Orientation & First Day

I am back up and running. Orientation cards will go out today in the "fake mail" :) We have Entertaining Angels tomorrow and then will have orientation on Thursday. My new laptop does not have some of the same programs that my old one did, so I will have to use something else for school i.d's and class schedules. I just this minute won a bid for 3rd grades curriculum! Yipee! The kids say they are excited and ready... in fact, last night Jackson and Jeanna got their school uniforms out and ready with socks and undies. LOL! 

First day of school for elementary minus pre-k is Monday, August 26th with High School and Pre-k starting after Labor Day.  

Our First Flex Week

This was a flex week for us and it went well. We had family here for mother's day weekend and enjoyed our time a great deal. Monday and Tuesday were great weather days and we enjoyed a camp fire and a lot of outdoors time. On Wednesday we had Entertaining Angels and had a nice crowd. They boys learned how to hang laundry on the line and James learned how to repair the mesh in the screen door.  We have watched a lot of Sch**l H*use R*ck and the kids like the songs that are some of my favorites too. It really brings back good memories.

Peace!

Entertaining Angels

I wanted to show a video of what we start with on the days that we distribute for Entertaining Angels.

We usually have between 400 - 600 items on the table before we open the doors. For about 6 months in a row, the crowds were wrapped around the building and we were out of everything within 15 minutes of opening the door. This left us turning people away. I have talked to the financial person at the church and we have discussed a good plan for providing enough goods to service more people. Very exciting!

Entertaining Angels & An Emergency Roadtrip

We had a personal needs distribution today and as always it was fun! We love the people that we serve and have developed great friendships with them. We have 1 couple that comes every month and they try to take more that their share. We now get a kick out chanting, "just one!" to them and they in turn, smack their lips and roll their eyes in mock fashion. We have a guy that gives a different celebrity name every time he comes. As he was leaving today, he informed me that next month he would T*m Cru*se. Too funny. We offer feminine hygiene and 1 of the men got a big kick out of telling us with a dramatic hand wave that he did not need any of those products. Good Day with many served.

On another note, my very dear friend had to go to the ER tonight so 2 of my children and I drove to her town about an hour away to offer support if needed. She has 4 small children that call me Auntie De ~Smile~ Waiting...

The Passing of the Wings and Memories

I don't do many of the fictional or fantasy characters with my kids, i.e. Santa, Easter bunny and others. It's not that I did not want to... I really was looking forward to all of that stuff when I first became a parent. But I have a brother who does not believe in telling kids all of those things and I knew he would spill the beans, so I did not do them.....except the tooth fairy.

I loved being the tooth fairy and when my first born began losing teeth I was very seriously excited about the role. Once my daughter came along, I thought I had gotten it down pat, but never counted on the fact that she would be afraid of "something flying into her room at night and reaching under her pillow!" The tooth fairy changed to only leaving treats and money on the outside of the bedroom door.

Jackson lost a tooth on 2/19/13 and was excited about the tooth fairy coming to his room. After the boys went to bed, I asked Jordan if she would like to don the wings and be his tooth fairy. She was so happy. The transaction went smoothly and he came rushing out the next morning waving his dollar. I was happy 'cause at least I had the money this time...in the past the tooth fairy has been known to not have any small bills in the house and has had to leave a sugary treat in stead. :)

Wednesday 2/20/13 was Entertaining Angels. It was so very cold and windy that we did not expect too many people. We did end of still having a good crowd with 2 new families signing up. I am amazed that 3 years later this little ministry is still going and growing strong. My dear friend came to help us with distribution and brought her 4 little girls with her. She surprised us with spending the night so my house was running 9 kids deep! I call my little house elasti-house 'cause it seems to stretch to accommodate more and more so easily. I had learned a new recipe for chicken pot pie and made 2 jumbo pies for dinner and they were so good. They are switching from traditional school  to homeschooling for next year, so my friend asked if they could join us in school to get a feel of homeschooling. It was such a blast to have a room full of children. She took notes like crazy and we had good conversations about good fitting curriculum. When they left on Thursday, it was very sad as always.

