Adoption

I am so behind on blogging.  I am going to try to catch up over the next few days.  First on the list...Scott and I have decided to adopt.  We have been talking about it for years--ever since we found out Lilly had a genetic disease.  We never could commit and then God blessed us with Emory.  Now that we have her, Scott and I both know that we want more children.  The risk of having another sick child has weighed heavily on both of us.  Adoption eliminates the risk and allows us to grow our family.  We haven't decided whether or not we will have anymore biological children.  We both felt God led us to have Emory with some very special words of encouragement and we are open to that possibility again.  Right now we are just really excited about adopting the next member of our family.

The adoption process is very long and involved and given the extreme financial burden it could place on our family, we have decided to adopt through DHS.  The child that we adopt will be in the custody of the state of Oklahoma and all parental rights will have been terminated.  The state doesn't charge anything for adopting these kiddos but as you may know, it is very difficult to get a healthy infant.  Due to our prior experiences and the fact that we have two kids at home, we have opted not to do foster care.  This would probably speed the process up somewhat, but Scott and I both think it would be too difficult for us and for Liberty.  We would really like to get a healthy boy between the ages of 0-18 months and of any race.  This is our dream scenario, but we are obviously open other opportunities as they present themselves.

Before the state will even consider placing a child with us, there is a ton of paperwork and 27 hours of classes we have to attend.  So far, we have mailed the adoption application, background checks, and our Texas Child Abuse/Neglect registry checks.  So, the process is underway.  I hope by this time next year we will be welcoming our new little one.

5 months olds

Wow!  This year has flown by and now Emory is 5 months old.  She is so much fun.  She is officially older than Lilly was when she first got sick.  It is a milestone I have been anxiously waiting for.  Even though she demostrates daily how different she is from her sister, I am always anxious for her to do things that Lilly couldn't do.  So, on to the things that make Emory special and wonderful.

She has recently discovered that if she puts her fingers in her mouth and blows that she can make lots of cute noises and bubbles.  She spends a great deal of the day amusing herself in this way.  She often stick her fingers, or in some cases her hands, so far into her mouth that she gags herself.  However, this doesn't seem to discourage her.

If her hands aren't in her mouth, she is diligently trying to place some other object in there.  As she gets her hands on something, it immediately gets shoved in her mouth.  Her hand/eye coordination is getting better every day.  She can usually grab whatever she is after.  She is still trying to master the art of actually holding onto things.

Emory and Hannah (her cousin)

My favorite accomplishment so far is her new ability to roll over.  I was really discouraged at her four month appointment when she was showing very few signs of wanting to roll over.  Her pediatrician told me to call her if she wasn't rolling over by 5 months because that could be an indication of a gross motor delay.  Needless to say, as 5 months drew closer I started to get a little panicky.  However, just days before the deadline, she managed to roll from her stomach to her back!  I am so proud of her.  Since we have been practicing, I actually managed to catch her rolling over for the first time on video.  (please try to ignore my very loud praises :))

My biggest problem with Emory is that there doesn't seem to be a diaper on the market that can contain her...umm...poo.  Just about every single day she has a major blowout that requires a complete change of clothing.  Unfortunately this often happens in stores and restaurants.  Scott has even began to question my ability to properly put on a diaper and has asked me to visit the website to ensure I am doing is correctly!  I guess I am going to start putting her in size 3 as soon as the 2s run out.

Emory loves Liberty.  She laughs at Liberty more than any other person.  It is so sweet.  They seem to have such a special connection.  I hope it will always be that way.

Just last week Emory got sick for the first time.  Thankfully, it isn't anything major.  It seems like an allergy.  Her has watery eyes, runny nose, and sneezing.  All that remains is a stuffy nose.  She never seems discouraged by the fact that she can't always breathe out of her nose.  She is such a good baby.

More miscellaneous facts...

1. She still loves to sleep with her fuzzy blankie although she is much less fussy about it than last month
2. She still has blue eyes
3. She weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 pounds
4. She has virtually no hair and what little she does have is dark blond
5. She still smiles and laughs more than any other baby I have ever known
6. She has discovered her feet.
7. She is so close to being able to sit unassisted.

