Random

When Hannah says, "Water!" it sounds like she is saying, "Vodka!"  Kind of a funny mix-up :)

Today I got new running shoes.  And a fabulous Garmin GPS watch as an early birthday present.  I went for a very, very cold 2 mile run with my buddy this morning and wondered, "Why do I do this?!?"

Nathan is doing awesome in speech therapy!  He never complains about practicing his words and has been working so hard on the "f" sound at the beginning of words and in the middle of words.  Hearing him say, "muffin" instead of "muh-shin" was pretty cool tonight.  I'm so proud of him and excited to see his progress.

I got the urge to rearrange the basement (schoolroom) this week...so I did!  I like it a lot and it feels less cluttered.

Last week I got some fun stuff in the mail!  On Black Friday I got a great deal (60% off and free shipping) on some 10-drawer craft carts that I am going to use as workboxes for homeschooling.  The boys already love it and it makes organizing and going through our school time so quick and easy!  I will post more about this soon.

Matthew had ear tubes put in almost two years ago.  He has done really well and hasn't had any ear infections...until now.  He has been sick for almost a month and has ear infections in both ears.  We go back to the ENT in a month to see if he has to have ear tubes put in again.  In the meantime, his hearing is horrible because of the fluid in his ears.  It is hilarious trying to get three kids all with hearing loss to bed in the same room!  We have to talk so loud and it doesn't seem very restful or peaceful!

I just ordered the first book of a curriculum called Five in a Row.  I am super excited to add this in to our days.  It is literature-based and from what I understand we will read the same book for five days (we will do this over two weeks  as we don't do school every day) and then do activities for different subjects (math, art, science etc.) connected to the book.  I absolutely love books and want to pass this on to my children, and I think this curriculum will help!

We just made the switch from disposables to cloth diapers for overnight (the kids are all potty trained in the day) and I think I love it.  It is more work and I have to make sure I have them washed by bedtime, but I'm getting used to remembering :) They are super cute and we laugh at Hannah's huge behind every time we put one on her!

It's 8:30pm and I am waiting for the boys to fall asleep so that I can go to bed!  Another crazy Saturday night around here :)

Friday Friday Friday

It's Friday, and I'm glad.

I start out the week so full of energy, ready to take on the challenges of the week, eager for school, looking forward to the days ahead.

By Friday, I often feel like I'm barely hanging on, counting down the hours until Brad comes home!  The weekends are so great, having help with the kids, having an adult around to talk and laugh with, it's so refreshing.  I really am loving these days with my little ones and don't often feel like I'm just surviving (anymore) but there is something so great about having us all together.

We don't have any big plans this weekend as Matthew is still fighting sickness and Brad came home from work early today not feeling well.  I am starting to get excited about running again even though I have not been very consistent lately, and I'm looking forward to a run tomorrow morning with my new running buddy who lives just down the street!  I'm hoping to maybe get some new running shoes this weekend as I have big plans for the coming year...

Before blogging I was just working on this...

...my schedule for the next few months!  My goal is to run an 8k race in February (5 miles) and then to head straight into half marathon training to run a half in May.  I thought about doing one this year but with adjusting to three kids and the lack of sleep I just didn't have it in me.  I'm still not sure I do, but I am going to give it a try :)

My motto for this season of life: one day at a time!

A Fun Day of Allergy Testing

It's just what every little boy wants for his birthday - allergy testing!

Matthew and I set out this morning for his annual allergy testing, and even though the doctors visit part was not fun, the rest of our time together was great.  I love having one on one time with the kids.

I both dread and look forward to these tests each year.  I am always hopeful that things will have changed and we'll find out his allergies are less severe or even gone.  But I also know it's quite likely that it may be years until this happens, if ever.  So I try to take a "wait and see" approach.

Today Matthew had a skin prick test.  He was tested for milk, egg, casein (a protein in milk), peanut, almond, cashew, and hazelnut.  After only a few minutes it became pretty obvious he is still allergic to most of these :( His egg reaction was the largest, and the others were all pretty big too.  Poor kid was wanting to scratch his itchy arms!  No reaction to almond, which is good, but he probably won't be able to eat these anyway since they're so often processed with other tree nuts.

For some reason I've been having a really hard time accepting that Matthew actually has a peanut allergy.  That probably sounds silly; it doesn't even really make sense to me.  He has had a positive blood test and a positive skin prick test (several, actually) but I know that there can be false positives.  Somehow I thought this one wasn't right, he has never eaten peanut (as far as we know) so I thought that eventually they would do a food challenge and we'd find out he wasn't really allergic after all.  But when I asked the doctor today I got a little dose of reality.  He told me that when someone has a reaction (red bump) larger than 6mm, there is a 95% chance that if they eat that food they will have a reaction.  Matthews reaction was over 8mm :(  Peanut reactions can be the most severe, and that's scary.  But I guess it's time for me to accept that one.

