Sunday Night Futbol (and Football)

Fall is my favorite season, bar none!
Living where we do makes it a little hard to actually get the 'feel' of fall. Leaves aren't changing, it will get cool, but not until January.

BUT there is college football.

Except that our keeping up with football really just means looking at the scores on Sunday.
This year, however, David decided we needed to start getting into Premier League soccer again: The world's sport of real 'foot' ball.
And I love me some soccer, but I did weigh in, "you know American Football actually is fun to watch too." He didn't disagree. And our friends clued us in on how you can watch the games a day, a week, or sometimes even a few weeks after the game.
This bothers me because I cannot wait that long to see the outcome, but it is still fun, and exposes our kids to a piece of American culture they haven't participated in before. We watched Florida play East Carolina a week after it happened, I knew Florida had won but it gave the kids a fun intro to the sport.

Without fail there is always a Premier League game to watch within 24 hours of it live, so this we put on first! It has become a little thing we do on Sunday afternoons/evenings. We usually find a Chelsea vs whoever game and watch almost all of it, and then switch to American football. We never watch a whole game of either, but we all really enjoy it, and Tobin immediately starts reenacting the game, while Sophia reenacts the coaches and/or players dramatic reactions to the refs calls, very accurately I might add.

Feeling more like fall already!

The Year of the Half

This is my year to run a half marathon. If you know me at all, you know I have been running (jogging) lots throughout the years. Four years ago, Kettle Bell training changed my life, but I still ran as much as I could.

The first half of this year I pretty much quit running and just did KB workouts 4-5x/week, every once in awhile I would run on the weekends. I actually got in pretty good shape doing this, probably better shape then just running or even running/KB mixed. Then in June/July we traveled and I got sick. That is when I decided I would, in my year 38, spend the fall training for a half marathon. I missed running and having to really dig deep to go farther.

I also need to see if I can do this injury free and if it will inspire me to run a full marathon, something I have wanted to do 'before 40' for a long time. David thinks it may be too much for my body, I am more in wait-and-see (I usually have some kind of knee or foot pain, but haven't felt it much lately).

I looked up all my old training programs I had researched and tweaked it to fit my schedule and my unwillingness to give up the KB. This is not a normal training schedule and may not even 'work'. Like, will I actually run the distance? I don't know.

And the other thing? I don't have a race to run in. I am not willing to fly somewhere to run a race, we will just clock the distance here and I will run it on the assigned day. Boring, I know.

So far I am about six weeks into a 12 week schedule. And today, David and I decided on the day. And if I say it out loud then I am committed!

I will run the HALF on October 31st! Yes, Halloween, or even better, Reformation day!

I do my longer runs on Saturday mornings . On this particular Saturday I had just come back from a run, David had made French Toast (he is our French Toast maker!), and then he, Sophia, and Gabrielle headed out to bike. I sat outside, watched Tobin and Bella play while eating my breakfast and drinking my coffee...it was a cool, damp morning, and I was perfectly blessed.


Then we all three cleaned up David's bike that was mud-caked and worn!

 

 Here's to running the Half this year. Who's with me?

Bella might be?!

My general schedule below, which most people would frown upon for its lack of actual running. (when I do this may be included in a post about our current daily schedule):

Monday: Kettle Bells (warm up 7 min, Swings, one or two arm, 7 min, KB Turkish Get ups 8 min)

Tuesday: Run with speed work.  Increase distance over the weeks, topping out at about 5 miles/ 8km, of which 2 km involve intervals 7x 1:00 min of working hard, not sprinting. (Earlier in summer this was in the afternoon, now I run it at 6:00 a.m UGH)

Weds: KB same as Monday, (with working towards increase strength, changing the KB size)

Thurs: Run with hills. increase distance over the week. I found a run that works in some serious gut wrenching inclines, work up to top out at 5-6 miles here.

Fri: KB, same as MW

Sat: rest or long run, currently on 10km

Sun: rest or long run

Bike love

 David is actually on my new bike. We finally got his bike back from a friend and we hope to bike this valley together very soon.

But on this day our Dutch friends were taking David, Sophia, and Gabrielle on one of their favorite bike rides.

 We have biked up to close restaurants together but this was their first real street/city/countryside adventure. They were gone about an hour plus and weathered a small rainstorm too.

It is just past rice harvest time so things are abuzz in the villages surrounding us, and it is fun to see. 

Now pretty much daily the kids are out biking as much as they can, though with full-on school our time is limited. Tobin, G and I usually do a good bit in the mornings when we are done with our K4 stuff! 

Bike love has caught on in the Coker family.

Gabrielle at TWO

This girl is coming to more fully understand the world around her. She is starting to put some words together like: 'I see you', and 'look me', and 'sit down'. In Chinese she can string about three words together. She loves to mimic all that her siblings are doing, so she plays hide and seek with them, races with them and currently loves to jump. She can finally say 'Tobin' instead of 'Todin'. As I type she is saying, "TOBIN, nali??" which is 'where are you?' He is hiding from her.