Thursday 2/21/13 was James' 12th birthday! Usually the kids don't have to go to school on their birthdays but with having guest and us all being downstairs for school, he joined in with us. We had a great day and Jordan made "Whoopies" for his birthday.

Whoopies

1 box cake mix
frosting
sprinkles

Make the cake mix as directed. For these she used a gluetin free white cake. Using a griddle, make silver dollar sized (2 in diameter) little cakes, flipping and cooking on both sides like you would a pancake. Set them aside to cool. Each whoppie needs 2 little cakes so to make a dozen you will need 24 little cakes. Jordan used pre-made frosting, but you could make your own. Add a small dollop of frosting to 1 side of a little cake and add another cake to make a small sandwich. Now roll the edges of your little whoopies in sprinkles.   A very neat way to eat cake.

Friday 2/22/13 greeted us with a big snow storm. The boys shoveled for a while and then I had to run an errand. While out, I surprised the kids by taking them sledding. I took them to a pretty infamous hill in our city (it is huge and is on a very well used golf course in our town) that my parents used to take us to in the 70's and 80's when my brother and I were kids. Since it was still early in the day, the snow was still powdery and needed to be packed down before they got a few good runs in. It was funny because we were the only ones on the hill and then another homeschooling family showed up and the father ended up helping all of the kids with sledding. Very fun.

The weekend was spent providing respite and doing lots of laundry.

Update

So much going on that I have been to busy to document.

Entertaining Angels is going strong and getting bigger and bigger. In January we served 30 families and had 6 or 7 new families sign up. We had to come use a new system of distribution this last month as it was just us working. It actually seemed to work pretty good as we did not use "runners" but just laid everything out on the table. We still ran out of things fairly quickly. By 12:17 pm we were down to just a few bars of soap and a couple of toothbrushes. It had been like that for 3 months.... running out of things within the first 15 minutes. I am in talks right now the treasurer of the church to see what kind of budget we can work with. We now have 397 people that have been serviced by this ministry!

We have been working hard to finish units this last month. There are 10 units per course and we still have a few children in their 3rd or 4th unit in 1 or more classes. We are fast approaching our mid-year mark and trying to increase their speed a bit. Mostly I like them to go a a slow pace to be sure that they understand what they are doing, but I think they are capable of going a bit faster. We have just gotten into the habit of snail pacing. Time to shift gears a bit.

Speaking of mid-year...it is time for progress reports cards. I think grades are due by Thursday. So much to do.

Jordan was invited to her first homecoming prom! OH MY GOODNESS!!!!  The search for a dress was on with me looking for a vintage, Victorian style with a high neck, long sleeves and a non-clinging bodice  LOL! let's just say that they don't sell those kind of dresses in the mall. Jordan tends to be modest....mostly, but the choices of clothes on the market now days makes it difficult not to compromise in some areas. The prom is being held at one of the private schools in this town that have the strictest dress code (i.e. girls only wear dresses and skirts, boys ties, no tennis shoes for anyone...) We finally found a dress that is perfect for her and purchased it off the rack, no alterations needed!  Next was shoes, pantyhose, and undergarments. She found the shoes...adorable. The rest is still in the works. The dress has to be approved before she can attend. We are taking the dress over to the school today (Tuesday). One of the other mothers told me that they will be taking a picture of the dress because in the past some girls have gotten a dress approved and then shown up in a different dress. Ha! kids....

The Valentine bowling party is coming up. We have not decided if we are going to be able to make it.

Funny story: We had a long day of running errands, shopping and other business. My mom was with me and we were trying to decide what to do about dinner as it was late and we had not planned very well. Jordan mentioned wanting a shake and my mom whispered to me:

The Nana: "Let's let them have ice cream for dinner."
Me: "Oh yea let's just let them have stomach aches!"
The Nana: "They don't mind having stomachs aches. They want one!"
Kids from back seat: "We want a stomach ache!"
Joshua, "I want a stomach ache!"

And so...they did!

Christmas Break

Since we did not go to Nassau this year, we will take a bit of a longer Christmas break this year. We have Entertaining Angels on the 19th of this month and will go right into break after the distribution. We will return to school in the new year on the 7th.

