Learning New Things

Now that the weather is warming up a bit, the girls are getting outside more. Just what they LOVE to do!!



Last fall, Serena learned to ride a bike and this spring, she's decided to learn roller blading like Shawna and Elise. They make it look easy NOW, but little do the other girls know, it wasn't always so easy for them.



Something else the other girls would like to learn is the rip stick. THAT is a bit harder to learn--just ask Shawna and Elise, they'll tell ya!! However, it doesn't stop the others from trying. Jenna decides to give it a try while it is setting idle.



Hannah tries her hand legs rather at roller blading. She will take some work to get her to the point of just standing up and/or blading as she leans heavily. However, she is doing quite well at learning to ride a bike without training wheels. She just lacks the confidence but is really riding on her own until Randy lets go, then her feet go immediately down as she's afraid. Won't be long and we know she'll be riding on her own soon. Roller blading may take a bit longer though:)




Elizabeth is also learning roller blading this spring. Her and Serena are both able to stand without assistance and it won't be long until they are soon skating all around.



Jenna also thinks she'd like to learn to roller blade. She gives it a try too.

Tag! Your It!!

A friend came over to play with our girls recently and showed them a new game of tag. Looks like the object of the game is for the one facing the others to run around and tag the one in the back and the others try and keep them from doing that. Looks like fun!

Well, Blow Me Over!!

That's some STRONG WINDS!!!



It's not uncommon to have some strong winds. It seems several times a year anyway, it is extra strong and often blows our cart plumb over. Each time, we hope that nothing breaks and up until this time, it didn't, just scratched it up a little. However, this time was a little more damage. It broke one of the mirrors off and we're like "Oh man! These were nice big mirrors too!" In driving here, it's a really good idea to have good mirrors as people often pass not only on the left, but on the right as well. Guess we'll have to take it to the shop and have another one put on!

Immediately upon getting out of the larger cart coming home from preschool, Jenna spots the smaller cart blown over and is amazed. She quickly goes over and tries to upright the cart herself! I had to laugh! Try as she might, she found she couldn't do it alone.



This is not something you see every day either! Actually, I'd never seen it before here. The wind was soo strong that it blew one of the large heavy metal trash bins, with trash inside, out into the middle of the street! I see this on my way to get Jenna at preschool and all the way I'm thinking "Please don't blow me over while I'm driving!!" Thankfully, that didn't happen!!

Sweet, Sweet Hannah!!

We couldn't be more pleased to announce that Hannah is now available for adoption!!

While I can't give you any of the specific details about her, I can tell you where to find her. She is listed with CCAI (Chinese Children Adoption International) under "Waiting Child Program, Child Profiles." If you don't have a password, you'll have to request one to see the children's files.



Hannah is such a sweet, sweet girl! She has a wonderful personality. Hannah is a very happy girl and has this totally contagious laughter! We love to hear her laugh and she does it often!

It is amazing to see all the progress Hannah has made since coming to New Day. She has really blossomed and is like a totally different girl now. She has gone from being very quiet and withdrawn to now being such a happy outgoing girl.



Hannah has a servant's heart and truly loves to help people in any way she can. She's always very helpful in so many ways. She is also very polite often saying thank you and you're welcome. I love this particular picture of her! She looks all dreamy here like she is a million miles away and thinking of something wonderful!



Hannah really enjoys the holidays and decorating for them. She is always so excited when we get out the decorations, wanting to help in any way she can.




Hannah loves animals too. While this is not our cat, but a neighbor's we watched for a period of time while they were on a trip, we do have a family dog. She loves to play with him.



Hannah loves to dress up. This picture was taken at Thanksgiving while at New Day's Thanksgiving party.

Sweet, Sweet Hannah Cont.

Hannah loves the outdoors! She goes outside every chance she gets. She also loves to ride bikes. This picture was taken last summer of her riding a bike with training wheels.



Hannah LOVES, LOVES, LOVES the water!!! She is like a fish in the water! Although she doesn't yet know how to swim, it won't be long:) She is not afraid of the water at all and easily dunks her head and tries to swim. I'm thinking that perhaps this summer, with enough pool time, she will learn how to swim. She certainly is willing to try!



One of Hannah's other favorite activities is dress-up. She likes to dress up and then come in modeling for us. It is so adorable!



