the wrights and the terrible horrible no good very bad Skype call

On Valentine's morning we had an amazing opportunity to Skype call Mercy, from Naomi's Village. I was so excited about it! I had practiced with Joshua and we discussed the types of questions he could ask her.  I explained that she lived in Kenya and could not come over to play with him.  But we could ask about her life there...

• what was her favorite color, food, toy?
• was she liking school?
• does she share a room with anyone?
• do they celebrate Valentine's Day?

I desperately wanted to tell her we love her and are praying for her.  And most importantly, to tell her Happy Birthday! How cool was it that our call happened to be scheduled on her birthday!?!?

Our call was scheduled for 8:00AM.

The morning came faster than I wanted and we weren't prepared. I don't understand much about Skype, I have used it maybe twice in my life. Thinking it was an easy task, I asked Kenny to add Naomi's Village to our contacts, per my instructions from them.  It was 7:50.

He logged in to his account and was almost finished setting it up, when I realized I told them to contact me! We tried switching to my account, and of course I've forgotten my password because I never use this application! Then after further research, I realized I gave them my actual name, not my Skype name. 

It was now 8:10. 

I was heartbroken and horrified at the thought of sweet 4 year old Mercy sitting on the other side of the world, waiting to meet us, and we don't show up.  I said a quick prayer as Kenny tried calling them. 

IT WORKED!

There was sweet little Mercy, and an older girl to translate. (side note: I was expecting an American worker... aka, a white person)

I froze.

Completely, one hundred percent, froze. I didn't remember anything we had talked about saying, I was nervous, and my mouth simply did not work.

After what seemed like an eternity, I said "Can you hear us?" and kept trying to turn up the volume.  The rest is such a blur. I remember saying this is Joshua, Anchor, and Maverick. I held up Anchor so she could see, and we saw her face light up with a smile! Who doesn't love babies!? 

We asked her favorite color, and she said blue. And we asked what she liked to play with. She looked at me with a confused face, but then her translator said she likes to draw.  I then asked what time it was over there, and they said 5:00.  I told Joshua they were ready to have dinner and we just woke up. Both Joshua's and Mercy's jaws dropped... that was priceless!

I couldn't think of anything else to say, and felt retarded. So I just said we love you, we're praying for you, and bye! 

I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO SAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

We have to be the worst sponsors on record.  My heart is broken over how horrible it was. 

But I trust that God allowed it to work for a reason. It was so good just to see her face and smile. Joshua now know's she is real!  She'll have something to talk about when the other kids talk about Skype-ing with their sponsors. And I'll definitely know better for next time.

I plan to write down my questions and topics to discuss... and remember to take a screen shot picture!  I'll know how to set up the Skype call.  And I'll wait until they are both a little older, maybe six or seven.  I know Mercy is still learning English, so that probably adds to the "shy factor."  

This sweet girl has my heart and I wish that could've come across in the call.  Now we'll just have to plan a trip to Naomi's Village so she can see firsthand how deeply she is loved by our crazy family!

BFIAR: The Red Carpet

This week we rowed The Red Carpet by Rex Parkin.  Although it is a very difficult book to find (I finally found it through Interlibrary Loan), it is completely worth the search!  The story is about a doorman who unrolls a red carpet for a very important visitor, and the red carpet keeps rolling through town causing chaos and even a police chase! The pictures switch between black and white (with red carpet) and full color.

To start the week off, I surprised Joshua with a new toy... a Duplo Police Car! It fit perfectly with our unit on police officers and I couldn't resist!

Our companion books with a police officer theme were:

• Finnegan and Fox: The Ten-Foot Cop by Helen Wilbur
• Police Officers on Patrol by Kersten Hamilton
• Bug Patrol by Denise Dowling Mortensen

Other companion books were:

• Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do by Kathryn Heling and Deborah Hembrook
• Red Car, Red Bus by Susan Steggall
• Walter the Baker by Eric Carle
• Busy Busy Town by Richard Scarry

After reading the book on Monday, we made a town and rolled the red carpet around. Joshua chased it with his new police car and enjoyed acting different parts of the story out.

We also did a red carpet maze and played a Domino Parking Lot game for math. Joshua loved making sound effects as he drove each "car" into the correct parking place. Then he pretended they were "flying cars" when they had to be stacked. I loved seeing his imagination grow!

For a fun snack, we had Fruit by the Foot! He enjoyed unrolling it like the carpet.

On Tuesday, we read the book again and Joshua looked for some of the signs in the book. It was cool to see him find the sign and mark it off his list without me even asking him.

Next we colored a traffic light signal. Joshua knew what each color was for! Under each color, he pasted the words "stop," "go," or "slow."

We finished our work early and so we all cuddled on the couch and watched The Prince of Egypt. Joshua is learning about Moses, Pharaoh, and the Israelites in Cubbies so he was excited to see a movie about it. This is one of the things I absolutely love about homeschooling - if our work is done, and we want to snuggle up and watch a movie, we can! 

On Wednesday, we read the book for the third time and noticed details on each page. Then Joshua did his handwriting pages, we are studying letter E and number 5. He also got to draw the red carpet rolling through town!

Our fun snack for today was peanut butter stop lights! I let Joshua make his own and to say he loved it would be an understatement.

