Christmas Traditions

Now that I have adopted my children, I want to create special memories and traditions for us as a family. I have really been struggling with Christmas because while I want it to be special, I don't want it to be a time where they just get the gimmies. I want them to know and understand the real meaning of Christmas. I started out by telling them that santa claus was not real. I don't want to have them believing in santa who they cant see and then I tell them later that he's not real and then they are believing in God and then they are waiting to see if He is real too. So we had a long talk about what's real. I did find a really neat blog about talking about how people are santa in our lives. I also talked with a coworker and I think I will tell them the story of St. Nicholas along with everything else that we do so that they understand that that is where santa claus came from.
well in my searching and desire to make Christmas meaningful, I prayed. I wanted to introduce advent to our family and I wanted to have a birthday party for Jesus. I asked people how they did advent and I called friend to ask what book she used. I couldn't find the one that she had but I found one at Lifeway Christian Bookstore and I am so excited to get started. Sunday wont get here fast enough. I think this book is going to be wonderful:

Each day you read in the book and there is an activity for you to do as well. The first activity that you will do that I am so excited about is the Names of Jesus Wreath. You have to get a wreath and 15 Christmas balls. I got silver because I think the marker will show up nicer. As you are going along on the days, when you read the scripture you look for the different names of Jesus and write them on the balls and at the end of the 25 days you will have a names of Jesus wreath. I am so excited and really think the kids will love learning all of his names. Each of the stories and activities are on their level or easily adjusted. There is something to do each day and it just builds the excitement. I have already started reading the book because I just cant wait. lol
I also bought the advent candles and I bought some of the long matches so that I can let the kids participate in lighting the candles each night. This is going to be an awesome Christmas this year. On Christmas morning we are going to sing happy birthday to Jesus and have a party for him before we open any gifts. I am still praying about the details of this part because I want them to really understand the importance of the birth of Jesus and why we are having a party for him.
I have not been this excited about Christmas since I was a kid.

Thanksgiving 2013

We went to Louisiana to visit our family for Thanksgiving. We had a great time. The kids really enjoyed seeing their cousins for the holiday. They wanted us to stay until Saturday to let my kids go skating with the other cousins but I just could not do it. I am really a homebody and like routine so we headed back home this afternoon after the kids got up from their naps.
On Thursday, my oldest turned 6 years old so he had a Turkey Day Birthday. My little cousin's daughter turned 8 on Wednesday so we did something for them together after our Thanksgiving lunch. They both had a great time. Unfortunately I left my camera at my sister's and was too far out to turn around to go back and get it. She is coming to the kids' dedication at church on Sunday so she will bring it with her then. I had a few pictures on my phone though.

Good morning birthday boy.

cupcake cake - because I don't believe in someone spitting on their food and everyone eating eat.



 





My handsome birthday pirate.

Everyone had a great time. Because all of the sales started on that evening, we had our meal at 12:30. After lunch we went to my sister's house. I was not thinking because I should have taken some leftovers to my sisters for the kids to eat later. Well around 6 PM I get the bright idea to go out and find something for my kids to eat. It was not until I was stuck in traffic and nothing was open that I realized remembered that it was Thanksgiving. So the 2nd bright idea of the night - run into Walmart "really quick" and grab some corn dogs. This thought was more hilarious than the first. There was no running into walmart. As a matter of fact I couldn't get in walmart at all. I have never in my life seen so many vehicles or people in one place. Since I was stuck I decided to see what all the hype was about. I think I got the best deal of everyone in there. I found the alphabet, shape, and number mats for $12 each. I was about to spend $20 apiece for each of these. What awesome savings. I also grabbed a Hi Ho Cherryo game for $3.88 and a combo spin art and pottery maker for $9.99. I thought I did great considering I was stuck in line for 45 minutes to pay for it.

When we got home I opened up the mats even though it was already after 8. Zi and Niya really enjoyed them more than I anticipated. I let them put them where they wanted and when they were done they danced on them, hopped on them, turned flips on them and just had a splendid time. Well I decided to take out all of the centers and let them race to put them back in. It was a challenge.

