Trip to NOLA turned into a trip to MS! Pt. 1

I had mentioned that we had some days off this week and were getting away to New Orleans but that didn't end up happening how we planned.  There were several reasons and maybe I'll be able to explain in the next few weeks. The less complicated reasons being that Nehemiah threw up just 30 minutes down the road and we were just so exhausted and did not want to drive 5 hrs!  We had a good time regardless.  I mainly have negative things to say about Mississippi because we usually have less than par experiences when we travel through there.  But this trip was pretty good, surprisingly! EXCEPT for the Jackson ZOO...poor zoo needs so much work and attention. Nehemiah didn't seem to notice or mind that half the exhibits were overgrown, closed or empty! The best part was the Gibbons that were being engaged irritated by some teenagers and were howling like crazy.

Of course, there is almost never a trip where we don't go to Bass Pro Shop.  I guess a little "redneck" is rubbing off on me!  LOL

I'll do the rest of our pictures in Part 2!

Stephanie

Goodbye 20's, Hello 30's!

Well it will officially be my birthday by the time I finish writing this...I will be 30 years old.

I have never cared about getting older or gray hair and the big 3-0 hasn't bugged me before, but today all of a sudden I felt so sad about it. Not sure why exactly...maybe grieving the closing of another decade and chapter of my life. Maybe it's the missed opportunities and regrets that I cannot get back; the what ifs, what could have beens and the I should'ves...

Here are some thoughts...

What have I done with 30 years?
What kind of impact has my life made?
Am I where I want to be and where God wants me to be in life?
Am I living fully for Him?

I like birthdays (and new years) because it is a time of reflecting and making goals and looking forward to the new adventures ahead. So I was thinking I should set some goals for the areas I feel are not where they should be. At this point I have no idea what my goals are going to be or need to be for the next year of my life or next decade! I will share them at some point when I figure it out a little more.

What kinds of goals have you set before?

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:13-16 NIV84)

Thank you God for another year of life!

Blessed,

Stephanie

St. Patrick's Day homeschool highlights!

We had another fun week in home school and in life in general!  Who wouldn't have fun with a sweet boy like this?!?!?!

This week we checked out a handful of library books and this cool game pictured below.  The library just got these recently and there are all types of subjects! We did the Body Parts book/game this week.

 We also worked on a free kindergarten St. Patrick's Day unit this week.  It was fun and Nehemiah did GREAT on it!  He was being a ham and posing for tons of pictures!

 Today I hid gold coins/treasure all over the house for Nehemiah and one of our other boys to "hunt." They had a BLAST!  We also did "painting" with droppers of colored vinegar on baking soda (even the 10 and 13 year olds enjoyed that!). We still have a skittle activity to do later on, which should be yummy FUN!

 His artwork above is improving so much!  It's so neat to see him starting to draw and make things that look like what he says they are!  LOL I helped with the drawing on the left (the truffula tree and flower). 

Good week, despite being really tired and looking forward to our trip to New Orleans next week! Tomorrow is my 30th birthday and Monday is our 7th wedding anniversary!  How time flies!

So Blessed,

Stephanie

Resources and Organizations List

As promised, here is a list of resources and organizations that deal with the subjects of orphans, orphan care, HIV adoption, and human trafficking.

Take a few minutes to check out these links and see which ones you can be a part of through prayer, donations, spreading the word and educating others.

Adoption/Orphan Care
147 Million Orphans
Feeding the Orphans
Amazima Ministries (Kisses From Katie)
Ordinary Hero
Project Hopeful- HIV+ adoption
Positively Adopted- HIV+ adoption

Human Trafficking/Seeking Justice
International Justice Mission
Hagar International
Chab Dai
Polaris Project
Freeset
Not For Sale
Love146
Stop Child Trafficking Now

Let me end with this (emphasis mine), Micah 6:8 (ESV):

"He has told you, O man, what is good;

    and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

    and to walk humbly with your God?"

Blessed,

Stephanie

Poll Question, Adoption and Human Trafficking

I have added a poll over to the right sidebar of this post. Take a second to answer, please and thank you.

So far in our adoption journey I have found some interesting things out.  The main tidbit being that MANY people consider adopting, plan on it someday or take concrete steps towards it. The reality is that only about ONE-THIRD of those people continue on to actually adopt! For every three people that look into adoption or take the beginning steps toward adoption, there is one actual adoption completed.  I was honestly surprised at these numbers.  I thought it would be much higher.  Here is a helpful site about adoption statistics. I'd love to see some even more recent stats to compare to these I found.