So, here we are.  I always feel a bit down when he has these tests, being reminded that it's true, remembering that he could be really hurt one day by food, and that this isn't going away anytime soon...it just stinks.  So today I'll be sad about it, and tomorrow we'll get back to regular life, remembering that it's not all that bad after all.  There are blessings in even these difficulties, as I am reminded so often to trust the Lord with my sweet little boy. 

And Then He Was Five

It feels like just a moment ago that he was placed in my arms.  Tiny, beautiful, with big brown eyes taking in everything around him...and he was all mine.  That moment, the moment I became his mom, everything changed.  It's hard to remember life before him.  I know one thing for sure - it was way less fun!

Today my baby, who is not a baby but will always be my baby, turned FIVE!

His heart melts me on a regular basis and he never ceases to amaze me.  This week as we talked about buying presents for a little girl in foster care, we talked about how he lived with his foster mom before coming to live with me, his forever mommy.  He was quiet for a moment and then said, "I have a great idea!  Maybe you could be her forever mommy, like you're my forever mommy!"

We talked a little about foster care, how she might already have a forever mommy who needed a little bit of time to sort some things out, or how she might not have one yet, but that we can't be her forever family right now because we don't have any more room or any more beds.  With a smile he said, "Well I have a great idea!  She could share my bed!"

Oh, how I pray he always keeps that compassionate heart that is ready to love, to welcome others, to be kind.  More than anything I pray that he will know and understand how much he is loved by Almighty God.  I have no idea what the coming years hold for this precious boy of mine, but it is exciting and amazing to see him change and grow and learn every day.  What a gift he is to us!

Happy Birthday, Matthew!

We are so thankful that you're ours!

Then and Now

It's been 9 wonderful months with our little girl and today I came across these pictures as I prepared to take her passport application in.  On the left, her picture taken in China for her Citizenship Certificate. On the right, her picture taken yesterday for her passport.  It's been a great 9 months and look how our little sweetie has blossomed!

She has surprised us over and over again with her resiliency, her determination, and her perseverance.  I am excited to get to know her more day by day and to see her grow and change.  She is such a blessing to our family!

Preschool Fun

 Here's a little of what we've been up to this week!

I plan our school activities one week at a time, usually on the weekends.  It does not take too long but I've found it makes such a big difference if I have it well planned.  We have started using workboxes, which is something I've learned about from many other homeschool blogs.  I plan about 5 activities for each child to do each day that we're going to do school, and this typically takes us around an hour.  If we don't get to something, it's no big deal.  If we need to switch things around, we do.  I love having things planned out and I'm a total nerd with my charts and notes :)

This is our "workbox" area.  Their first activity is usually handwriting and so it's on the table when they come downstairs.  Their other four activities go in these boxes (Matthew's in the top four, Nathan's in the middle four, and Hannah's in the bottom four).  This way I can put everything needed for each activity in the box and when it's time I just grab everything out - no looking around for things!

We work for the most part at our big table, although we often spread out for other activities.  Matthew and I do his reading sitting on the floor in front of the whiteboard.  Nathan likes to do things at the little kid table.  Hannah often gets down and just wanders around playing with toys (which is fine, as long as she's happy!!).

Here are some pictures of school on Friday.  While Matthew worked on one page of his math book (he is learning simple addition), Hannah and Nathan put beads onto pipe cleaners that were stuck into playdoh.  They both loved this!

To make Nathan think a little more, I started some patterns and asked him to keep going with the patterns.  He did great!  

Next Hannah put some little craft puffs into a container while Nathan, Matthew and I played a kite game.  Our letter this week (for Nathan) is K, so we have been doing some kite activities.  

I got the idea for this game somewhere and then just made my own - a picture of a kite, cut up into five pieces, with a number on each piece.  If its your turn you roll the die, count the dots and then pick up that piece of the kite (if you don't have it already).  Nathan is working on counting and number recognition so this was good for reinforcing that.  Matthew just thought it was fun!  It also teaches them to take turns and to not get mad if they lose :)

Matthew has always hated coloring, but these days he is much more willing to try for longer periods of time.  He colored a page that was split up into different sections with a color key telling him which color to use for the different words.  He read it himself and completed it without help.  He was very proud of himself!

While he did that, Nathan and I played "Step and Read" which I made up to help the boys practice letters/words.  Nathan had to step on a letter and read it - if he got it wrong I made him go back to the beginning (mean mommy!).  This way he practiced them a lot.  At the end he got some small prizes, which was very exciting.

Matthew's completed picture!

Last week Matthew's reading lesson was pretty intense and he worked on reading words with final blends.  It was a challenging week so this week we did some review with a lot of the new words.  He played "Step and Read" with his new words and did great!

I'm really enjoying so many aspects of homeschooling.  We were all sick for almost 2 weeks and I realized just how much school Matthew would have missed already.  Thankfully he wasn't sick enough to not read or do lessons at home, so we kept plugging away.  I love the planning, finding new ideas and playing games with the kids.  It's amazing to see the progress they've made in only a couple of months.  I don't know what the next years will hold for us, if we will continue to homeschool or not, but for now it is such a wonderful blessing to our family!