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Sunday, October 26, 2014

Two months...

It has been two months since Lightening Baby was placed in my arms. Wow! Somedays it feel like she's always been a part of our family and some days it seems like we just got home from China in a whirlwind of figuring her out.

She brings so much joy to our family; we are so thankful!

Here is what she's been up to.

She says:
-mama
-dada
-co (for her brother)
-go
-li (for light)
-ball
-up
-whoo shoo (when she's getting a poopy diaper changed)
-kiki (for her oldest sister)

She signs:
-please
-banana
-more
-baby
-horse
-more food me outside
-diaper
-hot
-help
-book
-food
-Baby Signing Time
-cracker
-milk
-drink
-water
-pacifier
-all done
-please water
-giraffe

 


Baby girl is learning so much! She is playing in the dirt in our from yard in these pictures. I have gotten the idea that she didn't go outside a whole lot. Grass was new, and scary at first, to her. She has gotten more daring in the yard, which is fun. Now, when the door is open, she wants to head out. It's nice that the weather has been so nice.



Enjoying the play structure in just her diaper. Pretty darn cute!


She enjoyed the play structure at Dry Creek park last week. We went with some friends but she slept the whole time. When it was time for the big kids to head off to piano we stayed and I let her explore a bit. She likes to go down the slide and LOVES the swings!

Her walking has really picked up! Just last week I said to someone that she still uses crawling as her go-to to get somewhere quickly. The very next day she started walking a whole lot more. Since then she walks around the house quite a bit and when holding her she tries to get down and walk. It's so fun to be a part of her development!

We are still trying to figure out her needs and what is too much for her. Last week was a hard week. We are usually a family that is on-the-go A LOT! So figuring in a 1 year old that used to be an orphan takes some doing. Please continue to pray for our family of 6 as she leans to us for comfort, support and love.

Night times continue to be hard for our littlest. We pray for peaceful sleep for her...and us! We are trying to get her to bed by 7:30p after a bottle and snuggle. She goes down great but is restless by 11:30p. Last night she was up at 11:45p, 1:00a, 1:45a, 3:30a and finally at 4:55a, after fussing, I got her up and slept on the couch with her until 7am. Holy Moly! One good thing is that we don't have to go on a walk everyday to get her to nap. She goes down easily in her crib for an afternoon nap after lunch.

We are excited to travel to Shriner's Hospital in a few weeks for her lower extremities evaluation. They were unable to get her lower and upper scheduled on the same day so we will return in December for her upper evaluation. We are excited to get their perspective.

Mondays, for the past month, have been very difficult. I'm not sure why. The big kids have had extreme difficulty with their attitude in school and I have lost patience! Please pray for tomorrow! We are all hoping it goes MUCH MUCH better! :)

Other than that the big kids are doing really well. They are enjoying their activities and LOVING having a baby in the house.


One thing I have been trying to get Baby Lightening used to is staying in her seat after breakfast while the big kids each read her a book. It gives us all a small break from running after her around the house. It is also a great way to build her vocabulary as well as teach the big kids patience, flexibility and how to not just read a book to a baby but point things out, explain things, make sound effects...


The other day we took a package to the post office. This is the same post office we mailed many-a-package to our agency and our baby. It was fun to be there WITH her! Instead of holding the package we were sending they are holding her! So fun!

***********************

"Its been a good experience seeing what she likes and what she wants.
She is a really fun second sister and I'm glad she's her." Jumping Joy-7

She wanted to "write on the blog" and I'm so glad she did. :)

Monday, October 20, 2014

Aplos: 3 & 4


Here are the third and fourth posts to the Aplos site.



Maybe they could help you with your next fundraiser!



{It's hard for me to have a post without a picture}

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Kids and helping jobs & paycheck, save/give/spend categories and debt...

A few friends have asked me what we do with our kids as far as household jobs (chores) and paycheck (allowance).

First things first...vocabulary is very important! (at least it is to me)
The word CHORE just leaves a bad taste in my mouth! Yuck! Why would I want to start off our "working at home and taking care of our home" with a bad taste in my mouth. One definition is this:

CHORE -noun
3. a hard or unpleasant task

With that in mind, the first thing I did was take that word right out of our vocab!
Instead we use HELPING JOBS as a way to describe our family taking care of our home.
We are a family, we live together and
WE ALL HELP!