My thought in this: what happens to these families along the way that makes them push this idea and these orphans to the side? How can they forget about the cause of the orphan and move on? Those of you that have adopted or are currently in the process, how does this burning desire and yearning for our child just go away? I cannot even imagine that right now. I know we all get curve-balls thrown at us in this life and things come up.  I am not judging; just wondering what it would take in life to stop this burden.

Maybe you have considered adoption before and busy-ness got in the way or a major life situation; would you pray about whether God might be leading your family to pursue being a forever family for an orphan at this time in life?  We are not all called or led to adopt, I do not mean to imply that at all by this post. And sometimes, even if we are being led to adoption, it may not be the right time in life to pursue it.

There are approximately 147 million orphans around the world.  Most are living in horrible conditions. Some will be institutionalized after a certain age if they have disabilities and the rest will be turned out on the streets when they have aged out of the system.  In America they "age-out" at 18 years old; in other countries it is as young as 13 or 14 years old. This only fuels the fires of human trafficking that is rampant in our world today. This makes my heart sick. What can we do? How can we help?

Even if you are not being led to adopt, there are many ways you can help.
     1. PRAY!
     2. Help others adopt by giving financially.
     3. Be involved in organizations that aid in adoption and orphan care and those that stop human trafficking.

Tomorrow I will provide a list of links of GREAT organizations that you can be involved in...STAY TUNED!

Blessed Beyond Measure,

Stephanie

The past week or so...

Well, I've been slacking on posting on here.  It's hard to find time to concentrate and sit at the "real" computer so I can include pictures.  Sidebar: Anyone know why I cannot post pictures from my iPad to a blog post?  I'm still figuring this thing out!  Also, I need help in making my pictures fit better next to each other in a post...I need a tutorial or something! Open to advice!

"I am the Lorax and I speak for the trees!"

Here are some pictures from the last week or so and what we've done in homeschool.  We celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday by going to the movies and seeing The Lorax.  It was a great movie and I'd recommend it! (I think they said one word in it that we consider an ugly word with Nehemiah like stupid or idiot, I cannot even remember which word it was now). 

Some Seuss books we read and enjoyed!  

Dr. Seuss Books- Purchase through this link and a portion goes towards our adoption fund!

Story sequencing

Truffula Trees! 

Seuss apps (FREE!)...I am We are particularly addicted to Lorax Garden and Seuss Band!

We practiced our address and my cell phone number a lot this week, as well as phone skills!  If you call, he may very well be the one that answers!  LOL! It was super fun letting him dial and call me from the house phone in the other room!

Playing Seuss Band on my iPad

We had fun and had lots of giggles at the silly rhymes in the Dr. Seuss books!  Since he uses lots of made up words, it was good practice in using context clues to figure out what a word means!

Blessed!

Stephanie

School: decisions decisions!

We've decided what we will be doing next year for Nehemiah's schooling. Our choices were: pay to send him to WEE school at our church again next year which is three half days a week or to go ahead and officially start homeschool kindergarten. He would not be able to start public school yet because of the birthday cut-off date...he has a late October birthday.

This year he has been in a three year old class, of which he's been the oldest in there. It is a great program and he has an awesome teacher, but he has been bored, to the point of begging to stay home and do homeschool! He loves it once he's there, most of the time but even the teacher and the director have noticed his boredom and started giving him class work from the older class. They often send "homework" for him just to challenge him a little and he gladly does it after dinner when the big boys have homework time. I am so glad I have a happy little learner. I just pray he continues like this!

So we obviously don't want to push him too much, too quickly but we also don't want to pay for something pointless either. I know he'd still get benefits from preschool but are they worth the cost and time if he can get those same benefits elsewhere? We have decided no, not for us. We are going to look for social activities and sports to involve him in, such as soccer, as well as AWANAS and homeschool co-op.

We live in Louisiana and fortunately (and unfortunately) there are not very strict guidelines for homeschooling. From what I have researched and found by asking other homeschoolers is that you must only send in a letter of intent to homeschool at the start of the school year. I will not have to send any lesson plans, records, test grades or attendance in. We also do not have to participate in standardized testing if we don't want to (not sure how I feel about this yet; they do offer it to homeschoolers every year though so that's good!). This is good in the aspect of being more flexible but also there is less accountability in the state for ensuring that people are homeschooling well and really educating their kids. For me, this means we can continue to take Nehemiah's schooling at the pace we are already on, being more easy going and flexible, allowing for him to learn and do things at his pace and explore his interests.

This is a little daunting to me in the respect that up until now we have been unofficially homeschooling and now it will be "official" in the Fall. My type "A" personality wants to get all worked up over it but I am trying to not freak out keep the big picture in mind. Pray for us in this exciting adventure, that I would have great patience, creativity and energy!

Blessed in more ways that I can count!

Stephanie