Paper pregnancy

Yes, we're still adopting. Sorry I haven't posted in a while! Once school started, I just have felt like my available time has disappeared! Add on that adoption training and paperwork...and two IV staff living with us this year...

We are STILL waiting for our homestudy to be completed. We started this in June! We thought it might be done in the next week or two, but we found out this week that some fingerprinting results we are waiting on will take an extra 4-6 weeks longer than we expected. So here's the new projected timeline:

• Finish homestudy by end of November (4-6 week wait + meeting with SW + review copy
• Homestudy signed off on at state level--done by Christmas (3 week wait at the moment)
• (Meanwhile, finish gathering, notarizing, and certifying dossier documents.)
• Homestudy submitted to USCIS by the beginning of January
• When we submit to USCIS, we plan to fill out the waiting child application for our agency, and because of the age and gender we are requesting, we are expecting an immediate referral.
• Also after USCIS is submitted, we will start filling out adoption grant applications.
• Dossier to China by beginning of March
• Travel possibly in June or July

All adoptions come with hiccups, delays, etc. For the most part, this latest hiccup has not been earth shattering (writing out the timeline was hard though!). Since we have been through this before, we know God is lining things up for us to get the little boy He has planned for us. It's hard to get too upset when we know how He has worked in the past. We're just trying to take one day at a time and stay close to the Word and to each other, watching and waiting.

We still have a bunch of Simply Love shirts left. You can see them here. I think the only size we have run out of is the women's medium, but the men's version is a nice alternative. I won't be ordering more until we can sell most of what we have in stock.

Please continue to pray for us: for our trust in the Lord to remain high, for our son to be cared for while he waits, and for few hiccups in the process.

First quarter update

Hi friends! It's been a while since I've posted...this is one of a few I have planned.

We are just finishing week 8 of school. We are enjoying the time spent together and much of the content. It's been hard to keep Iona happy, as I have not had the time to spend coming up with ideas for her from Before Five in a Row. I'm hoping to sit down with the material soon. So we've played around with spending schoolwork time at different times of the day.

Here's a rundown of how his subjects are going:

Bible--Aidan really likes his Old Testament Overview, although we are on course to finish this after only half a year instead of a full year. He loves drawing the Bible stories, so much that he prefers doing at least two pages a day instead of the one page planned in the schedule. We decided not to go ahead and get the New Testament version for spring, but just to work through another devotional once we finish. Aidan is also going to AWANA and memorizing verses there.

Writing--Writing with Ease is SUPER easy and we both really like it. The excerpts from literature have drawn us both to want to read the longer works, and we are keeping a list. :)

Spelling--Aidan likes Spelling Workout A a lot, and he can do large parts of the lessons on his own. While this is nice, I'm not yet sure how much he retains. This may be an area where we switch curriculum next year.

Reading--The Ordinary Parent's Guide is going much better this year than last. And Aidan is doing awesome at the readers we are working through. It's been fun to watch him pick up a random book and just start reading.

Grammar--First Language Lessons is also super easy. We are enjoying the topics in the book and Aidan is retaining it well.

Handwriting--Aidan is almost done with HWT already! Since he writes in most other subjects, we will wait on cursive until second grade.

Math--Saxon Math 2 is going much better than math last year. We are a little behind my original schedule, but we are making great headway. This year we are doing one minute math drills, and that is the hardest part for my little budding perfectionist.

History--SOTW1 is tons of fun. We love doing the projects together, although I don't think I'll be mummifying another chicken anytime soon. I've heard mummifying an apple is much easier... Aidan really looks forward to this subject.

Science--We decided to switch last minute to Astronomy, and it is going well. We've done some fun experiments, and Pete has done a bunch with Aidan as well.

Literature--This is one of my favorite subjects, of course, and Aidan loves to color or draw while I read aloud. Pete and I have pulled a few books from the lineup because of Aidan's tender heart, and we will revisit those at a later time. In general, the list we are working through has been fun.

Art and Music--Harmony Fine Arts is amazing. Aidan has made some neat art pieces when trying to copy some of the greats. The kids both love to dance around the kitchen to the classical music each week.

PE--We have continued with swim lessons this semester for both kids since Aidan was not ready by the end of the summer to stop without losing a ton of ground by next summer. He's picking up so well that we think he'll go back to taekwondo in the spring (and Iona to gymnastics).

