what's abby been up to?

Yep, that's always a good question to ask. She's frequently MIA - so I check all the usual spots: climbing on a chair by the window, rummaging in the drawer where our Math Class things are stored, in the bathroom where the bikes are stored...and that's where she came from with this one afternoon:
I feel like not much has changed regarding her attitutes toward me (as in: not being able to be separated from me even for the slightest moment), but I feel like my heart is changing toward her. I am thankful for sensing an extra portion of grace and love this last week for her. I've been using these trying times as prompts to pray for her soul and her spirit and her future. I've also been using these trying times as prompts to pray for me and my own weak spirit!

She loves making a ruckus with this new lawn mower Aunt Kristen sent in the ballerina box. Who ever thought making a lawn mower for a kid Abby's age needs to be shot. Or at least subjected to the lawn mower sound for 24 hours a day before seriously considering putting it on the market. Not that I'm complaining, Kristen...I'm not! Abby loves it. But it is...um....a little festive.
Her tooth-that-almost-fell-out is growing in fine now. What? I forgot to mention that slight accident a few days before Christmas when my kid fell off a chair and knocked her front tooth so loose it was dangling by a very disgusting thread? How could I have forgotten to recount a story that highlights my mothering negligence as much as that one? That's right...I left it out on purpose.

I was convinced she'd be scarred for life and her tooth wouldn't grow back in. But, after a queasy attempt at shoving gently nudging it back in place, after several weeks, it has grown back in pretty solidly.

A dentist friend of ours suggested we do everything we could to keep her fingers and other objects out of her mouth to avoid further loosening the tooth. So we were going to use this event as the impetus for weaning Abby off her finger-sucking habit. BUT...after applying the nasty Melva-Stop stuff to her fingers (to keep her from sucking on them) and then watching her THROW UP every time she put her fingers in her mouth...I lost all my strength. I gave in. Let her suck her fingers a few more months. I'd rather deal with that than throw up.

Her chair episode has not deterred her, though and she continues to climb on anything she can get close to. Abby, little Abby. Her sense of adventure and love of life-on-the-edge keeps me laughing. She's a handful... =)

creativity in a box

My sister-in-law Kristen sent a box our way a few weeks ago. As usual, she always finds such unique gifts that amaze my girls (and me too...I love the LUSH bath products she sends me! Mmmmmmm!)

Her find of the year this time was ballet clothes - the whole set up. Tights, slippers, tutus, headbands...everything. I personally loved the tutus. They had a homemade craftish look about them, and I loved that. It seemed like something I could do myself if I didn't have three billion children (oh, I mean....three children) and all the other things I manage to fill my time with.

Even though we opened the box waaaay after bedtime (after some guests had left), jammies went off and tutus went on. It's pretty obvious by these pictures that they haven't received much ballet training in our home. =)

...trying to get those legs up high in the air!



The next day when Abby woke up, she was pleased to see that there was a tutu waiting for her too! She really liked it at first...
...then realized that she had to renegotiate her previously-mastered walking maneuvers - stairs were a new issue with a tutu that's bigger than her!
Emma gives the leg kick another go-round. I was cracking up. She was loving it.
Her enthusiasm was contagious. It wasn't long before Samantha started trying it too. Neither of them are very...professional.
Abby decided that she liked the tutu after all, and was happy to wear it as long as I'd let her.
Thanks so much, Aunt Kristen! What fun, fun gifts!

going to America

If you were to ask my children, you'd think we headed back to the US every month or so.

That's because they "go" to America nearly every week. They take all their jammies, favorite dolls, books, and leapsters from their usual places and stuff them into suitcases and backpacks. (This usually is discovered right at bedtime or right before we're heading to school and are searching in vain for a certain item.)

Then they raid my desk for loose coins to pay their airfare, and supposedly, they're off!

Today when I caught them playing this little game, Samantha had turned her case of dominoes into a computer and she was busy making their plane reservations (I'm amazed at how much they absorb from Josh and I!)