She is truly amazing.  Scott and I always talk about how very special she is.  I am so thankful for God's goodness and for His sweet words of encouragement.  We are so so so in love with her!

D is for Dinosaur!

"Big and small, God made them all."

Dionosuars!  How could this unit not be fun!  When we started this unit I was a little worried about how I would explain creation vs evolution to a 5 year old and I had a slight panic moment.  However, my worries were completely unfounded since it never occurs to Liberty that there is any other way for creatures to exist if God did not create them!  Since this was not an issue, I decided to avoid evolution all together.  Instead of using an encyclopedia or other mainstream science resource to study the different dinosaurs I bought a book called Dinosaurs by Design by Duane Gish.  It is SO good and there are a ton of dinosaur picutures and descriptions.  We also read What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs? by Jon Morris and Ken Ham.  This book focuses primarily on The Flood and creation research rather than information on individual dinosaurs.  It is also very good.

We also took a field trip to the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History in Norman.  I had never been but I knew they had dinosaur exhibit.  I was really impressed.  For such a small museum, it was really well done.  The exibit included a giant Apatosaurus, the largest Pentaceratops skull on record, and a Saurophaganax.  Liberty loved it.

Saurophagonax

Apatosaurus (this picture doesn't do justice to its actual size)

Pentaceratops (Guiness Record holder for the largest dino skull ever found)

There is also a hands-on area of the museum that includes a dinosaurs dig.  Unlike the dinosaur digs that Liberty has done in the past where bones are basically thrown into a sandbox, these bones were buried in a mixture of sand and wax to create a more realistic excavation site.  This was Liberty's favorite part although she gave up pretty quickly!

Liberty digging for dinosaurs

For fun I baked the girls dinosaurs and letter D shaped cookies.  A few months ago I bought a collection of 101 cookie cutters at Wal-mart for $10!  I was really excited to get them out.  Liberty also used them with her playdoh.

There is a great dinosaur lapbook at homeschool share as well.  We added a small flip book of dinosaurs from our trip to the museum.  I also wanted Liberty to get some extra handwriting practice so I created a fun dino handwriting worksheet.

I felt like we were super busy with this unit, but it was so much fun!

The Oklahoma Territorial Museum

Yesterday I took Liberty to the Oklahoma Territorial Museum to learn a little about the history of Oklahoma and to celebrate Oklahoma becoming a state on November 16, 1907.  The museum is primarily dedicated to what life was like in the Oklahoma territories before statehood.  If I had been more prepared, Liberty and I would have spent more time this week exploring Oklahoma history.  I was completely unaware of our State's birthday until a couple of days before.  I guess that will go on the calendar for next year :).  Nonetheless, we enjoyed spending the morning at the museum.

Halloween 2009

I LOVE getting the girls dressed up!  This year Liberty decided she wanted to be a cheerleader...again.  I decided to dress Emory as a cheerleader as well.  Of course, if my girls were going to be dressed as cheerleaders, they had to be cheering for OU!  Scott is a Texas fan and hates OU (I really think its primarily to get on my nerves.)  He is such a good sport though and watches all the games with me--even if he does cheer for the other team :(.  So, Liberty was dressed as an OU cheerleader, but all night she was telling everyone she was a Texas fan.  She always says "We like the Longhorns."  Its so cute I don't even mind.  Here are the pics from Storybook Forrest and the fall festival at Village Baptist.

U is for Us

God made us Wonderful!

This unit Liberty focused on the letter U.  Each week we are giving special attention to one letter while continuing to work on other reading a writing skills.  This unit took us a little longer than normal because we went to a little vacation in the middle (just one of the more brilliant things about homeschool--we can come and go as we please!)

Liberty is really getting good at reading and spelling three letter, short vowel words.  I have to admit I was blown away by how quickly she is picking it up.  I can ask her to spell just about any three letter, short vowel word and she can do it no problem.  For some reason, it is easier for her to spell words I say then for her to read them herself when they are already written down.  I know it will click soon.  During this unit I decided to make Liberty some short vowel cards she could practice with.  Each card has a picture and Liberty matches the correct word with the picture.  She loves doing these more interactive activities.

