THE GIRLS ARE COMING HOME!!!

The energy around our home is astonishing!!!

Tomorrow a.m. “the girls” Breanne and Krista, arrive home. I knew I was excited. What joy to see how the children are anticipating being together. This is what a mom dreams of. The younger ones are BoUnCiNg off the walls!

Bre called this .a.m. while I was in the shower to tell us that they are flying out tonight. They have a test and then will head to the airport.

We called my folks last night and all looks good for them to be flying out from OR tonight as well.

The big surprise they don’t know of is that I’ve booked the tickets so that they will all meet up in Dallas and fly on the same commuter for the last leg of the journey. Those planes are small but not wanting to leave anything to chance, I booked seats next to each other for them. We are praying here that they all make their connections and arrive in Dallas at the same time.

Tomorrow in the a.m. Stacia will meet her grandmother and grandfather Townsend for the first time. The girls are excited to see her as she was only a month old when they left. She does many new things now…and is even CHUBBY.

I was explaining to Arielle, Nolan and Zander that they are all flying tonight but that we will pick them up in the morning. I told them that it will be early and they will either be here at the house when they get up or I could wake them up and they could go with us to the airport to pick everyone up. Zander grabbed my face and said, “Mom you wake Nolan and me, Alex, up!”

We anticipate the best part of this Christmas being that we will witness the growth and changes in the girls. I think they will be amazed at how well we’ve managed to get on without them…. Having grandma and grandpa here is the icing on our cake!

Of course, I’m already praying that the visit is as good as I’ve hoped. That we find lots of time to communicate in the midst of a busy Chaplain’s home at Christmas. I’m determined that the shadow of saying farewell doesn’t color the excitement of being together. We’ve always said each new phase of parenting was our “favorite” but Mike and I are not much enjoying having chickadees leave the nest.

I told the little ones we need to clean and then the girls will be home. Zander just came in and said, “Welp!, it’s all cleaned up!” Twenty-one and a half hours until the family is all under one roof.

School update

This has got to be a first! We have stayed on schedule through the month of December. On second thought we always “stay on schedule” but we usually go to “Christmas School” immediately after November. Christmas school consists of making steady progress in the 3R’s, doing lots of Advent activities and field trips, baking, cleaning, shopping and catching up on any subjects that need extra work. We have traditionally taken a break from the week after Thanksgiving – New Years. We opted not to do that this year. We had a “hard” start to the school year. Stacia was born the very week that school began. I then had 3 weeks of bed-rest with eclampsia that hit post-partum. The girls left the week after that; which involved much adaptation at home. Given all these facts we are thrilled to find that we are only 2 weeks behind our public school counter-parts at this point in the school year. Whew – the kids deserve a round of applause. We continue to love having our entire family using “Tapestry of Grace” (www.tapestryofgrace.com). In addition to being a well-written academic program we’ve benefited from the depth of discussion added to our family through studying the same period “together”. We began using this program last year with our younger children and Josiah and Jamin (our high school students) joined us this year. *I* am learning a great amount as I discipline myself to read the weekly teacher notes. We began our school break yesterday and will resume school on 2 January 2006.

We have an incredible sense of accomplishment when we look back over the past 15 weeks. Sure, we could be further along, but we’ve come a long way. The older boys had to learn a totally new program. The younger ones have been making great strides in the areas of weakness we had pinpointed. We’re on track.

Highlights of our school since I last wrote:

~Nolan, Arielle and Jared have finished their astronomy text! We’ve been working through “Exploring Creation with Astronomy” http://www.highschoolscience.com/ We will begin “Exploring Creation with Zoology” in January.

~Jared is rushing ahead with his math text! This is a major break through for him. He is scoring 90-100% on all tests and assignments. His goal is to finish his current book by the end of January. He hopes to complete a second text by the end of the school year which will get him “caught up”.

~Arielle has finished another Explode the Code (phonics) book. She only has one reader left in the Sing, Spell, Read & Write program http://www.pearsonlearning.com/singspell/index.cfm. Her goal is to finish this program by the time school begins again on 2 January.

~Nolan is on Step 11 of the Sing, Spell, Read & Write program (the program consists of 36 steps). We’ve had a lot of fun noting the changes in the program since we began using it back in 1995.

~Stacia, Zander, Nolan, Arielle, Jared and I visited a local Christmas Tree Farm.

