Elena's Dance Recital

(A few more catch-up posts to go, then we'll be up to date!)

Elena had her dance recital on May 30th and 31st. Her ballet was "A Spoonful of Sugar" from Mary Poppins, and her tap was "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story. I thought the pink ballet outfit was SO sweet, but the fun tap outfit was her favorite.

She was so excited that our friend Lya and her daughter Haylee were able to come and watch Elena dance! It made her feel extra-special. Recital is usually stressful for a lot of moms, but it seems to be getting better each year for me. This one didn't seem particularly stressful at all. I hadn't expected to be here for it - I thought for certain we'd be in Africa by now with Akos!

That's all for now...pictures of our Ghana adventure to be posted soon, I promise! :)

Jeanie

My Menagerie

Don went out of town for a few days, leaving me with all the critters and the girls. With faces like these on Kente and PJ, how can I make them move?

But with two dogs, a kitten and two children wanting to sleep with me, where am I supposed to sleep?

Sigh...

Back soon...

Jeanie

A Double Birthday Party

May 24-25
Since we assume that Lydia and I will be in Ghana by the time of her birthday on June 17th, we decided to go ahead and have her party early. We also made it double as my VERY belated 40th birthday party – almost two months late. One funny gift was a faux-hair clip-on ponytail. It was a bit too light in color for her, so we gave it to Elena and got Lydia another shade darker (they aren’t returnable.)

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She also got Speed Stackers, and has been practicing them for hours on end. For those of you not familiar with Speed Stacking, it is now considered (by some) to be an actual sport, with tournaments and everything. It involves stacking and collapsing structures of plastic cups, in a very specific pattern, and as quickly as possible. It is supposed to be excellent for fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination. It sounds boring, doesn’t it? Well, you just have to see it in action to appreciate it. Click HERE to see an amazing video clip!

Lydia also got a new (used, actually, but new to her), iPod. She already had one, so why did she need a new one??? Well, her goofball mother took it away one day in January or February due to failure to turn it off when instructed to do so, put it in a “safe place,” and then forgot where the safe place was. I have pretty much turned the whole house upside down looking for it, to no avail. I really felt it would help her so much to pass the time on our transatlantic flight, and it didn’t seem fair that didn’t have it anymore, since her mommy was the one who lost it. Fortunately, you can get the previous models on eBay for VERY little. I wrapped it in a HUGE box, and pretended it was SOOOOO heavy, I could barely lift it. She was really surprised! ☺

Don and Elena made a cake for Lydia, and she made one for me. We had a lot of fun!

See you again next time...

Jeanie

Real-Life Question Turns Into Homeschool Science Lesson

Today, I did a fun little science project with the girls. Here’s how it started…

Shadow seems to have gained at least 40% again of her body weight in the last few weeks – she looks absolutely huge! All of us, including Don, agreed that she had gained a lot. I was worried it might be a thyroid issue. So, we took her to the vet this morning to be weighed. Turned out, amazingly, that she had no significant weight gain – only 2 ounces!

The girls couldn’t understand why we all thought she had gained so much when she really hadn’t. Of course, it must be because of having tiny Kente around – by comparison, Shadow IS huge.

So, to demonstrate how such misperceptions can occur, I did a little experiment with them that I remembered from college biology classes. (Can’t recall the name of it, though, which is driving me crazy.) I filled 3 containers with water. The first one was very hot. The other two were exactly the same – just lukewarm. I did the trick separately on each of them so as not to spoil the surprise – I had each girl put the right hand in the hot water for a while, then quickly plunge each hand into one of the remaining containers. I asked them what temperature the water was in each container. Both said that the left one was warm, and the right one was cold. Then for the fun part – I had them take their left hand and put it in the same container with the other hand – then they realized to their amazement that their right hands still felt like the water was cold, but their left hands felt warm. Both had the same reaction – a shocked, “How did you DO that???”

Isn’t science fun? I just love homeschooling – it’s a wonderful feeling when you can turn a real-life event into an entire science lesson!

Bye for now…

Jeanie

Dance Recital Dress Rehearsal Day

(This is not a live post - previously recorded episode - LOL)

May 17

Today was the dress rehearsal for Elena's dance recital. Since Elena's hair is so short, I made a fake bun for her to wear in her recital. I bought a faux-hair scrunchie, pinned it into a nice little bun shape, and wrapped it in a hair net. Worked great, and was pretty fun, too!

After Elena's recital dress rehearsal, I came home to find Lydia mowing the lawn for the first time! She loved it and wants that to be her special job...Don, especially, thinks that's a GREAT idea! (I do, too - helps him get his work done and lets them spend quality time working in the yard together.)

Until next time...

Jeanie

Our new daughter! :)

Hi, everyone! Things have been crazy-busy lately - lots to share with you! We have wonderful news - the court date for our adoption was held on April 30th, and the judge in Ghana issued a final adoption decree, meaning that we are now legally the parents of our lovely, sweet new daughter Akos! Her full name is now Jemima Akosua Emefa Hertz. I don't know whether she will want to keep so many names, but she's old enough that we can discuss it with her and find out how she would like her name to appear on her new birth certificate when we do the US re-adoption.