Our science topic this week was "Us."  We did a basic overview of our bodies and then focused on the five senses.  I love to do lapbooks whenever we can.  It's a great way to introduce new material and I really feel like Liberty gets more out of it because she is actually creating something in the process.  I couldn't find a lapbook I liked, so for this unit I created my own.  For my first lapbook, I thought it turned out good. 

My favorite part was adding the smells.  Liberty also thought this was really fun.  I wish I could think of a way to make the smells last longer, unfortunately they fade.  Does anyone remember the scratch and sniff stickers that were so popular in the late 80s.  I had a ton when I was a kid.  I thought about using something like that, but I didn't have the slightest idea where to find them.

We read several different books for this unit.  My favorite was "The Listening Walk" by Paul Showers.  It is so good.  After reading it, Liberty wanted to go on a listening walk.  The only problem was, she wanted to do more talking than listening :).

Four Months Old

This post is a little late because we were out of town, but our Emory is four months old!  I say it every month, but I can't believe it!  Time is flying by SO fast.  She is currently at one of my favorite baby ages--the phase where they are fully becoming aware of their surroundings and developing appropriate responses.  Her little personality is really coming through now.

My favorite thing about this month is that she has started making all kinds of new sounds.  Its like she has discovered that the sounds coming out of her mouth are actually hers!  She is exploring her full range and talking up a storm.  She has also started laughing more.  I never know what is going to make her laugh, but fake sneezes seem to be a consistent favorite!  This video of her talking is too cute (if you are reading this on facebook, you have to go to my blog to see it--too cute!)

She is still waking up at least once a night to eat, depending on what time I feed her before we go to bed.  She is now able to go 8 hours without eating, although she rarely does :).  Our chunky monkey now weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 pounds.  I will know for sure on Monday when I take her for her 4 month WCC.

In between feeding she is sleeping fairly well.  She no longer needs to be swaddled.  However, she has developed quite an attachment to her pink and white blankie.  She thinks she needs it to both take naps and sleep at night.  She grabs it with both of her hands and rubs it on her little face until she falls asleep.  It is possibly the most adorable thing I have ever seen.  The only problem she seems to have sleeping is when her binkie falls out of her mouth.  Sometimes it doesn't bother her and other times it wakes her up and I have to give it back to her.  Its really annoying when it happens.

Until yesterday she has shown no interest in rolling over.  However, yesterday she started rolling onto her side, so I expect she will be rolling over in the next few weeks.  I also learned yesterday that I can no longer leave her unattened on the furniture.  Even though she is not rolling over, she is strong enough to kick herself to the edge of the couch and push herself off.  Or, in this particular instance, do a complete backflip and land on her face!

She doesn't appear to be getting any more hair.  It is now completely blond and virtually translucent.  You have to look closely to see that she has any at all except for this one particularly long piece that sticks straight up on top.

I have also discovered that she has very elfish-like ears.  They stick out only on the top, which make them look more enormous than they actually are.  Aparently this is genetic because her Great Great Grandfather has the exact same ears.

She is also developing better hand/eye coordination and can sometimes grab objects she sees.  This skill is still being developed and she is only successful a fraction of the time.

She is now big enough and has enough coordination and head control to play in her exersaucer and other similar toys.  She still really loves to swing.  I am going to have to find her a bigger swing since she is quickly approaching the weight limit on her infant swing.

She still likes to nurse every 3 hours or so.  I am trying to stretch that to 31/2 hours whenever possible.  She definitely isnt lacking in the calorie department.  I have decided to wait until she is 6 months to start solid foods.  So far she doesn't seem to mind :).

She still doesn't seem to mind when other people want to hold her although her Mommy is still her favorite person.  She still loves to be talked to and will smile and giggle at just about anyone.  She continues to be one of the best babies I have ever known.  She rarely cries and is so easy to please and entertain.

We are all still so captivated by her.  Liberty always whispers in Emory's ear that she loves her more than anyone else in the whole world--more than Mommy loves her and more than Daddy loves her.  We are so blessed to have her and we are all so in love with her.