Apple Picking Time Again

We went to the apple orchard today.

This is honestly one of Katrina's favorite days of the year.
She simply loves the orchard and all it entails.

Samuel had a great time too!

We have been going to the same apple orchard for quite a few years
and it is really fun to see how the kids change from one year to the next.

September 2007

September 2008

September 2009

September 2010

Another Take on Word Processing

Happy Birthday, Nana.

On Saturday we celebrated my mom's birthday with my entire family.
Even though we all live in the same city
(which most people envy)
it is extremely difficult to find a time when we can all get together.

But, this Saturday worked well for everyone and so we had a birthday lunch
because it was the opening day of bow season and some
(we will leave him unnamed, but I am sure if you know the men in the family you can figure out the main culprit!)
in the family wanted to get out to hunt that afternoon/evening.

I found a delicious recipe for Sante Fe Chicken Fajita soup and a nice fall salad.
Shawn and Leanne brought corn bread and Nick and Amber brought lemon bars for dessert.
It was a great time together.

Nana let Katrina help her blow out the candles and then they took their second-annual Nana's birthday picture together.

We all love you, Mom, more than words can express.
You have given us everything we have ever needed and most everything we want
(when it is in accordance with God's desires for us).
We hope that you had a great day celebrating with all your loved ones,
especially your little dolly and your little man!

ABCs and 123s

Homeschool is going really well.
Katrina has impressed both of us with her interest level and desire to learn.
As a teacher I am all about exposure and experience.
At her age we are not expecting her to be reading or even to know all the letter names.
I believe that with exposure and experience to fun learning activities,
she will learn the letter names and with time, she will learn to read.

During her first week we worked on forming the letters in her name with a variety of media (shaving cream, Q-tips, pasta...).
By the end of the week she had memorized the names of the letters in her name!
During our second week she chose to work on the letters in Samuel's name.
Again we played with forming the letters with different media
(playdough, making them in corn meal, white board drawing...).
Today, Wednesday, she is quite confident of all of his letter names too!

We are having a wonderful time and I am so thankful that God started working
in me a year ago already to relinquish and give up my agenda.
As many of you know, I am one of those who believe that
everything has a place and everything should be in its place.
All. The. Time.

Someone pointed out to me that this mindset could easily come between me and my dream of homeschooling.
She encouraged me to begin to "lower my standards" so-to-speak.
I started to ask the Lord to help me.
The first thing He did was to show me that I needed to eliminate hurry from my life.
Second, He pointed out that my tendency was/is to become angry when things do not go as I desire
(no time to put toys away because we have to get to an appointment -- hence the hurrying!).
He gently showed me that in my anger I was sinning against Him, Pancho, Katrina and Samuel.
And so the work began.
Slowly.
But surely.

It has been gut-wrenching and extremely nerve-wracking (I feel like I have a panic attack when things are not in their places) at times,
I admit, and yet the harvest we are reaping now is priceless.
Thank You, God, for knowing me and knowing that this is something that needed/needs to be dealt with.
Thank You for beginning to deal with it in advance, knowing that I want to homeschool
and that Katrina would not learn in a fun way if I continued in that mindset.
Thank You for revolutionizing my entire life through this.
I am experiencing more peace and contentment in all areas because of this breakthrough.
Thank You that today I sat with Katrina and Samuel and played playdough for nearly an hour
when there were dishes to be picked up and a load of laundry to be thrown in and ...
Last year at this time I would have left them to play
and would have gotten my to-do list done
and yet I would have missed out on some really great time with my kids.
Thank You for knowing BEST.

Here are some shots of Samuel doing his "school."
He has been a joy during our homeschool time.
He loves to paint and play playdough.
Today he wanted to play in the sink so I got out the old faithful water tub.
His all-time favorite thing, however, is playing cooking with the real pots and pans and yes,
the food processor is his favorite cooking tool.
Must be a real man, right?

Homeschool Day 2

Monday we started homeschool preschool for Katrina Suzanne.
She has been anxious to get going and we had to put things on hold a bit because of our trip to Venezuela
and if you know me at all you know that school starts on Mondays, so Monday it was!

Our first day was wonderful.
Samuel was able to participate in the Bible story and even colored a bit too.
Today, day 2, we did our school work during the afternoon because we had baby buddies this morning at church.

