Sugar Cookie Periodic Table Project

Thursday, my daughter, Posie, decided she just had to do this project out of her Apologia Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics book. She did it all on her own so it took a few hours to complete, but she was persistent and completed it right before heading off for ballet. This was the one subject she really wanted this year and she has thoroughly enjoyed it! She has completed all kinds of fun and interesting experiments.

Emergency placement

Last week, we received our first placement. It was an emergency placement. We actually received 2 different phone calls in one week, but only felt led to take on one placement to begin with. We never thought we would get 2 different calls back to back. Welcome to the world of fostering!

Friday afternoon we received our first call to take in a baby - yes a baby! I never imagined our first placement would be a baby. We were not prepared at all for a baby - no crib, car seat, bottles, formula, etc. Nothing! They laughed when I told them, "No problem, Walmart is down the street." Within a couple hours, he arrived on our doorstep. A precious baby boy with a big, beautiful smile despite all he had just been through.

He came with very little just as we had heard would happen. Thankfully, his worker had stopped by the rainbow room to pick up formula, bottles, and a few outfits. What a blessing this was!

He amazed us all with his happy and giggly personality as he was carried in and looked around at all the animals. He was a little more cautious as he looked around at the adults and children.

We realized very quickly that he is healthy and a very busy and curious child.

After listening to his heartbreaking story, we realized he may not be coming and going very quickly. He may be with us awhile.

This last week has been a learning experience as we learn all we can to truly help and comfort him during this time. We had to learn how he liked to be held, how he sleeps, what and how much he likes to eat, what comforts him when he's upset, etc. We're still learning.

The first night he woke up several times scared and looked around frantically as if trying to figure out where he was and who this strange lady was picking him up.  He had a hard time relaxing in my arms. Then, he finally would relax enough to fall asleep.

After the first night, he seemed to relax more and sleep better. He now seems more calm and relaxed in my arms and in his crib. Thank you Lord for giving this little baby some comfort.

We were surprised at how quickly he started attaching. It only took a few days before he started favoring me over others and crying when I walked away or went out of his view. I thought this would take much longer. When we go places, friends will ask to hold him, but he will quickly want to come back.

God is so good! He knows exactly what this little guy needs and He is showing us each step of the way. We feel so honored that He chose us to take care of this sweet precious baby boy.

Official foster parents

We found out one week ago that we are now certified as foster and adopt parents! It took a little longer, but we can now foster children. We feel so blessed and honored to be trusted with the precious children God will bring into our lives.

I am so excited, because I feel this was a door we had shut. We thought we only wanted to adopt and did not consider that God may have wanted us to become foster to adopt parents. We found the adoption process to be a very long and emotional journey. Each time, you are hoping and praying to be the chosen family only to find out another family was chosen or no family was chosen at all. Many of the children we asked for are still waiting for their forever family on the website. We can only know in our hearts that God closed that door on us. They were not the child or children for our family. During the last two years, we received many calls asking us to foster to adopt a child or children, yet we could not because we were only adoption certified only. I am just excited because now I feel God is choosing the children for us. Thank you Lord!

This last month we have had the privilege of doing respite for a couple foster families while we waited to be certified. They were all a joy and some more work than others. A couple kids needed close supervision. Just in a few short days we kept the children, I really came to respect what foster parents do every day. 

We had our first official call a couple weeks ago to take in 2 small children to foster to adopt. They were so excited until they found out we were not actually complete. They wanted a family who was completely certified. We had thought we were complete or close to complete; however, we had a couple more things pop up. So, the children were given to another family; it was not meant to be. 

Now, we are ready to begin our new journey! I know With God all things are possible. He will be with us every step and every child. I pray He shows us what each child needs who comes through our door. I know our lives and hearts will be touched by them as well!

New foster/adopt adventure!

Hello friends,

We are constantly asked by friends and family if anything is happening in our adoption adventures. For those who have not heard, here is the update and we want to share our new adventure we are starting.