~Jamin has finished the rough draft of a book he’s been writing for several years. He is now revising it…spending hours at it and seeming to enjoy it. Mike and I are anxiously awaiting our turn to read the book.

~Jamin and Josiah are writing their first ever research papers. Yes, we are behind on this one. I’ve tended to let writing slide because I “know” what they know…but we’ve learned that this is not a good plan. Jamin is writing “Davy Crockett – personification of the American Spirit”, and Josiah is writing “The Hindu Belief in Reincarnation: How it affects the Hindu Worldview – contrasted with the Biblical view of the afterlife and how THAT affects the Christian Worldview”. Ok, ok….no catchy title yet for Josiah but that seems to be where he is heading…at a quick pace.

~Nolan, Arielle and Jared are currently working on a unique Advent Season writing assignment. They are taking daily pictures of things that remind say “Christmas” to them and then writing about that item. Yes, we miss our Nikon D 70 which was due back weeks ago from New York City. I’m starting to think we may have to track its journeys….TX, Amityville, NYC, Anchorage, AK, Amityville and we are assured it is winging its way back to TX “now”.

Touch of Culture

What blog would be complete without a touch of culture?

We’ve not seen “Narnia” yet, but we do have a new family favorite. Yep, a family favorite….from Zander – Mike we all enjoy this one: Veggie Tales, “Lord of the Beans”.

Lord of the Beans is a satirical look at “Lord of the Rings” and throws in various other spoofs as well. We are huge Tolkein fans so this appealed to our funny bone. LoB however, does pack a message. It follows the fantastic journey of a Flobbit named Toto Baggypants who inherits a most unusual gift. With the help of his mentor Randalf and a spirited group of friends, Toto embarks on a mission to discover how he should use his gift. On the journey he has to cross Mt Much-Snowia, encounters Lord Scaryman and sporks, and continually asks “Why have I been given this gift”. Obviously (if you’ve read the Tea Time thoughts) you’ll see that this message would resonate with me personally.

I’ve been asked if the message is stronger than the most recent fare from Veggie Tales and I’d have to say yes. We really liked this one – and it seemed like the “old ones”.

That’s it – our touch of culture for the week.

EXTREME LOVE

Excerpt from the PWOC newsletter I wrote in December.

It's here!

The time of year that we call Advent and celebrate the coming of our precious Savior to earth IN THE FLESH! Traditionally Advent also celebrates the coming of God's presence into our daily lives and looks ahead to the coming of our Lord at His second coming. This time of year is incredibly awesome to Christians. In all the hustle and bustle of the season do not let the "EXTREME" love of our Heavenly Father and His Son go unnoticed. Yes, EXTREME! Consider the EXTREME love of the Father. He sent His SON to REDEEM you back to Him (John 3:16). Consider the EXTREME love of the Son. "...though He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:6-9) Consider the responsibility you now have to walk in EXTREME love. For you see, I skipped verse 5 of Philippians 2: "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus". As you take time this season to reflect on the EXTREME love of the Father and Son....may your thankful heart well up with praise and overflow in humble, obedient service and EXTREME love for others.

May you find time this season to bask in His EXTREME love for you.

Lights, Lights EVERYWHERE

Mike is working late this week preparing for an Off-site, so the children and I have been going out looking for the best lights in the area. We have found that our very own neighborhood really has the most lights; but we’re still exploring. Wow – it’s a wonderland.

In our driving around we ventured to parts of town we’d never visited before – or at least parts we didn’t’ recognize at night! We finally found the river and the city’s light tour. It is amazing. We will be going back with Mike and our company in December. There are huge light displays all up along the side of the river – looking even more spectacular as they reflect in the water. The major theme is “12 days of Christmas” but there was a huge nativity scene done in lights. There were also big bill board greetings along the route from various businesses and many wishes for a wonderful CHRISTmas. The tour eventually led us by our County Courthouse that has a big nativity set on the front lawn. While you drive you can listen to Christmas music on an FM station and greetings from various civic leaders and pastors in town. It is all very well done...all for only $3 a car.

You would think with the varied selection of Christmas music a great traditional Carol would have gotten fixed in my mind…but NOOOO…..I can’t get “Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer” out of my head.

Our Nikon is due back today; we’ll post pictures from our next trip.

