our dozen beautiful feet

This week, we had to play a little bit of catch up with our history from the previous two weeks of travel.  So L studied the last three plagues that God sent to Egypt to convince Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave.  We talked about how each plague definitively showed God's power over one of the gods worshipped by the Egyptians.  We talked about Pharaoh's arrogance and defiance toward God, and the consequences he suffered because of it. L and K both drew pictures of each plague in their lapbooks as we studied them.  This really helped them visualize it and remember the order in which they came. After we finished learning about how God rescued the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt, we learned of their wandering in the desert, and how they grumbled against God.  This set up us to learn why and when Moses wrote the story of creation.  Going back and looking at it as an encouragement to the Israelites in the wanderings was really neat.  We s...

We got word this morning that we received a very large grant from the JSC Foundation!!! When we started our adoption process, we had no idea how we were going to pay for everything.  We had some savings that we were committed to exhausting, and thought we could raise a bit of money from friends and family, and apply for grants. We did not know about this JSC Foundation grant until a few weeks ago when a fellow adoptive family that we met two years ago while they were adopting from India told us about it. (That is a run-on sentence if I ever saw one).  They received a lot of money from it, and I thought maybe we'd get $3-4,000, if anything. They wrote last week asking for clarification on our application, and I thought, "Oh, they're not going to give us anything!" And then today, we got an email saying "Congratulations!  We've sent the money to your agency on your behalf, and you can be reimbursed for your travel expenses."  WHAT?!?  We were floor...

So this week, we experimented with taking school on the road.  We had friends visiting and wanted to meet them in another state, so we packed up the kids, toys, and lots of books and headed to the airport. I planned ahead and thought I was well prepared for school in a hotel.  : ) I also decided it would be best to stretch the third week of school over two, considering we were going to be busy with our friends, in a hotel, and the following week we had to travel to Nepal to renew our visa.  Overall, we got done *most* of what we needed to get done. But it was really difficult!  It's not something I'm going to want to do very often.  : ) We're looking forward to getting back into a normal routine this week. But here are some photo highlights of the last two weeks! Headed to the airport! This is the first trip where Chotu pulled his own little carry on.  So adorable!   K tried making Egyptian jewelry.  But I should have brought a needle. ...

Earlier this week I was blessed to visit an old friend in Delhi.  She worked for us when we lived there, helping me around the house.  She's got four daughters and a son and we love their family so dearly.  They are very poor Christians with such servant hearts and are some of the most genuine, loving people I know. The last few times we've visited their house, there's been a guy there who is a distant cousin or something.  This time when we arrived, the first thing that went through my mind when I saw him was that he must want to marry the oldest girl, who is now about 21.  : )  Sure enough, they really like each other and want to get married!  We were so excited to hear it!  They are both strong Christians with a deep faith and are just wonderful people.  But things are not looking good for them. It confused my happy heart to hear how his parents don't want him to marry Soma because first and foremost, she is too short for him.  He...

This was another great week with Tapestry.  And, I'd like to add, that we are loving our writing and grammar programs: Writing With Ease and First Language Lessons, both by Peace Hill Press. Here are the photo highlights of the week!  We finished up with the salt maps, labeling all the landforms with their proper geographic terms.  We took a field trip to our handicraft center to help pack up the products for the first shipment back to the US!!  So excited!  We made the double crown of Egypt and listened to our history lesson while pretending to be Pharaoh. We posed as if we were in a hieroglyph or tomb painting. In addition, we did copywork and narration out of Pinocchio, L studied capital letters and periods, added proper nouns to his word bank, and we started a "People of the Ancient World" book, where he'll draw pictures of historical figures and events in their life, and then caption the drawing.  These week, he drew Moses and A...

I'm so proud of my little first grader.  He is such a great writer and loves to write! I'm so thankful that teaching him is (usually) not like pulling teeth.  He did this today and I was so proud of him!! I only helped him spell "person" when he asked me to.  Everything else was all him!