our dozen beautiful feet

For the last four months, we have had the joy of having Jessica live with us.  She has been helping us with our handicrafts center as it has been in it's infancy stages.  I don't know what we would have done without her, and I am so thankful that God led her to us in His perfect timing to help us with this work of providing jobs and income to ladies here in our area.  A few days before my birthday, while I was out and she kept the kids for me, she interviewed them as a birthday gift for me.  I loved this so much!  Words of affirmation are definitely my strongest "love language", and so this was such a special gift for me.  I wanted to share their answers, because they brought me so much joy... 1.  What is something Mommy always says to you? L- I'm a great picker upper. K- To obey her.  2. What makes Mommy happy? L- When I obey her and she loves rabbits. K- Giving her cards 3. What makes Mommy sad? L-When I don't obey and...

We had a nice, slow, uneventful week last week.  Those seem few and far between anymore. : )  Well, at least until Friday, when we traveled two hours to go to a friend's wedding reception.  It was a great time to visit a place we used to live and see old friends.  We stayed with good friends and let the kids play together.  Busy, but good! : ) Here are the highlights! We are studying ancient Israel still, this week focusing on the role of the priests and the festivals.  We made ephods, the breastplates the priests wore, and L also made a high priests hat. K enjoys practicing math with the Math-U-See blocks.  We made shofars.  They didn't work as well as I'd have liked.  But the kids enjoyed it anyway. We colored a picture of a priest blowing a shofar, and learned all about when shofars are blown, and listened to three different calls on the internet. The kids were mimmicking them the rest of the day.  We learn...

This video brought me to tears.  It's focus is on African adoption.  Let the Lord search your heart as you watch it...

This week, we focused on Moses and God giving the law, including the ten commandments to the Israelites as they wandering in the wilderness.  We learned what their life would have been like, what kind of foods they ate, the set up of the camp, and the Tabernacle.  We learned about Shabbat, or Sabbath, God's instructions to keep one day of rest each week.  We also played a bit of catch up by finishing up the Patriarchs with the story of Joseph.   L's notebook page on the story of Joseph.   We tried weaving cloth like the Israelites would have done.  I would suggest you not do this activity in the first grade. : )  K is learning how to make her bed.  Here's K doing a game of matching capital letters and lower case letters. We made mock tablets like Moses would have written on, out of playdough.  The kids decided to let Chotu participate in the playdough activity. We also learned about the Jewish calendar ...

I just went back and read through some of my writing during the paperwork phase of our adoption.  I thought this waiting was getting a bit tough, but reading through the manic mess that the paperwork and home study process was, I think I can safely say, I'd rather be waiting now than doing that still! : )  Two and a half months into the wait... how much longer will it be???

This has been a crazy week! My parents came for a visit, for the first time in three years.  Life here is pretty different than it was three years ago.  We are much more settled here and are really enjoying life.  We had a great time with them, and they certainly didn't stay long enough. : )  Because they were here this week, we didn't get as much school done as we normally do, we spent a lot of time showing them around our city.  We also were really busy this week because L turned six years old!!!  So, I only have pictures from the first day of school this week.  And some of our sight seeing at one of our favorite place, Amber Fort. Here we are (with Grammy) making a traveling table, like Abram and Sarah might have had. Here's K demonstrating how it works. :) The kids had fun playing with this all week... Great picture capturing L's personality! Likewise, capturing a lot of K's sass. Whispering a secret in brother's ear....

I had to photograph this.  Maybe e-mail should be one of L's spelling words. This week was quite a bit slower than last week.  We continued on with our skills work, L is doing really well with his writing and getting better and better at listening and reading comprehension.  It's so amazing to watch them learn and pick up on things! I love it! L doing his math work.  In a week or two we're trying out a new program, Horizons.  Hoping it challenges L more. Our history study this week took a look at ancient Mesopotamia and the Sumer civilization. We read about walled cities and what kinds of things kids would learn in school, like writing in cuneiform on clay tablets.  We learned about how cities in Sumer each had a ziggurat in the center of the city which served as a religious center.  They were  high towers built to reach up to the heavens.  This is probably what the Tower of Babel was.  We read the story of the Tower of Bab...

When I first heard about Pinterest(.com), I wrote it off as another thing to distract me from my family, husband, responsibilities, and keep me glued to the computer.  I resisted joining for months.  But last week, I asked a good friend to show it to me, and realized, this could be really useful.  So I joined, promising myself to carefully monitor if it was becoming addicting and time consuming for me, and quit if it did. So far, I am loving Pinterest.  I don't spend very much time on there at all.  (Not even every day, just a couple times this week for less than 10-15 minutes each).  I do feel the time I spend is incredibly helpful.  I would so love to do creative things with my kids, but I'm not creative enough to think of fun activities and crafts to do.  I rarely have the time to sit and search blogs for ideas of things I can do with resources I have available where we live.  Pinterest has really helped!  It consolidates a lot of ...