Our real trip to America is still quite a few months away, but they're having a grand time pretending it's today!

shower vs. email

I have exactly one hour before I need to walk out the door to get my children from preschool.

I'm debating my choices...take a shower or catch up on email.

I've got a load of emails that really need some of my attention - to my nana (shout out to nana! hi!), to my sister-in-law who just loaded up my kids with fab ballerina outfits (hi kristen!), to my friend who's on the cusp of adding a new little baby to her brood (yo sandra!) and a billion others.

And then there's the shower option...

I know my husband would appreciate me going with the shower option.

I know the friends I will see tonight would also probably appreciate the shower option.

Hmm......

What's that? You wonder why I can't do emails AND take a shower in an hour? Josh's shower record is like, three minutes flat. But I, yes I am unlike other, more normal people. No matter how hard I try, taking a shower and the necessary procedures of "getting ready" take me forever. I blame it on my big mess of too-long hair that is dying to be cut. I blame it on interruptions. I blame it on anything and everything except me. Because, really... I'm never at fault.

But...my girls are at school and abby is about to have a nap. Maybe I can do a little of both.

I guess I'd better get started.

So - I think I'll head for the shower.

another trip to the theater

One of the presents in the girls stockings this New Year were tickets to see Snow White that was running in a theater in our city.

On a very cold saturday morning, Emma and Samantha and I loaded up in a taxi and headed out for a morning by ourselves.

(I'm sure the theater got all the necessary copyright permissions from Disney to use the Snow White image before plastering it all over their tickets and advertisements...)
When we got to theater and found our seats, we discovered that our friend and her daughter were sitting right behind us! I didn't even know she'd be at the show!
The theater was very, very cold with no indoor heating - a serious bummer in the dead of winter.

All in all, I was impressed with the show and enjoyed watching someone else's creativity. What follows in photographic form are all the things I thought interesting enough to take a picture of - good, bad, and interesting.

Before the show, the announcer asked 5 kids to come up and sing a song of their choosing. This resulted in general mayhem as every one of the 594 kids in the theater wanted to be the one to go up on stage and sing. They also got a little prize after singing, so the deal was sweetened even more. I loved this little boy with his cute glasses.
So - on to the show. To represent the dwarfs, they had dwarf-sized puppets that were attached to a human puppetter dressed in black. They were attached at the feet and hands for easy maneuvering, I guess. The puppeteer did all the voices and actions of each dwarf, and the result was really impressive. It became easy to forget that there was a person controlling each dwarf, which I guess is the goal of successful puppeteering.
Animals and other hard-to-represent characters were also beautifully represented through puppets. When Snow White was at the well, there were beautiful white doves attached to bouncy stick-things (please excuse the fumbling explanation) that really captured the flying and flittering essence of the birds in this scene. I thought the effect was beautiful.
Here's one of the stranger parts - do you remember the part where the hunter has just left Snow White all alone in the woods and she's running scared? All the trees seem to be trying to attack her and the bats are coming out and there are glowing eyes everywhere? And finally, she collapses down on the forest floor and cries?

At the end of that scene, all the sweet little woodland creatures come out to comfort her - do you remember? Tell me you do. Do you remember BUGS BUNNY being one of the forest creatures?

Yeah, I didn't either. But apparently in the asianese version of Snow White, Bugs is offering his consolation. Do you see him there in the picture? I nearly laughed out loud.
The sets for the inside of the dwarfs' home were remarkable and lifelike.
For the scene where Snow White is going to "tidy-up" she makes the frightful mistake of inviting children from the audience to come up to the stage and help her. Imagine a mass exodus of children with their pushy parents, and you're getting close to how this felt. (Even when attendants were telling the audience that there were already too many children, parents were telling their kids to ignore the attendants and go up on stage anyway!)
Minus: the snow making machine was LOUD. It's supposed to be a somber scene, full of reflection and love for the sleeping, assumed-to-be-dead princess...but instead, we're only hearing the BBBBBBRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM of the snow machine.
At the end of the show, after the red-haired asianese prince comes and awkwardly kissed Snow White, you could pay 10 local dollars to line up and take pictures with members from the cast. Emma wanted to take pictures with the evil queen as evidence that she could see the person beneath the character. The ENTIRE show she kept elbowing me and whispering, "But the lady who's underneath that queen costume is really nice, right? She's not mean in real life, right?"

