{Celebrate China} Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Our Spring Festival celebration has gotten off to a fabulous start!  We spent Friday with our dear friends dressing up in our Chinese silks and makings lots and lots of jiaozi!  I mixed up chicken, turkey, and beef fillings.  The turkey was definitely the favorite - it was mixed with Chinese cabbage and hen hao chi (literally meaning " very good eat").  If you are looking for some amazing jiaozi recipes, I highly recommend the cookbook, Asian Dumplings.  You won't be disappointed!  We did attempt to make our own dumpling wrappers but I gotta say, it's not my favorite thing.  Sweetie was able to do something with the dough when she came home from school, but we ended up with wrappers that were a bit too thick.  I think I'm sticking with the pre-made ones from the Asian market from now on, ha!

For dinner on Saturday night, I made my most favorite Chinese dish, Kung Pao Chicken.  I had never made it before, but I am thrilled with how it turned out!  I followed the recipe from RasaMalaysia exactly, except for adding thinly sliced carrots.  Even Sweetie had only good things to say, she loved it!  I also picked up a couple pork and salted egg-stuffed zong zi (a traditional dish served during Dragon Boat Festival, but available all year).  Yum.

Visiting Washington DC

We had such a great day!  We took the kids to DC today to finish up our astronomy studies with a visit to the National Air & Space Museum.  We ALL had a blast.  I have such fond memories of the museum as a child, and today's experience was just as fantastic.  We hit the planetarium for a look into the planets and stars; and walked through all of the other exhibits as well.  I loved the Apollo exhibit, especially after just studying about the trips to the moon.  We ate a picnic lunch on the mall and then relaxed and hung out for awhile, soaking in the amazing 70 degree weather on the first day of winter.  We then took a long-ish walk to Chinatown which, unfortunately, was a bit lacking.  But at least we know for the future!  We ended the day with a funny self-family portrait in front of a very large mirror, and then headed home.  Everyone was exhausted, but I know this day will be talked about for years!  Such  terrific memories were made!

First Snow Day!

And oh my, the kids sure did enjoy themselves!  They went sledding with the neighbors, rolled around in the snow, and even threw a few snow balls ... all while I stayed inside next to the fire and watched.  It's nice to have kids that are old enough to go out by themselves!  Ha!

The Sunrise

"Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth." Hosea 6:3

I had the beautiful opportunity to watch the sunrise with my Lovebug several weeks ago.  It was a precious time that I am so thankful for!  What a blessing!  The individual time with him, coupled with witnessing the artistry of Our Father was priceless.  I see many more mornings like this in the future.

This Girl

This little beauty has been hungry for knowledge since the end of last school year.  She is so much more interested in "cool work" (as she calls it) than Angel and Lovebug ever were.  I think after seeing them work hard and learn all last year, she was so ready to jump on the bandwagon.  She has a morning notebook like the older two and is very busy learning ABC's and 123's, colors, shapes and the other preschool jazz.  She, of course, is picking up a lot of the CC grammar as well and adores singing along with the Timeline Song.

I know everyone says this about their children, but Sunshine is unbelievably bright.  She shocks me regularly with what she understands and her general level of thinking.  When she is set on figuring something out, her attention span is never-ending.  She is such a hard worker!  Her speech therapist always comments about how clever she is, and even recently invited her to join the local Infants & Toddlers preschool program, as a developmentally on-target peer with normal speech and development.  My jaw dropped open.  I knew that her speech had improved over the last year, but I didn't realize how much.

So very proud of this sweet girl.  And amazed that I get to be her mama.

'Twas the night before CC

We are so excited about our first Classical Conversations day tomorrow!  I know we are starting school later than most, but that ended up working out quite nicely because there has been so much going on.  Especially with Sweetie starting school, I'm not sure there would have been much time for schooling anyway.  But we are ready to go for tomorrow and I am thrilled about what is in store this year!  I am planned through December and we have some really great stuff to look forward to!  Yay for homeschool!  It's hard work, but I love this lifestyle and am very thankful for the opportunity to homeschool my littles.

 

Sisterly love

Love how these sweet girls love each other.  Angel tries so hard to include her in everything she can, and Sunshine is happy to be one of the gang.  I just adore how all three of my littles love one another so well (on most days anyway).

Verbal language ...

Verbal language ... it’s a lovely thing.

After using sign language almost exclusively for the first year and a half of Sunshine’s life with us, it is absolutely amazing to see such progress in her verbal communication now. Her cleft palate was repaired just about a year ago, and her verbal explosion since then is nothing short of miraculous! She started weekly speech therapy sessions in November 2012, about four months after her palate repair. The first session was pretty traumatic for her, but Sunshine quickly learned that Lisa, her speech therapist, wasn’t going anywhere. She also came to find out that Lisa was super fun to play with and therapy sessions were actually pretty great. What toddler doesn’t love 100% undivided attention from an adult anyway?

