SISTERS, HOMESCHOOLING, RILEY GRACE

the girls were begging for a bath over a shower the other day --they had the bestest time playing in the bubbles

aren't they cute? :)

I caught Becca reading the other day -just sitting by herself in the quietness of the front room.

the girls are working on Starfall . We have our office computer and then our old computer set up in our "school room" -and the kids are allowed to play Starfall, Nick Jr. or Disney Princesses :)

Starfall is a GREAT tool for any of you that have kids ages 2 on up. Elizabeth has done SO well learning her letters just by playing on Starfall. When I do school, I'm often looking for things for Elizabeth to do while I'm teaching the other 2. Now, when she is done with her work, her "assignment" is to go play on Starfall and learn her letters.

She BEGS to do Starfall all the time. ALL the time!









and speaking of school......our big box of books arrived on Saturday. :)
I ordered a portion of curriculum for the kids from Winter Promise called Animals and Their Worlds. The kids (and me too!) have been anxiously awaiting this program....it's SO right up their alley -learning all about animals.

I didn't really need a curriculum for them this year with both Andrew and Becca only being in Kindergarten...but I've really struggled with trying to find a way to include Elizabeth in what we are learning. She sooooo wants to be a part of school and to be like her big brother and sister.

We decided it was worth the investment to buy some of this curriculum in order to simplify my life as a homeschooling mom and to be able to encourage all 3 kids in learning.

Andrew had his face in a book from about 2pm 'till bedtime minus an hour for swimming and an hour for dinner. :) I'm SOO excited to start this program!

and...the best part of our weekend was getting to see Riley Grace.

She is the new daughter of our friends Dave and Sheri.

as most of you know, Becca is obsessed with babies, and so she has been praying for Riley Grace since the day we knew she was born. :)

We knew the kids wouldn't be able to see Riley face to face (she was 7.5 weeks early -born 21 days ago) but asked Dave and Sheri if we couldn't bring them to look at her thru the NICU window...and they said we could.

here they are waiting to see her......

there she is!!!!!

Becca had to really contain herself -she was on the verge of squealing with delight.

she is so perfectly tiny.

And the best news -she got to come home today.

She has defied quite a bit of odds already in her little life -and we cannot wait to watch her grow up. :)

Dave, Sheri, and Riley -we love you guys sooo much!

OUR LAST 2 WEEKS

a little trip, a little bit about attachment, and homeschool conference

that's what you're gonna get with this post. :)

I think most of y'all know I'm a flight attendant but I'm SO fortunate and I really only have to fly 1 trip a month. That means I'm away from home for 2.5 days and 2 nights.

We've noticed that Elizabeth tends to have set backs in her attachment when I fly....which has put us in a bit of a pickle. We can make ends meet without me working....but right now we're trying to save up some money for another adoption not to mention the fact we're having to pay out of pocket for Elizabeth's attachment therapy. Don't get me wrong -I'm not complaining about insurance not helping out -we will GLADLY foot this therapy bill in order to help us help Elizabeth. BUT, it IS expensive. no doubt about it.

anyway-we were really debating what I should do for July...work a trip- or just suck it up, tighten our belts even more and just have me stay home for the month.

Well, God surprised me! There was a trip someone was giving away that had an overnight in a city about 90 minutes from our house! And to make it even sweeter, that overnight was in a hotel that gives us suites AND the overnight was over 20 hours AND it was on a day John had off.......sooooooo, I picked up the trip and last Friday around noon, John and the kids met me on my overnight and got to stay in the hotel with me.

This was SUCH a blessing from God because it still allowed me to work and earn a little extra $$, but I was only away from Elizabeth a day. It was good for all 3 kids, but especially Elizabeth, to meet up with me while I was on a trip.

John and the kids pulled up to the hotel around 1pm last Friday and it didn't take us long to get in our suits and go for about an hour long swim.

While we were just taking it easy in the room and getting ready to go to dinner, we noticed Elizabeth had dozed off.

and not long after, she looked like this. :)

the hotel gives us suites -so there was a TV in the bedroom and 1 in the living room. Becca claimed the bedroom one as hers and pretty much parked herself by "her own TV" :)

We are still in the midst of attachment issues with Elizabeth. They don't just go away over night...BUT we are definitely seeing marked improvement. and not in just the few areas we're working on....it seems to be spilling over to the areas that we knew were attachment related but weren't specifically targetting just yet.

I know several people have asked "what are you doing?!" -the above video is just a short snippet of something we do with Elizabeth. what's funny is we've done this all along with her and just never knew it would help her attachment!! but now we are doing much more often and more purposefully.

what it is is just having her look at my face and copying what I'm doing. it's to help encourage eye contact. If you notice, she is looking right at my eyes almost the entire time...which is really great. The more eye contact you can foster, the better.

