First week of school in pictures

These pictures are all from our first week of school, this past week.  Not all of them are of the kids actually doing school, but I just tried to capture what our week looked like.

Danil and Kellen:BBFF(Bro Best Friends Forever)

Kellen and Danil adore each other.  Any time Danil sits down to look at a book, Kellen is right behind him.

Daddy mowing.

Kellen loves to ride on the mower with Josh.  This isn't the first time he has ridden himself to sleep.

Ray with the glitter after doing her craft from our Bible story.

On that day we read the parable from the Bible about the woman with 10 silver coins and she loses one. 

Josslyn hugging KK.  If I pull out a camera she will hug anyone in sight so that I'll take her picture.  If there happens to be no one in sight to hug, then she just strikes a pose.  That girl loves the camera.

And the camera loves her.

Pretty girl

All the kids having a juice pop during snack time.

 The juice pops are half water/half apple juice. They are easy to make, cheep, not loaded with sugar, and the kids love 'em.  That's what I call a winner!

This is how Josslyn trotted into the kitchen one morning when I called her to come take her medicine.  I thought the loads of jewelry was photo worthy.

Wednesday afternoon after the kids naps, we took a little field trip to the beach.  We ended up being there at low tide.  That meant lots of beach and lots of shallow water fo the kids to play in.  It was perfection.  The kids had a blast.

All 6 kids are in this picture.  Bet you can't find Danil!

Like I said, she loves to pose for picture.

I think Kellen has had enough of the sisterly lovins.

Of course, we had to throw in some learning.  This is homeschool, people.  You can learn anywhere, ESPECIALLY at the beach.  In science we are studying plants.  Since this was our first week of school it was just an introduction to plants.  We talked about kingdoms and classification and such.  In this picture we had decided that this dead catfish was once part of the animal kingdom.  It DID have a backbone.  It was cold-blooded, and had no scales.

Josslyn, of course, just had to pose with the catfish also.

And so did Alik.  Josslyn pulled a little photo bombing and jumped in there with him.

PB and sand sandwich. MMMmmmmmMMM!

Skipping rocks and shells in the shallow water.  He is really good at it.

Danil loves to have his feet buried in the sand.  He will sit like this for 30 minutes just grinning.

Yes, I know they have beer bottles.  They found them on the beach and were having so much fun filling them up with water that I thought it was innocent enough.  They are clueless, so I figured it was harmless.

I love this picture of Luke.

These are the hermit crabs we collected, all in about a 15 minute period.  Luke wanted me to take a picture of them before we released them.  More classification, of course.  Hermit crabs are animals who have a one part shell.

Peek-a-boo!(Or Cuckoo!, as they say in Ukraine.)

 Our beach field trip was a great way to spend the late afternoon having fun while it is still so hot.

The kids with their glitter pictures of what the home that Jesus is building them in heaven looks like.

Luke making a paper mache globe for geography.  This is a several day long project, so I am sure that I will post more pictures of the finished product next week.

Friday was Danil's birthday, so we made it a special day all day.  Pancake breakfast which included singing happy birthday to Danil several times.  We ate dinner with my grandparents for supper.(Mexican food, which Danil loves!)  Then we had a family movie night(which is typically how we spend our Friday evenings as a family)  They looked so cute on the couch waiting for me to start Rio that I could resist a picture. (Luke was on the recliner.  The little one are too squirmy during the movies for his taste.)

We are studying the beginning of American history in....history.  Here Luke is working on painting a map of Columbus's voyage.

Part of our plant unit is about cells.  Luke and Alik made a plant cell.  The ziplock bag is the cell membrane, the jello is the cytoplasm, the grape is the nucleus, and they put them in a small box to represent the cell wall.  Fun, and tasty too.  Apricot jello is good!

This was what our week looked like.  I'll post more about what our day looks like, schedule wise.  I do have to say that the original schedule I formulated is working well.  I use it more as a guide then the law.  I've let myself be flexible with it and I think that is partially why it has worked to well for us.  A reader asked how old my kids are.  Luke is 8.5, Alik is 5.5, Ray is 4.5, Danil just turned 5, Josslyn is 3, and Kellen is 18 months.  In the near future I'll explain where all my preschoolers are at developmentally(and all 4 of my middle children are who I refer to as my preschoolers.  Alik might be 5.5, but his isn't kindergarten ready.)

More soon!

Danil's Birthday and God's Grace

Yesterday was Danil's 5th birthday.  Today we celebrated his birthday with family, hot dogs, swimming, and cake.  I'm almost at a loss for words when I think about what a victory it is that Danil is alive and healthy and a part of our family.  This birthday could very easily have been a very different one for him.  In stead of cake, presents, and balloons, he could have been in an institution where no one would have acknowledged his birthday.  No one would have told him that now he is 5.  No PawPaw and Grandma to buy him a keyboard or Aunt and Uncle to buy him a drum set because they both know how much he loves music.  No Papa and Granna to brag about him to everyone they meet.  No brothers, sisters and cousins to play with.  No family to sing happy birthday to him over and over because of how happy it makes him.  No proud grandfather that makes everyone in the room be quiet so that Danil can sing "Jesus Loves Me" for the umpteenth time.  No Granny to share his story with others while on a mission trip in Mexico.  No countless family members and friends that just can't help but love on him everytime they see him.