Now that we are her parents, I can finally post photos of her - these are the only ones we have seen so far. The first picture is from her original photolisting, and the second picture is the one that brought tears to my eyes and made my kids jump for joy - it shows her looking at the family photo album we sent her.

A couple of days ago, we finally received word that our immigration petition was approved. The I-600a, the approval of which is the I171-H, and the notification of the I171-H is a Visa 37 - in Ghana I will file the I-600. Is that some serious "alphabet soup" or what??? Thank goodness I have our adoption agency, Hopscotch Adoptions, to help me keep track of what is what!

The immigration approval was the last thing standing in the way of traveling to bring Akos home - so we hope to hear what our travel dates will be by Monday or so.

Additionally, I have become aware of dire need for medical supplies at the children's ward of Korle-Bu Hospital in Accra, Ghana - I am planning to bring as much as I can to them when I travel. They need pulse oximeters, nasal cannulas for oxygen (currently all they can use to give oxygen is a feeding tube!), linens, mattress protectors (now having to use bare foam, urine-soaked mattresses), and much more. If any of you are interesting in helping with this project, please e-mail me, as that would allow me to purchase more to bring them.

Other big news for us is that we now have a used RV, which we LOVE! It's a Class C, with slide-outs for extra space, so fits our family comfortably (including extra room for Akos, of course.) We are having such great family time at our local campground - it's nice to get away and spend time together with no distractions. I even went fishing with Don and the girls (my first time fishing in 30 years or more!) - I caught 4 fish, and Elena caught 15! She was so excited. One of the fish I caught peed on me - naughty fishie!

We're actually at the campground right now - Don took the girls to a secluded pond that reportedly has lots of bluegill, and I took the chance to get online and look for good deals on pediatric hospital supplies, check e-mail for any news about our Ghana travel dates, and also to finally write this post! :)

Hugs,

Jeanie

Mother's Day Weekend

(Yet another belated post...still catching up...)

May 8-10

We got back from our trip to South Carolina on the Friday before Mother's Day. My wish for Mother's Day was to camp in the new RV with my family, so here we are on our first night, enjoying hot dogs roasted over the fire.

Kente and the dogs accompanied us for the camping trip - PJ gave Kente a tongue-bath (you can see the circle of slobbery marks on him!), then the three of them snuggled up for a nap.

Lost Valley has a great little restaurant called the Creekside Cafe. Sheila, the owner, makes pancakes as big as plates!

Kente like to sit on the back of the dinette bench to watch for the door to open. He also like to watch movies - he gets very interested if there's a lot of action on the screen!

May 12

The playsilks we bought the girls for Christmas were a big hit. Today, they used the silks to create numerous different fashions - and gave us a fashion show. I love having these open-ended toys - they are so good for stimulating the imagination!

And finally, just some more cute critters-snuggling-together pictures!

See you soon...

Jeanie

We're RV'ers now!

May 2

In May, we went to South Carolina to buy our new RV! We actually found the thing on eBay - can you believe it? Anyway, the people who sold it to us were incredibly nice. The husband gave me at least 3 hours of instruction on every detail of operation and maintenance (and videotaped it for future reference), checked and filled all the fluids, and even put in brand new batteries just to be safe. The girls had a fantastic time playing with the couple's daughter - here is Elena - just loving the attention!

May 5

We stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Rawson during the trip - their house in North Carolina is only about an hour or so away from where we bought the RV. Here is Lydia helping Grandma make dinner.

We had a hard rain, followed by sunshine - the girls had a great time playing in a big puddle!

I had some foot problems while in NC, and had to see a doctor. This sign was in the orthopedist's office - LOL ...

...and this one was at the counter of a medical supply store - in case it's not obvious from the picture, taking a number results in pulling the grenade pin...

May 6

Our RV, camped out for our first time, at Apple Valley Travel Park - a nice little place. The owner was a very sweet lady, and there were pretty flowering bushes, peace and quiet, mature trees, and even WiFi at the site! :)

Elena found these "polynoses" as Grandma Rawson calls them (I call them helicopters). Grandma and her friends used to put them on their noses when they were kids. I think throwing them and watching them spin to the ground is MUCH more fun! Lydia and Elena were quite cozy for their first night sleeping in our RV.

May 7

On the way back home from our trip, we stayed the night at an RV park in Paducah, Kentucky. The owners were husband and wife. The wife checked us in, then brought us to a friend's RV where her husband was playing the psaltery. I had never seen such an instrument - kind of like a triangular autoharp played with bow?? We got to try it, too - it's not all that easy! The owners of the RV we were in were very nice - they love large reptiles, and introduced us to this bearded dragon named Bob (because it bobs its head when it's happy).

We had a terrible storm that night – I watched it on Weatherbug on my iPhone…and followed the National Weather Service alerts. Right nearby were tornadoes, golf-ball-sized hail, and severe lighting and thunder storms. It was SO loud on the roof of the RV – I got pretty nervous for a while. At one point, it sounded as if lightning had struck our RV or something close, but no damage was apparent in the morning. I cuddled Elena until it was over…Lydia slept right through.

See you next time...

Jeanie