We've been on some fun field trips as a family to a pumpkin farm and to see a Chinese orchestra.

We also decided to join a homeschool co-op, so every other Monday we spend the morning there. I work with Iona in the 2's and 3's class, and Aidan takes classes in Ancient Rome, PE, and Crafts. It's a nice break for us and it gives me some special time with Iona.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how the year is going. I will be looking for ways to take us away from the kitchen table so much, as I feel we are spending too much time there, but otherwise things are lots of fun.

winner announced!

The winner of our giveaway in the t-shirt blitz is Melissa G! Thanks again to everyone who purchased a t-shirt or two to support our adoption.

We still have lots of t-shirts available. If you didn't get a chance to order, the store is still open. :)

Stay tuned for info about upcoming fundraisers. Iona and I are both sick right now, so I'll get to this as soon as I can.

China Shirt Blitz and Giveaway!!

Hi friends!

Between now and August 7, we are having an adoption t-shirt blitz to raise money for our next adoption from China. The next payment we are trying to raise is $1800.

You can see the shirts here.

Shirts are $27 each and will be mailed 7-10 days after your order. I have an inventory on-hand of Men's and Women's sizes. As my inventory runs out, I will order in batches of 25 to save money. Feel free to write me a check or pay via Paypal. (If I don't have your size, please be patient as I collect orders for the next batch. I am willing to order youth sizes if there is enough interest.)

With each shirt you order, I will enter you in a giveaway for this handmade bear, Frazzle!

My Aunt Eva has made bears and dolls for as long as I can remember, and I have wonderful memories of the bear and doll clothes I received from her as a child.

Aunt Eva has offered her "bad hair day" bear, Frazzle, to us for this giveaway. Please visit her site to see the other dolls animals she has made! (Adoption peeps: she has just made a China doll for me to show my friends, and she's working on an Africa doll. Watch her site for these new ones!)

If you have already placed an order, please let me know if you would like to be entered for the giveaway!

First Grade Curriculum

I've been wanting to write this post for a while, but I'm finally getting a chance to sit down and do it.

For this next school year, I purchased Homeschool Tracker Plus to help me plan and organize school. It took a bit of time to get it started, but so far I really like it! I was able to download some lesson plans and tweak them, and creating my own lesson plans was pretty simple. I really like their online forums as well...I can even get a daily email of the topics discussed. This program should be useful for all the kids throughout their schooling.

I will say that we are following a classical model of schooling and we use The Well-Trained Mind for the basic structure of classes and curriculum, with some changes.

We will be using the following curriculum:

• Bible--Grapevine's Level 2 Old Testament Overview
• Language Arts: Writing--Writing with Ease Level 1. Thanks to the advice of a friend, I just bought the workbook and not the text. I also went to Peace Hill Press's site and downloaded the workbook pages so that I could print them off instead of copy them. If you do this, you still want to buy the workbook because it tells you what to do each day in addition to including the worksheets.
• Language Arts: Spelling--Spelling Workout A and B
• Language Arts: Reading--lessons 141-end of Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. We went through lessons 1-140 last year. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have necessarily stopped at lesson 140, but just stopped whereever we landed at the end of the school year (after 140 preferably). Susan Wise Bauer recommends getting at least to that lesson by the beginning of first grade. Finishing this won't take us the whole school year. We also will be supplementing with Sonlight's reader's list for first grade...we're using the Reader's 2 schedule. We already started with The Beginner's Bible a little this summer because Aidan has caught the reading bug.
• Langauge Arts: Grammar--First Language Lessons 1
• Language Arts: Handwriting--Handwriting Without Tears My Printing Book. We are not using the teacher's guide this year. I really think we COULD use a regular handwriting program this year since Aidan is doing so much better with his writing, but we opted to stay with the familiar and let him go through just the workbook at his own pace. He doesn't seem to need the extra activities for fine motor that the teacher's guide gives.
• Math--Saxon Math 2. We had a difficult time by the end of Saxon Math 1. Math often brings tears in this house. We decided to stay with Saxon one more year at least and try to change things up a bit as far as what manipulatives to use. Aidan is excited to start math again, which is encouraging!
• History--Story of the World 1: Ancient Times. I am super excited about this. We're actually starting history a couple of weeks early because there are so many chapters and because I want to beat the rush to the library for some of the supplementary books for each chapter. I also bought the workheet pack for level 1 on their site so I can just print out the worksheets I needed instead of copying them. I have an older edition of the workbook, and the pdfs are the newer edition and much nicer.
• Science--Apologia's Zoology 1: Flying Animals of the 5th Day. I am excited that Apologia has now made Notebooking Journals for each of their elementary science books! We are looking forwarding to studying bugs and birds and such.
• Literature--Sonlight's Read-Aloud books for first grade. I have collected all of these through Paperback Swap over the last year. I'm already starting to collect the 2nd grade books. We loved the books from last year. We are supplementing with books listed for first grade in WTM; these go with the history curriculum. We are also pulling a few from Ambleside Online's literature books.
• Art and Music--Harmony Fine Arts First Grade. We're using the option 2 group in Art.
• Health/Character--Generations of Virtue has a curriculum for Preschool-Grade 4, and we will gradually use that this year. I don't have any of the books, so I added them to my PBS wish list and will also check the library.