This summer, we were told we would be chosen for a sibling group of 3 precious children and at the last minute, they decided on another family because we are military. Even though we will be retiring in 2 years, they did not want to see these children have to relocate if we do possibly move. This seems silly to me given that many of my friends have moved in the last year and none of them are military families, however; I believe it is all in God's hands. Everything happens for a reason and I am truly at peace knowing our God is in control. I asked Him to shut doors on those He does not want us to have and that is what He continues to do.

We have asked for over 60 children of all races, ages, and sibling groups in the last few months.  Many of the children are on the TARE website. Many are children who are not getting adopted and still remain on the website. We have friends and family who are upset wondering why we are not getting chosen. Please don't be upset, because I only want the child/children God wants for our family. He is only doing what I asked. I asked and He is faithfully answering my prayers.

From the beginning, I felt we closed the door too quickly on becoming foster certified. Because I am not allowed to homeschool these children, I didn't think we were supposed to foster. It's been heavy on my heart for over a year, so I decided to call up Lutheran Social Services because CPS is not currently certifying foster or adoptive families in our area. After speaking with Lutheran, they said it would be an easy transition. They said they would request our paperwork from CPS and we would start the process with them. They believe it will only take a month to be certified. We have trainings and appointments planned all this week and next. I can't believe it could possibly take only a month. With CPS, it took many months. The process was very slow. Now, I'll keep you updated on how long it actually takes. We started on Friday, Aug. 16th with the orientation.

My husband and I believe this will be a fun new adventure! I am excited to see who God brings to us. All along I have asked God to choose the children for us and now I feel He will be the one completely choosing the children and placing them in our hands. Thank you Lord! I am thrilled and honored that we will be given the opportunity to give a child the love they deserve - even if it is only for a short time.

Free online classes for homeschoolers to check out!

Here are some free classes your children can take online. I recently discovered these through friends. I can not personally recommend them yet because we do not have any experience with these classes, but I have heard good things and wanted to share with others. They are recommended from Christian friends. These are great websites to try out for those who are trying to save money or move frequently. No books or money needed. Bonus! If you try out any of these websites, let me know what you think. I would love to hear.

• http://education-portal.com/academy/course/us-history-i.html: Education Portal. Many classes are offered on this site. There are videos to watch, lessons to read, and quizzes to take after. At the end of the class, there is a practice CLEP for your children to take if they would like to possibly take the CLEP exam after and receive college credit. This might be a great way to earn college credit if the college your child plans to go to accepts the CLEP exams.
• http://allinonehighschool.com/full-curriculum/history/early-american-history/: Easy Peasy has all sorts of online curriculum for children of all ages. This link is for their highschool classes. You can type in Easy Peasy for the younger grades. It is all laid out for you each day with lessons, activities, quizzes, and tests. I found the Education Portal through this website. And, yes, this is Christian curriculum!! Here is some information on why she began this website. http://allinonehomeschool.com/about/
• http://virtualhomeschoolgroup.com/: Here's one we signed up for last year but did not actually use because of our busy schedule.  We signed up for the at your own pace Apologia General Science in the middle of the year. This is a great homeschool site with free online classes; however, you will need to buy the textbook that they are using. Most of these books can be found used.  If you are interested in the live classes, check it out soon because classes will be starting. I am excited to see what they are offering this year. Read about them below and check out their website.

  Welcome to VHSG

  "Thank you for considering VHSG for your home school classes. We are a home school online course co-op. Unlike an online school, we are an association of parents (and sometimes professional tutors) that have a passion area that we would like to teach but we are not interested in doing it for money. We just want to build and share something that we love and need a place to share it that doesn't cost a lot of money. VHSG is a project that runs on voluntary donations that provides training, tools, and that free online place for those that want to teach something and in turn a place for home school families to come and sign up for those free classes."

Our Curriculum/Classes for 2013-2014

Curriculum/Classes 2013-2014

Here's what we are planning to do this year. I included some activities as well. This is going to help me as I prepare my children's transcripts. All of the extra things are important to keep track of.  Of course, my plans may change as the year goes on. That's what I love about homeschooling. You don't have to do everything you planned or you may not like something you planned. I always love to look at what other homeschoolers are doing and get ideas from them. Hope you see something that might help you as you are deciding on curriculum. It's amazing how many choices we have now!  

