hair removal in stages...

After 5 months of growing our "Beards of Hope" Beard Growers took it off. Check out some of their crazy ideas on how to get that hair OFF!

Thank you ALL so much for your hair growing and donations towards getting our girl home!

www.ourbeardsofhope.blogspot.com

T-minus 20 days!

#ilovecolorfulthings {who's book is who's}

This hashtag is SO true and has been true my whole life! No wonder I majored in Art ;)

With homeschool a whole different kind of organization is needed and the possibilities are endless! There are so many fun craft ideas and materials out there now it's hard to even pic. For organizing our consumable books (last year we used Washi tape) we put cute tape on the covers so we could quickly distinguish who's book was who's. I have noticed with homeschool materials that the number or level of the book does not always correspond with the grade your child is in. So with the tape on the covers it is easy to see who's book is who's. And if you have two children doing the same book, also common with homeschool, you can easily tell who's book is who's.

This year I made one slight change...we used duck tape. It is much stronger and luckily comes in many fun colors and patterns for both girls and boys. The Washi tape didn't hold up well through the whole year.

In our house {school} after they tape all of their books the rest of the roll is theirs to use how they wish. Let the creativity begin!

 {here they are adding tape to each book on the first day of school}

{here are their finished books}

This activity:

-- uses fine motor skills

-- calls for some precision with measuring

-- adds color to your life 

-- shows their personality when picking the tape

-- can teach matching

-- inspires creativity (with the left over tape)

{I forgot to mention that our awesome Principal went out on the first day of school--in the wee hours of the morning--and brought flowers & new dry erase markers to the teacher ;) and breakfast for everyone. What a great guy!}

Busy few weeks...

Hi all! We have a few exciting things to share.
Starting from earliest up to today

1. July 10--We received our Visas to travel to China

2. July 11--We received an email saying that we are invited to China to pick up our little girl! (Travel Approval) That was amazing news to get on a Friday with all of us home (Friday is one of David's days off)

3. July 11--looked up flights and realized that they are MUCH MUCH cheaper than they should be at this time of year, even out of Fresno! I have been praying hard that when the time came the cost of the flights would not detour us or prohibit all five of us traveling...ANSWERED PRAYER!

4. July 11--got tentative itinerary from our travel agent (who was SHOCKED at the prices! David looked at me and said,"You must have been praying.")

5. July 14--CCAI (our agency) requested our US Consulate date. (Once they get that date, which is our last appointment when in China, then we can make our travel plans.)

6. TODAY--July 16--We got an email with our US Consulate appointment date!!!

We now have a travel date!!!

AUGUST 20, 2014

**we're coming baby girl**

 {let's just see this precious and spicy girl again}

Stay tuned...

First Day of School 2014-2015

It's so fun to take First Day of School and Last Day of School Photos. I love looking back. Sometimes it's hard to remember each kid at each stage. What a gift we have in photos!

C-dub - grade 6

Fashion Faith - grade 4

Jumping Joy - grade 2

The whole gang

This is the last month of facial hair for this bearded principal. As of today there are only 10 days left for our Beards of Hope fundraiser to get us to Aunna-baby. Check out the Beards of Hope website!

Article 5!

We got our Article 5 on July 1st! Once again it was fast and we welcome that! Now we wait for the very last step...our Travel Approval (TA).

It looks like we will travel near the end of August. I get butterflies every time I think of loading all 5 of us up to get our Aunna-baby!

Stay Tuned!

2014-2015 school year: week 1

Yes, we started the school year this week! I know...it's early. But with the great excuse of heading to China to pick up our Aunna-baby we were all ready to go (accept C-dub, he'd rather put it off as long as possible...lol). We actually started on June 30th. That is earlier than I expected but my girls begged me to start a week earlier than I had even planned.

One of our family traditions: I try to set out some fun surprises each school year that keep them motivated and make it fun. I also try to keep them to a reasonable amount of $$ and practical! I am not about things that aren't useful.