 

 

I watched them walk around the spot they were looking for several times and it was tempting to tell them where it was, but watching them successfully match each shape was worth the wait - to me and them.

They were very pleased with themselves. They worked hard. And I admit it was a ploy on my part to keep them up late in hopes that I may just hopefully will get to sleep in late. They went to bed at 10. If they get up at 6 like normal people will hear me scream all the way to the North Pole.

I think the mats were a hit and will be taken out quite often. It will also be an easy way to teach them hopscotch.





 





Homeschool progress...Yay

So I am very excited with our progress with homeschooling. Yesterday Zi and Niya made so much progress with their letters just by me associating each one with a member of our family or someone we know. Tonight we worked on them again and they still remembered and we added a couple more. I totally love it. I also love that they don't get tired of doing the same thing over and over again. I did add a few things to it tonight just so that they don't get bored. I gave them "fingers" to point with and I gave them miniature marshmallows if they got them right. They love food. These two could hear a bag opening 2 miles away. They had so much fun. Tonight we added in numbers and associated them with our family by their ages. Although mommy is number 1 and I am far from that age and my sister is number 5 and she's not any closer to it than me lol. We did a few colors but I didn't want to overwhelm them. But with colors I associated them with foods - banana yellow, apple red and orange orange. they laughed every time I said orange. We had fun and then we played Jungle Book Trouble. By then their eyes were really glazed over and even though the thought of going to bed upset them, they fell asleep as soon as their head was in close proximity to the pillows lol.

Last night I really wanted to do something with Amarion to make his homeschooling more fun and more than just bookwork but I couldn't come up with anything and so I prayed and Abba gave me an idea - sight word Yahtzee! Cool idea. I looked online to try to find a letter dice. I found a pack of 5 for $6.99 but after shipping it was over $13 and not worth it. I decided to make my own and so I printed off a blank dice pattern and I was going to write the letters on it. I told one of my employees about my idea and he asked if I happened to have a Boggle game (and I do) and he reminded me that the dice in that were all letters. BRILLIANT!!!!
So tonight after the younger ones went to bed Amarion and I played the game. We already had a deck of cards that I had made for sight word Go Fish so I picked out all the words that were 4 letters or more and then randomly chose 5 (each of us had the same cards). I used all of the dice from the Boggle game and a red cup from our rotary organizer.

 

He got to go first and I kind of helped him along in the beginning to look at his letters and decide which letters were in each of the words. He caught on pretty quickly. You get to roll 3 times just like in Yahtzee. Each time you roll you can keep as many letters as you want or you can roll all of them. When you spell a word you turn over that card and the first person to turn over all 5 of their cards wins.





I had to add a rule though and I had to watch during his turn because I was trying to multitask and I looked up and saw that he was picking up his dice and changing them to the letters that he needed. Little Turkey!!! He was not allowed to pick up a dice unless I saw it first. So he forfeited one of his rolls for cheating. and the little smirk on his face let me know that he knew exactly what he was doing.

 

He got really close to spelling "little" but didn't roll another "l" by his third roll. He was a good sport though.

I told him to look really close because he rolled a word with his first roll. Lucky Duck!!
And he found it!

He tried to spell another word since he still had 2 more rolls but he didn't get the "p".

He finally got all the letters for little. He was very proud because he took 2 turns trying to spell it.

 

He was really moving along great and spelling one word after another. My board on the other hand was not looking so hot.

He was down to one last word to my three and I finally spelled yellow but that was all I could get before he spelled jump and won the game. He kept saying he wasn't sleepy because he knew how to hold his yawns in lol but his eyes were closed before his head hit his pillow too.
This will definitely be a game that we will pull out again. Thank you Abba for such a great idea.


 



 

Success with our letters!!!!

