FALL

We got the decorating bug a few weeks ago. So I got up in the attic
and pulled out all our fall stuff. In the "stuff" was this "harvest"
sign painted by Mekala several years ago. When Sarah saw it she
was sad that she didn't have one. No amount of explaining would satisfy her.
So finally I gave in and told her that soon we would get one that she could decorate.
Before I got some "fall wood" to paint we colored these awesome harvest pictures. Every one helped, only we couldn't get them to stick to the wall, so we stuck them to the entertainment center.

The following week I was able to pick up these wood things at Hobby Lobby. We thought about painting them with acrylics, but I knew that would cover up the lines and details. Our first attempt was to water color them, and it ended up being our only attempt! They turned out great!! The water color was easy to use, it was easy to clean, and it was translucent so you could see the detail lines. Plus the colors were really bright. Sarah did the Turkey, Hannah the Pumpkin and Mekala did the Harvest.

This was Emma's. She did most of it, I just added the red on the edges to "fill in". Tuesday we used the wood leaf as a pattern to make our crayon melt, sun catcher leaves.

These are the pictures of the supplies, the process and the finished product. Pictures were an after thought on this one, so there are no kids in the pictures. SORRY.

The rest of the pictures are of the other fall decorations around the house. Even if it is warm outside, at least we can pretend that it is getting cooler!

Wish List - UPDATED!!

I was laying in bed last night thinking about all the wonderful books that I wanted to add to our collection to be read and treasured by all the girls, when I remembered a box of books in the attic. I just got up there and looked........ I have the Anne of Green Gables books (the first three), and a ton of other great books as well!! (THANK YOU MOM for not letting me throw/give away books!!) We have A wrinkle in Time, The Cricket in Times Square, Strawberry Girl, Mr. Poppers Penguins and many others!!

The Amazon list has more than just the Anne and Little Women series, and it has some movies as well. But don't feel like you have to buy from amazon, it was just a convenient way to keep a wish list. I will keep adding to and taking off the items that we want/receive so that we don't get doubles!! THANK YOU GRANDPARENTS AND AUNTS AND ALL!!!



O. K. I know that I have gone a little crazy on the posts tonight but I have some making up to do!

I have spent the last few weeks listening to Little Women and Anne of Green Gables on my ipod and I have loved it!! I am so into these stories about girls and I can't wait to read them to MY girls. But I don't know how long we will have access to a public library and there are a few that would like to have so we can read them no matter where we are. In order to help acquire all the wonderful books that we want I have started a wish list at Amazon.com. The link is over on the right of my blog. With Christmas coming up....... I thought that books would be a great way to compromise between toys and not wanting more stuff to have to pack or store or give away.

After listening to both those books I found myself wanting to use some of the vocabulary in my every day speech. Mekala is suffering the same fate. She is currently reading the Chronicles of Narnia set and is on the last of seven books. (I believe that she has developed the Cunningham love of books!!)

The other day we were in the bathroom when she exclaimed,"It's dreadfully hot in here!"

"Dreadfully, did you just say dreadfully?" was my shocked response. (dreadfully is a very Anne of Green Gables kind of word)

"Yes I did, it's dreadfully hot in here."

"Do you know what dreadfully means?"

"Yes, very bad."

I was so surprised and delighted all at the same time!!! I can't wait to start reading more of these classic books with my sweet girls!!!

The Great Out Doors

Now that it is not 100+ degrees out side the girls have taken to riding their bikes again. For Hannah, riding with out training wheels is a new and recent accomplishment. Today they were on a camping adventure. They had their back packs and their blankets and they rode up and down our little street pretending to travel great distances. And when they arrived at their destination aka the back yard, they took out their blankets and laid down to sleep. Too fun!!

Emma's adventure is a little different than that of her sisters...... the little street by our house is on a hill so everyone does more coasting than riding, including Emma.