Each child's area--L to R-- includes:
**a new insulated water cup
**duck tape for book covers --see later post about why we do that
**a blank book for our first history project
**three new pencils
**a monthly/weekly calendar for their weekly lessons--see later post about these
**a .05 ticket to get them started for their Treasure Box prizes
**their own pad of sticky notes
**a thirty-one Cinch Sac--this has dual purpose for school stuff and our China trip
**Mentos candy--I like to get them one sweet treat since we don't let them have candy very often
**a random squishy, stretchy toy guy from the $1 section at Target--something to keep their hands busy while I read or when they feel the need to digit. These were a high hit. I almost took them back but am glad I didn't.
**a composition book with the cover they sewed with my mom for their Journal Jar activity--read about JJ later in this post.

This year I decided to revamp the school area even more. I have always loved to move furniture around and rearrange. I am usually ready to clear out and start over right when we finish the year.

For this school year I was looking forward to a few things:
1. having our school area looking more like I would want my house to look and less like Kindergarten blew-up in there
2. having our materials be less accessible to little people (Aunna will be almost 18 months when we get home)
3. adding in a few elements that create routine for my older three kiddos.

This is how those things rolled out...

the Before

{how we ended the school year}

On the desk and in the 9 slot organizer from Target I felt like there were too many things our little Aunna-baby could get into and pull off the shelves, which would cause frustration and distract from school. So in an effort to set us up for a win I decided it was time to rearrange to keep items more contained.

the After

{how we started this school year}

This dresser has been in our room (taupe), in the girls room (white), our living room as a TV stand (white) and now in the school room (white in need of a touch up). I love that the dresser also hides all sorts of fluttery-looking paper and office supplies. I finally found the baskets at Target for the top row of the dresser. It was tough finding ones that fit just right but also went with the color scheme I wanted. I have been saving gift cards from Target that I have received as gifts for about 2 years. They have come in handy with school and adoption prep.

Here is a peek into one of the bins. It hides things like the Kleenex box and also keeps our flash cards easily accessible.

A few ideas that I adapted from good friends Stephanie and Devon morphed into these new things for the kids.
We have a Journal Jar (the white tin above with little square punched design) where the kids pick out two journal prompts at a time (found on Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers). Instead of hearing complaints that they hate their journal prompt I decided to preempt that with choice. Sometimes you can avoid the whine by giving them reasonable choices to begin with. I tape the journal prompt they choose to the top of their page, they write the date and then their entry. The prompt they don't choose that day goes back into the JJ.

I have decided to have them journal twice per week. Journaling is such a good way to get thoughts on the page and can be a life-long practice. This also gives me time to get my personal Bible study and journaling done first thing. I read their journal entries after they finish and give them a +1 if it meets the criteria I set out. C-dub has to write 7 good sentences, Fashion Faith has to write 6 good sentences and Jumping Joy has to write 5 good sentences. When they have 5 days of good journal entries they get a .25 ticket towards items in the treasure box.

A few years ago my mom and I went on a quilt tour. We found a pattern for composition book covers. They ended up finding their way to the bottom of the project bin until this summer. Each of my kids made their cover with my mom. They had a little sewing tutorial with their nonna and now have a super cute cover for any composition book. With our trip to China around the corner I had in mind that the kids would journal about their experiences. I am totally counting our trip as school so I wanted to work in some elements that count but are also fun. By starting off the year with the journal prompts I hope that it flows when we are in China.

It's so fun using fabric for projects because although it is the exact same pattern they each show their personality. And of course Fashion Faith added a thirty-one flower clip to hers.

It has gone really well this week. For the first week I had them journal M, W, F and will continue during the school year on just M and W.

The black smaller tin above is what we call Twirly Treasures. We have been learning ASL for the past few years because I LOVE IT! (One benefit to homeschooling...we study it because I love it;) This year we are also starting Spanish through some local classes. Our family values learning other languages and about different cultures so I wanted to incorporate that even more this year. I made up flashcard rings of 20 ASL vocabulary words and 11 Spanish vocabulary words. When a child masters that ring of words they get to pick from the TT tin. Things they might find in that tin are .25 coupon, new pencil coupon, "pick one household job to take off your list for the week but still get paid for it" ticket, $5 gift card to Target (there are only three of those and no one can get more than one), "you get to pick diner" ticket, a piece of gum ticket...things like that.

Here is a sample of our flash cards for ASL and Spanish.