I am so very excited. Homeschooling has been going great but I was getting really discouraged trying to teach Zi and Niya their ABCs. I have been reading blogs and trying to see what other people are doing. I learned some really valuable things like - don't teach them in alphabetical order, don't use upper case, read lots of books - and I was doing all of these things. We read loads of books. We don't have TV so books are our best friends.
Well I had lunch with a friend today and I expressed my concern to her and she told me what she did to help her daughter and her nephew learn their letters. She gave them names. Yeah. I was not hopeful. She explained that she would say for example "this is Z. This is Zion's Z and this is S. This is Syniya's S. Well I had some lowercase magnetic alphabets and I took them out this evening and they immediately came over to the table and began to play with them and ask me what they were. Well at first I was just telling them what each letter was and then I remembered what my friend had said and I tried it. We had mommy's M, Zion's Z, Syniya's S, Amarion's A, Bibleman's B, Gracie's (dog) G, Kameelah's (my sister) K, Pam's (their aunt) P, Larry's (pam's husband) L, and C for the baby.
OH MY GOODNESS. THEY REMEMBERED EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM. IN 10 MINUTES OF PLAYTIME.
We had to stop for dinner but after dinner I quizzed them and both of them remembered each letter. I would ask where is mommy's m and they would get it. Where is Syniya's s and they would get it. I almost cried I was so excited. so then we moved to the kitchen table and I switched from the magnetic letters to some cards from a game that I had and they still got them all right. Oh boy. I just wish I had a family member for each letter of the alphabet lol. Although we are quite lucky to have a Z.
I tried to call my friend and tell her about our success and apologize for doubting her, but she didn't answer (which means she forgot her phone in her car again. lol)
I didn't get a single picture but I can always get some tomorrow. I have got to come up with something for the other letters now. This is too exciting. This is more progress with letters in 10 minutes than I have had since we began in October. Praise God.
We are slowly getting our numbers and colors. I made a matching game for the colors and a counting game for the numbers. I think that with the repetition of both of those they will eventually get them. I am always searching for new ideas though. I will get pictures during tomorrow's school.

4H Craft workshop

I took Amarion to his 4H Holiday Craft workshop. I was glad we got to do this together. He really enjoyed it a lot. He got to make 2 edible crafts a turkey and a reindeer (and as I am sitting here typing this I just remembered that he never got to eat them because they are still in the car. oops!)
He also made a snowman out of a light bulb, a reindeer out of a flower pot and a turkey out of a baby food jar and tracing his hands on paper for the tail - we didn't get any pictures of this one because by then I was actually helping him do this craft and so I couldn't take pictures (or at least that's my excuse for not having pictures. lol) He also made an ornament where he put glitter on a little light bulb but I can't remember if we got that one or not. I remember putting his name on a sticker and hanging it up on that little rack to dry. I guess now I'll have to go out to the car and check and then if not I'll will have to run by there and see if they kept it or not. I hope so. It was really cute. He used red in every craft that had it available because that's his favorite color.

 

 

 

 

I love the last pictures of his painting. He decided that he wanted to put some of his leaves on the ground and make some look like they were falling to the ground. I think he did awesome (even if I am a little biased).

I am really glad they held this workshop. It was only $5 and as really well worth it.

 

 

 

We are in 4H

Last month I signed my 5 year old up for 4H. This was actually BEFORE God put it on my heart to homeschool. I thought it would be a great experience for him. I was in 4H when I was a child but never really got to participate in any of the activities so I thought this would be great for both of us. His first meeting was cool - it was at the park and they had a scavenger hunt that he really enjoyed.

Niya chasing Amarion to help him find the things on his list.

Amarion looking for a blade of grass shaped live a V

Had to find a leaf the size of their head.

 

 

The younger kids enjoyed the activity as much as Amarion. Afterwards he took all of his stuff from the scavenger hunt and made a picture.

