Lily's first book report

This week we started our summer school program. We are doing the library reading program through the library and it has wonderful incentives to keep Lily interested in reading! Lily also just completed her first ever book report. She did it all by herself and turned it in to me!

Valerie has also been doing school work. Here she is tracing her numbers and counting and coloring the objects!
I love the face she made! Oh and I helped her with making the twos. Those were hard!
Lily is also learning spanish as a part of her summer school and she is picking up on it quickly. After the first two days, she is easily counting to 10 in spanish. Now we are working on numbers 11-20!

We love doing school together!

What we have been up to!

The last month has been crazy busy so I thought I would write an update. In May we were busy with Lily's kindergarten graduation ceremony with her co-op friends. We were also finishing up the school work. Lily was very ready for a break so we took three weeks off from school work!

The weather has been beautiful so we have been at the pool everyday for the past three weeks. Lily even took swim lessons at the community center! She fell in love with jumping off of the diving board and improved greatly on her swimming. We might have her back in lessons at the end of July if we can find time!

We have also been swimming in the river and going to the Jordan Valley Fountains. We love this busy time of the year.

An extra challenge we have had is foster care. Lately we have had a bunch of calls. I think there are more this time of the year due to vacations and the fact that neighbors pick up on what their neighbors are doing. In the winter we all get a little closed off by staying inside.

We had two little girls who stayed with us for a week. They were similar ages to Lily and Valerie so it was great fun! Right now we have had a little baby girl for 2 weeks and it is a definite challenge. Sometimes I am so impressed with myself that I can take four kids, with two of those being babies, out and about everywhere. Other times, I am tired...especially waking up all through the night again. I must admit that although we want to adopt at some point, right now is probably not the right time for another baby!

Something else exciting is that Jason is finally done with his newspaper route! YAY! We learned a lot through that experience. Jason was delivering papers in the middle of the night and then trying to work his regular job so that we could make extra money. We learned that sometimes you need to know when God is opening the door to an opportunity and that you have to listen to God when it is the right time to close the opportunity. Jason kept that job longer than was beneficial to us and caused our family so much stress. Him being tired all the time was not worth it at all. God has always provided for our needs so we don't need to worry so much and keeping a job that hurts the family is not a good idea!

Flat Lily!!!

Today was so exciting!!! The mail came and Lily saw that she had received a package! She opened it and inside was Flat Lily! She started jumping up and down! She had mailed it off about a month ago! She opened the book to see where Flat Lily has been and it is better than we could have even expected!

First Flat Lily went to Charlotte, N.C. to visit Jason's cousin, Kelly and her two kids, Parker and Payton! Here they are with Flat Lily on the Light Rail Train in downtown Charlotte!

It takes too long for me to post all of the pictures and I couldn't work my scanner so these are just pictures of the pages of Lily's book! They also went to the Duke Energy Building where their Nana works and it is 48 stories tall!

Here is a picture of them with the Charlotte signt that shows how far it is to all of the other Charlottes in the U.S.

They also went to the Isanart Sculpture called Lacabeza at the park.

Then they went to one of my favorite places....Myrtle Beach for Spring Break!

They did such a great job! So fun to read and look at the pictures! We felt almost like we were on vacation there! :)

Next, they mailed it to my friend Rachel and her son Lewis in Hawaii! We are very jealous of Flat Lily for making it there before we will!

They went to the North Shore on Oahu on an overcast day! They stopped in front of the Hale'iwa iconic white bridge.

Here they are at the popular shrimp trucks for lunch!

They went to the Aokis' shaved ice shop for a rainbow treat! So fun!

So thankful to our friends!

Also I love making learning fun! What a fun project! Oh and I am sure we will be sending Flat Lily out to more friends!

Proud moments!!

Just wanting to add some proud moments from this month.

Co-op just ended and we had an end of the year talent show. Lily was in a reader's theater play about Johnny Appleseed. She was the narrator and did such a great job of reading and speaking clearly. So proud!

Valerie was in the talent show with two of her friends and they all sang the Itsy Bitsy Spider. Valerie was too shy to stand up by herself, but she sat on my lap and sang and did the hand motions. So proud of her!

Lily also has been working more this spring on riding her bike without training wheels and she is finally getting very calm on it. She can also stop and work her brakes which was an issue for awhile....especially since we are on a hill. Very proud of her for working hard at it!

Now Daphne started taking steps several weeks ago when she was 9 months. Last night she was just in a great mood for walking and start taking as many as 10 steps. Today she would just let go of what she was holding onto and would come to me! Love it. She is so excited as she should be...she is awesome!

All three of my girls are such a joy to my heart and make me so proud! I am such a blessed mommy!

Labels!

Labels! What are your thoughts on labels? I am talking about childhood labels such as adhd, autism, mentally retarded, even being known by a dissorder like being the child with the cleft palate. Obviously there needs to be names for problems in order to have the research done on these. However, is it healthy to label so much? What effect does it have on that child? How does it make other peers react to them? Does it make adults give them more slack? Is giving them more slack going to deter them from reaching their potential? These are just my thoughts of the day. Maybe it comes from me having taught in special ed. for three years or maybe because Lily is labeled adhd. Any thoughts on the subject? Since I am on here, I will just add some beautiful spring pictures!

St. Patrick's Day!

Lily has honestly been waiting all year for St. Patrick's Day! She even asked at Christmas if it was almost St. Patrick's Day! Why does Lily love it so much? Well Lily loves the challenge of trying to catch a leprechaun. This year she made a really neat trap. She wanted it all green b/c that is a leprechaun's favorite color. She also wanted a four leaf clover on it b/c that is his favorite plant. She also put coins b/c she knows that he loves money. The design is that if you move or untie the coins then the top part falls down on your head! So did Lily catch a leprechaun?
This is how we found the trap this morning. It looks like she might have caught him this year!!!!

There was a note with it and Lily started to read that. Unfortunately she got some bad news. He had gotten away! :( But the good news is that he didn't get away with the coins and he left her a treat!

Oh and she did catch his shadow!!!! His black shadow was inside the tube so atleast he didn't get away fully! ;)

Happy St. Patrick's Day from all of us!

Oh vacation, how I miss you!

Our vacation was exactly what we needed!!!

Leaving on an adventure!!!

Relaxing in a hotel room! (No need to wake up early, clean, or think about anything!)
Playing on the beach as a family! I love playing with these girls!

Going on a "fun" date with my husband and getting to act like kids!

Hanging with my childhood friends!!!

Relaxing in the pool with my favorite girls!

Watching my girls experience the happiest place on Earth! Disneyland is the best place for watching your child light up with excitement!

I think coming home from a vacation is always a difficult situation. At first you are happy to get back to your home. Then reality sets in and you miss the relaxing and the excitement of vacation! We also made that leap even bigger by taking a foster child in on the day that we got back. That was crazy!!! We made the best memories on our vacation and I can't wait for the next one! Yes, everyday life is great, but vacation is the best! :)