I'm thankful, even if it IS late...

My life has been crazy these days, in a good sort of way.  I  find that every year I'm busier than the last, which makes me a bit nervous to imagine myself a few years down the road.  Anyhow, I'd love to recap a bit of how my family spent the Thanksgiving holiday.  [I'll try to leave out the parts about the obscene amounts of candy corn I ate.  Seriously, I feel like I'm in detox.  Candy corn is SO addicting!]

Initially, I was interested to do a little Thanksgiving activity at my girls school - like tell the Thanksgiving story, what it means to us personally, do a little craft, bring a treat.  Then my wise husband cautioned me against doing it since I was hosting 30 people for Thanksgiving dinner.  But one day when I went to get the girls from school, Emma's teacher says to me, "We'd love to celebrate Thanksgiving with the kids, but we aren't really sure how to do it.  Would you mind giving us some ideas?"   I just couldn't say no! 

Truthfully, I was excited about hanging out with the little guys, building a bit more rapport with the teachers and hopefully giving myself some street cred so I could come back for a Christmas activity.

So, the night before Thanksgiving, instead of making pumpkin pie, I was cutting out 150 leaves for a craft I would do the next day.  [Our expat family celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday instead of Thursday this year.]  I still have a bruise on my thumb, in case you were wondering.

On Thanksgiving morning, I accompanied my girls to school and stayed in Samantha's class.  The teacher lined up all 35 of her classmates and they sat quietly while she introduced me.  [How does she do that?! I only have four and my house is never EVER quiet!]

I started off by using one of our favorite Thanksgiving books, This is the Feast to tell the general story of thanksgiving.  I made hats for the Indians, a pilgrim dude and a pilgrim mama to help get the kids involved in the story a bit more.  

We talked about how it's easy to be thankful for things when life is good, but it's really hard to be thankful when life is difficult!  I shared with the kids about how the Pilgrims were able to be thankful even though their life was hard.  

Then they had a surprise for me!  They had prepared a Thanksgiving Day dance for me (using a very popular local song), complete with a fabulously decorated Thanksgiving Day bulletin board in the background.  Since there was no assumption that Thanksgiving had anything to do with pumpkins, fall colored leaves, gourds or the "typical" stuff, it had a nice fat heart on it.  Crack me up.  

Samantha was in the back row, but you can't see her well in this picture. 

My little pilgrim boy was inciting the masses during the girls dance.  He was pretty funny!

 I found it interesting that they closed their dance with heads bowed.  It was nice to show them how the Pilgrims used that same posture to show their thanks to God for His provision for them.

 After the dance, all the kids moved to the courtyard with me to make little indian corn crafts.  There was a nice picture of indian corn in our book and I thought would be a cheap and easy craft to do with a billion kids.  Oh wait, not a billion...just 75.  

They all had a really fun time doing the craft!  I'm not sure how much free time they have in school to do extra things like this, but I could tell they really enjoyed it.  

When I was finished with Samantha's class, I walked next door to Emma's class to do pretty much the same thing.  During the craft time, Emma was my good helper!  She passed around glue, the cutout shapes, and showed all her friends the example from the book of the indian corn.  

 Emma's class had also (surprise!) planned a special dance for me.  I did my best to act surprised.  =)  My girl Emma loves dancing time at school!

 I loved how the pilgrim dude and pilgrim mama were standing next to each other while the other kids danced!

Truly, the activity was a huge success!  The kids had a great time, the teachers really enjoyed it as well and it accomplished several purposes for me.  After the activity, I made a beeline for home and started cranking some of the yumminess that would be eaten the next day.  

When the next day arrived, my oven was put to the test in a big way!  I think it was on almost the entire day!  At one point, one of the engineers in the group came in the kitchen and stacked dishes on top of dishes to get more stuff in there.  This photo doesn't do the reality of the situation much justice, but on the bottom layer is Potatoes au Gratin with foil covered mashed potatoes stacked on top of that, followed by herbed corn, with a cookie sheet of crescent rolls stacked on top of that.

 When all was said and done, there was so much food it was a big embarrassing.  There was SO. MUCH. FOOD.  On the other hand, there were a lot of people and the food ended up feeding us the next day while we gathered together to discuss things that needed discussing.  

 I love this picture because it totally describes my life as an expat - all the food is stacked on nine Contico trunks that have carted our worldly belongings from here and there and back again.  It's covered with a plastic tablecloth that was sent with love from my home club, and the banner was made from leftover scrapbook paper that my awesome mother-in-law sent me years ago.  The delicious food was made from ingredients that have been procured, stocked and saved from several bigger cities and countries and nearly everything was made from scratch.  

 And since I'm always afraid there won't be enough desserts, I made sure we wouldn't run dry.  

 Have I mentioned yet about the awesome people at Crosstown?  They sent us four boxes of love, which included almost everything we'd ever need to throw the most awesome Thanksgiving ever.  They sent decorations so that my house might actually feel like a piece of autumn bliss.  They sent crafts for the kids, more crafts for the kids, plates, forks, knives...you name it.  The older kids made these little Reese's  turkeys for everyone who came - too cute, yeah?! Thanks again, crosstown - you totally blessed us this Thanksgiving!

So that was my Thanksgiving.  It was certainly different than holidays past - and yes, I found myself missing my family and my friends that might as well be family - but it was a blessing to be able to serve with those around me this year.  I've also been meditating on good truth from Piper's book, Faith in Future Grace.  Without downplaying the role that gratitude has in our lives, he shows us that looking back in gratitude at God's provision gives us confidence and faith in His power to provide all that we need in the future.  