I think she felt that the lady playing the evil queen was neglected and misunderstood. =)
Samantha opted for Snow White and a few of the dwarfs.
We had a great time, and it was fun to introduce my kids to more of the arts.

in no particular order...

since I'm in the middle of a blogging funk and have no desire to blog whatsoever, I'll just post a random list of things, thoughts, and feelings for you.

• Abby is driving me crazy. She's going through the very normal seperation-anxiety phase and wants mommy all the time. Let me repeat: All. The. Time. She'll even desperately use her signs to say "More Mommy Please" if someone else picks her up. I'm not even kidding. I know this phase will end - just as it has with all my other children - but in the meantime, I'm on Abby overload.
• We waited in the very bitter wind this morning for 20 minutes to get a taxi to take the girls to preschool. An empty taxi never came, and the few that were empty waved me off. I hate the wave-off. We went back home, I ended up locking the girls in their room with leapsters and puzzles and fruit snacks and told them I'd come get them for lunch. Ok, ok...I didn't really lock them in their room; I just added that for emphasis.
• School stuff is going well, but I can already see I'll have to be careful not to be enslaved to my schedule. My mantra these days has been "Emma's not even 5 yet". Of course, in a month or so, I'll have to change my mantra, but the idea is the same. ;) The schedule is a servant to assist me in accomplishing my goals, not a master driving me too hard every day.
• Our bean sprouts are growing. I was concerned because I have a terrible track record with living things. (Excluding children, of course.)
• We started watching Lord of the Rings again last week. The extended version. No wonder I'm so tired this week!

That's all I can think of for now. It's been kind of a slow news week around our house.

mixed reviews? not from me.

I hate talking politics and political-correctness. I think people get offended so easily, about so many things - and especially about matters of faith, which shouldn't be so surprising since the Gospel itself is so offensive.

AND I'm a people-pleaser. I like everyone to be happy and get along and like each other, so I'm hesitant to be the one to step up and say something controversial, but I can't just can't hold this one in.

I love Brit Hume. Seriously. If I ever have another kid, another pet, or anything else that needs a name, its name will be Brit.

If you are totally clueless about what I'm talking about, the jist of it is that Brit Hume was on a talk show and make a comment about how "that famous golfer guy" will recover as a golfer but it's unclear yet how he will recover as a person. Here's the clip - which you should watch if you haven't seen it already. I thought he was gentle, compassionate, and not judgmental at all. Brit came to faith through the aftermath of his son's suicide, so it's not as if his own life is free from heartache. I think his comments speak gentle advice rather than harsh pronouncements of judgment. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and that's mine.

Then, after people were criticizing him for his comments, he appeared on the O'Reilly Factor and had these comments. I was verbally shouting encouragements to the computer as I watched. I want to join the official Brit Hume fan club, if there is such a thing.

When the big scandal broke, my biggest sadness came from my fear that no one around "that famous golfer guy" would be pointing him to truth - real, true, life-changing Truth. Therapists and ad campaigns I knew he'd get. But Truth? I wasn't so sure.

And now - even though Brit isn't exactly in Tiger's inner-circle, the message of Truth has found its way to Him. Certainly not in the way I expected, but it has happened. Whether or not he listens or even gives a second thought to Brit's comments is uncertain, but I feel certain that news of this story has made its way to him.