You'll also hear me asking her how much I love her. This is another aspect we're working on...her understanding we love her regardless of what she does. It's more than just saying "I love you Elizabeth"...I'm trying to be purposeful sometimes, especially when she's disobeyed, and making sure she understands I still love her. I often ask her, after she's been disobedient, "does mommy still love you Elizabeth?" and often times she'll answer "no". Now, I'm not sure if she completely understands what I'm asking her, but I ALWAYS reiterate "of course I do!....even when you disobey, I STILL love you. When you are good I love you, when you are naughty I love you." This usually turns her sad little face to one of, not only happiness, but there is even a sense of relief.

lastly -John and I just spent Friday and Saturday at our state's homeschool conference. Oh Man!! what a time of amazing teaching. Voddie Baucham was the head speaker and folks, I'm hear to tell you, if you haven't heard this man speak -you need to go to his website and start looking for some of his sermons!!! His main focus is family discipleship -and boy oh boy! He knows his Scripture and John and I were definitely convicted on a few things this weekend...things we didn't even think related to homeschooling!!!! Here is a link to his blog Voddie's blog . Whether you are a homeschooling parent or not -it doesn't matter. God is using this man in BIG ways....just poke around his blog and you will be blessed immeasurably.

I know this is long winded..sorry! so much to pass along to y'all. :) Hopefully you stuck with me the entire time. :)

We've hardly taken any pics this month, so I'll try to get a post full of pics here in the near future -so you don't have to read as much!

GOD PROVIDES IN AMAZING WAYS

This is our new ride.

and this is the kids enjoying a drive around the cul de sac in it. :)

We knew that as we added to our family, we would outgrow John's truck.

our camping trip a few weeks ago confirmed that. The 3 car seats barely fit in the crew cab and we had to leave our dog with my parents cuz there wasn't any room for her.

With us praying over the adoption of another kiddo or 2, we KNEW we'd need another vehicle to tow a camper or boat or whatever.

We've been looking at Yuk*n XL's and Subur*bans for a few months now on re-sell websites. There just wasn't much in our area for a great deal so John started looking in neighboring states..cuz with my flight benefits, we could fly anywhere for free and just drive the vehicle home.

John decided to put his truck up for sale a few weeks ago...fully expecting it to take awhile to sell.

2 days later we had a guy in Iowa interested in it, he paid for a mechanic to check it out and 2 days later it was sold to him. He flew in last Friday to officially buy it and drive it home.

only God could do that!

So Saturday John and I took the first flight out to a neighboring state to look at this Yuk*n XL. It was a smokin' deal so we had to at least take a look at it. It has a few minor cosmetic blemishes -a small dent, a few very small scratches, etc....but everything else seemed to be in top shape.

we had decided, even before flying out, that we would offer less than they were asking if we wanted to buy it. You gotta do that right?! :)

We had really hit it off with the family selling it -just nice, old fashioned, down to earth people.
After test driving it and looking it over, the man selling it told us "well, I don't know what you thought about pricing..but we'd like to offer it to you for X amount"...that was exactly what we were going to offer THEM.

isn't that so like God?!

between the sale of John's boat and truck, we BARELY had to pay any money for this Yuk*n. seriously.

What a provision from God.

so why do I continually doubt Him?

I look at our finances and have numerous times said "God, how are we going to buy another large vehicle AND adopt? We just don't have that kind of money right now!!"

and look how He provides.

we basically traded in 2 vehicles we've outgrown for 1 we can grow into.

ps-we still have the van :) so now we have 2 vehicles that fit 8. we are blessed.

and just cuz this is cute :)

we watched my sister's little chihuahua this past weekend and Andrew and Mia really hit it off.

Because Andrew was still running a fever, he was really low key and just laid around -so Mia loved laying around with him.

SARA BETH BOWS

as you may have noticed, there is a new button on my blog...for Sara Beth Bows .

Jeanette (yes, we share the same name!) and her family finally received their referral for their precious Sara Beth on June 7th and already have received PA -pre-approval. For those not in the adoption world, the PA is the first step to China's approval of the match between you and your child...and to already have this step checked off is amazingly fast!

They are still trying to raise more $ to offset the costs of bringing their daughter home.

If you've ever thought about ordering bows....NOW is the time to do so! :)

They are having an incredible inventory sale right now -bows in inventory are 1/2 off right now! AND they are going to be having a raffle soon.

Please hop on over to Sara Beth Bows and see if there is anything you need. :)

and let me just tell you -the customer service is amazing....if you have ANY questions at all, Jeanette will be able to help you out..from choosing the right bow style for your little one, to sizing, to colors.