Nolan’s Journey for Understandable Speech

We’ve been navigating the TX red tape to get Nolan back into speech therapy. He was evaluated in May, before we left Alaska, and had a 49% understandability (up from below 19%). We had been advised not to begin phonics with him last year because of speech. Our insurance, Tri-Care, was paying for two 45 min sessions a week because the school district said he needed the services but they didn’t have the resources to provide the service.

I had hoped that Tri-care would simply take our info from AK and transfer it to TX – but this was not to be. I had to contact the local school district and begin from scratch again. We ran into a road block when the school district would not return my calls. Persistence paid off when I was finally given the phone number to the DESK of the District’s Superintendent of Special Education. I began calling her desk daily. She kept apologizing for not returning my calls. I faxed reports to her. I waited and prayed and continued to call. Finally, after six weeks, a meeting was set up with the District Superintendent, the speech therapist from the school down the street, and myself. They offered me services contingent on enrolling him in public school. I declined the offer. They then told me that there is a “general pot” that they are required to have. Into this pot goes a percentage of the federal funding they receive for Special Education. These monies are to pay for services for “non-traditional” students. That would certainly be us. As long as they still have money in this pot, they will pay for private therapy at the West Texas Rehab Center. She explained that if they run out of money I will have to fight with Tri-care to cover the services. I was fully prepared to fight with Tri-care as we did in AK, so this is a bonus.

West Texas Rehab called and wanted to see Nolan for an evaluation. We did that on Monday (12th of Dec). I’m a bit skeptical of their plan but I’m giving it a shot. I have already told them that if Nolan needs more than the SCHOOL authorized (two 30 min appointments with one being a group session instead of two 45 minute private sessions) I will pursue getting Tri-care to pay. At that point we would have more freedom in what care is given to Nolan. BUT Tri-care won’t pay for treatment if the schools will…what a racket. They used the same test Tracy had in May. It showed that Nolan has made some progress in the past few months. I explained that we began phonics when it became apparent in July that he wasn’t going to be in speech any time soon. I think that focusing on each sound has helped him to isolate the sounds. She agreed. She also agreed with me that he needs to be tested by an audiologist. I’ve been asking for THIS for over two years and kept getting sent to the school district where they do a “screening” and say “no hearing problems”. She agreed with me that that he needs more than a screening. I suspect she was more willing to listen than others because this center has their own audiologists.

W TX Rehab will be calling to set up appointment times with us “soon”. This is a huge change from “All for Kids” in AK. This place is NOT a friendly private practice…it’s big…more like a small hospital. It is also high tech. They have one way windows we can watch through and phones we can listen in on. I miss the “personality” of All for Kids, but we are determined to make this work for Nolan.

It was gratifying to hear that Nolan has not lost ground. We are grateful for the improvements….some days things still sound like “Charlie Brown” speech around here…but we are believing that a day will come when he is understood the majority of the time. Prayerfully by the end of this assignment. OK – a pardon to all my Southern friends…but I’m a bit concerned as to how understandable he will be after three years of private sessions with a native West Texan. The older boys have informed me that *my* accent is getting terribly bad and I corrected Arielle this week reading “asked” as “axed”…something we hear a lot down here….

The Good News Flash!

The Good News Flash takes us back in time. We begin in the office of the editor to the Bethlehem Times. She is giving her three reporters the job of finding a big news story that she is just sure is about to break. Jamin is a reporter. The reporters proceed to interview angels (Arielle is one), Shepherds (Nolan is one) and inn keepers…finally arriving at the manger in back of the last inn where Baby Jesus (complete with very cool purple binky) waits. Throughout the play various classes lead the audience in Christmas Carols. This was a CUTE play and was perfect for our group. Involving the audience in singing certainly helped to bolster the choirs.

The high school class was placed “in charge” of the play with Josiah being named as the director. This was a stretch for him and used of God to move him out of his comfort zone. Two months ago he was reluctant to read Scripture in the service. Within the last month I’ve seen him organize classes of little ones, read Advent readings in chapel, give a speech at the beginning and ending of the play and in short, emerge as a leader. I’ve heard great comments from the Religious Education Director and her husband. Josiah and Jamin were involved in selecting the play, building props (which were darling), recruiting kids and advertising.

We were very proud of all our kidlets and their parts in the play.