Katrina's creativity

 
      Now that we are back, Katrina is back to baking!  She made me homemade granola, and she made some apple turnovers.  Both recipes, she made up on their own.  Very creative, and good!

Talent Show Day

A short clip of Katrina singing the song that she and Bill wrote together.  There were many talented children in the show, singing, dancing, and even giving speeches.

In the morning, all three kids participated in the Art part of the Talent Show.

Katrina looking lovely in her dress.

   It was a fun and busy day!

Lost Innocence?

Katrina is turning 10 in April. The one good thing of being a missionary overseas is my children aren't exposed to media or many negative influences. (I didn't say any negative influences...)

She enjoys jump roping, playing hide and go seek, Simon Says, and even Ring a Round a Rosie. She does not own a cell phone, iPad, hand held video game, or iPod. She still plays with Barbies with her younger sister. She still likes Disney Princesses.

I am worried about how our furlough will change her. She will be going to 5th grade in a public school. I have to admit, I am worried that she will be teased for her innocence. I don't want her giving up games she loves because how others view her or tease her. I don't want her growing up too quickly. Because, you are only a kid once.

Am I totally freaking out over nothing? Or is there reason to worry?

I had to post a video of Katrina...

Katrina, age 6 years

Long Time, No Blog

I haven't been blogging in almost a month. We are all setttled into our new house in Moshono, and are loving the house. Our cat, Romeo, ran off for the first week but found his way home finally. The girls were happy to see him again. School picked up again after a week's break for the move, and we are going full speed. From now until the end of Sept, we will even be having school on Saturdays to make up for lost time. We'll finish 2nd grade/ Pre-K the last week of Sept, and start with 3rd grade/Kindergarten on Oct. 4th. Our "summer vacation" was a month off while the Eastview Group was here in July.

School is going MUCH better with Katrina, for those who are wondering. She has been more cooperative and responsive in school, and has even been reading books, and writing outside of school-time, a good sign I think. We decided to take a break from Audiblox (the reversal program) until 3rd grade, because it took so much mental effort for her that she was exhausted by the time school started.

Thanks to my parents, Katrina and Heather are joining Girl Scouts this fall! I am so excited; I loved being a part of Girl Scouts. I was excited to find out that my Girl Scout Council offers Postal Express Girl Scouts or, PEGS for short, which is Girl Scouting long distance! That is the perfect solution for missionaries over seas! So, I will be their "troop leader" unoffically, holding troop meetings and helping them earn badges. I think its going to be alot of fun.

On another note, we have another team coming in Sept from Rochester Christian Church, lead by our mission director for ACM, David Upchurch. He is bringing 3 lady nurses who will do some health teaching here for a little over a week. We are excited to be having guests again!

Well, I had alot of catching up to do!!

P.S. The picture above of the kids-- they are wearing new clothes from Kevin and Carla Short... thanks guys!

Doing better...

Bless, Billy! He had a wonderful idea for school and for the past two days, school has been MUCH nicer. He thought that each subject should have a definate time limit, and that when that time came, I should move on the the next subject instead of just continuing on indefinatly. School had been going on to 3 or 4pm, and Katrina's behaviour and attitude digressed during the course of the day. I was excited at the thought of finishing school by 1pm everyday, regardless of whether Katrina was "on-task" that day or not. So, I decided to give it a try.
We wanted to help motivate Katrina, so when we told her our new plan, we added that she could earn 5 minutes of time on her video game for each subject that she DID finish within the time allowed (30 minutes per subject). That put the pressure on her, and off of me to speed up the pace of school.
And it worked!! Praise God, it worked. She now is eager and excited to complete each subject and keeps asking, "How much time do I have left to finish Math/Writing/Reading/etc.?" I am amazed at how much she has been able to get on task.
She still gets distracted, but seems to be trying to get herself back on task alot more.
Thank you, Jesus!

School daze...

Ever since I have returned home to Arusha and my family Feb 15th, Katrina and I have been butting heads about homeschooling. We took a week off when I first got back, mostly because I was on jet lag. Then, we started school again, and I was shocked at how oppositional she had suddenly become. Seriously, she would sit and scream at me, or pout in the corner, or outright refuse to do anything regardless of the punishment. Yikes! So, in March, we took a much needed family vacation for 2 weeks to Dar to reconnect as a family, after I had been gone for a month.

