Lots of Fun

One of Matthias most fun things to do is play under the table....especially while we are eating. We enjoyed having a few Christian sisters over with their children today.

Matthias' sweet smile
It's hot enough for even the mamas to get in :)
A very favorite fun time for the kids is making smores on our bbq pit. Scotty indulged them last Saturday night. We altered our smores a bit and spread Nutella on our graham crackers instead of chocolate chunks.

Matthias' New Trick

Darton Explains His Drawing

Darton's Creativity

Darton is the boy who loves to dress up. Most days he wears bluejeans because he is going to "work." He loves to wash his hair so that it smells good and putting gel in his hair always makes him happy. He does a great job using his imagination while either playing outside and pretending to go to "work" or in the playroom constructing airplanes and helicopters.

This is his helicopter - Today was the day he decided to draw people! I'll post a video of him explaining his drawing. Today was also the day he decided to draw a sun!

His airplane -

He is quite proud of all his work and mommy is too!

A Fairy Tale 21 Hours

Scott and I celebrated our 7th anniversary Thursday night and Friday. We are celebrating a month late since I'm not nursing any more and we could get away for a night.

We stayed in a very nice hotel in the Colonial Zone (established in the 1500s by Colombus and Spanish colonists). The history of the area includes ruins of the first hospital in the New World and the first Roman Catholic church.

Scott had let the hotel know ahead of time we were celebrating our anniversary. When we entered the room there were these amazing gifts -

chocolate cake and fruit plate (mango, kiwi, grapes, banana, chinola (passion fruit) ) [side note: have you ever eaten a kiwi by slicing it in half, like they did below, and then using a very small spoon to eat it out of the peel? It was brillant!]
a box of cigars and a bottle of champagne
It was the kind of hotel that supplied you with slippers and robes. I had to take a picture of this sign on the robe. It's always amusing how something might translate. Really?? Can a bathrobe "seduce" me?

We had a nice dinner on the hotel patio and then headed to the beach the next morning. This picture was taken before we left the hotel. I received the "dress" as a gift from a girlfriend for my 30th. After I got the "dress" out of the gift bag all the girls wanted to check it out. They ALL commented how they loved the "dress" and how cute it would be as I got bigger with the pregnancy. I then said, "A DRESS??? THAT'S A SKIRT!" They all emphatically disagreed and so I wore it as a dress for our anniversary trip. Yes, Adeline was quite aware that mommy wasn't covering her shoulders when we returned and I had to explain to her that sometimes mommy wears things "just for daddy." (although Scott agrees that it's a skirt ;) ) I'll put a tank or tee under it and have fun with it as a dress though ;)

We had breakfast in the Colonial Zone as well.
We then went to a restaurant on the beach for about 4 hours and enjoyed reading books. Reading a book on the beach doesn't happen when you have toddlers, so this was part of my fairy tale story.

Scott is talking to the kids in the picture.
I told Scott after the trip how much I felt loved and lavished by our 21 hours alone. I also told him our time made me feel pretty, and yes, I'm going to say it, sexy. As a mommy of toddlers and pregnant with our 4th (when I hadn't gotten rid of all my 3rd baby junk in the trunk), these two adjectives don't come into my head very often when I'm describing myself. However getting to get dressed up for the company of my husband only can make a gal feel really special. :)

Thank you Scotty for learning what makes me feel loved!

I AM 30!

I celebrated my 30th birthday on Thursday with girlfriends at a tea garden. We sat and chatted for 3 hours...couldn't have asked for a better lunch date to celebrate. Most of the ladies there were Christian girlfriends. It was the exactly the company I needed to celebrate with.

They were each very kind and lavished me with gifts. My favorite gift were the earrings in the picture below given by my friend Any.
I took the kids to see how the puppies were doing. All 5 survived! I have found out about 2 adoption agencies here in Sto Dmgo to help me find homes! yeah!
I bought myself a chinola (passion fruit) cheesecake to celebrate with the family. DIVINE!

