Edamame

The kids are helping make dinner.  Right now they're shelling edamame while I give Guapo his bottle. As I remind them that these are for dinner and not to eat them all, I get this response from Chulo, "No comimos todos."  And he was right, they only ate about half, nowhere close to all of the beans.

Amor

I've been thinking a lot about love lately.  Of course, Valentine's Day is approaching, so that automatically turns the mind toward thoughts of love.  But, I've also been brought to thoughts of love as I watch my children grow.  That God could trust me with such amazing little people is continually incomprehensible to me. 

Friends, too, have been demonstrating love, especially lately as we prepare to move to a new state in only 3 weeks.  Help fixing our house to sell, help with packing, and even a warm place to stay and yummy food to eat while our house is being shown to potential buyers.  All of these are acts of love that are felt by our family. 

The past (almost) 2 years since I stopped teaching in order to be a full time mom and wife have been filled with love from friends, family, and strangers, as well.  Everything from sharing the blessing of extra food to anonymous gift cards in the mail, have been such amazing blessings, each at exactly the right time.

My favorite example of this is a family that receives extra food from a neighbor who receives from various food banks, but is a bachelor and can't use all of the food he receives.  He shares with this family and they in turn share with other families.  Well, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we were getting ready to go grocery shopping for all the fixings.  As we were heading out the door, we got a phone call.  This family had received a frozen turkey and all the fixings, but they were going out of town for Thanksgiving and didn't have room in the freezer to store it all.  God knew that we were about to go spend money we really didn't have, and through this family (and their neighbor) provided us with a complete Thanksgiving meal!

*Originally written February 1st

Worship

One of the greatest joys has been worshipping God with my children.  Now that Bonita can read, she's been joining in even more during worship time.  This is one of her favorite songs, and it brings me to tears every time I see her sing it as we worship together

"My Savior My God"

Lifelong Learning

   There are so many things to teach our children.  Around here, school gets woven into our day and our family life.  There are things we study as a family (like our Egypt unit) and other things that individuals are learning. 
   Right now, Guapo has been working on quite a few things that make him a happier baby and us happier Mami & Papi.  He's begun to sleep all night (which is much better than "through the night" which only means from midnight to 5am!)  Of course his night might not begin until midnight (like last night), but once he's asleep he stays that way until a respectable hour.  He's also been learning how to sit by himself.  This allows him to play more as well as keep an eye on Bonita & Chulo, which is endlessly entertaining.
   Chulo is continuing his year-long battle with potty training.  (Has it been that long already?!?)  It's a battle we thought he had won last May, but it seems that was just a trick and the arrival of a new sibling combined with extra attention for his sister (ie. homeschool) completely reversed any progress that had been made.
   Of course, learning to use the potty or to sit up doesn't seem very interesting or challenging to someone who is learning to read, write, and "play with numbers" (AKA math.)  Bonita is struggling with showing respect to her brothers as they practice their lessons.  They in turn have devoted themselves to providing her plenty of opportunities to practice being respectful when you really don't want to.  They are such good brothers!
   I am trying my best to learn when it's okay to just let the kids be.  Bonita's style of playing with Guapo is only annoying me, not him.  Chulo's constant questions are typical and good from an almost 4 year old.  Guapo's desire to be held as much as possible is fleeting and soon he'll be all grown up and too big for such silliness, just like his siblings.  I've also been trying to let the kids find their own solutions to their disagreements, but it's so hard not to step in.  As long as they are not hurting each other, I've been trying to stay out of it.  When things get out of hand, I try to remeber to ask "are you showing love & respect right now?"  Of course, I'm still learning, too, so I mess up, forget, and jump to conclusions.  But I am trying and pray that I'm making progress day by day. 
   I can't really record the progress of all our lessons, but here are a couple of clips of Guapo learning to sit up by himself.

Ancient Egypt

For Christmas, Bonita received a math computer game from Spain.  The setting for the games is in Ancient Egypt, with the goal being to pass the various math games in order to earn stones for Pharoah's pyramid.  In between games, Pipo (the boy character for all of these educational computer games from Spain) tells the child about Ancient Egypt.

*

Well, Bonita started asking a lot of questions about Egypt.  In turns out, she didn't understand that Ancient Egypt means Egypt from so long ago, even before Jesus.  She thought she was learning about Egypt now.  That understanding cleared up a lot of her questions, but not all of them.  So, we began to study Ancient Egypt.  There is a wealth of information available for children on the subject, but not so much in Spanish.  Here's what I found that's been helpful:  Amigos de la egiptologia, Egipto para ninos, and Homeschool Share's Ancient Egypt Unit Study & Lapbook.   

We've had a lot of fun learning about our names in Hierogliphics, pyramids, and most interesting of all - about Egypt in the Bible. 

Our Lego pyramids

Chulo, A. (a new friend of ours), and Bonita with their pyramids

I'll add more pictures as we continue our study of Egypt.

* I have no affiliation with the Pipo products other than we have purchased and used 3 of their CDRom games and they are great for children learning in Spanish.  Both Bonita & Chulo love the games and have learned a bunch.

Sledding

 

Chulo's Preschool

Lately, Chulo has been interested in school and having a special time to learn new things.  So, we've begun to do some of the things that Bonita and I did last year.  Like making, copying, and continuing color patterns. 

 And measuring all sorts of things with a tape measure.

He says that he'll learn to read when he turns 4.  We'll have to see about that. :)