What a merciful God to care about the normal people like us who have our own issues, but to care equally - not more, not less - about the megastar who has his own issues. Mercy! Sweet mercy has found its way to Tiger in a way that I doubted would ever happen. It is true - in Christ, redemption and forgiveness is found. God would still be merciful if this hadn't happened, but the fact that it has happened showcases God's mercy all the more.

The voice of truth has called to him in the most unusual of ways, and how I pray he will listen! Not for golf, not for ratings, not for anything except the glory of the great and merciful King!

I'm eggrollmama, and that's my two cents.

aaak! School!

School. I'm so excited. Who is ever excited about school?

On January 4, Emma will be starting the most real-ish school she's ever attended. This is a step beyond "activities" (which we use to refer to anything that mommy plans). This is real books, and curriculum and worksheets and maps and charts and all that fun et cetera.

Over the last year, I've discovered an important nugget of truth about my personality: if I plan well, I will follow through with my plans. If I do not plan well, I get bowled over with how much there is to do and I don't follow through with my plans. Instead, I eat chocolate donuts and let my kids run wild. For the most part.

That being the case, I've wanted to make sure that I have planned well. I want to make sure I have a clear idea of what I'm hoping to accomplish and how it will happen. I feel so thankful that I have the opportunity and support to be able to homeschool my children, and I want to take full advantage of both, not wasting anything. [Plus, I just really like my kids! I like watching them, learning with them, listening to their thoughts. It's...fun!]

So here are some of my plans.

Issue #1 - I have NO wall space. And I like to make big, visual representations of things to assist in learning. My solution is a set of little hooks that will hang multiple layers of things.

Layer 1 - on the top and bottom - is maps.

Layer 2 on the bottom is a white board, for...all those white-boardish things that teachers need.

The outer layer on top and bottom are "bulletin boards" I've made for the different subjects we'll be studying.
I found some great books to use for our Music class and I'm super excited about them. This bulletin board has space for us to hear the music of about 15 different composers and to hear the different instruments of the orchestra. We'll add pictures of the composers and pictures of the orchestra instruments as the weeks pass. [Note: my goal for nearly all these subject this year is NOT mastery. In fact, my only goal (except for reading and math) is to develop a broad base of familiarity with things. I want them to hear the words "composer" and "photosynthesis" and have a general idea of what that means. I'm not looking for a dissertation on composers of the Baroque period or diagrams of photosynthesis.]
This will be our main book - a truly fun and fabulous book:
It has fun, child-appropriate information about composers, engaging pictures, and great fonts. I love fonts!
It says in one spot that if the String Bass was a food, it would be chocolate. See what I mean? That's my kind of book.
These are a series of books by Anna Harwell Calenza that highlight a specific work by a composer. Each book tells the true story behind how or why that specific piece was created. They are fascinating stories that bring life to the music! We'll intersperse these with The Story of the Orchestra book.
Art - the subject I have the least confidence to teach. But I'm still excited. In that nervous-hand-wringing sort of way.
We'll be using this book - which teaches children how to draw in a low-pressure, fun way. I'm all about fun, can't you tell?
Also these two books give children things to look for in famous works of art and questions for thinking more deeply about the art. I think it will be interesting to do this with the girls. I personally feel that I have a very low level of appreciation for art, so maybe I'll pick some up along the way as well.
Our science bulletin board will help us track the results from projects we're doing...
...from these Usborne books of Science activities. For example, did you know that if you put a stalk of celery in a glass of colored water and wait several hours, when you cut open the celery, you will see the colored water all in its stems? AND its leaves will be colored as well? How cool is that? We'll also be doing the classic bean-growing activity.
Even though this bulletin board says "Welcome to First Grade", don't get too worked up! Emma's not REALLY in First Grade, we'll just be using First Grade Reading and Phonics curriculum, everything else is more suited to her age level. Her reading level is really solid and she loves reading, so it seemed pointless to me to put her in a Kindergarten level that wants to teach her letter names and sounds. So - first grade it is!

The pictures on this bulletin board are Phonics characters from the Bob Jones University 1st grade curriculum - Mr. and Mrs. Short, Miss Long, Silent E, etc.