It looks like we will celebrate Christmas Eve at my mom's house this year and then come home for Christmas. We will have Dollar store gift exchange on Saturday, December 29th as my brother cannot make it home for Christmas Day this year due to work.

What are you doing for the holiday?

Whew!!

The Mamma's vacation went well. The children did school on their own for 2 days and the only thing I had to do was give the special holiday spelling test with words like: turkey, stuffing, etc... For craft they made toilet paper roll turkeys. As you can see...some had difficulty standing up. LOL!



Wednesday, November 21st we had Entertaining Angels and the crowd was lined up in the parking lot before we even got there! I had to have people clear the way so the kids and I could even get into the building. We had 50 fresh whole chickens, 100 pounds of potatoes, and hundreds of cans vegetables  We also had over 400 personal need items. Needless to say...we ran out again. It was crazy, busy and so much fun. Next month will be good. I hope to secure some kinda of small gift to give at Christmas. I was thinking about a gift card to the Family Dollar Store. We'll see.

Thanksgiving was GREAT! It was my birthday and the kids let me sleep in and then made me breakfast in bed. I had scrambled eggs with cheese, ham and a blueberry donut  We laid around and watched old "I Love Lucy" reruns. I had a roaring fire in the fire pit and then later we had our traditional Thanksgiving dinner of grilled cheese and french fries.






There were lots of suspicious phone calls and meetings behind closed doors going on. Of course I was being nosy asking a lot of questions, but kept getting looks of confusion. On Friday morning I was sent to the basement for an hour (which by the way is where I wanted to be in the first place, HMPFFF!) There was a barrage of noise and furniture moving upstairs and the not-so-soft pitter patter of little feet. When I was called upstairs, I was told to close my eyes, something was pinned to my shirt and a tiara was placed on my head. I was led into the dining room and opened my eyes to a beautifully decorated room with purple streamers and the biggest cake ever. It was a surprise for sure.

Sunday was Jackson's baptism and it was so sweet. He was excited and had the biggest smile the whole time. The water was deeper than usual and after he was so buoyant that he could not put his feet back down. ~Smile~ He changed into the free white tux and looked so cute. It was beautiful and the whole family was there.

Monday was back to school and I feel like a I need a vacation from this whole last week.

Peace All!

6 Week Progress Reports

The time is flying and yet sometimes it feels like we are standing still. Progress reports have gone out and most are very happy. 1 of my 2nd graders does not have enough grades yet, so we are waiting for that.

Jackson is doing well in most areas. Bible verse memorization seems to be more difficult for him this year. Spelling however is a strong area with him earning 100% on all of his spelling test thus far.

James is doing very well this year. History and Geography gives him a bit of trouble as it is so abstract to him, but he is doing better at keeping up this year.

Jordan is having a wonderful year so far, earning a 4.0 GPA for the first marking period. She enjoys New Testament Survey and Science.

Pre-K is coming along nicely. He is very eager to read and has almost mastered his high frequency words list.

Wednesday is Entertaining Angels. We now have approx. 274 people on our list and are now purchasing between 300 and 400 items each month. It is an amazing and wonderful experience. certainly bigger than we ever imagined.

Moving along....

Summer Session

We start tomorrow. The three kids are very excited and spent about 1 hour sharpening pencils and organizing their backpacks. Jordan is with her Auntie Moni being a "mommy's helper" so she will not start until maybe Tuesday.

Here is an example of a summer schedule. I did not set times this year, but ask that all work be completed by 3 pm. Each student has 3 things that they are working on this summer and they can do it in whatever order works best... the schedule is mainly a guide. 

 

We don't have school on Thursdays as we will be going to my friend's home to help out following her surgery. 

Entertaining Angels was super busy this past Wednesday! We served 22 families with 7 of them being new referrals. At 1 point we had a line 6 people long waiting. We could not restock fast enough. 

On Thursday we were invited to a friends home to swim and I had a chance to work with the baby again on turning himself onto his back if he were to fall in the pool. It was a very nice time... I think I enjoyed it more than the kids. 

