Mother's Day

I am so blessed! I was able to have each one of my children with me for Mother's Day!!!!! I was extemely exhausted, but my joy was overflowing!


Me & Jared (23)


Jacob (22) & Me

Jesse (17) & Me

Me & Sarah (15)

Me & Joe (11)


Me & James (10)

Me & John (8)

Me & Joel (6)

Our paperwork is on its way!

Take wings little envelope and fly!!! We faxed in our acceptance of the referrals on Thursday, but also needed to send them by snail mail. I'M SO EXCITED!!!! I can hardly stand it!!!

Steve is at men's retreat with Jesse (our 17 year old son), and Sarah spent the night with her friend so I just had the four youngest boys. Seems like that's how we roll lately, me and my four boys. I love it! Before we dropped Sarah off at Hanna's we went to La Pinata (YUM!!) and to see Shrek 3 (Yuk!). Two out of my four boys were bored out of their minds, but two liked it.

I found a great educational resource at http://www.letsgolearn.com yesterday. They have testing for reading, math and pre-algebra (that's the ones we're using anyways, they may have more). It tells you what they need to work on, which grade level they are at in High-Frequency Words, Work Recognition, Phonics, Spelling, Oral Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension. For example: James is my ten year old who has Autism Spectrum Disorder. He is currently using A Beka Phonics and in the first grade reader, but getting quite bored. He's working in the second grade language and learning & sounds worksheets. He wants to read his Bible for reading and seems to do okay except for those obnoxious big words. For High Frequency words he's at mid 2nd, Word recognition-low 4th, phonics-mid 3rd, spelling-high 1st, oral vocabulary-high 4th, reading comprehension-mid 2nd. So you can see the varying range and it gives me suggestions on how to bring up the spelling and high frequency word usage.

Ultimately I think I'm changing over to Sonlight and have NO IDEA where they would be, so I thought this would help!

I need to go and get off this computer. Jared & Miranda are coming for dinner. We're bbqing baby back ribs with corn-on-the-cob, potatoes, grilled mushrooms, and strawberry shortcake. YUMMY!!!!!!

Oh and someone played a great joke on me!!! They sent me WORKING MOM magazine. I think my husband threw it away. Oh well! I'm a working mom, but I work in my home with my children around. No need to leave my home to work, I've got plenty to do here!


Love,
Vikki

Pics for Dawn!

May 11, 2007 (I'm the one in the denim skirt and Steve is in the orange shirt. (for those who don't know us.)

Accepting referrals!

We're accepting the referrals of two girls under the age of one! One has a brother that may be available, but they need to talk to his guardian to see if they would want him to go with his sister.

Filling out the paperwork now!! WooHoo!!

I don't want my emotions to get ahead of myself and because of confidentiality reasons I can't tell too much! Rejoice with us though for this part of the process won't you?

Our glorious weekend!

We headed off to the airport early Thursday morning and flew to Spokane, Washington. We were going to Kingdom Kid's Older Child Adoption Training Program on Friday and Saturday. While we were in the hotel shuttle I noticed signs that read Coeur D Alene. Knowing that we have friends that live there I inquired excitedly where that was! The driver replied that it was about thirty minutes from where we were! Are you kidding me?!!! I immediately started hunting down phone numbers and finally came up with the ones I wanted. I called and Stephanie answered her phone, but Crystal did not. Steph and I talked and arranged for us to come over the next night. John would come pick us up after the meeting was over and then bring us back. GREAT!!!! But!!! It got even better!!! Stephanie and Crystal (friends to me but sisters-in-law to each other) talked and agreed to come meet us at the hotel, since we were located right between them and we could all go out for dinner. Another friend was able to join us and off we went! Mike and Crystal brought their three WONDERFUL boys that I wanted to take home in my suitcase and John and Stephanie brought their youngest of four.

We walked around the Riverfront Park in downtown Spokane and looked at the waterfalls. http://experiencespokane.com/parks/#riverfront Then we all headed to the mall and finally found a place that would take all eleven of us. We went to the Sawtooth Grill and had a splendid time!!! The night ended all too soon.

Steve and I got up bright and early Friday morning for training. Very informative and eye opening. http://www.kingdomkidsadoption.org/Default.aspx?tabid=122 There were seventeen families represented. On Saturday we had Injera and the fixings for lunch. I thought it was actually pretty good. It tasted a bit like sourdough bread. I was encouraged when it was mentioned that the injera had been purchased and not homemade. (hope for me yet!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injera

I need to wrap this up so I can go finish dinner. We left encouraged and hopeful, but educated as much as we could be in two days. Thanks Steve and Michelle, you did a GREAT job!!!!

Love,
Vikki