I decided that for Phonics and Reading, I wasn't so comfortable as the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-and-make-it-up-as-I-go method that I'm pretty comfortable using in general. Especially since we're functioning in two languages in our home, I want her foundation in English and Phonics to be solid. I felt like the BJU Phonics and Reading curriculum provided me a good and stable curriculum for the next several years.
Our Bible component is coming from Children Desiring God resources. It's their Kindergarten level study, Jesus, What a Savior! As I've read through it and seen how thorough and fun it is, I'm so excited to start! It comes with workbooks, full-color resource pages and verse cards. (I love verse cards! In high school, I could have lived off of verse cards!)
We also use Right Start Mathematics, but for some reason, the picture didn't upload and I'm too lazy to go back and do it now (again - the planning issue coming up!) But it's a super fun math program that uses lots and lots of manipulatives. That's not really a new subject for us, since we've been doing it already for several months, but it still counts as "school" for Emma, so I'm including it in here.

I live around several organized and experienced moms and teachers, so I've been able to glean lots of good ideas from them. We're using this "First Grade Folder" for Emma's schoolwork and reading assignments. She was excited that she got to decorate herself and seriously went crazy with the stickers.

All the pockets inside are labelled with the days of the week, and each pocket has that day's work inside.
Here's the back of that folder. If you can suppress a smile after looking at this, there's just something wrong with you.
So, school starts on the 4th! Samantha will be doing all the classes with us except for Math and Reading/Phonics and we're all excited about doing fun stuff together! I definitely am not the kind of parent that thinks kids need to be in all sorts of classes and be ahead of their grade level and yadee yadee yadee, but I think that the timing is good for us to start now. My girls are eager and excited learners. I think I've chosen books and material that will enhance their desire to learn, not just stick them in front of a pile or worksheets and textbooks.

I'm looking forward to listening to music with them, to seeing how the figure skater on the ice is represented by the violin in the background...to finding out how many ways you can use coins to make 15 cents...to measuring bean sprouts...and finding out what happens if you take a "dead" tree branch in the winter and bring it into your warm house...to using our magnifying glasses to see detail in leaves...to learning about how everything God does shows how special He is...to memorizing His word together and singing songs that proclaim His faithfulness to our family...

To me, it doesn't seem too early to start.

the best $20 I've ever spent

Several years ago on one our our Thailand vacations, we stopped in Toys R Us. Because, really, even if your kid doesn't live in America, they still have to be a kid, right?

Down there under Geoffrey, Emma is doing the traditional Thai "wai". She was almost 2 years old at this time.

While we were there, we saw a little slide. It was cute. It was cheap. We'd never seen a slide in our normal Asia home. So we bought it. Never mind how we'd get it on the plane and home, but we bought it. The people behind the counter are trying to help Josh shove it in a box.
Our four-member family plus the stroller plus the slide plus the big bags from Toys R Us barely fit in a tuktuk to get back to the hotel. But we made it.
We ended up putting the slide in the amazingly effective Asian rice bag and we had no problems getting it back to our asia home.

I have never one time regretted buying that slide. Our kids have played with it and played with it and played with it. It's a good thing it's made of durable plastic, otherwise it would never last with all the love it's received.

Emma, 2 years and a few months:
Samantha, learning to walk, crawl, and hide with the slide - 9 months:
Emma, sporting a ponytail - 2 years and a few months: (and before our house was painted! how did I live with all that white??)
Samantha, almost a year:

Samantha, one year plus - going up the down way:
Samantha, one and a few months:
My mom and the girls dancing next to the slide - Samantha, 18 months:
Abby, too, has taken her turn breaking in the slide. This was at eight months - yikes!!
To this day, the girls play with that slide every day. They laugh at each other, take turns, go fast, go slow, go upside down, go sideways, go under, go over...it never ceases to bring enjoyment.

And I love watching them.