Yes, I Still Blog

I have been absent from this blog for a couple of months.  Honestly, I have fallen behind with uploading and downloading photos, and have been very busy with life.  

I don't have many words, but here are some photos of our recent holiday activities.

Sugar cookies.  Lily loved just playing with the flour!

Sugar overload.

My little elves :-).

Ahhh - knitting with a sleeping baby on my lap.  The BEST!

Aaron hanging the ornaments.  He was so excited to get the nutcrackers out of our Christmas decoration box.  He kept calling them "wood chuckles."

Matthew looks so big in this photo.  My baby is going to be 12 in 3 months.

Playing dreidel with some of our friends.

"And His name (Jesus) will be the hope of the whole world."  Matthew 12:21

A Sweet Reunion

On our east coast trip, we had the absolute blessing of being reunited with our "China friends," the Ramella family.  We met John and Judy in Hunan Province where we were both going to meet our new daughters for the first time.  At that time, they adopted their daughter, also named Lily, who is just about a year older than our Lily.  John and Judy were and have continued to be an amazing encouragement to both Dave and me.  They have 2 grown children who are out of the house, and then Gracie (now 5) also adopted from China years ago, and now Lily (who is now 3 1/2).  John and Judy just lift us up with their faith in our wonderful Lord, and how they truly want to live a life that pleases Him.  They love the orphan :-).  The Ramellas live on the East Coast, and we were thrilled to be able to go to their home and get the kids together again.

Jumping with Gracie on the backyard trampoline.

From left to right:  Lily and Grace Ramella, Lily, Matthew, Nathan, and Aaron

The two Lily's on their Daddies.

We were treated to an ITALIAN FEAST!!!  Homemade pizza!

Bread and olive oil.

The two Lily's.  Both from Hunan Province, China.  Our girls getting ready to eat.

Macaroni.  We heard so much about this macaroni while we were in China.  When we were in China, and familiar foods were slim pickins, Judy would say, "I can't wait to get home and have some macaroni!"  And I finally got to have some!  Yummmmmm.

The Ramella girls made cupcakes with sprinkles for the occasion.  Obviously, Aaron approves. 

Oh my!  Cannoli.  Yes, please!

Matthew reading a Pinkalicious book to Lily and Aarbear.

John, Judy, me, and Dave!

And I loved this so much that I took a photo of it.  It is hanging over Judy's kitchen sink.  Just in case you cannot read it.  It says:
God's main goal is not leisure, it's likeness.
Not feel better at times but follow better!
Holy Spirit knows what you are going to face next week, month, etc.  So he equips you for the future when he touches on an area of our life.  He touches on a fault.  Painful!  But He will walk with you to help you.
God will maximize your obedience and turn your weakness into a strength.  Romans 8:28

Everyone but Nathan (who is the camera man).

Their Lily is just thriving with her family!  She was also a special needs adoption - and her special need involves dermatology.  Dave is privileged to be dubbed her "angel doctor" by the Ramellas.  You can read about the details of the Lord's provision here in Judy's blog.

Oh man, I miss them already :-).

You never forget the friends you make when you go to adopt a child, that is for sure.

Pick Your Own Sweet Corn

Aunt Vicky and Cousin Stephanie took us to Alstede Farm. We got to go on the hay wagon, and pick our own sweet corn.

Not ever having grown my own corn before, we learned that the ear of corn actually grows about a foot off the ground, even though the corn plant itself grows to be taller than me. I can see why there are corn mazes, too. While we were in the corn fields, we really had to depend on our hearing to be able to locate one another. That is cousin Stephanie with Nathan in the photo.

The weather was clear, but very cold! The ride on the hay wagon, especially over some open fields, made me wish I had a hat and gloves on. Brrrr! I think it was about 40 degrees or so.

After picking corn, we had homemade ice cream in the little shop on the farm. Aaron had smurf ice cream. Yes, it is blue, and yes, it is actually called smurf ice cream. It was actually very delicious - blueberry ice cream with marshmallow cream. Yummmmmm.

Stephanie also picked out some apple cider doughnuts (apple cider from the apples on the farm) which we had for dessert last night. The doughnuts are soft, moist, and not very sweet - and perfumed with the taste of apples. The mug that I chose to put my milk in just cracks me up. Funny, no?

Jockey Hollow

The roam schooler in me got so excited about this place!!!

Dave's aunt took us to Jockey Hollow National Park in Morristown, New Jersey. It is where George Washington and 10,000 soldiers spent the long, cold winter of 1779-1780 during the Revolutionary War. There are still some soldiers' quarters (cabins built by them) at the park. They are 14' by 16' and would house 12 men. It was so cool to see the cabins, and to think about the feet of those brave men from the past walking around that very area! The boys marveled at how the cabins were constructed like Lincoln Logs, without any nails, and on a downhill slope so that precipitation would drain.

