One Year Later

One year ago, we boarded a plane, flew around the world, and spent an amazing two weeks in China!

It was a difficult day for Hannah, but meeting her was one of the best days of my life.  I think back now on that day and it makes me smile and cry.  It's hard to remember how scary and difficult that day was for her.  It's amazing to see pictures of her in my arms for the first time.  It felt so surreal and crazy at the time!

The last year has been incredible.  Without a doubt, Hannah was meant to be in our family.  She is such a perfect fit for all of us, it just astounds me!  To see how she loves her brothers, and how they love her...I can't imagine any of them without each other.  It's strange to look at these pictures and to know that when I took them, I really didn't know the little girl behind those beautiful, dark eyes.  I always wondered what she was like, what she was thinking or feeling...now I don't have to wonder anymore!  She certainly knows how to let us know what she is thinking and feeling these days :)

Sometimes I can't believe that I got to travel to China to meet my daughter.  What an amazing life I have been blessed with!  More adventure than I ever dared to imagine!  Visiting China was so wonderful and I'm so thankful we had the opportunity to see where Hannah was born.  I hope so much that we will be able to visit again in the future.

I am shocked almost every day as we have approached this milestone at how far Hannah has come in just one year.  While in China, we realized Hannah could not stand, pull up, crawl, or even push herself into a sitting position on her own.  She struggled to roll over.  Look at her teeny, tiny arms!  She weighed just over 17lbs and was a tiny little peanut wearing 9 month old clothing (she was 18-months-old at the time).

Just look at her a year later!  She is so strong, has an awesome belly, can run, climb, jump, ride a tricycle, and keep up with her two busy brothers.  She eats like a champ and weighs almost 25lbs!  Her speech has come along so well that she is about to be discharged from speech therapy after only about 6 months with a hearing aid!  Seriously, she could not be doing any better.  

I smile and thank God when I hold this little girl.  I thank Him for keeping her safe before we were able to bring her into our family.  I thank Him for how much she has grown and changed and for how healthy she is.  I thank God for taking us across the world, despite our fears about traveling and leaving our other kids and all the unknowns, and for blessing us with this precious little one.  She has brought so much joy to our family and we are so glad she is ours!

Back to {Home}School

Christmas break is over and we are sllloooooowwwwwlyy getting back to our regular routine.  I thought I'd give a little update about where we're at and how things are going.

I'm glad I did a lot of planning before the break because it seems that I can't get myself into gear just yet!  We have settled into a comfortable and fairly easy routine that is not difficult for me to plan or prepare, and that has helped immensely.

We are finishing up Level 1 of Matthew's reading curriculum (All About Reading) and I have to say we LOVE it!  The lessons were pretty short, very manageable for us, and the teacher's manual is fantastic.  There was some prep work, but not too much.  There were games that Matthew always enjoyed and it came with three books that helped him to build confidence as he was learning to read.  He often asks to read from these books and seems to really enjoy them.  I would definitely describe him as a reader now!  He can pick up any easy-to-read picture book and read it with very little help.  It is amazing to see!

We are taking a little break from reading lessons but continuing to work on fluency and vocab as we read every day.  Matthew is building a caterpillar by reading books (for every book he reads we add a circle to his caterpillar) and when he gets to 20 he will get to pick out a new book (his idea when we talked about what would be a good reward).  So far he is at 9 and he is very excited to read us books every day!  I'm hoping to order All About Reading Level 2 sometime in February and then we will continue on with that.

Matthew is starting to like coloring and drawing more (he has never been one to pick this as an activity if given the choice).  Last week for our Five in a Row curriculum (which we already really enjoy, by the way!) we read the book, "The Story About Ping", which was a book about a duck on a river in China.  We learned more about ducks, and one day used our "Draw, Write, Now" book to learn to draw a duck.  This was Matthew's drawing:

I had the poem typed up already, and Matthew read it to me (he needed help with the words "specially" and "bottoms") and then drew the duck.  I thought he did a great job!

We have a lot of fun with school most of the time, although we certainly have our days.  Matthew loves math, does NOT love learning to write (we're going slowly and he's doing a good job for his age), enjoys coloring, really likes reading and being read to, and is generally pretty cooperative.  We have our "bad attitude" days for sure, but they don't usually last very long.  I love homeschooling and we are thinking and praying about next year and what we will do.  So many decisions!!!

Full of Energy!

This winter is feeling long...and these kiddos are so full of energy!  It has been super cold again here and we have not been outside for a while.  We are finding some fun ways to burn off energy with relay races, jumping games, and playing on some great new toys!

