Monday, October 3, 2011

Remember these girls wanted long hair ?










My good friend, Mary came over Saturday with her kids. She moved a few yrs ago and when she comes down for a visit we try to meet her. She has been a blog reader and knew the girls wanted long hair . So she bought them these extensions from a beauty store....It made their day. Doesn't it look real on the girls and changes their appearance.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Fire camp time







A few weeks ago we had a "fire camp" as the kids call it. The weather was much warmer than it is these past few days...As the kids were still swimming.  You can tell the new ones loved it.

A quick update on Anna- Lips



She has been home since Friday nite and doing well. When she woke up Sat. am she was very swollen. So we put an ice pack on her face all day and made her sleep sitting up on the couch. This am it was way down and she is starting to loose lots of the puffiness. You can begin to see her "real" face now. She loves her lips being so big. While in the hospital the first nite when she saw herself in the bathroom mirror for the first time she kept commenting she looked like MK ( who has lips like a models ), I did not see the connection and so the second time she said it I asked what did she mean. She said, "I have big lips now, " I could tell that she was happy with the new lips. Made me smile though.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Anna made it home and she is trying to smile :)




We came home tonite and Dorothy is right, " There is no place like home." Although Anna did very well. She did not throw up at all !!!! She almost did about 6 times but I talked her threw it and with all the meds...she did not. This was the first of many surgeries she has had where she did not. She is very swollen which is normal but doing well. She had alot of work on the inside of her mouth and upper lip and she has a metal plate that the bone adheres to that goes from her lip up to her eye. The surgeon felt like it was successful but we will know if the bone graft took at her post op visit. She had 2 previous bone grafts that did not take. Now at home she is on the soft diet for a month and mouth washes and whatever pain meds or nausea meds she needs...No straining or lifting or bending over past 90 degrees and of course not rough playing...Recovering is the easier part now. So glad to be on this side of it.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

I bet you can guess why she is smiling tonite.....




Tomorrow am Anna is having surgery. She is having this removed - Yeah! and a bone graft done. To say she is a bit excited is minimal...She is ready. She will have bone removed from her hip and placed in her upper jaw. That will actually be more of the pain source than her removal. She has had 2 bone grafts before for her front top gum area but they were not successful and she lost her front teeth. So she is not done with surgeries yet. There is a nose and lip tweek as well ....Hopefully that does it. Either way we are praising God tonite that the first half of her jaw surgery is done. She will be on a soft diet for another month and then normal . Please pray for her...She throws up alot. Even when they medicate her. Last time she threw up from 6pm to 1 am and then was fine. So we are not looking forward to that part .

I could not say it any better than this....


Our life may not be what we always want and some of us may hate our lives...but a child who is not fed, loved, or wanted would love the life we have. Special needs children are one group of people who are treated so poorly or thought not even worthy to be fed, or held or played with- How can we who live here in so much complain as I even read this am on some fb's . This picture puts it all into perspective...maybe you can open your heart and hand to one of these children.

Monday, September 26, 2011

This is how we home school - 19 children

We use 5 computers for some our school work. The kids usually work independently on math ,phonics or english skills. The older girls do online GED courses every day.

I start all new children in preschool and move them up at their rate. Selah is actually more advanced than preschool and she will finish her preschool work soon and move to the kindergarten curriculum. I am sure she will move thru that fast as well and settle into a first grade for longer. Isaiah is ahead of Lila but needs lots of preschool skill building like manipulatives , counting and recognizing numbers, letters and his name. Lila is learning lots of listening skills and socially appropriate behaviors as well as basic preschool skills like recognizing colors and numbers, counting and her name. She "plays" alot and is learning thru her play time. We often forget she just turned 3. She acts older and we have to constantly remind ourselves of her age with our expectations. All 3 do some phonics online. We feel it is important to teach all the kids computer skills so we do that thru mostly educational means. We also let some blog and email each other or IM.

We require all of our kids to read one hour a day. They all also have a reading book and have to read one story from that book daily. Some do this independently. Some like Josiah, Mya and Isaac read to someone for their hour. Abraham is the listener for the boys and Mya reads to Naty sometimes. This has helped them to read better actually. Doing work together like vocabulary words helps Isaac and Lily do it faster. Some of our kids take all day and then some to get their work finished. So we found that doing it in teams has helped them to work more efficiently.


We are doing something different this year. Our older girls grouped with 2 other younger kids. In the am they older girls teach or are available for helping their 2 siblings. They also check math and the writing before it goes to Dad's desk ( to be checked every evening by Paul). We are really stressing writing this year. If the little kids's writing is poor - like missing periods, captilizing mistakes or not complete sentences the older sister is held accountable too. We are trying to have the older ones learn some editing for their own benefit when they write. The older girls have the afternoon or evenings to do their school which this year for 5 of them ( Cate, Leah, Olivia, Rachel, and Naty) is their senior yr.. They are working towards their GED requirements mostly for their school. They do online math and english skills. They also go to a tutor on Wed. afternnoon. This buddy system has worked out extremly well for us as a mega family who home schools.




We are doing units on geography this year. I love teaching this subject.

 Each red dot represents the place where our children came from...All over the world- USA, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Ghana- I have loved being in each country and learning all about their own countries as we have adopted.

Gracie benefits best from doing her school in a quiet space, one on one. She gets instructions on a preschool level and sign language.

Sometimes the children work independently.

We have been doing school for 4 weeks now and we have gotten into our routine. I love this time when we do. The first few weeks we are all getting used to having a more strict routine than summer and getting everything done...Now we have gotten the hang of life and things are going well. Then we throw in all the unexpected or expected disruptions like surgery but our school flows well inspite them now.