Gabrielle is 4!

Gabrielle Shalom is Four. Yes, our little chickpea, is indeed.
She is turning into a little girl, there is no toddle-ness to her anymore at all.
She is hilarious, says the cutest stuff, and loves to say: "I am getting bigger now, because I am four".

She still thinks you can grow both ways, so she says, 'when you get smaller mommy you can wear my shirt...'

She is spunky, will stake her claim on anything, hold her own, and at the same time be gentle, sweet, and affectionate.

We decided this year to invite a few friends from her class.
Before the party we gave her a few gifts, all having to do with a 'kitchen/home appliance' theme.
She LOVED them.

We ate lunch out with friends to celebrate.

Another fun gift:

her very own ice cream shop

Later in the day, when her party began, she took her friends to the trampoline.



Then everyone came inside to color 'Hello Kitty' pictures, this was the theme she chose. She at first wanted Dora, then Pepe Pig, and settled on 'Hello Kitty'.


She enjoyed showing her friends her new toys.

Two of her teachers came. I love it when they do so that they can see what we are about and understand our family a little better.

We played pin the bow on Hello Kitty.

And musical chairs...

We ended with cake and cupcakes.
Look at that beautiful cake that I didn't make :)

The local bakery makes these and our guests loved it. It had fruit in it.

This little doll is growing up fast. She is learning her letters with me and loves to do school with me or whoever will teach her. She still gets quite doted on by her siblings, but we will treasure all the smallness while we can!
Love you baby Gabrielle!

STEM

K, my partner in crime in this chaotic lifestyle of homeschooling, suggested we do STEM activities 2x/month, each mom responsible for 1x/month. I love all of those subjects (except the T). We have actually gotten to it so far total only once a month, but each time has been great! 

STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Now, I am not so sure what is new with calling it 'STEM' but I guess these activities just needed a new name, clumped together. I tell my kids everything revolves around math pretty much...

When it was my week I focused on Engineering (structural). And introduced them to the 'Engineering Design Process:'

None of these ideas are original with me. They all came from a blog somewhere.

We had 4 engineering feats to conquer and only 3 objects to use, and each object had to be used.
The objects:
-Jumbo craft sticks
-1 inch wooden cubes
-small plastic cups

The four designs:
1. design something using only a block for a base

 2. Use any base, and make the tallest possible structure:

3. Design a structure where something sticks out in a creative way:

(hers actually stuck inward with no underneath support)

4. Build a structure with only a cup as a base.
(no pics, sorry)

This was so much fun to do with 7 kids! They all did fabulous and each came up with different ideas. I did not have them work in teams, which worked great because the individual creativity flourished. But I didn't condemn borrowing ideas from others, because that is exactly what good engineers do, take it and improve.

At the end of each 'feat' we came back and talked for five minutes and I had them write in their notebooks what was hard about building that structure or draw a picture of what they did.
They even enjoyed that part of it.
I hope we keep fitting this in our schedule because it was so fun and challenging!

Guests and Parties

Selfie! Jacquie came to see us from TCC. We had never met before, but anyone from TCC is a fast friend. She had lived in China before and was visiting friends and traveling. We were so glad she made it our way. She meshed right in with all of our family events for two days before going to her next stop.

Our kids adored her and talked her ear off. On Friday afternoon both David and I had to be at 3 different parent teacher meetings (large group not one-on-one), these are always announced the day before. Jacquie went with the flow and got to hang with the kids more while we attended.
Then we ate dinner and she went with us to boys soccer game, awards ceremony.

The following night Sophia and Isabella were invited to a friend's birthday party, starting at 7p.m. A lot of the times the parents are invited as well. This wasn't super clear to me, but it was across town so I stayed.

The mom was grilling some of my favorite meat. Other adults were there and some other parents stayed too.

The girls had so much fun...but it was getting late. Finally, at 9:15 I said we were leaving and then the cake had to come out. Which ended in the traditional icing fight. The girls may have been in bed by 10 p.m. I was exhausted. The next was Gabrielle's birthday! Crazy weekend, we wouldn't have it any other way. 

More Soccer!

Right at the beginning of the semester, our town hosted a soccer tournament. The school teams got to participate. 

What is that smoke? There was a wedding going on behind the field. And every wedding includes fireworks here. This was a little over the top...

I mean really? It took many minutes for this to clear.

Then the games began. 

Her team came in 2nd out of 3 girl teams in their age group.

You bow and thank the fans/ coaches every time.

These are a fun group of girls.

The awards ceremony was on a different night.

The girl on the right represented Sophia's team, and she is really good. So good in fact that we think she should move on out of here and head for the National squad soon.

The boys had a game that night.

Each player got to pose with both the boys' and girls' trophies.

It is always so much fun to participate in these events in our community.

Chinese School Semester Begins

Yes, the craziness known as Chinese Elementary School + (some semblance of) Homeschool, started on September 1. 

The crazier story is that Tobin actually got into the school we wanted by the amazing grace of God. Our friend, J, who also was trying to get is American daughter into school, went to a lot of meetings with the education bureau on our behalf. The local factory/company we work for also tried to help. Everywhere, with all the new laws, the answer was: 'doesn't look good'. "You don't fit into one of our four classifications, so maybe there will be room at a village school." 

We still did all of the necessary paperwork and on the assigned day we turned it in to the school we wanted even though we knew it was pretty hopeless. On that day, J, who happened to be renewing his visa, was discussing the issue with the labor bureau. This was just a conversation, these people give us our specific visa, J wasn't asking for help per se. But the guy said, "Hey, I think there is a law that with your kind of visa, you get the choice of school for your kids". WHAT? 

The law was holding us back, and now another law let us in! The school asked J to show him this law and he did, and they said okay! Tobin and our friend's daughter were put in with the first of 4 tiers of groupings to be let in the school. We were so amazed and thankful. 

Fifty students, one teacher.

Here they all are! The older girls were SO excited Tobin was joining them.

First day:

Finally they got the uniforms. This was the real first day.

Gabrielle does tot school with me in the mornings and goes to her kindergarten in the afternoon. She loves it!

Don't try this at home. We are currently working on how to improve this situation. It is not as unsafe as it looks, really. Traffic is horrible, it would take 3x as long in a car.

And the homework...oh the homework! How else are you going to learn to write one of the hardest written languages in the world?

And it was a HOT day, so ya gotta get comfortable.
Sophia and Isabella have a ton of homework. And we only make them do HW for one class! Third and fourth grades are the hardest, things really pick up!

For this transition, I really slowed up on homeschool. We had a great first 4-5 weeks prior to this, so we slowed many things. Tobin went both morning and afternoon for the first 3 weeks to get him really used to it. Now he will just go in the mornings.

He actually does like being in school and is doing great. All of them are!