We also got to try the costumes that look like clothing from that time period, and watched a short film in the visitor's center about that historic winter.

We had originally hoped to go to DC, but it is not going to happen on this trip. I am glad we still got a taste of American history :-).

Greetings from the east coast!

We are having a wonderful, restful time on the East Coast. We spent our first few days in Harvey Cedars, a beach town off the coast of New Jersey. It is actually on this sand bar - it looks like a finger of land surrounded on both sides by water. It was gorgeous - but the weather changed the next day, and it became bone chillingly cold (at least for this California girl) and windy. Still stunning, though.

We were at Harvey Cedars Bible Conference to attend a retreat. All of the kids had a blast, and I was able to attend most of the sessions since they all happily went to their respective classes. Even Lily was content to be in her little toddler class after I would stick around and get her settled in. It was a rich time, and I received a lot from the ministry time.

After the retreat, we stayed at our friends' home in Montvale, New Jersey. The Chens are such dear friends of ours - Dave and Daniel go back probably 25 years. Our kids had so much fun staying with them and playing with their kids every day (and we are going back tomorrow to their house). See them ready to save the world in their various vehicles?

Do you like photo of the magnet I saw on a friend's refrigerator over here? Tee hee. Dave concedes that it is true in our family :-).

Lastly, the kids are refreshed by te discovery of so many insects here. Praying mantids as long as their hand, and woolly bear caterpillars. Of course they want to take all of them home, but reality checks and they know it is not possible.

More later. We are at Aunt Vicky's house now in Morristown, and I have to get ready for the day :-).

Around Here. . .

Some shots from the last couple of weeks. . .

Lily's early intervention teacher, Lorraine, brought a new toy to play with last time she was here - POM POMS!!!   Apparently, they are available at the 99 Cents Store right now because of the beginning of football season.

As you can see - they were a hit!  The K boys stayed over night and Nicky decided to participate in Lily's class instead of playing with the other boys.

The boys have been doing a homeschool P.E. class once a week at a nearby park.  This month's sport is soccer!

You can barely see him - but that's Matthew throwing the ball  in.

And look at Aarbear and his fancy foot work.  I am so proud of him!

What does Lily girl do during P.E.?  Well, she and I sit on a blanket under the shade.   We hang out.  I bring along my Bible and notebook, or other reading I want to catch up on.  I also try to bring some special toys just for this blanket time.  I brought rice and scoopers for a sensory bin.  This is just about her favorite thing to do - scooping, dumping, making a mess.

Haha - just showing off my close up shot.  I was amazed by how clearly this came out.  Go, Canon!

We are preparing for a big trip to the East Coast.  Hopefully, I can blog a bit from my phone while I am there.  Please pray for us?

Around Here

School is in full swing, and we have been learning and playing together :-).

I am doing this post on my phone, which means I can't move my photos around or caption them. Hopefully, it will all make sense.

Lily has been growing in every area! Physically, she has grown so tall and now has some meat on her bones. She and her brothers have been taking swimming lessons. She loves it! No big surprise - as she really is a very active girl as I have said many times before. Over the weekend, she also discovered that she loves to throw and kick the football to her daddy.
Yesterday, we went to a homeschooling co-op, and you can see her right there doing the art lesson with everyone else. Yup-she is a lefty!

This is Aaron's first year of more formal learning. He is registered in kindergarten with our charter school's homeschooling program. Honestly, I wasn't sure how things would go, as he is very sensitive and can be scared of learning new things. Things can be especially hard, I think, when you have two older brothers ahead of you who seem to know soooooo much more than you.

As an aside, there's a drawing below of a little girl trying to touch her ear with her opposite hand. In one of Nathan's social studies books, we had read about a small village in Africa where people do not know their ages. It is simply not a way they keep track of life or a marker for milestones. In order to determine if they are ready for school, they need to be able to touch their ear with their opposite hand by reaching their arm over the top of their head. I don't know why, but I love this! Nathan really got a kick out of this, too.

Anyway, Aaron has been really thriving and blooming! He has taken the plunge (not without initial tears, though) to swim lessons, soccer (he is really good), learning to read (he asks to do reading practice almost every day), and participating in classes and groups. I am so proud of him! It is so fun to see him come into his own, and enjoying it!

Below you can also see the siege tower that Matthew built out of Lego. This was a social studies assignment. We are studying the Assyrians, and their amazing, effective and often cruel methods of war.

And...we did school last Friday on our driveway in the morning. We were waiting for the space shuttle Endeavor to fly over us to its retirement. We finally did see it, and it was so cool! That photo was not taken by us :-).

Ok, off to start my day :-).