We returned home to "life as usual", including school, and things have been doing better. She seems to swing between having good days and bad days, but the good days are starting to out-number the bad days. Praise God!

Even before all of these Behavior Issues, while I was back in the States, I was looking at material for some concerns I've had with Katrina's learning ability. (Not sure I'm saying it right??)... but I had some thoughts that she might be struggling with dyslexia or something similar (she often reads words backwards, and flips letters, etc.), as well as ADD or ADHD. Now, adding the behavioral issues on top of those two, makes school REALLY interesting. Not to mention we have a toddler that is very distracting, and Heather who doesn't mean to distract by her playing and singing, but does. Katrina is behind in phonics and reading (almost a grade level behind), but is doing really well in Math, go figure.

We are a little behind schedule with school, since we have taken so many breaks, but we will finish this school year in Sept, and will go right into 3rd grade. Please, everyone, if you could be praying for Katrina for her co-operation, concentration, and ability to learn and reading skills to improve. We are doing better, but we could still use the prayer!

PS. Heather is in K-4, and is starting to learn to read, and she loves it!

Teeth!

This has nothing to do with Christmas, but I had to put it in.

Jonathan has gotten 4 more teeth- all on the top, for a total of 6 teeth now. I hope they show up in the picture okay.

Katrina's 2nd front tooth is FINALLY coming in, but only after she lost the tooth next to it! I guess the other tooth was in the way. Now you can't tell the other tooth is even lost. I am afraid she has the same crowded teeth that I had. I forsee braces in the future!!

The first day of Swimming Lessons

If pictures are worth a thousand words, videos should be worth millions. Enjoy these short videos of Katrina and Heather at their first day of swimming lessons. They did great, and had lots of fun! We'll be going every day for the next three weeks. Fun!!

Heather swimming

Katrina swimming

Field Day

Today was Field Day at Katrina's school. We went to cheer her on. She was in two races, and in the "tire squeeze". I uploaded a video of the tire squeeze, so I hope you are able to download it. Go to the bottom to see the video.














Grandma and Heather cheering from the sidelines.

We used an umbrella to create some shade, it was surprisingly sunny!

Jonathan kept cool in the shade, with Daddy nearby.

I hope you can view the video!

Toothless grin

Katrina has lost her top middle tooth now... she looks like a real 1st grader now!

Two Wheeling it!

Katrina is offically "on the road"!

Katrina learned how to ride her bike without the training wheels today! Bill ran down the street with her once, holding the handle bars, and then I did once, and when I let go-- she took off! She started riding right away and never even fell down once. She has great balance, I guess. I remember it taking me MUCH longer to learn how to ride a bike (like several days!). Anyway, I wanted to post some pictures of the big event. Good job, girl!

In other news, Jonathan rolled over today for the first time (he's 1 month old today). I was very shocked, since that seems quite young to roll over. I am so proud of him.

All ready to go with all of her safety gear on.

Heather was very supportive and ran along beside her... but she is SOOOO ready to have a bike of her own too!

This was Jonathan's view of the event today...

Katrina's Bible Reading, etc.

I have to post this, because I am very proud of my daughter. We have been doing devotions with her at breakfast using a devotional book. We just got Katrina a NIrV Bible for her birthday, and today for the first time I had her read the verse that went along with the devotional.

At first she was nervous and said, "I'm not old enough to read the Bible. It's so big!" But, I encouraged her, and told her that her Bible was especially for those just learning to read. So, she gave it a shot, and she did just fine! She didn't even struggle to read, like she sometimes does. She was so excited to be reading it for herself, and I am so proud of her. We will continue this every morning, to encourage her Bible reading.

Praise God!

On a different, and totally unrelated note, I weighed Jonathan today (sort of-- I weighed myself and then held him and weighed myself again... not very accurate), and he weighs almost 10 lbs already! He's only 3 weeks old! You grow boy! :-]