started bleeding and grabbing onto the toothbrush.  So I gave him a tissue and told him to yank it out.  Without much hesitation on his part (but with terror in his eyes as wide as saucers), he pulled it out.  Plink.  It was over.  Easiest tooth pull I've ever experienced with one of my kids.  Yay!

The next day I discovered, in his backpack, a plastic pirate coin, bitten in half.  Wonder how long it's going to be before he starts breaking out his adult teeth as well. I'm glad we've got good dental insurance.  We're probably going to need it.

Last week I took the girls to the zoo for the first time since last summer.  The weather has warmed up but it's still cool enough for the animals to be out and active.  It was fun to stretch our legs and enjoy the time in the sunshine and fresh air.

In fact the weather has been so nice, we tried eating out on the backporch this past Saturday.  It was nice, until the neighbors started up their chainsaws again, and their dogs decided to hang out around our fence begging.  One even decided it was a good time and place to take a dump.  So we quickly finished our dinner and ran back into our stuffy, stale aired house, and ate our banana pudding dessert.  It was a nice attempt at a lovely spring dinner outside, but next time we'll do it when the neighbors are a baseball practice or something.

Next week I will be in NC with the girls visiting our timeshare.  I hope to have more interesting news and photos to post then.  Hope it won't be another month between updates.

Blessings,
Petrie

Exciting Week in Our House

I'll have to back up to last Sunday.  I went to my Ladies' Bible study that evening and when I got home, Jay met me at the door and reported that Jacob broke something and it couldn't be fixed, so I should not even ask.  I took a deep breath and planned to NOT get angry or weird about it.  Jacob breaks stuff on a regular basis, so I need to just maintain an even keel and move on.  About 20 seconds later the culprit came running into the kitchen to tell me this good news:

I was really happy to see it.  This baby tooth never got loose, and the adult tooth started growing in behind it about a month ago.  We have a dentist appointment next week because we were planning to have the baby tooth extracted.  The boy saved us a few dollars on this one!  But can you believe it...he broke it out while blowing up a balloon!  Bumped his own mouth with his fist and knocked the tooth right out.  He didn't even know he did it.

Valentine's Day was on Monday.  As always, we gave the kids some candy in the morning.  Jacob had a party at school and came home ready to dig in.  The girls didn't have their party until Friday classes.  I didn't have them sign all the cards this year (yes, I've gotten a little lax in my old age, and didn't want to deal with supervising the process), so I just typed up some cards, had Merrilee cut them out, and had Katie Mei tape them on the candy.  Deed was done in 15 minutes.  Yay!

In academic news, Katie Mei has been working very hard on her pre-reading skills, and she is finally able to listen to, spell, and pronounce blend sounds.  This is a big step towards reading, and the way I teach phonics in our house.  I was so proud of her for finally getting it, and was excited that by buying this new "toy" she found a way to make a game of it.  She put together some letters as I said the words, and then she decided she would be the teacher and I had to spell the sounds for her.  Little did she know she was the one gettin' the learnin'.

 

And on to a more emotional subject....  Katie Mei is just growing up too darned fast!  As if learning to read isn't enough, the child decided this week that she was going to try roller skating.  So we dug into our old stash of toys and found Merrilee's old skates.  Brought back some fun memories! (this is Merrilee back in 2007 right after she turned 4.  KM will be 4 next month.)

We strapped them on her and let her go.  She loved it, and shuffled all over the driveway for two days.  Good thing the weather has been nice, because I'm still nervous about leaving her outside to play with just her siblings.  Poor child hasn't been able to do much of anything in the driveway without her helmet!

Now here's the really painful part: she asked to ride Merrilee's old princess bike (the two-wheeler) because she's been riding the tricycle and I told her I thought she was getting too old for a tricycle.  It really is babyish for her, and Merrilee got her two-wheeler with training wheels when she was 3.  Jacob got his a couple years later.  I very clearly remember the day I took this video and cried walking all the way down the road behind them.

