Product of the week

Burt's Bees has an amazing cleanser that I am loving this winter. I stumbled upon while staying at my inlaws in Florida and my mother in law gave it to me. It is perfect for my dry winter skin. Greg says I smell a little like GoJo when I use it, but I use a nice smelling moisturizer and its all good!

February Plans

I have not had monthly plans on my blog for some time! I keep them in a notebook, but have not posted them. I am not sure why, but looking to February I thought I would share some fun plans we have:

~ Groundhog day is February 2nd. We will check the weather and see if Phil sees his shadow. Make these yummy cupcakes. we will also read Its Groundhog day, Gregory's shadow and It's up to You Griffin and Esther will make a groundhog craft.

~ India trip. While Greg is in India preaching at a pastor's conferance, we will study the country. I have maps of where he will be flying into, staying. We will do a basic fact sheet about India and watch a video.

~ Valentines Day. This will probably be the week of Feb 15 because the week leading up to Valentines Day we will be in Virginia while Greg is in India. We will write a chiquain poem. This will be awesome for Nathan as he is working on parts of speech in language right now. We will make heart sugar cookies. We will read The day it rained hearts, Roses are Red and the Valentine Cat. I am also going to use this week to do the colored carnation experiment and log our results.

Presidents Day (February 22nd) We will read a few favorite books on both Lincoln and Washington, we will do this color sheet. For dinner, we will have Lincoln Log Meatloaf and Washington Cherry pie.

Black History Month. Esther and I have been wanting to read the Addy American Girl books and so I think we will start them for Black History Month. We will also read Follow the Drinking gourd and do a quilt craft that goes along with that.

A Trip To Raleigh (hopefully!) We need to go to Raleigh whenever all our adoption papers come in and have them all authenticated by the state of NC. We plan to make a day of it and go eat at an Ethiopian restaurant and visit The Natural History Museum. They are having a coloring contest on sharks and every entry gets a free ticket, so we will work on that the week before we go.

Abby is reading the Percy Jackson series about Greek Mythology and I have a lapbook for her to do at her own pace on Greek Mythology form a christian's viewpoint.

All 3 kids are the in our homeschool drama clubs production of Cheaper by the Dozen, so there are lots of practice days between now and March 26th (opening night!)

Ace Clubs start this month too!

Birthday, Blizzards and Basketball

I am a little behind on blogging, but I wanted to post about a really cool birthday weekend I had on Dec 20th. Greg bought me a silver pendant and chain in the shape of Africa with a heart cut out in Ethiopia. It was so beautiful and I have wore it every day since he gave it to me.

Most people that know me know I love winter and I love snow. Well, our area of NC was treated with an unusual amount of snow on Dec 18-20. We had the best time playing in the snow! I made two big pots of soup, we had friends come over to sled and play in the snow and it was just so much fun! That is the second year in a row we have had enough snow to play in behind the house and I love it!!

Because of the snow, the church parking lot was very slick and so church was cancelled on my birthday ( the 20th), but the weather was not too bad and we were able to go out with some friends to O'charleys where I was sung to ( Embarassing!) and given carmel pie ( Yummy!)

We were also blessed with Wake Forest basketball tickets to watch them play after dinner. We had awesome seats and had so much fun. I love watching college football, but college basketball especially ACC is just the best! Even Esther got into the game dancing and cheering and sporting a free basketball net hat for the second half.

My birthday is not always something I like to remember( the age thing and all!) but this was was different and really really fun!

Orthodontist, Observations and Opinions

I have had an eventful day and its not even 1:00. My Mondays are usually spent doing laundry, baking bread and starting our school week. Well, today Abigail had an orthodontist evaluation for braces in Winston-Salem at 9:00, so we were up & about early this cold morning. I also made an attempt to shop at Whole Foods. I decided one of my New Year's resolutions was try a new food each week that is good for us and I thought Whole Foods might give me some inspiration. I also had a few other errands as I was out. Here are a few random comments about our day thus far:

Braces are freakin expensive! If you are pregnant or have a baby or toddler. To your prayers for health and sanity add good straight teeth. $5,000 a mouth =Yikes!

Whole Foods is weird. I am sorry to those who love it and think it rocks. I just cant get into spending $6 for Rice Milk and Tofu. Plus it smelled gross in there. Who knew there are 72 different types of olives and who thought to make a whole salad bar out of them? A+ on the selection of Burt Bee's stuff though. After 30 minutes aimlessly wandering around and dodging the Yups with their recyclable grocery bags, Abby and I left with 2 packs of blueberries, some flour and a package of yeast...Cobbler anyone?

Since we were being adventurous we decided to try a new place for lunch. Qdoba ....Yum!! Don't know how to pronounce it, but it was good. I had a naked burrito and some tortilla soup. I would try it again. Still not Moes, but not too bad.

On our way home, we stopped at Walkertown Family Practice to pick up a letter our doctor had to write stating that the surgery I had to have my appendix out in 1994 would not hinder my ability to parent an adopted child.(I know...crazy) The nurse, Mary, that helped us with our physicians forms and also with this letter is awesome. When I called, she had the letter for me in just a few hours. Thanks Mary...We appreciate you going above and beyond for us!

Now I am home after my big morning in the city. Time to start school, make bread and do laundry. Just thought I would share my very different Monday.

Mac or PC

Have you ever seen those funny Mac commercial about people choosing a mac over a pc? I think they are hilarious mainly because I am a mac person. There is a man at our church that knows a lot about computers, but he hates macs because he has really never worked with them before, so he says he feels lost on one.

My daughter, Abigail took her birthday and Christmas money to buy a netbook. She got a cute little Dell that she loves. When I was helping her set it up though it drove me crazy...yep, I'm a mac person. In fact, even my dog is named Mac!

I don't know why but I understand how they work. The place and format that come natural to me on a computer works on a Mac. I also love my Iphone...a lot. Like, it is probably not healthy to love an inanimate object quite so much. :)

Why do some people love Macs and the others PC? Fords or Chevys? Pepsi or Coke? I think it is because God made us all differently and gives us likes and dislikes accordingly. The world would be a very boring place if everyone's favorite color was green. There needs to be those reliable blues, prissy pinks and crazy oranges too. But, the very things that make us different and unique tend to drive us crazy in other people.

Acceptance and Tolerance are such overused words in the world we live in and I am NOT at all saying that we should accept sin, but when people chose things based on the way God made them or called them to be, then I think it is Biblical to accept and understand. Like maybe adopting a baby when you have three healthy kids or a deciding to homeschool.

Maybe there is someone that read my blog that is praying about taking a leap of faith in a direction you are sure God would want you to go, but are afraid of what others might say or think of you. Sometimes standing alone and being different can be a really good thing. Just ask Steve Jobs.