She starts at the top, then she gets rolling. She has to hold her feet out to the side because they are too short to actually reach the pedals, but in all reality even if she could reach (Sarah can) she wouldn't be able to keep her feet on because it the pedals turn to fast.

She coasts down the hill and where ever she veers off the pavement and into the grass is where she stops. She hasn't learned the art of steering yet, so some rides are a lot longer than others.

After that she picks up her bike and walks it back up the hill. When she is lucky, Sarah will push her up the hill and then they will switch. Or if she is REALLY lucky Mommy will push her up the hill and then she will get to ride again!

The rest of last weekend...

So we went to the birthday party and our pictures were wonderful interrupted by Pop. The rest of the afternoon was filled with HOURS of soccer games, and dinner. This is Hannah and her friend Annie. at their daddy's soccer game! Hannah and Annie. get along well and love to play in the dirt every weekend at the soccer games.

This is Annie's little bro Jesse. He and Emma are best friends. He gets up set if she isn't at church when he gets there. He is her protector, and has told people to put her down if they happened to be enjoying a cuddle or two. A & J's other bro is in the back ground, Toby. He is Sarah's age but they don't click right now, he is to "boy" and she is to "girl", I think.

Pop has a wonderfully deep, soothing voice that is pleasant to listen to, so of course the the girls had him read as many books as possible while he was here!

This is the reason for Pop's visit!! Mekala got baptized!!!! We are so proud of her and the decision she has made to follow Jesus all the days of her life! You can't see her well in the picture, so I added the arrow to help point out the top of her head. Kent was able to do the honors and I attempted to pray over her but...... I couldn't really say much through all my sobs.

Thank you Lord for Mekala, for the call you have on her life and the desire she has to love you and serve you all of her life!! Mold her in to the Godly woman that you want her do be. Show her both the strengths and weaknesses that you have given her. May you be glorified in ALL that she does!

Birthday Party and Park

The weekend before last we had a birthday party to attend at a park. I took the camera along and took lots of shots, but these are a few of my favorites.......
We joke with Mekala that she is the messy-est eater in our family. She enjoys her food and makes a mess while doing it.... Now I have proof!

Look at that sweet face! Emma loves going to the park!! I think she could slide for hours.

Here is Sarah.... I wanted to get a shot of all of the girls lined up with their back to me like Sarah below.... but we had a major distraction and I never could get them back in picture mode.

Update

OK, Here is the latest in the Forester Clan Adventure.....

We started school. Kent and I are in class most weekdays from 8:30 - 12:30 am.

We are closer to having our school tuition paid. Keep praying for God's provision.

Mekala and Hannah enjoy schooling with our good friends. They get done so much faster now because there aren't two little people to distract us.

Sarah and Emma are at the Church two days a week and we think we have a babysitter for the other two. PTL!!!

I have been writing the preschool curriculum for ACC, for the last three weeks. I really love it!! But it takes away my writing creativity from my blog. I only have three weeks left, and then things will be back to normal. I hope.

Kent started working for Every Tribe again. Here is their link: EveryTribe. The web site isn't completely up to date, but you get the idea. He is totally in his element at this job!

Well I think that is the latest. Emma recovered from her any bites and we haven't seen the ants since. We decorated for fall today. I love this time of year.

Oh, I got an email from Discount School Supply today asking that I add a link to their web site. I talked about the site in my Rainbow Fun blog. But I thought I would add it here for those who read it but might not go back and look it up again. (Yes, I just learned how to add a link, and I am enjoying my new skill.... Thanks Tressa!!)

Ok now I really think that is all. We are going to a park in the morning, I want to take pictures. If I do I will post them up!

More Preparation ??

Yes, I know, this is a creepy looking spider. The picture doesn't do justice to how really creepy this spider is! I would try and hold up a quarter or something to show you, if I weren't scared that it would jump out and attack me. Fortunately this guy isn't in our house. He is only on the side of our shed. We checked out several books on spiders at the library today in hopes of learning more about it. So far I know that it is: ugly, yellow and black and it can sew a mean zig-zag stitch!