Preschool Picks

My preschooler's new favorite books are the Scanimation Picture Books by Rufus Butler Seder. Last week at the library we read, 

and then we borrowed:




They are very cool books as the pictures "move" when you turn the page. Tomorrow is library day and the summer shows have started. I am looking forward to tomorrow as the marionettes are a favorite. Tomorrow is also Entertaining Angels day. Looking forward to that too. 

Service & Big News

We had Entertaining Angels today and had 10 families. Because of Mother's Day weekend, I had forgotten to mail out reminder cards, so it was good to have people come in who were regulars. We also had 3 new families sign up today. They had all been referred by another family that had been serviced in the past. Nice! Tomorrow they have to work at the local food bank.

Big News!!!

Jordan has completed 8th grade!!!!! I have to grade her final report on John Calvin and then she is done! She has had such a great week and a half and worked very hard through the final stretch. Guess what that means.... I will have a High School student in the house.

This Last Week...

was a doozey. Preschool's speech got changed to Monday which really threw us off and I had to go to the bank (which I avoid usually) so we did not have our normal Monday morning start.

Tuesday I got another check in the mail (Ha!) and had to go back to the bank. I also had to get another TB test because my last reading did not get done. We had to shop for Entertaining Angels which was fun because when the kids got to the store, the staff there had free bags waiting for them and was so happy to be a part of the ministry.

Wednesday was a blast! We had 3 new families to sign up for personal needs and they were all referrals from other families so people are telling others. We ran out of most things within the first 15 minutes of being open. We probably could be "bigger" but the space we are working in is pretty small, so it would be hard to service more people right now. Afterward, I took the 3 big kids out for dine in lunch and ended up seeing one of the boys case worker that helped with their adoption.

Thursday I got a chance to escape on my own for almost 2 hours. I went to have my TB test read, got drive-thru breakfast, parked and read for almost an hour, KID FREE!!! I actually don't feel like I don't get "away" from my kids as much as others think I need to "get away". We had another home visit Thursday to finish up our Home study. This one is the longest, most emotional, and somewhat traumatic adoption of them all. Worker visits are triggering all kinds of fear in 2 of my kids every time she comes and that does not include the 2 that are being adopted. One of my older kids admitted that worker visits make them feel like they might get "taken" from our family. Sniff!

Friday night I have 2 extra kids in the house, 1 of which we found out at drop off does not sleep through the night. LOL! Jordan is babysitting him so I gave her a grin and mouthed, "ha ha" wink!

Peace to you all!

Tempted

Public school is closed for 1/2 day today (Thurs.) all of Friday and all Monday, so we could have a 4 day weekend. It is so tempting to take those days off, but we really want to take a nice long spring break and I know how we get when summer starts peeking around the corner. We may sleep in a bit tomorrow and then do just a short day. I have to get fingerprinted and get my TB test read. (Did I mention that we are in the process of adopting again?) I have not decided about Monday yet.

We had Entertaining Angels this week and had a great crowd and much fun. The boys usually stand outside with signs and try to bring in those that pass by. Last month they were so cold that we really doubled up on clothing this month. Jackson had long johns, turtle neck, his school uniform, a hooded sweatshirt and then his snow pants and coat. He had so many layers that he could hardly move and looked like the character from that movie, "Christmas Story". Also, after waddling around so much, his pants fell down inside his snow pants and we were cracking up. Needless to say...they were not cold at all this month.

TP

We would like to send out a very special Thank You to Ms. Kim. Yesterday she donated 36 rolls of toilet paper to Entertaining Angels Personal Needs Closet. She is a faithful donator and we appreciate her  kindness so very much.

Entertaining Angels Stats

One year ago this month, Jordan had her first meeting with the pastor of our church to discuss starting a personal needs closet. He was very impressed and approved her idea and she had her first distribution in January 2011. Here we are one year later and to date we have served 51 families, 130 individuals. Jordan has purchased over $565 worth of toilet paper, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, feminine hygiene, combs, Vaseline, razors, laundry soap, etc with over $420 worth of donations from friends, both virtual and real-life. Thank you all!!!!

We have met so many wonderful people who have come for free needs.... many with stories of the struggles of providing for their family's basic needs. Every month I have had the privilege of hugging an individual that just happened to make a wrong turn down the street that the church was on or saw the kids on the sidewalk out front, waving their signs and waving to those that pass by and came in and started talking about struggles with behaviors they are facing. I always tell them how happy I am that God led them there that day.