 

 

 

 

He was very proud of his paper. Unfortunately for him he didn't get to bring it home. I told him we would take a picture of it and he could hang the picture up over his bed. He was happy with that. (I was not letting all of those leaves and dirt come in my house. Nature belongs outside! LOL)

 



 

working full time......and now homeschooling

WOW! When Abba does things, He really goes all out. I am very excited though. He placed it on my heart to homeschool my children back in October. I argued for a while because I am single and I work full time. When would I fit it in? Do I want to be solely responsible for educating my children?
Absolutely yes!!!! After the things we have dealt with in kindergarten I can say with a resounding YES that I do want to have the sole responsibility of educating my children. I adopted my oldest child on Thursday of last week and on that Friday I went in to the district office to submit my intent to homeschool paperwork. And Bless God! he waived the 14 day waiting period so Friday was his last day of school. I was so excited.
I had already pulled my middle two out of headstart and so we started homeschooling in October. Even though my oldest was still going to kindergarten every evening we would come home and we would get started learning. My kids are very smart and catch on really quickly to things so it has been quite fun. I did find that if I am not prepared - I get quite frustrated with the way things go. I also realized that I have a teacher mentality and not a homeschool one and so I am working on changing that. the coolest thing about it though is learning who my children are. It is amazing how spending 3 hours each evening with them will actually let me know them even better than I thought I did. I am loving it.
I have been on several blogs of homeschooling moms and just trying to find ideas on how they are doing it. I am amazed at the amount of information that is out there. So cool. God has also given me several ideas for games to make and play with them that helps to teach them certain concepts. Some mornings I find myself up at 1 or 2 AM searching.....and I find some awesome things.
While I want to keep my 5 year old going along at the pace that he has been going, I am taking my 3 and 4 year olds a little slower. I am constantly making games to teach them letters, numbers, colors, and shapes. I have found that if it is a game they absolutely love it. And the cool thing about them is they will play it over and over and not get tired of it. I get tired and want to move on to something else and one of them will say "That's all mommy?". I love it.
We have a calendar - I laminated it so I could write on it with a dry erase marker. We discuss the month; today, tomorrow, and yesterday; the weather; count the days; then sing the days of the week song and do the months of the year song. After that we usually do Bible. I read about these bible cards on another blog and ordered them - Love them. We are currently discussing Jacob and Joshua. I will cover the same card for a week and they really get it down and can answer all of the questions. Then we sing some bible songs.
I separate them after this and put my 5  year old to work in his explode the code book - I laminated it as well so that he can use a dry erase marker and I can erase it each day and he can repeat the pages so that he can really grasp each concept. He also does the handwriting without tears app on my Ipad. Then he does his math and reading. I try to make sure that I include several hands on things for him to do as well to really get each concept.
While my 5 year old is doing his work I have the 3 and 4 year old (and the 1 year old) and we are working on learning to recognize our numbers, letters, shapes, and colors by playing different games I have made up.
One thing that I have learned about since deciding to homeschool is lapbooks. What a great concept. We read the same book for one week and do activities that I find online or make up each day. Then we put it all together in a lapbook. We have done Goodnight Moon and now we are doing Goldilocks and the 3 bears because it was a spinoff from Goodnight Moon. Next I want to do the Little Red Hen. The book that I have is not the one that I remember from childhood but it has the same concept. I want to find the Little Golden Book version though. The kids love the lapbooks and they take them and play "store" with them. When they finished theirs from Goodnight Moon they stood them up on the table and pretended they were working at McDonald's and ordering from each other. It was adorable. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures. They played with them the entire time it took me to put the baby (almost 2) to bed - she felt she needed to be rocked to sleep that night!
Now that we are homeschooling I'm sure there will be many more thoughts from the prairie.

Adoption Day - Round 2

waiting for court - Syniya, Amarion, Zion

waiting for court - silly babies

We had court today at 1:25 pm. We arrived a little early so we ate a snack outside and then came inside to wait because it was a little windy and I didn't find out until we got their that Amarion's jacket was not in the car but on the school bus (he forgot it the day before). I had planned to walk around town a bit but not having a jacket in the car for him changed that. This county did things a lot different from the county I went to for Zi and Niya. Here, they actually called me up on the stand to testify. Very intimidating but it went well. When I got down, Zi and Niya started clapping. I was glad everyone thought it was cute. They are adorable though. The judge gave Amarion a bear that had a certificate that said he was adopting it. He named it Smokey Joshua Rasheed. Smokey because on our way to court we stopped at the visitor center in the National Forest and they saw Smokey the Bear and Joshua because that is his new middle name. Zi and Niya got bears when they were adopted as well. I think I will make them an adoption certificate for theirs. It's a really cool idea.

