Easter 2014

Our church celebrates the preparation for Resurrection Sunday with an old fashion Brethren Love Feast (note, we are not actually Brethren) and a foot-washing. Here's one diligent little foot-washer.










I was able to take the girls to my grandmother's house for Easter again this year, so we dyed eggs and harassed some barn cats. Visiting with family was a pleasure too. Happy Easter to the rest of you we haven't seen yet!







 

A whole lot of learning has also been going on here. Last week the two big girls spent two hours pouring over the Little Passports package that came in the mail. This month's packet on Egypt brought with it an artifact hidden in plaster, so the girls chipped away at it patiently to unearth a sarcophagus. Pearl also spent time playing the related geography games online. Thanks Aunt R!

We had our final CHAMP co-op. I had rented a chest of colonial 'arti-fakes' from the museum in York, then I led Pearl's class and then Sapphire's class through exploring the objects. Both classes were pretty much terrified of the blood-letting bowl, but they loved dressing up like colonials.

In the evening we had our Show and Tell, a little closing ceremony that allows the children a chance to take the stage and show their new knowledge.









And so far we've fit two field trips into this week. Pearl toured a local courthouse and jail on Tuesday, and today I took her and a friend to the Landis Valley Museum for a wool to weave workshop. We carded wool and learned to weave tape.

The Journey Begins, Israel 2014

Pearl and her daddy began their journey to Israel Monday morning. They will be gone for seventeen days. I was told that Pearl was brave throughout the journey, though she only slept forty minutes on the plane. When she woke up the first morning, she did not remember she was in Israel and was very confused.

That first day they saw Jaffa, the port city that is called Joppa in the Bible. The group is pleased that they have a very knowledgeable tour guide.

I was proud to receive this note from one of the women from our church on the trip: "'Pearl' is an absolute delight to be with!  She makes the trip even better.  Seeing her this morning is one of the things I'm looking forward to." I have always thought so, but it is nice to hear from someone else!

And we have soldiered on in our busy week here too. The little girls are looking forward to the seeing all the teenagers who will be babysitting them.

Yesterday we had our co-op, and I taught my class of girls about colonial writing and postal history. We used the quill pens that I have reused time and again and the black walnut ink we boiled down in November. The new sealing wax I had ordered was a hit too. Each girl had to go to the 'tavern' to see if any emigrants had brought her a letter from the old country. This was before Ben Franklin revolutionized the American postal system, of course. Pearl had helped me to write and seal all the letters before she left.

One of my fondest dreams: daughters reading to each other.

The little girls admit to missing their daddy and big sister when I ask, but otherwise they are powering ahead through days of play.

Stitchin' Samplers

 
Pearl is getting ready for a big trip, and that means packing and preparation. We came home from our sneaker-buying outing to find that Sapphire and her daddy had been hard at work crafting a creative pinewood derby entry for Awana. Can you tell what favorite frozen treat inspired them?

Today I took the girls to our co-op. I had been excited to teach Pearl's class about samplers, and, from the comments I overheard as they were stitching, I think they loved it. Many of the girls had never stitched a thing before, and my helpers and I had plenty of re-threading and helping to do.

fter lunch, our co-op headed into York to see the York Heritage Trust museums. The kids enjoyed seeing a Conestoga wagon, a York city trolley, and a working sawmill. I was relieved once Sapphire had moved past all those working parts.

Then we toured the Gates House and the Golden Plough Tavern, both from the mid-eighteenth century. This was the perfect field trip for our Colonial Crafts class, and the girls got a kick out of just about everything. They saw a candle dipping machine and practiced being an excitable, fairly inefficient fire brigade.

Pearl has been reading many audio books with the help of the Kindle. Choosing books for her is especially tricky, but I suppose I only have myself to blame. Recently, when I selected A Little Princess, she refused to listen to more than a minute of this perfectly interesting book. When I asked her why she wouldn't give it a chance, she told me, "The reader does not have a British accent." This requirement knocks out a good many of the audio books we have available! We have had better luck with How to Train Your Dragon, A Horse and His Boy, Robin Hood, and The Book of Three.

Dipping Candles

Our co-op makes for such an enjoyable day. This week Sapphire learned about the sense of touch and practiced counting using nursery rhymes. Pearl played store with her math class (but it is so much fun she does not realize it is a math class) and worked with maps in geography.