For PE, Aidan will continue with taekwondo. Over the summer both kids have been in swim lessons, and we will decide soon whether to keep them in it or not.

We also have the chance to join a local co-op, which meets once every 2 weeks for the morning. We just sent in our registration for it, so we're hoping to get our first choice of classes.

I also gathered together the worksheets for each subject that uses them for the whole year. I divided them into six-week groupings and then paperclipped each week's workheets. I store them in file folders for each set of six weeks. (So I have bible, history, math, and writing clipped together for each week.) I know we will get off of that pre-planned schedule, but I have all the stuff printed off and ready to go. I got the idea for this here, though we will not be saving the worksheets after the fact in this way like she mentions. Instead, we'll file them in 3-ring notebooks per WTM.

We're making a timeline this year!! I'm using Homeschool in the Woods Timeline CD and we'll make a timeline that includes history and bible combined. I made a test timeline myself this past week and I'm really glad I did!! I did it in 2 evenings for the whole year, and now I'll be going through and marking which figures go with which chapters. I did a notebook timeline, in case you want to try to do this too. I think when we don't have little ones, I will graduate to a wall timeline, but I'm afraid Iona might try to pull stuff off the wall right now.

Simply Love China shirts are here!

Our t-shirts have arrived!! Thank you to Kari for the design. :)

For men, we have M, L, and XL in stock. The shirt is a medium blue. The front says "Simply Love." in white letters. The back has an outline of China in blue.




For women, we have S, M, L, and XL in stock. The cut is slightly slimmer than the men's shirts. The shirt is black. The front says "Simply Love" in white letters. The back has an outline of China in pink.



If you would like a size other than the ones we have in stock, let me know. I will keep a list of who wants what size, and as soon as I have enough requests to place an order, I will. Please know that it may take a few weeks for you to receive your shirt because of this.

The cost for the shirts is $27 each.

Sizes

Men's M Men's L Men's XL Women's S Women's M Women's L Women's XL

Thanks so much for supporting us in this next adoption!!

Changes come

It's been an emotional week here at our house.

We got a call from our agency on Tuesday and found out that Thailand is making major changes to their adoption program. They do not seem to be adopting out healthy children. Wait times are unpredictable.

We were encouraged to look into the China Waiting Child program. We did. Our hearts broke over the supposed "special needs" on that list of children. And we discovered the wait time for these kids is not as long as the healthy infant China program.

So we prayed. Cried. Prayed. Talked. Dreamed.

God seems to be directing us to adopt from this waiting child list. We can only adopt one at a time, but because we are interested in an older boy, it looks like we could get a referral very quickly.

When we originally chose our agency, we did so because they worked in Thailand. Now that we're adopting from China, we are planning to switch back to the agency who brought us to our daughter in Ethiopia. We lose our original application fee from the other agency, but we gain a familiar group of people. It feels like we're coming home.

We heard news today that our homestudy is going to be 3-5 months before it is ready to send in to USCIS. Our paperwork is on our social worker's desk, but 5 families are ahead of us. Once she finishes with it and does our training, it will take 6-12 weeks to get the approval of the one person in our state who needs to sign off on it.

It's hard to wait, but we are trusting the process, trusting that God will bring us directly to our son. We are encouraged and excited!!