No, life for Danil could very easily have been different. 

 Praise God for intervening on Danil's behalf.  When we committed to adopt Danil, we knew that his transfer from the baby house to a mental institution was already in the works.  We knew that it was going to take and act of God alone to keep Danil from being transferred before we were able to get to him.  We were trying to get to him as fast as we could, but as fast as we could turned out to be 6 and a half months.  While that is rather quick in the adoption world, it is like years when you are one lone orphanage director acting on behalf of one little boy who is viewed as worthless by most in his country.  The orphanage director at Danil's orphanage will forever be one of my heroes.  She fought so hard to keep Danil from being transferred.  She told the State over and over, "Please please wait, his family is coming soon! I promise!"  She begged and pleaded and delayed and delayed, until we FINALLY got there.  Her soft spot for Danil was the biggest blessing from the Lord.  Had she not loved Danil so, she wouldn't have been as motivated to fight for him. She litterally puts her freedom on the line for the children in her orphanage.

So God answered our prayer and protected out little sunshine boy.  He stepped in and did what we couldn't do from so many mile away.  And THEN he provided a way for us to get to him...

just in the nick of time.

I don't think I'll ever know why God has blessed me so.  God's Grace at it's finest.

Happy 5th birthday, my little sunshine boy!  I hope you enjoyed your first birthday party of many!

We ALL love you very much!

 



Basking in the Glow of Success

Right now I am sitting back and enjoying the victory of a successful first day of school.  In spite of one child waking up at the crack of dawn, one child having explosive diarhea, one child getting a bad stomach ache, and one child single handedly trying to interfere with everything the preschoolers did(same tired child that woke up at dawn), it was still a great day!  I have six young kids, so I have completely acccepted the fact that nothing is ever going to go as according to plan.  Fortunately, it appears that I over estimated the time needed for each subject on our agenda.  So when we did run into little issues here and there it didn't totally throw my day off.  Once we get in a groove I might have to tweek our schedule a bit, but for now we are sticking with it(at least for tomorrow anyway). 

The preschoolers went pretty much as I expected.  I had to keep it a little under Ray's level and ability to keep it relavant to Alik.  But Ray and Alik seemed to love school today and participated great.  Josslyn loved being a part of what Ray and Alik were doing.  While I don't think she is grasping most of what we are doing, she is still developing her fine motor skills and listening skills and having a great time while doing it.  Given a choice, I think Danil rather be playing with Kellen than sitting at the school table, but with his easy going nature he wasn't a distraction.  I just don't think he got much out of what we were doing.  I am going to give it a couple of weeks, but I am considering not bringing him to the school table with the preschoolers and letting him play with Kellen while I work with the preschoolers, and then I will spend some time each day working with Danil by himself on his own level.  I need several more days to figure out what is best for him.

Luke was my big shocker today.  He was the one that got the bad stomach ache, yet he insisted on doing school....just from the recliner.  Every time he finished on subject/activity he kept asking to do more school.  That was not his attitude last school year at all, so this was a very nice surprise for me.

I totally planned on taking a picture of all the kids on the first day of school, but I totally forgot.  I did take a couple of pictures though, so I will post them soon.  I will try to remember to get a group picture tomorrow.  Also, now that I am back in blogging mode I might actually get around to posting the Q and A post I mentioned a couple of months ago.  I have jotted down the questions you all have asked, but if there is any more that you would like to throw out there then go right ahead and I'll add them to the list.

'Night ya'll!

School is Back in Session!

(Yes, I know I have been completely absent from the blogging world for a loooooong time.  And No, I don't plan on using this post to catch you up as to what I've been doing, because I only have about 30 minutes to blog so I plan on using that time to talk about our new school year.  If I even attempted to catch you up as to what has been going on in the Carlin house the past few months, then I would completely run out of time without even having scratched the surface.  All in good time, people, all in good time.)


Tomorrow will be the first day of the new school year, here at the Carlin house. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't completely excited!  Ever since we got Alik, Danil, and Josslyn home I have been anticipating what our school year was going to look like.  I got home with the kids on May 7.  We spent the next few months finding our new "normal" around here.  So the end of last school year kinda went to the wayside.  But this year we are back and ready to go!  I will have one 3rd grader, 4 preschoolers, and 1 toddler.  We will be starting some new curriculum, and I am excited to see how that goes.  What works for each child is always a trial and error process.  I am glad that now that I have several years of homeschooling under my belt I can be ok with the "error" part of trial and error.  It took two rough school years with Luke(pre-k and K), for me to relax and try to find what suited HIM best.