I've mentioned this before, but I feel very strongly that you should not compare yourself or your children to other homeschoolers. No child or family is alike. No one learns alike or may have the same interest. It's okay if your child is taking math that is two years behind his grade or working 2 years ahead in Literature/Grammar. Each child is unique and as homeschoolers, we can work at the child's level, not what the school says is required of their age. As you will see below, I decided to use history that is said to be below where my son is and he will be doing math ahead of where he should be. I do what works for our children; not what others say they must be doing.

I would also love suggestions for a few things I am still considering: Typing for older kids, and my high school son might want to be an architect. I would love suggestions for curriculum, websites, or books he could use.

I buy the majority of my curriculum used from http://homeschoolclassifieds.com/, ebay.com, and from co-op sales. We get most of our books from the library and there are a few I buy new once a year. Check out my favorite websites for websites where I get free curriculum. I'm going to add some great new websites I found through friends recently.


My children are going into 7th & 8th grade next year. Here is a list of curriculum my children will be using for the 2013-2014 school year and classes they will be taking. I'm still  deciding on some subjects.


History/Geography/Literature/Bible for Posie: Sonlight Core E - Intro to American History:  A friend let us graciously borrow this curriculum. We've never used Sonlight so I am excited to try it out. I believe this will be our favorite subject this year. My daughter saw all the books and she looked like it was Christmas! She is thrilled about History this year for the first time in years!

History/Geography/BibleLiterature for Shrimp: I decided to use the Sonlight History with both of the children and I will just require more for my highschooler. I may ask him to do additional research and write essays.
Later or as we go, I might have him use this free website http://education-portal.com/academy/course/us-history-i.html to take a History class while earning college credit. It even has a practice CLEP test to take after. I'm not sure if we will do the CLEP test however, because we don't know where our son will go to college and I heard many colleges do not accept CLEP. There are more classes offered on this website. Check it out!

Geography for Shrimp: I was just asked to be a home-bound teacher for a sweet boy I tutor. They asked if I would teach him geography at home as well as be his reading tutor. After much prayer, I felt God may be wanting us to do this. So, I decided I will teach both my son and this boy World Geography. I'm going to add in many hands on to make it more interesting.

Math: Posie: Saxon Algebra 1/2
Shrimp: Saxon Geometry


Grammar, Vocabulary, Spelling, & Literature 8th grade: Abeka - http://www.abeka.com/: combine both children
We will be using spellingcity.com to study the Abeka words and vocab


Writing: IEW Levels B & C at co-op:
   http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/mhw-s
I will be teaching IEW level C to highschoolers, so Shrimp will be in my class

Clarinet (Year 2) : Shrimp at co-op

Language: Posie: Chinese (year 2) at co-op, Shrimp: free Spanish language course at home he won from winning Spelling Bee last year

Logic: Shrimp at co-op

Ridgewood Analogy books at home: Both children love doing these

Criminal Science: Posie at co-op (I was very surprised when she told me she wanted to take this.)

Science: Shrimp: Physical Science Abeka 9th, Posie: Science: Posie loves the Apologia books so she is doing the new Exploring Creation through Chemistry. She is so excited about this! I wish I would have been excited about chemistry at her age. She wanted this so bad that this is one of the few books I bought brand new this year since it just was released in Aug.

Typing: Not sure what we're using yet. Again, would love suggestions. We have only tried Typing Instructor so far. Need something new.

Architecture: I found a couple neat websites I would like to share: http://architectureatzero.com/tools/, http://www.archkidecture.org/
I also have him doing different activities for us since we are starting the foster process. He created a floor plan of our home with square footage and a fire escape route. My next project for him will include designing his dream home.

Co-op: At one of our favorite co-ops this year, I will be teaching: High School IEW Level C, 1st-3rd grade Books Alive class, and a Preschool class. This co-op meets every Friday where we have a bible/worship time and 3-4 classes after depending on how long you stay. We are part of several homeschool groups and we love each and every one of them. We go on different adventures with each and have wonderful friendships. We are so blessed to have them part of our lives. I would encourage those of you who are not part of one to seek out a local homeschool group.