I can surely agree.  God has been faithful to me in so many ways this year and has provided abundantly for my needs.  With great confidence in Him, I can rest assured that He'll continue doing so in the future!

Happy very late Thanksgiving!

another nugget of homeschool wisdom

With all these nuggets of homeschool wisdom I'm throwing around, you better watch out! I might start charging you for it! haha...

When school feels a little too monotonous - or too much like we're just sitting and reading or writing - I've found an easy way to jazz up our routine is to varying our spelling test method.  I like doing this because:

1. Spelling tests don't last for very long, so I'm not committing to a big project.

2. It really makes the girls feel like we've done something fun.

3. It makes me feel like I'm thinking outside the box.  Even if I'm just stealing other people's ideas, I want to feel like I'm taking a proactive approach to learning.  =)

So, here are a few spelling test ideas we've done over the last few weeks:

-The Chalkboard.  I divide it in two and let the girls choose their color of chalk.  Not sure why they like this so much; I mean, it's super simple.  I think maybe it makes them feel like they're the teacher?!

- Letter tiles.  The tiles we used were from Bananagrams, but you could use Scrabble ones and even have your kids add the letter values - then determine which spelling word has the highest point value.  [This method takes the longest though, because my kids want to separate all the letters into alphabetical order...]

 -Window markers - how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways...

-Shaving cream and cookie sheets.  We did spelling with shaving cream this week and Emma (my usually very particular girl) loved it!  After she scored perfectly on her test, I let her draw pictures for a bit.  Samantha couldn't finish fast enough - all she wanted to do was wash that stuff off! I also discovered that my husband never did this in school.  Does anyone else remember doing this in kingergarten/first grade?  I loved it!

So there you have it - my "spice it up" ideas for when school feels boring.  Feel free to make donations.  All major credit cards accepted.

nuggets of homeschool wisdom

Because math is always more fun when you get to eat the sum...

my girl is gone

The girl I refer to is not one of my three oldest children.  It's actually the youngest - the only boy I have!    Because of his curly and rather long locks, people usually assume that he's a girl - regardless of what color or style of clothes he may be wearing.  

I recently went to a show at Emma and Samantha's school and was asked so many times if he was a girl, I decided action must be taken.  The beautiful long locks must go.

I was going through some pictures from a few weeks ago and a few of them capture his curls perfectly. First of all,  I can see how people might think he's a girl:

 Sometimes, I think even Abby is jealous of his curly hair! (Ha! just kidding.)

Obviously, Abby is very thrilled about something in this picture.  Or she may be showing her extreme displeasure at some instruction I may or may not have just given her.

There's the fourth "girl" in the family again; he just looks so lovely!

Being a victim of paparazzi starts young out here:

 So...armed with a pair of safety scissors of all things - hey, I just grabbed what was close - and a toy computer to keep him occupied, I snipped here and there.  Such a pile of curls ended up on the floor!

 After the first pass, he definitely ended up more manly!  Not sure what's in his mouth at this point - probably bread or yogurt since that's all he cares to eat these days.

 I took a second pass the next day and trimmed even further.  There's lots of places where the cut isn't even and it took all of three minutes to complete, but I feel like the little girl look has gone.  A cute little man has taken her place! =)

What do you think?

Special times far away

This Friday, something very special is happening.  In a galaxy far, far away (well, actually just in North America) one of my sisters will be getting married. 

Married, I know!  I can hardly believe it. 

See, here's the deal.  I've got these two awesome sisters.  See below for proof:

                             

I got married and left the house when they were still in junior high.  I moved overseas before they'd even gotten their drivers licenses.  

To think about how much of their lives I've missed because of being overseas is sobering.  And sometimes when I think about it too much, it makes me really, really sad.

The last year we spent in America, though, was a good reminder for me.  Yes, I missed their first boyfriends.  The driving tests.   The first wreck.  The first breakup.  Graduation.  Moving to college.  Graduating from college.

BUT - when we were in America I determined that if at all possible, we'd have weekly sister dinners.  And we did.  My lovely sisters graced my home every Wednesday night during the year we spent in Oklahoma.  And you know what?  I didn't miss the first job interviews.  The first disappointment-in-not-getting-promoted. Ice-skating with the soon-to-be fiance. The engagements.  The dress shopping.  Seeing the real ring on the real finger, not just via skype.  I didn't miss the little things that happen that don't warrant their own category of "firsts".  

This year, we didn't miss out on playing outside in the Oklahoma springtime.

 Or getting some early fashion advice.

 We didn't miss out AT ALL on making (or eating!) chocolate chip gingerbread men.

We even managed to squeeze in going to see The Nutcracker together. 

 Dress shopping? So glad to add that to my list of "things I didn't miss".

 Even Silas didn't miss out on that!

 She's going to be a lovely bride, no? (And this wasn't the dress she chose! I won't be responsible for giving a spoiler here!)

 Holly, I know we've missed a lot of things, but my heart is full of all the things we haven't missed!  We have many special memories of times with you, and we're grateful to the Lord for giving us those times together.  All of us are loving you and thinking of you this week!  I'm not sure how the days have so quickly taken us from the days when I was doing your hair to the day when your hair is being done for your wedding!   The beauty of God's grace shines all throughout your life, dear sister!

Holly and Dustin, we rejoice that God has brought you together and we pray that your new life together will be full of evidences of His faithfulness to you.   We praise God for His good gifts - and your new marraige is one of those!  We may not be there on the beach with you, but our hearts and prayers are not far away.  

Congratulations, Holly and Dustin.  We love you!

(The really awesome pictures in this post were taken by Melanie Webb.  The so-so ones were taken by Yours Truly.)