Even though I have 4 preschoolers, I already know that I can't approach them all with the same method.  Ray and Alik are both very school ready.  They both love to learn and enjoy school-type activities.  I will definitely be schooling them more intensively than I will Josslyn and Danil.  Neither Josslyn and Danil are "ready" for school.  But Josslyn loves to be in the middle of whatever I am doing, especially if I let her help of participate.  That girl will stand beside me and fold laundry for an hour if I let her.  So I think that bringing her to the school table with us will benefit her AND that is where she is going to want to be anyway.  Danil, will also like the chance to participate.  He is pretty easy going, so he would probably be just as happy at the school table as he would be playing.  I plan on having him participate with the other preschoolers as much as possible.

Now if I am being completely honest, part of the reason I am excited about school starting up again is because we will be on a SCHEDULE!!!  Everybody give three cheers for schedules! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! HIP HIP HOORAY!!!  If you haven't put two and two together yet, I love schedules.  We follow a loose schedule year round.  The kids pretty much always eat all three meals at the same time every day.  I have found that Alik, Danil, and Josslyn all seem to really thrive best on a schedule.  Coming from an orphanage, where they have pretty much been on a schedule their entire lives, they seem to feel most comfortable when they can anticipate what is coming next.  Of course they love surprises, like, instead of naps we are going swimming at PawPaw and Grandma's today! Or, instead of going to bed after family worship we are going to all play KerPluk and Memory!  Like any kid, they get excited about doing things like that, but in general, they want to know what is coming next because it is routine.

True to form, I have a detailed, yet semi-flexible, schedule in place for our school day.  I know that new school year schedules always need some tweeking, so I've given myself some grace in case things don't run perfectly smooth tomorrow.(I have six kids ages 8 and under, so no day ever runs completely smooth.)

Well my time is up and I need to run, but I wanted to post a quick update/prayer request for the Hazleton's adoption.  They are IN COUNTRY right now and waiting patiently for their SDA appointment, which is on Tuesday.  Be in prayer for their journey these next few weeks.  With adoption there are SO MANY possible bumps in the road at this point of the journey.  Just be in prayer that God will be going before them and making the way straight and swift.  You can also hop on over to their blog to follow their story and/or find out a more detailed way that you can be praying for them.

Typical

Here is a little peek into a typical-ish day. 

This is Josslyn admiring her hair after I fixed it.

If her personality continues as it is, she will never have trouble with her self esteem.  That girl loves herself.  She could admire herself in the mirror for hours a day.
Here she is blowing that beautiful girl in the mirror a kiss.

And now she's posing.

Here are the girls rocking their babies. 

Alik working a puzzle.

Josslyn and her puzzle.

And Ray with her puzzle.

Josslyn's attention span lasts a total of 3 seconds, so here she is with a different puzzle.

That's baby brother trying to help her.  Or eat it.  You decide.

Danil had spilled his drink on his tray, so here he is cleaning it up.

I'm a good worker, Mom!

Kellen saw Danil wiping his tray, so Kellen went and got a paper towel(out of the garbage, since he can't reach the ones on the counter), and he climbed up on a stool and helped Danil dry up his spill. 

All wet from the slip-n-slide.

The green thing that Ray is on is the slide for our new swing set.  The kids were filling their buckets up with water on the slip-n-slide and pouring them on each other on the slide.  They were having a blast doing it!

This slide is fun and it isn't even on the swing set yet!!

Since the kiddos were all wet at supper time, I let them sit on the grass outside and eat.  They thought that was pretty fun.  Especially since Daddy came out and ate with them too.

Back on the slide!

I just recently taught Ray and Alik how to get out the vacumm, plug it in and get it all set up for me to vacuum the living room.  I tried teaching them to vacumm, but they aren't able to do it good enough that I don't have to get the spots that they miss.  They are doing really great though, for just learning.  Ray usually gets it out and sets it up, and then vacumms a minute.  Then I vacuum.  Then I let Alik have a turn vacuuming a minute before he winds up the cord and puts it away.  They are great helpers and really love to help out!

Looking at books after bath time.

Brushing their teeth.

Alik, Danil, and Josslyn seemed to have no concept whatsoever about how to brush their teeth in the beginning.  Since their teeth aren't terrible, I know that they must have been brushed in the orphanage.  I guess the nannies did the brushing though, because they all 3 acted like they had never done it before.  They are getting better though. 

The same goes for bathing theirself.  All three had no clue how to bath theirself or wash their hair.  It took some teaching, but they are doing really well now.

I'm getting the hang of it now!

Working a puzzle before bed.

Danil and Daddy

Danil tends to be pretty quiet.  He doesn't demand alot of attention, or get in to alot of mischief, so at times he can be easy to overlook.  Josh has been giving him a little extra attention this past week and it is amazing how his vocabulary has grown.  Who knew the little guy just needed a few extra minutes of one on one time with dad to totally blossom??
Luke doing a workbook.  He loves mazes, and word find, and hidden picture books.

Daddy and his girls.  I just love this picture.

Well that is just a little bit of what a typical day around our house looks like.  I'll write more soon about how we manage meals, and baths, and potty time with so many little ones running around. 

Have a great 4th of July weekend!