Drawing, Parties, Ballet, and Back Pain

David's Uncle Bobby, who died recently, gave us an incredible art kit many years ago. It was pretty advanced for the kids back then, but I pulled it out and handed it over! It is very detailed about how to draw certain things with different mediums like charcoal, etc. 

Isabella drew this:

 And Gabrielle this:

The girls are still into their ballet class, which has been great for them, though the timing is not:
Friday nights 8:20-9:40. Seriously.

After our English class a few weeks ago many folks headed over to a birthday party of Sophia's table mate at school.

Sophia's class had a team practice and Tobin joined in. They scrimmaged and Tobin had an assist on a goal by Sophia. Hilarious.

And the woes of David's shoulder and back have been ongoing. The pain is something docs say surgery probably won't fix. He usually works himself out of it and gets better. But this has been a stretch of serious pain, serious interruption of sleep, which is a serious damper on daily life. But as it is it is bringing us closer to the Father, and teaching us a ton about our weakness, dependence, and joy outside of circumstances.

David has decided to avail himself of local things that people swear by. Well, Acupuncture for one, which is well practiced and proven, so that is not too out there. He also found a local trigger-point specialist who has helped  a little bit. And one of our closest friends, with similar chronic pain issues, swore by this 'poultice' stuff, of who knows what. It was my job to massage it on his back and shoulder. We do know that there was goat fat/oil in it, and some stinky stuff...hence my garb (as I applied the stuff, we joked about what was in it, and I kept saying: 'in sickness and in health babe' it really STUNK):

Home School Room Renovation

With new budget for the year, we decided to renovate our home school room as we move into every one home-schooling (crazy!). Though I have already been doing things with Gabrielle, she will officially be a part of the Coker Academy in K5 in the fall. And Sophia starts 6th grade!!!! 

This wall had their desks (desks that had little spots to put books at the back). And this was our CC wall. 

Before:

After:

Pinterest helped me design this and at the last minute we decided to do the whole wall-long desk with 4 drawers. I measured, measured my notebooks, and re-measured. The guy who helped with this was so nice and accommodating. 

Here's the rest of the room from other angles.

we do use our window nook too!

This is our new CC little spot, and the white board that I teach on daily.

 The right corner of this is also new, a stand-up desk, or to be used with a stool. We plan to make this our computer center, possibly.

We LOVE the reno, and just reorganized our dividing wall and living room to make it more 'floating' more open and inviting all the way around.

Water Splashing 2018

We can't NOT post our water splashing festival fun! Three days off of school for a water fight...

Gabrielle had a celebration at her school before the break, bring a bucket and flowers to douse.

On day one these girls had had enough by 2:30
hot bath, hot chocolate, Oreos and 'tea party'.

 Isabella decided to paint instead.

 Later on, after much water-fighting, these two came home and enjoyed drying off in the sun, sipping their hot chocolate.

 The next day we invited Isabella's friend to join us for the day and then our long-time friend/neighbor also joined the hot chocolate fun. Yes, those are sand toys, Gabrielle came in early and we got out the play sand!

Another one for the books. Happy Water Splashing Festival!

April: 'Tech-Wise', Soccer, Sabbath, and More

David just finished the book: 'The Tech-Wise Family', and now I am reading it. We already consider ourselves weird for our longing to NOT go so 'techy' so fast with the kids.... our family has one ipad, we only use it when we travel, and then not too much. However, I am often saying, 'they need to learn to type--and quick, or I wish she had a phone', and David pulls me back. I am so thankful for his leading here. I often ask parents of teenagers tons of questions about social media, when to do the 'phone' thing, etc.  And David and I are just completely uneasy about all of it. So we are staying away from it, hopefully for a good long while. And this book just encouraged us that we aren't the only ones. 

We know none of these things are 'bad' and while we love our iphones, we are thankful for the new inspiration to hold fast to what we know for the sake of our kids' childhood and their ability to relate well in the way God intended them (us) to: in real relationship with one another. This reminded me of the awesome book (a cultural critique) "Ten ways to destroy the imagination of your child". 

All of these things have come together to help us stay the course and make some minor changes in our personal phone use and the actual design of our home (not sure about this), family time, video watching, and family movie nights. 

It helped a ton that our DVD player broke last week and no one uses DVD players around here so getting it fixed or finding a new one is not too easy. 

So, on our date night, which is usually when the kids watch a video (to help our helper out), there was no video to watch. They finished up homework and then put together a play/performance that was hilarious and well done! This was all inspired by the 'stage': a tension rod with sheet and mats.