We also do not use the word or idea of ALLOWANCE. "Dad goes to work to get paid and so should you...kids." We got the idea of a PAYCHECK from Dave Ramsey's kid program of save/give/spend. There are also stories and CDs geared towards kids learning about money in a healthy way. Find those here. We use a chart from his program (a small white board on the fridge) to keep track of FINES and BONUSES during the week. We do PAYCHECK on the weekend.

Here are just a few of the things that we give fines and bonuses for:
**they change with what we are working on with our kids**
BONUSES:
helping without asking
holding the doors for others (when we're out)
happy grocery helpers
good manners
kindness
encouraging words

FINES:
lying
hurting with your hands or words
complaining
leaving a mess
taking too long of a shower
wasting food

{Fines and bonuses range from $.10 to $1.00}


Here (above) is an example of almost a week's FINES and BONUSES. I write the kid's letter next to the listed item as many times that that thing occurs within that week. I erased my kid's letters as to not run them under the bus. :) I started out putting the FINES at the bottom but now it's just where there is space.

**It's kind of hard to read in the picture so here are the FINES and BONUSES listed:
Baby's laundry +$.30
Fingers in mouth (to be clear that it putting your fingers inside someone else's mouth) -$.25
Shower (too long of a shower) -$1.00
Using your body to hurt another sibling -$.50
Helpful +$.25
Encouraging words +$.25
Leaving stuff out (at home in areas that I have repeatedly asked them to be cleared from) -$.20

**I really make the above up as I go. If I have asked a particular child to do something over and over and over again and there is not a change it goes on the chart as a FINE and if they continue to have a hard time with it, depending on what it is the FINE goes up as the weeks roll on. If I have been working on something over and over and over again with a child and I can see that they are working hard to improve at it then I put it on there as a BONUS. Whatever makes sense to us at the time.


Each child starts out with a set amount for the jobs they are assigned, then bonuses and fines are tallied, and paycheck is given. With this money the kids buy any extra thing they would like, after taking out their SAVE and GIVE money, like toys, games or extra clothes. They have opportunities during the week to earn extra money as well.

Our big kids are pretty close in age and ability so they had gotten the same amount of money until our oldest turned 10. At that point we added 10 YEAR OLD JOBS (a few extra jobs) and he gets paid a bit more for doing more work.

Our kids are currently 11, 9, 7 and 1. Our 1 year old (recently joining our family through adoption) does not yet do HELPING JOBS or get a PAYCHECK. I will probably start that at about 3 years old. There are so many ways that toddlers and preschoolers can help. That might be another post :)

Here are jobs that our big kids currently do...

HELPER A:
1. animals
2. new trash bags
3. wipe sliding doors
4. clear table
5. bathroom #1

HELPER B:
1. start and empty dishwasher
2. sweep dining room
3. water plants
4. dishes helper
5. bathroom #2

HELPER C:
1. laundry helper
2. set table
3. wipe table after meals
4. wipe out microwave
5. bathroom #3

10 YEAR OLD JOBS (Friday and Saturday):
1. take out recycle
2. sweep front and back porch

EACH MORNING:
1. brush teeth
2. eat breakfast
2. fold and put away laundry (if there is any)
3. make bed
4. get dressed

Those are the jobs that we have a need for and that I either don't want to do or would take my time away from other things. There is only so much time to go around. You might come up with different jobs that suit your family. The point is that they are HELPING JOBS because they help our family to be more successful in helping others while learning and growing together.

A big reason that we have our kids do so many HELPING JOBS is that I am not going to be a person that marrys off kids who don't know how to take care of their house and their things!

We switch the job lists each month. I want each child to gets used to doing a job for enough time to get good at it but not too long that they get bored with it. As if someone can get bored with helping around the house. HAHA! Switching jobs every week isn't enough time for the kids to practice getting good at a task.

