More Swimming

The kids love the pool, and it is the highlight of everyone's weekend.  The kids' swimming has improved so much, since we came home.  Sometimes they swim, sometimes we play football, sometimes we play made- up games, and sometimes we just relax on a raft.  No matter what we are doing, there are always a lot of giggles and big smiles.  The water is really cooling down at night now so this may be our last weekend to swim this year.  We will all look forward to swimming together again next Spring.

Happy Birthday to Johnny Appleseed

Today is Johnny Appleseed's birthday, and the kids learned all about it.  Every morning, we do a language lesson by labeling a picture and writing a sentence about the picture all together.  Today, the picture was of Johnny Appleseed.  The kids have learned so much!  They found their own picture from a magazine and labeled it on their own for the first time today.  They also learned about Johnny Applessed by watching a Disney movie on him and doing a special craft project.  We will be talking all about him throughout the week.  My Mom has helped me so much with our kids and her teaching experience has added so much to our school time everyday.  She is great at taking a normal lesson and making it very fun.  We greatly appreciate all of her hard work and help.

Lucky and The Kids

Lucky has done really well with the kids, and it has been a big transition for him over the past month.  Instead of sleeping all day, he now has three kids that want to love on him and play with him all of the time.

The Pledge of Allegiance

Part of our morning routine when we start school each day is to say the Pledge of Allegiance.  We included a video below.  We have a very structured day right now, and it has really helped the kids.    We have had a lot of appointments since we have been home, as we take the kids to the eye doctor, dentist, and pediatrician.  Here is an example of a normal day, when we can stay at home:

8:00 - 9:00  Make beds and take a shower
9:00 - 10:00 Eat breakfast and do all of our chores
10:00 - 1:00 School and learning time
1:00 Lunch and homework
Fun play inside and outside for the afternoon
6:30 - 8:30 Eat dinner, do chores, and enjoy family time together

The kids are doing really well as they continue to transition into their new home.  They are learning everything so fast, and we are working hard to catch them up in school.  They have made so much progress since we arrived home, and we are so proud of them.  They have gone through so much change since we became a family on April 12th!

Here is the video of our kids saying The Pledge of Allegiance:

Reading

It is amazing we have only been home for five weeks now.  The kids have learned so much!  They have worked hard on learning English and the phonics of the ABCs, in order to learn how to read.  They are doing really well with sounding out words and have just started reading easy reader books that have a few words on each page.  We are so proud of them for all of their hard work!

Our First Grandparent's Day



Lori's parents had a special first Grandparent's Day.  We are so grateful for them and all of the help and support they have given us!  The kids helped us to put together a photo album of  all of the activities we have enjoyed, since we have been home.  We also went to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant.  The kids love fajitas!  We all enjoy our time together as a big family.  We laugh every time we go out to eat and we ask for a table for seven.!

Learning Time

We have started working on school every morning from breakfast until lunch, and we usually work for about three hours.  We haven't started a curriculum yet but have just started working on many new things like handwriting, learning the ABCs, learning the phonics of each letter, and memorizing the kids' new address and telephone number.  They are doing a great job and are really trying hard to speak in English.  Lori's Mom is a retired kindergarten teacher and has been instrumental in helping me teach the kids, since they have been home.  We are so excited to homeschool and look forward to all of the fun we will have as we learn together as a family.

Painting

The kids painted on their easel for the first time and did a great job.They were very careful and loved wearing their new painting aprons.  They each painted a picture for Dainis to take to work, and he was so excited.  Although life is very busy now, we still look at the kids and can't believe God has blessed us with three children, and we are now a family of five!

New Glasses

Ingrid just got new glasses and is so cute.  She is doing a good job taking care of them.  She liked the idea of having glasses better than actually having them, but we are so glad that she can see better now.  It makes us sad that she has had trouble with her eyesight but never had the opportunity to get glasses to help her until now.