Each person had a part. Iron Man, Mystery man, as he was called.

Leader/choreographer of the ballet portion.

And all on stage at the end, giving proper bows.

another time during the week, ballet performances...






I love that the kids get art at school, it is hit or miss at home, and the guilt sets in until they bring home some fun art creations.

paper folding....

Her school needed a photo. Pretty young lady growing up.


This is not the school soccer team, this is her class team playing intramurals. They are 2-0 so far, with three more games to go to see who is number one for 4th grade. There is one girl on the school team whom Sophia is good friends with, this girl will go to Beijing next month to begin her soccer career. While her stamina and speed may need a little work, she has the best foot skills we have ever seen (at least for her age). We joke about seeing her on the big screen one day and it looks like it could be in the making.

We are also re-working our idea of Sabbath and our Shabbat meal. We used to do an every 6 weeks do-it-up extra special. Now weekly we do a candle-light meal where we bless each other and talk more intentionally about what's on our hearts and how the week has gone. It is not very formal though it sounds like it, but it is focused. I spend Saturday in prep for this with cooking. 

This was Sunday morning breakfast on our 'veranda' (Ha!). The trampoline was temporarily moved, so the yard looks even more spacious. Though it gets HOT in the afternoons, so far these April mornings are awesome feel-good weather.

Dinner rolls, from a recipe in 'The Bread Bible', these are delicious, and accented our Sunday soup wonderfully.

And for the tidbits. As part of English class, these two do videos with what was learned for the day. I accidentally took a picture while videoing. They love to do funny stuff at the end (and their friends like it too). (look closely and you can see the theme was 'school')

After doing school with me in the mornings, Gabrielle helps our helper help our household (say that three times real fast). Making ice is a must!

And she likes to 'swing' on this contraption in Daddy's office, which is really a workout thing.

And play with the batcave, of course. All in a little girl's day's work!

More April Round-ups coming up.

Tobin turns 7!!!

Tobin's birthday falls between two big holidays around here: Tomb Sweeping and Water Splashing Festival. This always makes navigating dates and invites extremely hard. I finally got the announcement about when school would be out (and then the make-up day, which always on the weekend) and we decided to celebrate the night of his actual birthday. I planned this thing in 24 hours. David thought it was great because I was stressed for 24 hours not 4 days (LOL). I was thankful for this too. 

We already knew he wanted a 'Transformers' birthday party. I just hoped kids would show up. It was the last day of school before break, so many said they could not come. But we had our teammates' 2 boys come and then 4 other from his class and one from the neighborhood, so this turned out perfect.

Chinese school was bright and early but we still did some gifts before going: Iron Man costume (thanks to some friends!)

The girls got him a new skateboard that he really wanted.

The chocolate chip pancakes, of course!

And a big, new bike, that is quite snazzy! He loves it.

Poppy and CC got him a watch he has been wanting, and Granddaddy Johnson sent a real card with real American dollars in it (oohs and ahhs from the Coker kids)! Such blessings all around! We can't leave out the ever thoughtful Aunt Beth who consistently sends us cards in the mail or email, she sent an e-card that delighted Tobin, it was hilarious!

For his cake he wanted cream cheese chocolate chip cookie bars (yes, I will absolutely make you those!) We kept these for the fam since most locals do not like cheese or things real sweet/rich.

 We put the obnoxious music candle on it.

Before the party we decorated with Transformer stuff and as always, start with coloring pages.

The first few friends to arrive.

We had a few games. Always pin the part on the transformer (which incidentally are harder to draw than Yoda), and a sit on the balloon and pop it game. This was a relay that proved harder than most thought.



And then the best game...I gave each team a box of stuff (paper rolls, clips, paper, pipe cleaner, cups, etc.) they had to build a 'robot' or transformer, going for coolness of design. Little did I know that more than one team actually made something that could transform. They did awesome and everyone enjoyed it.

 
The crew at the table

The cake for the party was store bought bakery made, and I creatively (???!!!) put a transformer toy on top.

 Towards the end the guys found dress up clothes and we had good laughs.

Crazy loons...so much fun.

Tobin at 7 is growing up! He is in full swing of homeschool, reading and doing math with mommy, as well as history, Bible, and CC. He is also doing pretty well in Chinese 1st grade. He loves legos, building things, and riding his new bike. He makes friends easily, and this year signed up for after school soccer, and he's not half bad :). He is still a jokester and very well could be his class clown!