Our big kids also each have a LAUNDRY DAY. On that day they are tasked with doing their laundry start to finish. They load it into the washer, add the soap, choose the appropriate water temp and load size, switch it to the dryer, fold it and put it away. Not all of our kids can reach into the washer to transfer their clothes to the dryer so someone assists them with that. It works really well! I don't mind doing laundry but this is a great help to keeping things moving during the week and not having it take over our weekend. Oldest (boy) goes on Wednesday, one big girl on Monday and one big girl on Thursday. The girls all share a room so they just put their dirty laundry into one hamper and by splitting up the week they end up doing about the same amount.

We started LAUNDRY DAY with the kids when they were 9,7,5...

And finally, finally last week I heard this come from one of the girl's mouths to the other's ears,"Are you putting clean laundry into the hamper? I don't want to do more laundry that is already clean!"

{Finally!!! I have been saying that for years}

**I am not going to wash clean laundry. It wastes soap, water and time! Only put dirty laundry into the hamper. If you just tried it on and decided not to wear it PUT IT AWAY!

I do the laundry for the hubs and me. The baby's laundry gets tossed into everyones and if they fold and put away her laundry without complaining they get an extra $.03 per piece.

LAUNDRY DAY for the kids is different than the LAUNDRY HELPER job listed in HELPER C list. The LAUNDRY HELPER washes and puts away all towels from the week.

DEBT doesn't happen very often around here because we usually don't let the kiddos buy anything unless they have their money with them. And if they don't have enough they have to wait.

If DEBT does occur and they borrow from us it is a small amount. In the case of my recent IG post one of our darlings is in debt to us. That child has to do one extra job each day (or almost everyday) until it is paid off. Instead of charging interest we just try to make it unpleasant in a mild way by adding jobs ;)

That's all I can think of right now...let me know if you have other specific questions :)

Happy Helping! Love the obwald6

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Orphan NO more!

 Lightening Hope's 1st bath with her new family (Aug 25, 2014)
Look at her sweet baby eyes, so tired, so lost, so longing...


One month and three days later...
ORPHAN NO MORE! (Sept 28, 2014)
Our girl is FULL of life and ready to live it!

Aplos: 2

We already have the second installment of our story on Aplos!

It's so fun to share our story and hopefully encourage others in their life.

{see the post here}





Monday, October 6, 2014

Aplos: 1

We hoped, from the beginning, that our journey and story would help others and spur them on to taking big steps of faith in their own lives. One way we did that was to use

as a fundraiser. The software we used for donations is Aplos. They were so awesome in helping us set up the "back office" side of things and make sure that all ran smoothly for donors and Beard Growers. It was also very easy to navigate and follow from our side of things. {I think} they mainly help non-profit organizations with accounting software and donations.

Check out our story on their website below! (six installments in all)

Saturday, October 4, 2014

We got it and didn't even know it!

We had our pediatrician appointment one week after we arrived home. One of our main goals for that appointment was to asked for a referral to Shriner's Hospital in northern California. As many of you know, some of you may not, Lightening Hope has limb difference on all four limbs. We are hoping to get some sort of prosthetic for her to make long-term mobility easier for her. Although she has not let the shape or size of her feet stop her so far, over time, as she grows and gets taller, it will be harder for her to balance.

After not hearing any news from either Shriners or our doctors office I called last Tuesday to our doctors office. Their response... "You already have an appointment."

"Huh?!"

Apparently the appointment was made and no one told us...

At least we didn't miss it!

On November 14th we will be at Shriner's Hospital for the first time.

Two huge blessings with this date (which we didn't pick)
** 1.  it is a Friday (which is one of David's days off since he works long hours on Sundays)
** 2.  it is before the holiday craziness where I feel like we will miss two months of progress in getting her situated!

{Here are pictures from our last few...days...I think}






Although in most every picture we are happy, smiling and having a GREAT time with this new adventure, there have definitely been some rough moments, hours, days and weeks!
Please continue to pray for our transition and kids who are feeling displaced.
Adoption is an amazing experience for all involved but also hard in many ways!
As with any new family member being added there is an adjustment period. We are trying hard to depend on God for strength and ideas on how to best parent these four amazing world changers! Thank you to all who have supported us and continue to!


We went to the zoo for my birthday...with grandpa-pa.







Today we got the pleasure of riding our friend's horse and learning about grooming. So fun!