Dan Courage turned 5! His gift from us was a little green parakeet, who has since been named Kiwi. After two or three weeks of practice, Dan can now get him to sit on his finger! (still inside the cage). Dan is our boy who delights in holding little animals...baby chickens, snails, and earthworms are particular favorites. :) He says that Kiwi is still "learning to be his friend" and wants to get him finger trained enough to be able to take him out of the cage.
Glory Lynn is now a nine year old!!!! Now, you have to understand, Taylor has been looking forward to Glory being nine ever since she was born. He loves his little-bitties dearly, but there is a level of maturity and logic that happens around when a kid turns nine...they join his world a little bit more. Her present from us, (apart from a new paint job on her old bike) is that she no longer has to go to bed with the boys. Within reason, she can stay up and read /craft, etc. with the big people. :)
Friends: Monika is still living in our downstairs apartment and working for us, so she is a friendly face we get to interact with on a daily basis. Ever since going to the jungle with her extended family, we have also gotten the opportunity to know her brother and his wife a little bit. Taylor and the boys went fishing with them a week or so back. Later we were invited to eat with them. I'm so glad my kids have gotten used to being handed a whole grilled fish to eat with their fingers...they don't even bat an eye. ;)
Ariel is still a good friend and comes over either to visit or to work for Taylor often. He is missed if he doesn't come for a few days. :)
Sala Kairos:
Our downstairs study room is up and running! Or at least started finally! We're open downstairsTuesday and Thursday afternoons, though since we have Monika working for us down there, we do not have to be down there non-stop. Taylor set up a wireless doorbell so that we could know if we were needed without much hassle. It was really good to have our first few students to tutor this week...Taylor had lots of fun helping with math and physics, and two people came the other day to practice English.
(OK, one of them was Ariel, who perhaps doesn't count, but he was invaluable in not making the other student feel completely out of his comfort zone reading for the scary gringo lady. :) I have not taken any pictures while things are going on downstairs, so you'll have to use your imagination. :)
School: We are really enjoying homeschooling this year! Since we school year round (meaning that we school if we are here at home and don't if we aren't. ;), our school year doesn't switch over at the "proper" time of year. We do have a schedule, and we do level up to the next grade, it just doesn't happen in September, necesarily. That being the case, Glory is continuing 3rd grade; Levi is in 1st. Dan is learning how to read and write. Nate is learning how to play by himself until it's time for Mama to read him a book or Dan is ready to play outside with him. We hope Noah sleeps through most of it. ;)
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| call it woodshop??? He's helping Papa sand. :P |
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| ...big brave boy. blowing bubbles. biking backwards :) |