I am so excited. Now a mother of 3. On December 1, I am having the 3 of them dedicated at church. Abba is so awesome.





 

So after we were done, we got to take a picture with the judge.

 

So it is official. I am the mother of a 5, 4, and 3 year old. 3 beautiful babies with my last name. I am so loving it. What a big God I serve. He made this all possible. Waiting on #4 so we can have adoption day round 3. 



Picture time

I am going to attempt to add pictures to this. In view of the fact that I have never done this before.....yeah...we'll see how it goes. These are pictures from Adoption Day - Zion and Syniya Rasheed. My forever babies:

Adoption Day - November 13, 2013

It's official, they are mine! Praise God!

 

 



So that went well. It wouldn't let me add a caption on the last picture but this was the next day. They are just adorable. Niya always wants her picture taken. And Zi is just a cool big brother.

So the next three were just us playing around with the camera before we left for court. We were very excited. They were just excited because I turned my phone around and they could see themselves. lol.
Actually, they were a little miffed at me when I dropped the other kids off at daycare and they had to stay with me. In their minds I was already mommy and there was no need to go to court. But I am so glad we did. My forever babies.

Super exciting week! Another adoption Day!

This is an exciting week. Last week was awesome because of the ADOPTION DAY for Zion and Syniya Rasheed. So I am very excited that this week I will be adopting my oldest.
I moved from my Ipad to my laptop tonight which is a huge plus because now I can actually type instead of pecking letter by letter. Tomorrow I will have been an "official mommy" for one week. It really feels so great knowing that my babies are now mine forever. I love it.
In two more days (Thursday) I will be adopting my oldest and I am super excited. He actually understands what it means that I am adopting him. The younger two were just looking at me like I was mental because they have always called me mommy. So me telling them that I am their mommy was like me telling them that they had eyes. lol. But my Talking Jack definitely knows and is very excited. Zion and Syniya are both going to go with me to his adoption because they are already adopted and are mine. So we will welcome him into the family together and then celebrate. So very very excited. I can't stop smiling and thanking God for such a wonderful blessing.
We had dentist appointments yesterday and Syniya and Talking Jack got their teeth cleaned. All was well with Niya and there were no cavities. Talking Jack on the other hand - even though he did not have any cavities, he had hit his front teeth at some point and they were abscessed. On Sunday morning he had told me that they were loose and I told him that he was 5 and so he was probably about to lose them. The dentist was concerned about how the roots were dropping down so fast and that there was infection. So she pulled them and he is now missing his two front teeth. He is absolutely adorable though. I think he loves the attention that it is getting him too. lol
I need to post pictures of Zi and Niya now that they are adopted and then on Thursday I will post pics of talking Jack. They are all very beautiful children and the loves of my life.
It's hard to sleep when you are waiting for something this wonderful. It's almost like Christmas.
At least this time I will be prepared. I was not prepared for last Wednesday. I had no idea that I would be sworn in and questioned. But of course my answer was ABSOLUTELY YES I WANT MY BABIES!!!!! And it will be the same on Thursday.
Thank you so much Abba for my babies. I am super excited!!!!!!

A mommy.....for real and forever

Well November 13 will be a day forever imprinted in my mind. I am officially a mommy! I adopted my two middle children and I am so excited. The process has been a long walk with Abba but I am so glad and honored to be allowed to walk it. The court proceedings were a bit scary but nothing could change this decision. It feels so. Good to say. Their names and know that they have my last name and I am their forever mommy........Zion and Syniya. My son and daughter. Since they did not fully understand what I meant when I told them that we had to go to court so I could be their mom forever, they were a little upset that they didn't get to stay at daycare. I found that quite funny. Excited can't really describe how I feel. Knowing they are now my babies. I am their forever home. And on the 21st of this month I'll do it again. I can't wait!