A BUMMER OF A DAY

this is my poor son minutes before I picked him up and moved him to the bottom bunk in his room.

the poor little guy is sick again.

he was running a low fever yesterday, 99-100, so I really had thought a good night's sleep would make him feel tons better.

nope.

he woke up with 101.5.



and then about 30 minutes later threw up.

he seemed better after sipping on gat*rade and eating a few crackers over the next few hours....but then around 11:30 he said he wasn't feeling well again.

fever is up over 102 now.

it's a bummer for a NUMBER of reasons

1) I hate seeing my little boy sick. you know a BOY is sick when all they want to do is lay on the couch. just not like him.

2)today was supposed to be a special "mom's day" for me. My mom was going to take the kids for me today so I could get caught up on things around the house and finally start putting together a scrapbook for Elizabeth. She was even going to take them to a local museum that had "dinosaur bones"!
bummer for all 3 kids AND mommy

3)and to top it off -we woke up to find out our satellite tv is out. apparently our 4 week old receiver box blew out last night.

we have no tv

for at least 2 days.

not that we watch all that much...but when you have a sick kid who can't leave the house and can't get up off the couch -what are you suppposed to do?!

it's been movie day today.
lots of videos.
and thanks to grandma who stopped by with a few from her house that were "new" to my kids.

now just hoping noone else gets this.
I did have the girls wipe the bathrooms down with sanitizing wipes, and then we hit all the door handles and light switches. :)

SOME HELPFUL THINGS

We've just come thru another fairly rough week with Elizabeth AND just had our 2nd attachment assessment/counseling appointment. I feel like I have lots of things floating around in my mind...things I want to share with y'all, but I'm running short on time tonight!

For a couple weeks now I've wanted to share a couple links with y'all.

The first is this blog The Mouro Family .

this blog has been so very helpful for me/us as we sorted thru Elizabeth's behaviors and how to address them...even before we started counseling.

If you go to their blog and look on the "labels" to the left -look for Attachment Issues...or you could just scroll thru her whole blog. :) Laura has learned so much as she has allowed God to direct their parenting of Ruthie/Abbie and navigate the scary world of attachment issues.

She really does a great job of explaining how to not battle these kids when they're trying to get you to battle. It has certainly helped John and I to understand it better.

If you are an adoptive parent, I highly recommend you at least skim thru The Mouro Family blog. Even if your child isn't dealing with attachment issues right now, they may in the future and just having some of this info in the back of your mind would be SO helpful!

The second link I wanted to post for you is this one. Glimmers of Joy and Signs of Hope . This is actually a post from my friend Carrie's blog. Carrie was our first family advocate at the agency we used to bring Elizabeth home. Not long after we were referred Elizabeth, Carrie and her hubby Jacob left the US to serve the Chinese people. They are currently serving in a foster home for special needs orphans. I read this post back when she first wrote it and thought -it's so dead on! And then Carrie reminded me of it a few weeks ago when I first started blogging about our attachment struggles with Elizabeth.

Anyone -adoptive parent or not -should read Carrie's blog. :) But especially the post I'm referencing. I think it's such a great perspective of adoption...and the sadness that is in these children's hearts.

Ok-that's it for tonight. Stay tuned for more attachment stuff later. :) It's been a rough week, but we're learning alot...about ourselves, about Elizabeth and what may be triggering her, how to recognize her insecurities building, how to try to make her feel more secure.

BELATED FATHER'S DAY

the 4 most important people in my life! :)


while making b'fast Sunday before church, this is what John and I saw. :)
the 2 of them hanging out and giggling together...VERY rare these days as Elizabeth has found just about ALL of Andrew's buttons and takes much joy in pushing them...and Andrew has had a very short fuse with her lately....so to see them hanging together was definitely photo-worthy!



after church, as is now customary, the whole gang popped over to our place for a BBQ and swim.
Our house is smack dab in between my parents' and my sisters', so it's just convenient to meet up here...but my sisters' pool will be done soon so I have a feeling we'll have some parties over there in the near future too!

if you can blow this pic up, you have to! Jeremiah's expression is hilarious...he looks like he's thinking "this is the craziest family ever..I can't believe I'm sitting here in this dumb floating thingy!"

my brother-in-law taking Joanna for a swim. :)

after swimming and BBQ, we had grandpa open presents.

I snapped the above photo of Joanna and Andrew cuz it's so unusual to see Andrew without Jacklyn! They are only 9months apart and are like peas in a pod...but for some reason, Andrew and JoJo were buddies this afternoon.

Grandpa opening up his gift from the grandkids..a new flag, some n*tter butters and a bag of
sn!ckers. :)


after the gang left, we took the kids back out swimming.

when my dad was cleaning out my grandmother's house, he found his old boogie board and brought it home.....this is what the kids are on!

my little surfers!

these 2 pics crack me up -Becca can talk Andrew into doing most anything for her. :)
here, she has talked Andrew into pulling her around the pool while she's in/on the air mattress.
as he pulled her around, she sang silly songs and had us all laughing so hard!

and when daddy swims with the kids, the girls almost ALWAYS

ask for him to throw them around....so I video'd them on Sunday. :)