In second period I taught the 2nd and 3rd graders about the history of candle making, including a look at 19th century whaling (candles from whale heads!), and we dipped our own candles. It could have been very messy, but the girls were just great.

My girls love to wear their Chinese dresses. This week they wore them to church. We had an emotional children's sermon; the kids prayed for the littlest ones' Sunday School teacher who left directly for the airport and his officer basic training. It ended in a ferocious group hug that could have easily tipped him over.

The little ones don't fully understand where he went. In her thank you note, Sapphire had me dictate "I hope you armor fits."

And, just as an update, Sapphire has added a line when she offers grace: "Help our house not to blow up." We feel like just about everything is covered by the time we are done praying.

Pearl and I had the chance to visit our newest family gem in Lancaster County. We established that Pearl is, according to my husband's family term, a baby hog. She would be content to hold her cousin all afternoon. What sweeties!

Fe-brrrrrrrrr-uary

Last week our co-op resumed. Here the girls in my class are writing up little essays about what we learned about colonial cooking. They did not seem to enjoy the flavor of any of what we cooked or sampled except for the store-bought spiced wafers.

Today Pearl and I whipped up some Lovely Pavlova, a dessert from New
Zealand named in honor of a Russian ballerina. It has lots of egg white and sugar, so it is very sweet. We mostly ended up eating the crunchy meringue top and the strawberries. 

The Pavlova looks an awful lot like the terrain around our house right now. The snow piles outside are tempting to climb, but the girls never stay outside for very long. The sledding is a little too dangerous for them too. 

Co-op & Puzzles

Our co-op started up again this week.  Living where we do, we have several co-op options.  The one we attend does not burden our schedule because it only meets every other week, and it offers a strong Christian fellowship.  This co-op is mainly for enrichment, so I do not have to orchestrate my weekly lessons around it; it merely provides extra opportunities in a classroom setting.

Last semester Jasper taught the older kids a karate class, but this semester I've organized a Maps through Stories class.  Today we worked on landform terms and ended with the children creating their own playdough maps.  I was pretty pleased with the lesson, except I planned too many things and ran out of time.  The two little girls stayed busy in the nursery just down the hall.  I like that feature too.

Pearl's other classes are literature and art. It seems strange that I should be the one not teaching in the humanities! But I do always read them a story.  

Here are Pearl and Sapphire wishing to record their Valentine treats before they disappear.  Pearl's Sunday School class got entrepreneurial and produced and 'marketed' these to help earn money for the church Building Fund.  Pearl is sure she made the pink one. 

Pearl is a fan of Valentines Day. The girls loved all the cards they received from friends and family.  Pearl joined me and Jasper at the church Sweetheart Banquet where I think she was the biggest fan of the family-friendly version of the Newlywed Game--we came in second, I believe. At one point, when Michelle guessed the right answer, I saw Pearl gasp in pure joy and clap her cute little hands.  How sweet that she threw herself into the game. She said she is definitely going again next year.

And Sapphire has been giving us some interesting days. On Saturday I couldn't find my contacts because she had woken early, and just before waking everyone else up (early) she opened my contact case and fiddled around with the tiny clear plastic lenses.  When asked where they had gone, she said they were in her eyes, and she pulled at her eyelid in a very good performance of how I do it. Fortunately they were old 2 week disposables. They were not in her eyes.  Her education into reality (we *always* see the candy hiding in her hand) is entertaining but exhausting. 

Fortunately Ruby is much less interested in pulling our house apart, though we do save activities with tiny pieces until her nap time.

I heard from her group home in Beijing today. They will be celebrating a 10 year anniversary and asked if we could create a video of Ruby sending her regards to encourage the nannies in their daily ministry of childcare.

These last pictures just show what life is like around here--dressing up in vintage aprons made by my great-grandmother (I'll bet she never realized they make excellent capes, dolly blankets, and head-coverings!) and working on puzzles. 

Very proud she can put puzzles together now too!

Homeschooling Days

Pearl made a sign for the sprouting acorn:  "dont step here tree growing"

If you don't home school, you might be curious about what a day looks like here. For us, it begins with sleeping in as long as possible. Once the girls get to the breakfast table, I begin to break out the books. We're working through a curriculum that walks us through history (still Pilgrims!), writing, English, and manners, but we add Bible readings (reading our way through I Samuel now) and more advanced math.  The internet has taught me how to teach two-digit addition, and she's picked it up pretty quickly despite some kvetching. Pearl tends to like worksheets printed off the internet rather than all the neat interactive math games I've picked up. I'm sure a younger sister will use those.