Progress was a little slow in the beginning as Sunshine learned how to use her newly repaired palate, but she was such a hard worker and always pushed through. She tried over and over and over to get the sounds out of her mouth correctly. It was so beautiful to see her never give up or get discouraged. Ever so slowly, we began to hear more sounds that resembled words! We also began to hear more verbal words replace her signs. It was wonderful!

One of the biggest hurdles Sunshine had to overcome was replacing her glottal stop with the correct sounds for “k” and “g.” This is still an issue for her even now, but it’s a very common compensation that cleft kiddos do. Before the palate is repaired, kids will sometimes create sounds by stopping air at the back of their throats due to the lack of palate. Unfortunately it’s a bad habit to get into because it can be difficult to undo later. Sunshine can now successfully make the correct “k” and “g” sounds, but she’ll add in a glottal stop at the end of words sometimes, so we’re still working on that. Regardless though, hearing her properly pronounce those two difficult sounds is music to my ears! There are other sounds that are difficult for all children to create correctly, so we aren’t worrying about those so much right now (r, l, f, s, and blends).

Another thing we’ve been working on is putting words together to make sentences, as with any other on-target toddler. We started with one-word sentences, and then moved onto two-word sentences. We are now in the process of moving Sunshine from two- and three-word sentences into more complete sentences. She is pretty comfortable at this level and not in a big rush to move forward, but will happily repeat a full sentence if I ask her to say it. And she’ll occasionally pull out a several word sentence to surprise all of us!

Articulation is currently Sunshine’s biggest issue. She talks a lot. A ton. In fact, she doesn’t stop talking all day long. She has loads and loads of things to tell us. But we can’t understand most of it unless it’s in context. This must be terribly frustrating for her. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have so many awesome things to say and finally be able to say them, only to have no one understand me. But she doesn’t give up right away. She says it over and over for me, and will sometimes revert to a sign to express herself. Other times, she’ll let out a big sigh after trying for awhile and say, “nevahmind.” Oh that precious girl! It hurts my heart to see her give up on me, but more and more I am able to understand. We just keep on keepin’ on, and I know articulation will simply come in time.

Lastly, we are also encouraging her to express herself verbally to people other than family members. She is generally a shy child in public (which is pretty ironic, considering her true personality doesn’t have an ounce of shyness in it), so this is going to be difficult in general for her. She shows some progress when talking to other children or adult friends that she sees regularly. I think this is another thing that will simply take time, and I’m perfectly fine with that. Although it’s a long process, I am so proud of how much she has accomplished! In a very short time, she has gone from being completely sign-dependent to almost 100% verbally communicating. Sunshine still has quite a long road ahead of her, but I triumphantly celebrate every new accomplishment with her!

Blooming

As we sat around my house yesterday celebrating Mother's Day (my 8th, whoa!) with family, I took a moment to meditate on the blessing of motherhood.  Sometimes I cannot believe that God trusts me to raise these three precious beings whom I have the privilege of calling "mine."  All three of them are so special and unique, and I love each of them in different ways for the little people they are.  They all bring such joy to my life.  Angel is my little "mama in the making," exploding with such compassion and love.  Lovebug is my court jester, with a heart of gold that he uses to love and feel so deeply.  And Sunshine is my fierce warrior, so strong and courageous, overflowing with love and hope.  I see Jesus working through their young lives all the time.  I am a better person because of them and my faith has been strengthened because of what they've shown me about unconditional love, grace, and life.  I celebrate how much more my children have given me than I could ever possibly give to them.

Yesterday while thinking about this, I couldn't help but notice something God-breathed and simply beautiful.  It was the way Sunshine was so comfortably a part of everything, as if she had just always been.  She was happily climbing all over my dad as any grandchild would do.  She was interacting with her 93-year-old great-grandma in a way that no one else could.  She ran to each of her grandparents effortlessly, squealing their names with delight.  She played with and chased around her brother and sister as any sibling would.  She wrapped her little arms around her daddy's neck so sweetly as he carried her around.  And she laid with me on the sofa with such trust and security and love, as if I had always been her mama.  It was the way it's supposed to be.  It was breathtaking.

Almost two years ago, we brought her home to us forever.  At the six-month mark, I thought things were good.  At the one-year mark, I thought things were great.  But almost two years home, oh my it just keeps getting better and better.  The love that I have in my heart for this precious child has grown so big, it's overwhelming at times.  It definitely had to grow and be nurtured, but it's very real and it is fierce.  She is mine and that is amazing.  This plan that God has for Sunshine and for our family is pretty awesome.  And watching it unfold right before my eyes is truly remarkable.