These Tiny Tins are hanging in the corner of the school area. There are 3 of them and there are also prizes in them. The prizes change each time and they have to pick a tin without knowing what they will get. They get to pick our of these tins when they memorize 5 verses. David is leading us in a new Bible curriculum this year when he is home on Fridays. His days off are Friday and Saturday since he is a pastor and works Sundays.

So many choices! History/Geography

This is one of the most enjoyable topics for me! I love to learn about other people groups and cultures...and I love to expose my kids to them too! We have worked through a few curriculums over the past 4 years and are excited to start something new this coming year.

Our first year of "I get to pick our curriculum" we went with My Father's World. We really resonated with their philosophy. We learned a lot about MFW at the Modesto Homeschool Conference (held around July each year) by attending their workshops. As first-time homeschoolers in the "I get to pick our curriculum" group vs. a charter where it is mostly picked for you, we really got a lot out of attending the conference! I really recommend attending a conference when you are getting started! It was important that both my husband and I were there to receive information and talk it through. Because we both heard from the speakers we we were able to decide which curriculum best suited our family. Like anything it is best to hear it first-hand.

Anyhow, we used the MFW History/Geography/Bible curriculum for all of our three kids. The two years I am gong to mention with MFW our kids were in 3rd, 1st, PreK and 4th, 2nd and K.

We started out with the MFW Adventures in US History. (This is recommended for families if your oldest child is in 2nd or 3rd grade.) It was a fun exploration of the country we live in. Doing this first gives kids an idea of who they are in relation to people they can relate to first before heading around the world to other people groups. One of the things I enjoyed the most was that the supporting literature MFW recommends are written with kids in mind. Specifically, they are from a child's perspective. An example is that as people immigrated to the US from other countries the journey was told from the perspective of a child and how they would have felt with the challenges and excitement that comes with such a large undertaking. This curriculum leads you through the 50 states.

The next year we did with MFW was Exploring Countries and Cultures. I was so excited to study this and really open our kid's eyes up to people groups they (we) have never even heard of. We studies the 7 continents and some of the main countries in each as well as some indigenous groups. It was fantastic! My two favorite supplemental books in this set were the biographies of the "missionaries" and Kingdom Tales (near the bottom of the picture). Our whole family loved these and used them as Read-Alongs in the evenings. The kids always asked for another chapter to be read!

MFW covers geography with their sets.

One thing that we enjoyed a few years ago were smaller consumable books specific to map reading skills. They come in levels from about 2nd to 8th grade and all pages are full color. The book pictured below is what Fashion Faith did for 2nd grade. C-dub did Level D. You can find them here. I ordered them with a group of other moms. I'm not sure if you can order them as singles or not.

This coming year our plan is to start volume 1 of Mystery of History. It was a toss up between that and The Story of the World. Both were appealing to me because not only is there a book with each week's lessons that includes fun hands-on activities but you can also get the read-aloud section on audio CD! We live about 20 minutes from a few of the activities that we are involved in so I think this will be a good use of our time. We may listen to it at home as well but I like having the option of the kids listening too to take a read-aloud off my plate, especially with the year we are anticipating of adoption. (Whew, that was a long run-on sentence.) I have heard great things from many friends about both of these curriculums.

We have started listening to The Story of the World this summer in the car and the kids are really enjoying it. We will switch to listening to Mystery of History when those CDs arrive. Why not get the info into them in more than one way more than once?

Here are pictures of both...

On my search for curriculum earlier this spring I found this geography curriculum while searching through Veritas Press for Composition Guides for our literature: Legends and Leagues. It looks really cute and follows a four year cycle. Again, I LOVE when all or most of my kids can learn the same thing. This curriculum has activities for younger and older students. (Probably 2-6th grades) We'll see how it works out. It has a read-along portion and then activities. The child's consumable book is full color and so is the read-along booklet. We are starting with South and will work our way through north, east and west. I am doing this with all of my school-aged kids this coming year (6th, 4th, 2nd). The lesson plan recommends doing it every other week. 

I am also looking forward to our oldest being in the Mapping the World By Heart class next year. I hope it works out. They're still trying to get a teacher for that class at our co-op location.  I'm not sure what curriculum they are using yet. My husband did this in his 6th grade class when he was younger. I think it would be a fun class to teach too. :)