On Monday we saw a small window of good weather, so we moved purposefully through the curriculum while the little girls played around the house. We were able to go for a family nature walk, during which we identified a Tulip Poplar (and took a circumference reading), shelf fungus, a natural spring, and poison ivy. The little girls preferred the quarried rocks on the road, good for pitching into the creek.

We dropped Ruby off with Daddy for a nap, then I took the big girls to Chick-fil-a and on to the YMCA for home school swim.  Then we crossed the parking lot to check out some books in the library. Pearl read to me and Sapphire "read" to a huge stuffed dog toy that was interested in cows. During my dinner preparations she asked to help, so I decided it was time she learned to work the rice cooker all by herself. She can do it too, and the rice was great.

That evening I attended an adoption-support-group-for-moms, so Pearl enjoyed some biggest girl time with Daddy and watched part of an adaptation of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. She's really into Errol Flynn right now, and she likes the Tudors (especially Queen Elizabeth I).  Her daddy fears she's going to need a man who will swashbuckle for her in another twenty years.

The next day, Tuesday, we headed to our co-op early. After announcements and opening prayer, we scuttled off to our assigned spots: nursery class for the littlest ones (they worked on the letter "u"), solar system, manners, then drama for Pearl, and I helped with solar system, had an hour off, then helped with karate. Usually my husband teaches that one and I stay home and revise my book, at least this semester that's how we've done it, but he had a meeting all day, so I filled in.  We all had potluck lunch together, the girls played with friends, then we headed home.

The little girls both needed naps (pretty desperately in Sapphire's case), so Pearl and I played around with fabric. We usually skip book work on co-op days, but we still learn other things. I taught her how to make napkins, and she even worked up to controlling the foot pedal and the fabric movement herself. She has lots of Christmas present plans (but these weren't for any of you, don't worry...unless you are aged 5 and your name starts with a B). Her favorite part is snipping the loose ends. Then she hand-stitched a Christmas gift while I was on the phone.

Jumping in the leaves

While I cooked she sort of entertained her sisters. Right now she's tied herself to Sapphire, and they are walking around the house as a two headed monster.

So that's two days of education here.

PS: Sapphire just told me that when her own little tiny baby comes, I will have to take her, (Sapphire) to China to get her (the baby). !

First Visit to the Doctor

Ruby's own birthday mark-CM2

We finished up the girls' birthday celebrations with a family gathering hosted by Grammy and Poppop. It was so nice to hang out together with cousins and aunts and uncles for the afternoon.  The girls loved the big balloons, dollies, and books they received as presents.

Ruby's language is starting to grow, I think. In the last week she's started repeating more words after we say them, though not using them independently yet.  This is new for her. It is as if she's decided to learn to speak English.

Here's a list of English words she does use independently: uh-oh (she knew this one in China), more (she learned that one pretty quickly!), no, up, mama, dada. 

This week marked the start of the big girls' co-op. It meets one day every other week. Their daddy is teaching a class on martial arts there this semester, and I plan to stay home with Ruby.  He takes them for three hour-long classes, allowing Pearl to learn about the solar system, manners, and drama. Sapphire plays and works on a letter worksheet.  Pearl was excited about the start of this group, and she created this poster and asked me to put it up to 'celebrate.'

Our other family news is that the paperwork is not over. I've begun learning about the process of China's post-placement reports. We make one through our agency once she's been home one month, six months, twelve months, then three more stretching out to the final one at six years. We'll be scheduling the social worker to come to the home, take a look, and submit photos and medical info showing we are taking good care of Ruby.  I can't help but wonder who in China gets to read all of these reports.

Ruby had her first doctor's visit and four shots, and then we walked across the hall and filled four tubes with blood.  She did very well--didn't cry for her TB test, but waited until two nurses hit her up with needles in both thighs.  She was a little shocked that these nice ladies would do that!  We have no concerns following her medical exam, so we'll just keep updating the shots we promised the government we'd take care of. 

The big girls were impressed by all of her bandages.