Both days have been incredible times of engaging with the kids (although today Samuel was napping).
It is such a nice pace and a great schedule.
It has been really good for me because it has become a time for me to be extra deliberate about engaging and interacting with them (instead of nodding my head while they are playing and I am making dinner, folding laundry or loading the dishwasher).
Katrina is very eager to learn and so far has been very obedient and respectful.

At breakfast on day one I asked her if she was finished eating and she said,
"Not yet, Mo... I mean Teacher."
She is very serious about school and things being as they should.
(I wonder where she gets that from...)
Also on day one we finished our school work and ran to Target to get a few things and on the way home we passed an elementary school and the children were playing outside at lunch recess.
She was appalled that they were outside when they were supposed to be in school and asked what on earth they were doing.
I told her they were at recess.
"Well, Mama, we didn't have recess at our school."
Guess what we had after lunch on day one?
As I type this post she is outside at recess flying her kite and hula hooping.
(what school lets you fly your kite at recess?)

Her favorite activity during school work time, to date, (ha! we have had two days of school) is letter formation with q-tips.
Today she made her name, Samuel's name and then her good friend/aunt's name!

Katrina, Papa and I are so proud of you.
You are such a big girl already.
We are so thankful that God has called us to homeschooling right now
because this time with you has already been such a joy!

Thoughts I had while on the plane ride home...

Below are some thoughts I had on the plane ride home.

I wrote them in a memo on my phone.

They are random...

We ate chinese and mexican as our first meal back in the states.

Our hotel in Caracas had bunkbeds.

We got to the hotel at about 12 midnight and got a wake up call at 430 am.

We ate our last real arepa and cafe con leche before boarding in Caracas.

We got to the airport in po a bit after 7 and we left on our 8 flight at 10. Arriving in Caracas at 11 and getting settled into the hotel room around midnight

The good thing about the arrival time and wake time was that the kids slept well on both flights.

Katrina had a yogurt in Houston that she claimed "only had 1000 calories. I saw that on tv, mom."

The poor ticket guy at continental in Caracas was wondering where our visas were to enter the us in our US passports. He was in training.

We were able to be with Pancho's family for all of our birthdays in 2010. We were in Venezuela to celebrate Samuel's birthday, his parents were at our house for Katrina's birthday, Francys and Fanny and Vero were with us for Pancho's birthday and we were there to celebrate my birthday just 2 weeks ago.

Katrina was given a bikini by her cousin and she wore it from po to Caracas under her clothes and with some coercing she did not wear it to bed and then when I woke her up at 445 am I didn't put it on her and helped her get dressed only to have her notice it, obviously not hidden well enough in the suitcase, take off her clothes and put it on under them. She is not allowed to wear bikinis outside of the house at this point in her life and she knows that but she just loves even having it on under her clothes. What a kid!

The reason seeing Pancho's family as often as we have in one year is not good is because the goodbyes are excruciatingly painful.

The other reason is that now we estimate that we will not see them for quite some time.

While in Venezuela Samuel starting saying mas (more) a lot more. He said gracias on several occasions and bye bye too.

He also gave lots of kisses and high fives.

Katrina was an absolute doll and everyone just loved her. We were told she looks like me and Samuel looks like Pancho. Personally, I think they look a lot alike, at least like definite biological siblings.

Haircut day

Today both Katrina and Samuel got haircuts.
It was Samuel's first professional cut.
Some of you know the story that did not make it to the blog regarding his very first haircut.
(enough said about that!)

Before

After

Samuel looks SO much older now and I think Katrina does too.
Last time Katrina got her hair cut she looked so much older as well.
Samuel's curls are gone, for now only and not forever, I hope.

Home

We are all in bed and I am about to doze off but I wanted to say we are home!
The house even smells new! 
There is absolutely no place like home.

Sent from my Palm Pixi on the Now Network from Sprint

On the road

We are on hwy 39. We are all exhausted. 24+ hours of travel is too many.
Please pray for good rest tonight. For all of us. The kids have slept a LOT today and are both sleeping now, probably catching up from the trip there, the time there and the trip home, but we need to sleep tonight too as we have not slept very much on the way home. 
Thank you. 

Sent from my Palm Pixi on the Now Network from Sprint

Houston, we have no problems

We made it to Houston. And to Chicago. We are on the way home in the van. Praise the Lord with us. I will post some departing thoughts later, most likely tomorrow or Friday.