For Christmas the kids got a balance bike (it has no pedals so they can learn what it feels like to balance on a bike).  We have it down in the basement and the kids play on it several times a day.  

Hannah is learning to ride a tricycle so we took that downstairs, too.  Then this week, I found a great toy on clearance down from $20 to only $4.99!  It is a little bouncy horse and the kids loved bouncing it around the house so much that I went back and bought two more!  Now they have horse races around the living room.  It is so funny, I may have to take a video to show you.  Plus, they are burning energy (they have SO much!!!).

The days feel pretty long when we are not able to get out but thankfully we have been able to go to speech therapy, playgroup, and the library in the last week.  Next week we have no playgroup so I need to plan something fun to do.  I think I will appreciate spring even more this year!

Finding My Running Legs

My pants were starting to feel uncomfortably tight.

Why does that always happen this time of year?!?!  Yes, I know the answer.

I had just started running again when we had several weeks of sickness combined with snow and freezing temperatures that I could not possibly run in.  I would get in a run here or there but was not able to be consistent and it was really frustrating.  I worked out at home sporadically but really wanted to be out running.

Once January 1st rolled around I knew that a local gym would be having a deal.  Sure enough, I could sign up for $10 and pay only $10 a month!  Score!  I knew that would get me through the winter days when I am unable to run outside.

Since the beginning of January I've been able to be fairly consistent with my running.  It was H-A-R-D to get used to running on a treadmill again.  Not physically hard, but mentally hard.  I'm getting more used to it now and I was thrilled to be able to run 4 miles yesterday!

Brad has also started running (he has a free gym at his work) and we are excited to be running an 8k in just a few weeks.  Together, but not together if you see what I mean.  Because he's way fast, and I am less way fast :)

The pants are getting looser, I feel stronger and it is nice to have a bit of time every other day to exercise.  I've missed it!

Nathan Turns Four!

It is hard to believe that our middle son, Nathan, is FOUR!  He turned four at the beginning of January but I didn't post about it because we were sick.  Now we are all better and getting ready to PARTY!

I feel as though I could write all day and all night and still not have enough time to tell you about what a wonderful little boy he is.  If you don't have the blessing of knowing Nathan in real life, let me tell you a little about him.

Today I was telling someone that it's funny but he is actually our quietest child AND our loudest child!!!!  Today he sat in the service with me at church and was silent for over an hour, sitting with nothing to play with but a piece of paper and a pen!!  Sometimes he is so quiet I go looking for him.  He will play for hours building with Duplo, or trucks or Rescue Bots.  He has a great imagination and will make up stories all day long.  He loves books (seriously, if I have one in my hands he is on my lap in a second begging me to read it!) and will easily listen to 10 or more books at a time.  His attention span is amazing.  When we do school, he sits at the table and is focused the whole time.  He does whatever I ask without complaining and works so hard!  He is smart and is always surprising me with what he knows.

And then on the other hand...he is soooooooooooo loud!!!!!  He is all boy!  He loves to run and climb and jump off of things.  He often squeals with laughter and shouts so loudly when playing with his brother (who he adores).  He is so full of life and love and sweetness.

Nathan has such a compassionate heart and I just love that about him.  He is quick to notice if someone is upset and he always tries to comfort them.  He often brings Hannah toys when she is crying.  He is gentle and caring and obedient and loving and creative.

I think to myself all the time, I wonder who you will be when you're older, little boy.  I wonder how God will use you.  In case you couldn't tell...I just love him to pieces!!!

Happy birthday, Nathan!!

That One Time it Snowed...and Snowed...

There's no doubt it's winter here!  We are having lots of snow, lots of cold weather, and lots of days stuck in the house.  It sure is pretty to look at, though!  I don't remember the last time it snowed this much.

Since it's been so cold, it's been hard to get outside very much (plus we've been fighting sickness again).  We did go out for a few minutes the other day to "help" Brad shovel the driveway :)

It was Hannah's first time (here) playing in the snow!  She was kind of uncertain about the whole thing but enjoyed being pulled around on the sled.  She is so cute all bundled up.

Mostly though we have been stuck inside and I have to say..."I AM READY FOR SPRING!!".  I really am tired of the inside of our house and I can't wait for our regular activities like speech therapy and playgroup to resume so that we can at least have a change of scenery. 

Thankfully these three play pretty well together these days (although they have definitely had their moments this week when I can tell they are sick of being inside, too!).  All we do is make a mess, play, clean it up, make a mess, play, clean it up...and repeat.  Come on, warmer weather!!