On Thursday, we did a unit on police officers. We talked about how they keep us safe and solve crimes. That same morning, my brother-in-law's tailgate was stolen so I was able to talk to Joshua about how the police would figure out who did it. He was very interested! We also made a police hat, stop and go signs, and a police badge. Then he made a book about the different things policemen do.

On Friday I took the boys to the mall for a giant pretzel! One of the pictures in the book showed a pretzel cart being overturned. 

I thought it would be fun to let Joshua taste a giant pretzel. He was so excited! I had been looking forward to this all week and the look on his face when he saw what his treat was made it completely worthwhile. We also read Walter the Baker which is a really cute story about how the pretzel was invented. And who doesn't love Eric Carle!?

The Red Carpet was a fun row and we made many awesome memories learning about policemen, fingerprints, and traffic signs... and especially trying soft pretzels!

BFIAR: Prayer for a Child

This week of homeschooling was pretty uneventful. Sadly, there weren't many activities for this book.

We rowed Prayer for a Child by Rachel Field. It is a BEAUTIFUL book! The pictures are gorgeous and the prayer is so sweet.

Our companion books were from Chick-Fil-A about children from around the world.

We talked about our sweet baby girl, Mercy, from Naomi's Village.  She is a year younger than Joshua.  She started preschool in January just like him! We've set up a Skype call with her on February 14. We talked about the types of questions he could ask her. I explained that she lives in Kenya, very far away. Joshua keeps asking if she can come jump on his trampoline with him.  I showed him a map and explained we'd have to get on an airplane and fly for two days to see Mercy, but in a four year old's mind, that's just no big deal.

We did a color-by-number sheet. He did better than I thought he could! Then he made a page of things he's thankful for... brothers, grandparents, dog, food, clothes, toys, church, etc.

We also made homemade bread. We talked about how important it is to be "exact..." not too much, and not too little. He also learned yeast can never touch water so we had to make a well. And of course, with everything going on, I forgot to add the salt! So... we had to start over... from scratch! But hey, it was a good learning experience... don't do what I did! It was fun and really yummy!

On Friday we went to the arboretum with our cousins. The weather was gorgeous, especially for January.  The kids ran and played and found secret hideouts and had a blast! We are very blessed to live close to family and have such great relationships with all of our siblings. Kenny and I hope to instill that love for family in each of our children. I know it's not coincidence that they grow up wanting to live close by and hang out with each other.

Leah (7) Joshua (4) Jonah (8) and Bonnie (4)

With each passing week, I fall more in love with this curriculum. It truly does instill a love for learning. I'm looking forward to next week!

BFIAR: If Jesus Came to My House

This was not a normal week for me, but it was reality. Frustrating as it was, it truly needed to happen. I've always known one of my biggest struggles in homeschooling would be flexibility.

I am a planner.

I like my schedule.

I like routine.

And I don't like change.

But that's not life... and if I refuse to change, homeschooling will never work.

This week the weather has not cooperated (which affected my plans and my mood), we had a field trip, and an *almost* emergency trip to the ER.

Monday started out cloudy and cold... the perfect storm for mommy to battle depression.  All I want to do when it's cloudy is snuggle on the couch under a blanket.  How realistic is that?!?!?  Even if it's not raining or cold, it's cloudy way too many days out of the year to let this affect my schooling. But today it did. All we accomplished was reading our book. We rowed If Jesus Came to My House by Joan Gale Thomas.

Our companion books with a shadow theme were:

• The Shape of Me and Other Stuff by Dr. Seuss
• Moonbear's Shadow by Frank Asch
• Nothing Sticks Like a Shadow by Ann Tompert
• The Black Rabbit by Philippa Leathers

On Tuesday, the weather was still cloudy... aka not good for learning about shadows. So we read our book again and I had Joshua build a castle for Jesus with his blocks. Of course I didn't get picture, because that would've been too cool. <sigh>

On Wednesday, we went to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra! We had box seats so that was really cool. Joshua loved it! I thought the music choices could have been better... they did an American theme, so music by American composers. I thought it would've been better for Joshua to hear music by Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Rachmaninoff... or at least songs that were familiar! But it was still a great experience. I'm sure there will be many more symphonies in our future.

Joshua LOOOOVED the organ! 

By the time we got home, I was exhausted and no school was completed.

On Thursday, we read our book again and discussed rhyming words. This is still quite a difficult concept for Joshua to grasp. The other day he told me "turkey and turkey rhyme!" He said it with such excitement it was hard to tell him that wasn't exactly true. We'll keep working on it.

We experimented with shadows inside and matched animals to their shadows.

We also added some more animal classification cards: kitten, dog, elephant, cow, rabbit, bear, and butterfly.  Joshua enjoyed learning the animal baby names (kid, lamb, calf, cub).  I had him match the card to the animal in the book.

On Friday, I was determined to get more accomplished. But our emergency changed all of that.

By Saturday, the sun finally came out and the weather was warm enough to be outside! Thank You Lord! We traced Joshua's shadows at 10, 11, 12, 1, and 4.  It was cool to see them move and change from long and skinny to short and wide. This was a great activity!

I so enjoyed this book. The thought of Jesus coming to play is such a great analogy to teach little ones kindness toward one another. The pictures were beautiful and it's written like a poem, with stanzas and rhyming words. This will be a treasured book in our home for many years to come.