Couldn't believe they were growing up so fast.  Loved seeing them go, but envisioned the day they would really "go".  As impatient and frustrated as I get sometimes, I have to admit I love, absolutely love, being a mom to these kids.  Seeing them mature and move onto to older kids' activities both swells and breaks my heart all at the same time.


So here's what I was subject to today.

Sigh.  I took her to Toy's R Us to pick out and buy her own very first new bike today.  Takes my breath away.  How on earth did she grow up so fast?!  I can't take it.  It does not get easier with more children.  If anything, it gets harder because each child that grows up means I'm one more child closer to having them all grown up and moved out.  Ouch.  But I do have to say, she's spent the rest of the afternoon saying "I love you, Mom! And I love my new bike!"  She's a very happy little girl today.

Daddy Daughter Dance 2011

This was the second Daddy Daughter Dance Merrilee and Jay have attended since we moved here.  Our church hosts it for the entire community and it is one of the highlights of Merrilee's year.  She has been excited about going to this year's dance since she got home from last year's dance.  The past week has been all about counting down the days and then the minutes until the dance.

A few weeks ago she and I spent a day out shopping for the dress.  I guess this gives me some practice for wedding dress shopping.  I am always so glad when we finally find that perfect dress, and it not only fits my budget, but also dazzles my precious girl.  It was hit or miss for awhile there with a rather slinky silver one that I really didn't like much, but she finally tried this one on at Dillard's and it rocked both our worlds!

So here are the photos.  They mostly speak for themselves.  Poor Katie Mei was under the impression that since it was a Daddy Daughter Dance, she would be going too.  Only yesterday did she actually begin to understand that she was not going, and she felt pretty sad about it.  But she is such a good sport and was more than happy to kiss and hug her beautiful big sister goodbye before she left.  And sweet Merrilee tried to make her feel better by putting a flower in Katie Mei's hair.  Katie Mei responded by offering Merrilee a flower as she got into the car.  I love that they love each other so very much.

I fixed Fetuccini Alfredo for dinner (Merrilee's favorite) upon their return home, and afterwards the girls took a fun bubble bath and then headed off for bed.  Sweet dreams, Honey!

Scenes from Science Kitchen

We have finished a semester of history lessons, and now the fun begins!  Not that history wasn't fun; Merrilee loves history.  But for me, seeing her face light up when she makes a discovery is sheer delight!

Right after I took this photo she exclaimed "Maybe when I grow up, I will be a scientist!"  Music to my ears!

And her love of crystals just made learning about liquids vs. solids that much more fun.  Love our little Cyclops magnifier with camera.

And Katie Mei is not too far behind her.  On Tuesday morning Katie Mei ate an apple for a snack, and then asked me why apples have seeds.  Perfect segue, my dear!  We were going to start our seed planting project, and you made my introduction so very easy.

 

It's going to be a fun spring at our home school!

Bowling. Just For Kicks.

Yes, it was my bright idea. This is the pre-game smile.

I had the opportunity get our family into the local American Fun Park bowling alley at a great price for one hour.  And I just knew it would be a wonderful, smiling, happy time of togetherness.  Don't those high expectations always backfire?  Just look at the overflowing enthusiasm:

Well, it wasn't a total bust.  We endured a full game of listening to Katie Mei say how much she didn't like it, watching Merrilee get frustrated with gutter balls, and ducking the balls that Jacob kept throwing backwards towards those of us sitting at the table.

I hadn't been bowling in over 20 years, so it wasn't until I had sunk my own half dozen gutter balls and was sorely behind everyone (yes, including Katie Mei), that I remembered how to hold the ball.  Would have been nice if my husband had noticed and reminded me a little closer to the beginning of the game.  Apparently HE knew how to hold the ball.

As for the kids, Katie Mei was mostly interested in the ball return.  Can't say I blamed her.  Lugging around a 6-pound ball when you only weigh 35 pounds is no piece of cake.  And the three-minute wait for her ball to

s-l-o-w-l-y

roll.

down.  

the.  

lane.

was just a wee bit annoying for all of us.  She got to the point where she just dropped her ball into the lane and turned around to walk back to the ball return.  Didn't even bother watching to see if she knocked down any pins.  Apparently there just wasn't enough action for her in this game.