Preparation

I thoroughly believe that God is preparing us for Africa. He must be. There can be no other explanation!

My darling sweet Emma had had a rough couple of days, I think that we all find that "when it rains it pours". Emma got a summer cold over the weekend, so now six days into it she has the perfect red nose for a Puffs Plus commercial: red, swollen, crusty and runny all at the same time. On Tuesday night right before bed she fell and busted her lip, add that to the perfect nose...... Wed morning she wakes up with her eye swollen and puffy and my first thought is "OH NO it's PINK EYE!" but upon further examination we realized that she had been bitten by an ant. No let me correct that.... several ants. She has a bite on her : finger, arm, three on her back, her ear and her eye. Needless to say I felt like I had a lot of explaining to do when I dropped her off in childcare today! It isn't a pretty picture!

So enters the preparation part. This same ant attack happened to Hannah a few months ago. She woke up one morning complaining that an ant had bit her on the elbow. And just like with Emma, during the day we began to notice more and more little pussy pockets popping up in places! The night after Hannah's attack I was trying to convince her that she would be fine when I was assaulted on my toe.

This morning, just after discovering Emma's wounds I tried to get dressed only to discover that I had ants in my pants. And no I don't mean I couldn't sit still.

Did I mention the fact that we had company last night and as they were sitting on the couch the ants maliciously attacked them, and they don't even live here!!

Oh and we can't forget the bathroom! The girls have a constant stream of ants in the bathroom, and today the ants ambushed the big girls while they were in the shower!

It took us twenty minuets to de-ant the girls bed tonight before we could put them in it! Hopefully nothing will be able to penetrate past the huge barrier of ant poison that we sprayed around the bed.

We are at war. Pray that we can win this battle!

Lord, help us deal with the ant problem! Send them to the kitchen, send them to the bathroom, anywhere but my children's beds!! Please protect them tonight as they sleep. May this prepare us for what ever we might find in Africa!!

Homeschool Thursday

UGGGG! I can't believe that the week has already gone by!! Sorry Grandmas and Aunts and any other faithful readers!! I am so exhausted that I don't even have anything fun and inspiring to say today.

This isn't homeschool related, but just so every one knows..... we started the second part of our 18 month training, to go over seas. Class if from 8:30 - 12:30 Tues - Friday (four days a week).

We still have several needs for all you prayer warriors out there :

$4000 dollars for tuition & a Tue/Thur baby sitter!

We have a retreat with our class this weekend..... Pray that God will change lives!
I'll try to post more once my head stops spinning.


Lord, please give me the grace to handle this next season of our lives. May I keep my eyes on YOU and not on all the day to day tasks that seem overwhelming! I need your creativity and focus to get everything accomplished each day. May I truly learn how to depend on you to be my all in all!

Homeschool Thursday (Late)

This.......... is what happens wen Potty Training and Pre-School collide.

Shaving cream is a great textile play medium. It's squishy and smeary and you can color it and color mix it and..... well it's just plain fun.

Look at the smile on that face!! Oh it is a lot of fun. and it smells good too.

Clean up it a breeze, just get a wet rag and wipe down. If need be, you can through the kids in the bath tub, which just extends the fun. IFY..... While playing in the buff, Emma started to have and accident, but stopped and ran to the little potty nearby and "finished" there. YEA we are making progress!

The smooth texture makes a great thing to write in. Sarah practices her name and shapes. And given enough time, she will get creative too....

This is her person. It looks a little like the people Mekala used to draw. It will be interesting to watch and see how her perception on people change through her drawings.

IT Works!

Just a short little note to share our new discovery last night.