She is sleeping well finally, and is, of course, a Coker thumb sucker at night. We could transition her to a 'big girl bed' but are waiting a bit. She currently shares a room with Tobin and that is good for both of them.

She loves to ride on the back of the bike, loves to eat dumplings, french fries, and rice. She doesn't often get to go to the pool but the whole family started getting swimsuits together on Sunday and she said: "Pool?" It was so much fun and she wore floaties and loved the water, not to mention the baby slide now smack dab in the middle of the pool. She was even jumping to our arms by the end, this is progress in water-love.

Gabrielle is probably our best cuddler, and still hugs our necks and gives great night night kisses.
Bottle her up, she is ooey gooey cuteness and growing so fast!

Gabrielle is TWO, part 2: Party!!!

 We invited mainly ex-pats and a few locals, Gabrielle greeted them at the door.

 She did not quite know all of this was for her.

We played musical chairs, she stood on the chair, but then followed what everyone else was doing.

She looked quite the little pipsqueak in the crowd.

 But she won! (wink, wink)

So delighted with herself. I love this pic, and this is how she wears her hair most days, all in her eyes!

 What are those things?

 And gifts...

 lots of gifts...

 a talking teapot, which she loves,

 And the very necessary grocery cart with musical instruments.

She enjoyed her party and we so enjoy her!

Happy 2nd Birthday Gabrielle!

Gabrielle is TWO, part 1

 All week we kept telling her how to say: "I am two!" We did this because when we usually asked her she would say: 'five'. Here she is holding up her whole hand but saying: 'two!'

These big brown eyes do melt the heart, but don't be fooled, she is as stubborn as us all. And remember she is two. Call them 'terrible' call them whatever, but we have already begun the training to help her act not so 'two-ish'. But really the age has a bad rap, she is learning so much, talking pretty well in both languages, and continues to be the toy of distraction at the table or any other time. She is just a doll baby at this stage. And she well knows it!

She is a precious gift that keeps us laughing and still able to enjoy some baby ness in our house, though she is a full-fledged toddler, and I got rid of all of my sippy cups!  

 Now that Sophia and Bella are in Chinese school at the same time, it is Tobin, G and me at home in the mornings. He and I do some 'school' and then they play, play, play!

 And honestly, sometimes fight and scream.

 I put the pretty dress on her that she got last year on her birthday, and handed her David's Grandmother's purse. Myra Belle never got to meet any of her grandkids, but she would have eaten them all up. And they love this pocket book.

Precious! Happy Birthday girl!

Popcorn Fanta Bowls

A few weekends ago the kiddos got coupons for the movies. They were so excited and so was I, the new minion movie it was, and off we went. Except I did not read the coupon clearly, really at all. It was my fault, though it was quite false advertising. The discount (and it was major) was for a movie we absolutely did not want to see, the Minion movie was just an advertisement.

When they told me the price of the tickets for the Minion movie I had to sadly tell the kids we could not afford it. It was almost $9.00 a ticket. The kids actually had great attitudes (they are used to the whole: 'it is not in our budget' discussion).

I did promise to go home and make it a family movie afternoon. They were extra disappointed at the theater when they saw these really cool bottles of Fanta with bowls full of popcorn attached on top and a straw going through it all. These too were too pricey and I promised I could make a duplicate for a fraction of the price. They were on board with my attempt and pretty stoked about it.

It wasn't exact but it worked. I cut a small hole in the sturdy paper bowl, wedged it over the fanta spout, added a little tape so kernels would not get in the bottle and then filled it with popcorn and added the straw. They LOVED it.

It was actually quite sturdy, I let them sit on the couch with it.

The Prizes: New Bikes

Always trying to look tough. 

And mommy got a new bike too:

 David knew that I struggled with the 100 lessons as much as Tobin and he promised me a reward.

My old bike was 11 years old, and had no existing pedals. It was time for an upgrade. And because our whole family is getting into biking now, I got a bike with gears (like my college days, so I could make it back up the one hill on campus from the hospital where I worked!). And though we now live in a valley, hills are not hard to find. 

Cycling has actually taken off here in our town, and maybe all over China. There are quite a few higher end bike shops. We searched them all and stuck to the low end.

Tobin's new bike makes him look so big to me. And he is FAST.

In this pic his face is grimaced, which is an accurate portrayal of his feelings toward the book he is holding, though that was quite by accident.

 He flies on this bike, and scares me sometimes.

 GOOD JOB little man!

Congratulations on learning to read!

100 Easy Lessons with a BOY

This go around with the book 'Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons' was a bit different (grin, and oh many tears).

Already in round 2 with Bella I knew the faults of the book and how to maneuver them. I also in NO way tout this book as the end all. I love that it gets kids the ability to decode, sound out and and learn that process early if necessary. Now that I have a Language Arts Curriculum that I love I see all the holes, but I also know that LA and understanding English language and rules is not even close to the goal of this book. It was actually designed for students with serious reading struggles.

My process with each of the kids thus far has been:
3.5 y.o. do tot school stuff: fun stuff, some letter recognition, etc. 15 minutes a day. The rest play, read, and fun! Tot 'school' really is a misnomer, because it is really not 'school'.