Merrilee also didn't find bowling to be her cup of tea.  I'm sure it didn't have anything to do with me over-coaching her in the background.  I was just trying to tell her she didn't have to keep lifting the ball to her armpit each time she tried to roll it.  Of course that bit of information just turned her into a stiff-armed robot.  The child needs to loosen up a little!

And then there was Jacob.

Now this was a kid happy to be in a bowling alley.  Unfortunately, in his enthusiasm, he would quickly snag his ball from the ball return, take a few steps backwards and start swinging.  This resulted in the grown-ups doing a lot of hollering "Stop!", "Wait!",  "You need to go up to the lane first!", and "Look Out!".  And of course, in his haste to immediately get that ball rolling, there were few to no opportunities to take any pictures of him.  But he really enjoyed it and was eager to come back and do it again some other day.

We might do it again, if we dig up a pit of money in our backyard and can blow $39.99/hour plus $2.75 per person for shoes.  Since when did bowling become such a ridiculously expensive sport?  I'll just be thankful we could enjoy our hour of unbridled family fun for the spectacular Groupon price of $10.  Thanks, Groupon.

I wish I could go back and enjoy those very long, smokey, boring evenings when my parents and aunts and uncles would all meet at Blossom Lanes in Benton Harbor and spend what felt like hours bowling, laughing, and talking.  It was almost 40 years ago, but I can vividly remember it.  I remember the smells, the sounds, and the waiting.  My cousin Debbie and I must have played a thousand games of dots waiting for the grown-ups to finish.  Those were good times....

And thanks, Jay.  You were a good sport.  Sorry your wife is such a loser when it comes to bowling.  But hey, at least you didn't break any more fingers.  Aunt Betty, I hope you're not rolling over in your grave seeing how badly I played.  Maybe you could have just whispered a few hints into my ear.  Or maybe you did, but I was too busy hollering "Incoming!" as Jacob's balls were whizzing past our heads.  In any case, it was fun.  I just need a little more practice. 

Another fun homeschooling moment, brought to you by Nature

God is so good to provide fun teaching moments for me and my kids as I homeschool!  You remember the baby cow last fall, right?  Well, this week Katie Mei has been learning about birds.  Surprisingly, three-year olds who don't live on farms don't really understand that birds don't have fur.  Katie Mei is just learning that, and yesterday had a fun little project learning about the letter H (Hen starts with H! and so does Hummingbird!), and making a letter H out of feathers (store-bought, just in case you were wondering).

So on the way to Friday classes this morning, as I was driving down the same road our little calf lives on, I came up on what I thought was a typical bunch of vultures (flock?) munching on something dead on the side of the road.  I have a running joke with the kids regarding vultures munching on dead things.  We call the scene "Dead-HOP" (you know, as in going to IHOP for breakfast, but instead of pancakes, it's dead stuff!  The children think it is hilarious, and we use alliteration to make up entrees the vultures are eating:  raccoon ratatouille, skunk with scallions, killed kitty cake. You get the idea.  Gross, but very fun!)  Anyway, I digress.

We drove by the Dead-HOP, and I suddenly realized it was not another Dead-HOP scene.  It was a flock of wild turkeys chillin' out on the side of the road, completely at ease with our car.  Since I had already passed them, I put it in reverse and backed up, fully expecting them to scatter.  Instead, they just stood there minding their own business.  I had seen a flock of turkeys a few weeks ago in another field about a mile away, so I suspect these are the same birds.  It was so cool to see them up close, and be able to open the windows so the girls could enjoy seeing real, live wild turkeys up close.  The cell phone photos were the best I could do, but I was so glad to have this fun little opportunity to share this teaching moment.  I love it when God takes a special interest in our classroom, and brings it to life!  He's the best teacher we could ever have!

And as for a flock of vultures, I looked it up.  It's called a colony, committee, or wake.  "Committee" should provide some ironic truth to anyone who has an office job and is required to enjoy those committee activities.  And "wake", well that just speaks for itself.  Yuck.