A few MONTHS ago my mom gave mw a wireless mouse and keyboard to use with my laptop (Thank you MOM). When I got it home there were the cord split at one end adn there was a USB end and a stardard purple keyboard end. My laptop has only USB ports. I plugged in the USB and the mouse worked. I Assumed that you had to plug in the purple keyboard end in to get the keyboard to work so I didn't even try the keybaord. So I talked to my brother and he ordered me an adapter that will change the purple keyboard end to the USB end.

When the little adapter thingy came in the mail I hooked it upand pluged it in and tried the keyboard. It didn't work. It gave me some confusing error message that gave the the impresssion that I needed an different adapeter, the expensive that kind that I coldn't afford.

What the message should have said was "Unplug one of the cords, stupid, you are overloading my sensors!" Since it didn't, I put the keyboard aside and tried to be thankful that at least the mouse worked.

Yesterday, the girls started playing a typing game that their Gram sent them (Thank you Gram!) Hannah wanted to pratice on the dicarded keyboard. When she started playing with it, WORDS started appearing on the screen! I couldn't believe it! After all this time... all these blog posts that were typed hunched over my uncomfortable laptop.

NOW I can blog in comfort. WOO-HOO! I'd be blogging like crazy....... if I had more to say that is. Until Tomorrow!

Potty Training - Not for the faint of heart!

(NO pictures on this one. I didn't think you would want to witness first hand all our disasters)

I am not super mom (contrary to popular belief). I find it extremely challenging to teach two elementary students, teach a four year old, keep a four year old entertained when I'm not teaching her, keep a two year old out of every thing, and remember to take the two year old potty. I just can't seem to do it. But I persisted and we were successful tonight.

After watching a video clip on NBC's Today show, I decided to try the "Potty Whisperer" technique this evening. The Potty Whisperer takes children into her home, feeds them salty snacks and sugary drinks and claims to be able to potty train them in a day. She doesn't recommend a junk food diet for daily life, but she says that the salty snacks makes kids thirsty and help them have to poop, and the all the fluid gives the child more opportunities to try and go potty.

Tonight I gave Emma lots to drink and then let her run around in the buff for a while. (I tried panties during school this morning and we had several disasters). I was in the kitchen cooking and there were no other distractions, so we worked at going potty for a long time.

Our first time was a complete flop. While helping me clean up the juice she spilled on the floor, she peed on the stool, while standing at the sink. (I think it had something to do with the running water.) After we cleaned up the pee, and finished cleaning the juice, I went back to my repetitive request to "sit down and go potty" Which I think I asked every minute for at least half an hour.

During this time she pooped on the floor after having just been on the potty. She was appalled! "What was that and where did it come from?", was the look she gave me. So we commenced to clean up that mess too. Trying not to be crushed by the overwhelming task this was becoming, I pressed on.

It wasn't long before she started to go again. (after chugging down a Capri-sun that is) While she was standing up listening to my endless mantra "sit down and go potty" she started to pee, BUT this time she manged to sit down, mid stream and at least got 1/2 of it in the potty. YEA, that was reason to celebrate. Two M&M's for the big girl!!

So we cleaned everything up AGAIN and continued. This time I had her sit in front of me, so that I could read to her and show her the pictures. We read a whole book with no action. When the book was finished, I encouraged her to sit on the potty and look at the pictures. EUREKA. She went potty and looked up at with a surprised/delighted look on her face. (her first responce was to jump up and try to dump out the contents, she loves to help dump things) Again we celebrated with two more M&M's. Then I called it a night.

Did I mention that during this entire process she kept asking for a "dipe". Every time that she got off the potty, it was to go get a diaper. And when I would remind her that she was trying to go pee-pee in the potty so that she could have some candy, she would let out this exasperated grunt/sigh, toss the diaper down and head back to the potty. She tried several times to request an M&M with out having done her duty, but the answer was always no. (Although I was tempted, thinking that the sweet taste of chocolate might motivate her in to action.)

Lord give me patience and diligence as we try and jump the potty training hurdle. Grant me the wisdom to know the best way to go about this process and the concentration to do it! I need you help and strength to make it though this next season!