Toilet paper, ya'll. Toilet paper has led to so many wonderful opportunities to share. And I am so proud of Jordan. She has such a wonderful heart for the homeless and those in need.

This last week we had 24 families that came for personal needs with 17 of them being first time families. As we were adding the new addresses to the data base, she was discussing ways to increase our goods to be able to provide for more people. You see, last week we had to close early and turn 2 families away because we ran out of goods. Broke.our.hearts! For this new year, we hope to be able to double our purchases so that we can serve everyone that comes to our door.

Starting Again

We are getting ready to start our first full week after a wonderful vacation. It was good to be back at church today, although I was uncomfortable with the comments made about going to Nassau.

1st grade opened his unit 4 Lifepacs today in order to get ready for tomorrow. He is always excited to get new booklets. I was using Spelling Connections for 1st grade, but switched to ABC Teach spelling units as I liked the activities that could be done throughout the week for practice. He seems to like the sheets too.

Our home-school group is having the annual Spelling Bee in February.  I think I am putting a hold on everyone's spelling program to focus on Spelling Bee words.

4th and 8th grade have several essay projects coming up in the next few weeks so I think I will make Fridays a project day for them. We have a very old set of encyclopedia's that I would love to replace. I still like them to use reference books for research instead of the internet. We have not had our consistent weekly library trips yet because we have been so busy. I need to get back on track with those as they have yet to fulfill any of their required reading list. So much to do...so little time. LOL!

We were surprised today with a very generouse donation today for our Personal Needs Closet. We are so excited for the opportunity.

Home School Lite

We made it home Sunday, early evening and the kids decided that they missed school enough that they wanted to get back into it. They set up school and got everything ready without me even telling them to. My foster child, Jeanna*, DID NOT WANT to go back to her public school and promised to cry Monday morning. I debated back and forth as to whether to send her or not for the 2 days before Thanksgiving Break and her teacher (who really does not like Jeanna all that much) had suggested that I just keep her home for those 2 days. But school attendance is an issue that I don't want to have problems with, so I sent her on Monday. Luckily the hot lunch for that day was a meal that she liked. It was the only reason she went. Ha Ha!

We are doing just review type work here in Rottie Land. 8th grade did a couple of hours on Monday as well as 1st grade. 4th grade ended up doing a bit more as it is just the nature of his gig. Today is my birthday so we will watch a movie together...my choice even though I will most likely fall asleep and only see the opening and closing credits as usual! LOL!

Our church added a Wednesday morning prayer meeting that I am excited about as I never get to go to the evening one (bedtime conflicts), so we will get to attend that tomorrow morning before Entertaining Angels. We have also decided to give out meals to any families that come for personal needs on Wednesday. We will be giving out a small chicken, a bag of potatoes and a can good. Just a small meal for hard times.

Thursday we look forward to our traditional grilled cheese and french fries Thanksgiving dinner.

To my Sister-girlfriend: You know I love ya! We are making arrangements.

*My foster daughter's blog name

Pilgrim's Progress

The gang is now reading Pilgrim's Progress and really seem to be enjoying it. The are studying it with their Sunday School teacher and have vocabulary words and essays that will be assigned.

This is one of our busy weeks: Dr. appointments, Entertaining Angels, a birthday party and church cleaning.

I have a sinus infection..again. 2nd time in 5 months. I have never had sinus problems so this is new and aggravating.

Entertaining Angels Update

We had so much fun with the Personal Needs Closet today. We serviced 9 families, 2 who were homeless. One lady was driving by, saw the kids standing out with their signs, turned around and came back. She told of her daughter down in Arkansas that had ran into financial troubles and became homeless. She had moved them up here with her and it has been a struggle. She said she was just talking to one of her grandsons that they were out of toilet paper in the house when she saw the kids with the signs. It was interesting because she got out of her car and said, "God sent you angels to me today because we really needed these personal needs." We do not have our name on any of our signs.

We will need to restock for next month.

Tomorrow the kids work the Food Bank. Looking forward to Thursday.