Another favorite activity is cooking. Hannah loves to help out in the kitchen every chance she gets. She really enjoys these times!




She also loves to play the Wii. When she first began, she had a bit of difficulty operating the controls. There were some games such as bowling that were difficult for her as she didn't have the coordination to release the ball at the correct time. However, it didn't take long and her coordination improved a great deal. She easily plays bowling and we continue to work on some of the more difficult games.

Sweet, Sweet Hannah Cont. Cont.

Hannah is now beginning to learn to ride a bike without training wheels. We started only a week or so ago. She is doing quite well, but lacks the confidence we all know it takes to learn to ride on her own. Randy, my husband, says she is doing it on her own as he's helping her, but as soon as she knows he lets go, her feet go down. I know that, given a little time, she'll be riding on her own very soon:)



Another favorite activity of Hannah's is bubbles.



Hannah has also now begun regular schooling. Previously she attended preschool at New Day Foster Home where she learned many things including her colors, numbers, matching, worked on some of her fine motor skills, and so many other things. As it became obvious that Hannah was outgrowing preschool and ready to move on to regular schooling, a teacher was hired for her. Currently, she now has one-on-one teaching. Hannah now knows most of her alphabet and is learning to write them as well. She can copy easier upper case letters such as "H,A,T," is learning to write her name and the sound each letter of the alphabet makes. She loves books, blocks, play dough, and is very good at puzzles.

Although she is a bit delayed, she is catching up by leaps and bounds! Currently, she is making 3 1/2 month's progress each month according to the assessment we are using. We are excited at the progress she is making and expect to see her continue especially with a one-on-one teacher.

I should also mention that, although her schooling is in Chinese, she is also learning English as she lives in an English speaking foster family. Though we love her dearly, we know the best thing for Hannah, or any child, is to have a forever family they can call their own. Help spread the word, won't you? We'd love to see Hannah find her forever family. She is listed on CCAI's website as I stated at the beginning of this post.

New Jackets!

Recently someone gave all the Forever Home girls some nice fuzzy hoodies. They LOVE them and wear them every day! Some of them even wanted to sleep in theirs. I thought wearing them day and night was a bit much, so we just stick to wearing them during the day:)

Solar Cooking

No, we haven't given up using modern conventional methods of cooking! It's another Science experiment utilizing the power of the sun.



Those milk cardboard boxes we go through daily come in handy every now and then for something:) One of Shawna and Elise's Science projects this week was making a solar hot dog cooker. Shawna was sure it'd never work as it'd just not get hot enough to cook that hot dog. She said, "I'm not eating it!"



Elise, on the other hand, thought it just might work. I said, "We'll soon see who's right!"



They did learn that the sun is more powerful than they realized and with the right tools, even simple ones like cardboard and tin foil, you can harness that energy and use it to benefit us in many other ways. We learned that solar energy has the ability to do many things in our modern world. I think this is the funnest part of Science--the hands-on learning of practical things. They seem to learn the most from these projects--not to mention it's just plain fun! What type of fun Science projects do your home schoolers do?

Silly String!!

The girls always seem to find something new to spend their weekly allowances on. This week they all decided to buy some silly string. Or at least some of it was silly string, others were silly flowerettes rather than string! It basically just meant it came out more clumpy..perhaps like large snowflakes.



Hannah decides to give Shawna a spray and she does her best to dodge.



Shawna sprays it towards Elizabeth as she looks on in amazement at the difference between the silly string and this new silly flowerettes.



The little girls get help learning this cool new item from their bigger foster sisters.




Wow, Elizabeth, your silly string shoots much farther and straighter!

It's Tea Time!!

Have you ever seen a more beautiful bunch of girls?!! Can't say I have, but guess I'm a little biased towards our girls, huh?!

















Recently, the older girls decided they wanted to have a "tea" party again. The little girls thought it was a grand idea! We went to the store and bought snacks they wanted for their party. After all the snacks were prepared, they all ran off to their bedrooms to get all dressed up for the party. It was all sooo exciting! It was hard for the girls to contain their excitement. They were plumb giddy, in fact!! They had a wonderful time enjoying some "tea" time. Only instead of tea, they all decided they wanted grape soda instead--ha! that's much better after all!! It was a wonderful afternoon!!