When tot school is complete and letter recognition/sounds are somewhat there, we start 100 lessons. This is somewhere in the almost 4 to 5 yo range. Age really doesn't matter at all, it is readiness and eagerness that matters.

After 100 lessons....read books, before I discovered my fave LA curriculum I dove into Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading.

Tobin was with it all. I started on my schedule though. He would have been content to play with legos until age 21, I was sure.

First 30 lessons, down. Attitudes still good. Next 20, harder but still doing okay, good days and bad. Lessons 50-80, many days I wanted to quit, and Tobin did too. I told David we should quit at 80. It had nothing with his ability to read, it had to do with our relationship and his inability to sit still. I had instilled the stand-on-your-head and still read policy, which helped some. He could do it, he was just quite frankly unwilling to put forth much effort. When I made him mad enough he would read the sentence like a real sentence, as I helped him with difficult words. Most of the time he was just distracted.

He is not ADD or ADHD or any other abbreviation, he is  a 4.5 year old boy, and my reading lessons were cramping his style. Now, the 4.5 yo boy syndrome does not mean he cannot sit still. He actually can, he can obey, he can do all manner of things. I do not use the 'he's a boy' to excuse wild actions and inability to control oneself. But that is not what was going on here....

The biggest problem was that the lessons took SO long at the end. He hadn't mastered some of the nuances yet, and I helped him, which was fine. I offered him the chance to quit, in all seriousness. But with 20 lessons to go toward a big prize he wanted to keep on.

ALL helps are taken away at lesson 80 so it got hard. Then he got used to it a bit. He was actually reading pretty well, but it still took a LONG time.

The last week, last five lessons, actually went better, he saw the light at the end and pressed on....
There were many apologies by him and me all throughout these 100 lessons, bad attitudes, tantrums (by both of us), we regrouped  a bit and kept at it. I was actually so amazed at how well he read the last lesson, since a lot of the time I just wondered if it was all useless.

Really, I should have been starting the book at this point, not ending it. I started too early, and I should have subtly said, "Let's just wait" when I knew it was consistently hard, and not used the word 'quit'.

On the day of lesson 100 he got a remote control 'Lightening McQueen' Car that friends had given us and then we bought him a much-needed new bike. That day during our read aloud time, he picked up the book 'A Child's History of the World' opened it up and started picking out all the words he knew, which were a lot! He is actually excited about his ability to read words on a page. I don't think that he would confess that  he loves reading yet...but I do think it will come when we pick up books next week. I will set the timer for 15 minutes!

Next post: The 100 Lessons Prize...and Momma's too!

Shadows At Night

This is the poem that Sophia dictated to me the morning after she created it in her mind.
The only thing I did was format it.

Shadows at Night

Written by Sophia Coker

I wake up in the middle of night

See a little light

Out on the road

I wonder what it is

And get out of bed

And go

Walk on the road no one but me

Shadows on the road

Shadows, shadows, scary shadows

Nothing to hear but

Chickens squawk, squawk, squawking

Mice jeep, jeep, jeeping

And bats flying in the air

Shadows, shadows everywhere

I go back home

Turn off the light

And go to bed

In the morning when it is bright

I go to school and learn to write

About my fright.

Fun new clothes and old friends

 We needed a few things from America (including last minute science supplies for this year), so Poppy and CC sent us a package that included  a few super cool items of clothing for the kiddos!

Tobin does have a collared shirt that matches the coral/navy theme but he was all about the shark shirt!

this girl. I say that a lot. She is on my Homeschool schedule to train, train, train, in the area of...you know, listening and obeying. Our friends helper said: 'she doesn't listen at all', don't I know it!!

Where we wish we were: Wrightsville Beach!

And our friends came back from America and other friends came around all week last week, and on Friday they had a junk food picnic!!! 

First Days of School

 Sophia is going into Chinese 2nd grade and American 3rd grade. 

Aunt Laura bought her this backpack when she was 2 or 3 and we are finally using for school not just an airplane. BUT the books and things are pretty big, so we hope it will continue to work this year.

Tobin is going into Chinese Kindergarten 'Middle Year' and American K4! His school actually did order school uniforms this year but they were not ready for the first day.

Act tough man:

Bella is going into Chinese 1st grade and American 1st grade. 

Here, she was going with Daddy to find out her teacher and classroom, so she also did not have a uniform yet. 

Gabrielle is going into her third year of life. She turns  2 on the 17th.

But she thinks she should do all that her siblings do:

Please, can I go...like a puppy dog, she begs. 

2

I am ready, really!

After Bella met her teachers and discovered she did indeed have some people she knew in her class, she received her uniform. I then went to a 2 1/2 hour meeting to fill out forms and learn all that Chinese First Grade would entail. 

 She was SOOOO excited and nervous.

They listed out supplies needed and reminded us to help our kids with their homework!

You can't see Bella in there but she is there.

I will get a better school shot, but pick up time was CRAAAAZY. 

The first graders went for one full day and then everyone had a three day holiday, with the 'make up' day being tomorrow, Sunday. No free breaks around here! 

Great job kiddos, you guys are super brave!