Book Reviews with a Christian Focus

I came across this website today and look forward to putting it to use and adding a few of our own reviews. We used it to buy a couple of Ballyntyne Adventure Christian Classics due to the current sale on Vision Forum.

Scott has taken Saturday and Sunday nap times for the past year to read the kids to sleep. Scott started with Princess Adelina and Scott and I had a hard time putting it down! He then read When a Man's a Man by Harold B Wright, a book that we found within the first month of our marriage at a antique store in Branson, MO. Scott thoroughly enjoyed this book although it's language style was a bit rough to read outloud. He researched it's history online and found it was written by a pastor and a best seller in 1916. Too funny.

For Father's Day, I bought a couple of Lamplighter Rare Collector Series books from Light of Faith Resources. Scott read The Lost Ruby, The Lost Child and is currently reading Faithful but not Famous.

I'm usually asleep within the first 10 minutes, so I will have to resource Scott for plot, etc. when the kids get old enough to read these on their own. In all honesty, even if I did listen to the entire book or even read the book myself I would forget the details of the book. Scott on the other hand has a memory like I've never seen! (it can be quite frustrating actually)

Matthias, Hobby Horses, & Piano

Adeline began piano this morning with our sweet sister in Christ, Olga. Tia Olga will be coming to our house every Tuesday morning to teach Adeline music culture (awareness of rhythm, different kinds of music, piano, and more). Olga can speak English, but to help Adeline learn Spanish she will be teaching in Spanish. Adeline responded very well to Olga this morning, although she used VERY few words. But that's our Adeline when she's a bit timid.

It's easy to imagine how God can use a pianist for His glory, and therefore I was excited about Adeline's future with piano (given she sticks with it). However, Olga reminded me this morning that she will be using this time with Adeline to glorify God now. Adeline will learn rhythm with Christian diddles (like the songs you sing at camp) and Olga will be incorporating our Creator in all of her teaching. Thank you God for placing this desire on Olga's heart!Here are a few sweet pictures of our sweet Matthias. 9mths old
The weather is warm enough to enjoy the pool more often. Enjoying Saturday afternoon outside.
Nonnie made Adeline a pink hobby horse for her birthday and they now enjoy "riding" around the yard and house on their own horses.

How to Reinforce Sounds

It took about a week and a half for Adeline to learn the vowel teams - ay, ai, oy, oi, aw, au, ow, ou. To help reinforce the teams we -

Used letters from the newspaper and made the teams.Put peanut butter on graham crackers and used raisins to make the teams.We wrote the teams in chalk outside and played beanbag toss. Wherever the bag landed, is the sound you had to make.

It is VERY easy to say "You're not old enough yet Darton, go find something to do." But praise be to God, seriously, for Him to stop those words from coming out of my mouth (this time) and draw shapes and numbers for him to play beanbag toss with us.

After beanbag toss I would yell out a sound, shape, or number and then the kids had to jump on that square.

Most of these ideas came from the author of Phonics Road to Spelling and Reading.

Perritos

Matthias' bug bite has healed, but by day #3 of the augmentin he began to get a rash and have non-stop diarrhea. By Tuesday, day #4, we took him off of the augmentin. Now the question is is he allergic to only augmentin or other antibiotics as well? Unfortunately he is now showing signs of getting the cold his brother and sister are fighting.

I am finally out of "survival mode" (aka out of 1st trimester), and I have the energy to exercise. I am usually accompanied by at least one child on my journeys, but I went out on my own into the neighborhood for a brisk walk this morning. I had two choices on my route to get home. The route I chose had a box of puppies that had been left out to die. I am NOT an animal lover. I don't play with animals, including my own. I know it's quite heartless. However I can't let one of God's creations starve do death either. I took the box and the 5 bug infested puppies to the vet and the vet graciously is only charging me their cost for the meds and food and no cost for them to stay there for 3 weeks. It seems that they are only about 4 weeks old. It is my job to find them a home. We will more than likely keep one since Sarah is a pack dog and would LOVE a playmate. Unfortunately there isn't an SPCA to drop the dogs so although the dogs may be fortunate I came across them, I don't know how fortunate we are.