 Geography Fair, Biography Fair, and Science Fair with co-op


Spelling Bee with co-op: Shrimp


Speech/Drama: Fall/Spring at co-op (this is our children's favorite)

Field trips/Community Service: I will be setting up many fun trips for one of our homeschool groups.

Summer Engineering for Shrimp: He has done this for 2 summers now. I would highly recommend this to any child interested in a science field ( PREP) It is a free 7 week program for children finishing 6th - 10th. He is learning algebra, problem solving, logic, engineering, architect class, & physics. It has been a great experience for him and helped to boost his confidence. In Texas, there are several TEXPREP programs. Check it out and see if you live near one.

Ballet for Posie: This is Posie's passion!


Youth group at church  

Dinner time:  Our family just started a new thing for dinner time. Each child researches and presents10 facts on a person or place to us at dinnertime. This has been fun and interesting to see what and who our children will choose. Later, we will change it to informing us on a news story they read that day. Some interesting topics: Hitler, The Dog Whisperer, creator of Mine Craft, cereal, & St. Basil's Cathedral.


Reading:
My children love to read and will be known to go through a book a day. They love all kinds of books. Both of my children have loved reading the classics, but they have also enjoyed mysteries, adventure, poetry, nonfiction, and book series.  I do not pick out books based on a certain level of reading. I try to pick out real living books for my children: high-quality literature with real-life experiences. But mostly they choose their own books.

Selecting children, having faith, and the waiting game

I wanted to write this post because we are currently in the waiting game again and I felt I left out some information in a previous post about selecting children to adopt. We have been selecting children and waiting since April. After praying for God's will, God showed us He does still want us to adopt, so we have been seeking children of all ages and groups. And, yes, we are still waiting!

One of the things not shared with us in the beginning was that a family can select as many children as they want. Now this is for the state of Texas. I'm not sure how it works in other states. We thought we could only ask for one child or one group at a time. No, you can choose as many as you are interested in at a time. Our sweet, patient worker sometimes submits for up to 5 a week for us.

This can be a hard time as you select a child based on one picture and a short description of that child. I don't know about you, but how can you know this is the child God wants you to have?

Well, I decided to give it all to God and I would urge you to do the same. And I mean completely trusting in Him and what He wants for your family. I realized the more and more we looked, we were still being very selective.

We initially only wanted children between the ages of 6-10 and no more than 2 children. Now, I am asking for all sorts of children, even sibling groups of 3, which my husband said no to. The only thing we realized is we don't believe He wants us to have a child older than our oldest son, who is now 13 and that we can't take in a severe child. Besides those 2 things, we are trusting God completely. Are you?

Every day I would look at the website and the broadcasts sent out to us and realize we were still being too selective. I started asking for several children a day asking God to shut the door on the ones He does not want us to have. Yes, my friends and family do think I'm crazy! But, I am not about to tell God what I believe He wants for our family.

This has given me an incredible peace as I realized He is doing exactly what I asked for. We have received a few phone calls and emails saying we are being considered for different children. Occasionally,  we hear that we were not selected for a child or children, but mostly we don't hear back at all. Thank you, Lord, for shutting those doors!

One day I received a phone call saying we are being considered for a group of 3. An hour later another group of 3. I'm not sure if God wants us to have one of these groups or if He is trying to show us something. Whatever it is, I am trusting Him to close the door if they are not the ones He wants for us.

We know we are currently in the top 3 for one of the sibling groups, but again, we have been waiting for over a month. We do know we are still being considered and there is a new selection date, so we are just waiting.

Do we see ourselves with 3 or want 3 children? No! But, do we really know what God wants us to have? Again, No! We just have to trust that He knows what is best for us and who needs us.

I have had friends and family who roll their eyes or make comments about how many I have submitted for. They think I'm being impatient or testing God. Or they'll make comments like I don't think God wants you to have older ones again or I don't think God wants you to have 3. All I can say to you is - Don't worry about what others say or think. I value my friends and families' opinions, but they are their opinions. How do they know what God wants for your family? Be careful when taking advice from others.

I urge you to prayerfully consider how you are handling the adoption selection process and just remember to be patient and trust in God. Let Him lead you.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6