Super Bowl Excitement

We aren't huge football fans, but we always watch the play-offs. This Super Bowl is a can't lose for our family. We love the Colts, of course. Who doesn't appreciate Peyton Manning's arm? And ever since Coach Dungee was in Indy we have been bigger fans.

BUT, I was at Pudue during the Drew Brees years. PU football games were so fun, especially with him playing QB. I still like to watch him do well, so its great to see him in the Super Bowl too.

Sam and Cora think football games are too long. In fact Sam said, "Why do they have to be 100 minutes?" They just like the game snacks:)

A few good links

I came across this blog of a missionary family in Haiti. They give an insider view of all that is happening. http://livesayhaiti.blogspot.com/

A few years back some friends of ours told us about Family Man Ministries. It is a ministry for dads by a funny, insightful guy. Their family has a quiver full of kids and they home school too. We have been on their weekly email list for a while, and I thought some of you might like to read them too. Even though they are written for dads, I enjoy them also!

Here is a link to their website: http://www.familymanweb.com/

A special flag

A high school classmate of Josh’s is in the Air Force and has been flying F16s for Operation Enduring Freedom. He recently sent us an American Flag with a certificate stating that the flag was flown with him in the cockpit during a Special Forces raid. How neat is that!!! Thank you Luke!

As God would have it, the flag arrived the same week we were teaching Sam the Pledge of Allegiance. Don’t you love it when He does things like that!

Lord, we pray for your protection over all our armed forces in foreign lands. You are there with them. We thank you for these brave people, and ask that their service will make more people free to learn about You. Amen.

Haiti Relief Project

A church in our town collected items to send to Haiti. Included were wash clothes, hand towels, bar soap, nail clippers, toothbrushes, combs, and band aides. Sam and I went to help put items into baggies. Sam was very excited to help, and I think it made real to him some of the situation. He has seen very few pictures, but we have been praying for the people there and talking about earthquakes. Even though it was a very small project compared to the need, it was a big thing to Sam and a great example of being the hands of Christ. We can PRAY and we can DO something to help. We hope God will allow us many ministry opportunities to do with the kids, and many of them can be right here at home.

Our hearts break for the people of Haiti, especially the children. Praise the Lord for the adopted children that got to come home. Adoption paperwork does NOT move quickly, so God must have moved the hearts of many to speed things up.

The Library

We go to our local library a lot. Its pretty small, but we know the librarians and there is a system that allows us to order books from many other Indiana libraries, so we love it. Sam has learned where different types of books he likes are, and he is VERY friendly to everyone (in a quiet voice of course).

Well, this week we (just Sam and I, for sake of the librarians:) decided to go to the neighboring town's larger library in search of kids audio books for an upcoming trip. We walked into the kids section, and it was as if lights shone down, angels sang, and my heart sped up.

CD's, audio books, DVD's, flashcards, and BOOKS!!!

I just didn't know where to look first. I was very amused to see that Sam felt the same way. We were there over an hour, and got at least 15 items. I can't wait to go back, and I'd secretly like to go without Sam!

Its so neat how our kids LOVE to read books. They crave information and good stories. Currently we are really enjoying Magic Tree House books. This is a series written by Mary Pope Osborn that explores many different science and social studies subjects through the eyes of two kids who travel in a magic tree house. We were able to get some of these on audio too, which makes trips much more enjoyable.

Here is Eli doing one of his favorite things, and yes the book is upside down...you have to start somewhere!

Something about libraries seem too good to be true. I guess its because we don't expect something for free...but it is!!! I may never buy a book again. Please, go to your local library and be inspired!!!

Calendar Time

Mommy: What month is it Sam?

Samuel: Mmmm...Jaytember?

Nice try! He knows all the months pretty well, but reading January is not always an easy task. Calendar time is the best. It naturally teaches number and time concepts. We also get to countdown to special days. When I say its calendar time, even Eli goes to it:)

Wonder Lab

On Martin Luther King Day Josh took us all to Bloomington to the "Wonder Lab". It is an awesome place filled with neat science stuff for kids. We all loved it. Sam's favorite was the bubble room, where there were all different sorts of bubble making contraptions. Cora liked the funny mirrors. There was even a fenced off area for little ones like Eli where he could do lots of neat things too, like hit drums and crawl through a mirrored tunnel. We highly recommend it for anyone in the area.



This week in school we are focusing on letter names. Somehow in the process of learning all the sounds and doing pretty well with phonics, Sam has forgot many letters' names. He knows sounds but not names. Today we wrote on the magnadoodle a lot, and tomorrow I think we will use shaving cream.



I got pretty frustrated with him today after having to tell him the letter "h" about 50 times. As soon as he sees my disappointment it gets 10 times harder for him to do work. If I give even a little encouragement, he tries harder. Aren't we all the same way? So tomorrow I promise to encourage. Hopefully we helped him tonight when we made a human "h". Who could forget that?!



Eli is a little under the weather with a sinus infection, and we had some vomit this morning...NOT FUN!! It was so sweet though to see how concerned Cora and Sam were for him.



We recently had our last post-placement visit with our social worker. She will file a report to be sent to ET on his progress. We met Belinda 2 years ago, when Eli was only a dream every night, and it was hard to tell her goodbye. Will we see her again...only God knows. Now we will file reports ourselves until Eli is 18...WOW. These reports are meant to show that adoption DOES work well for the children. They build good relationships between agencies and governments too.