10/10 Tidbits

Not really much news to pass along to you today, just some tidbits of information that you might be interested in - or if not, just ignore...

Happy belated Birthdays to my nephew Jared and my sister Karen, earlier this week! They're 10 and 20 now - where has the time gone?!

Our little girl is getting to be quite the reader! At preschool, they're learning one letter per week - what it looks like, what it sounds like, and what words start with that letter. Today was "E" sharing day. Kaylen took an egg carton and "The Ear Book". At home, we're working with her to practice writing her letters - especially the lower case ones, and also working on sight words and sounding out some easy rhyming words. She's doing so well - I'm so proud of her, and she's proud of herself. She'll start up with the attitude, saying, "I know how to spell ____", and spell it for us. So far she knows the following words: and, a, I, the, see, ride, on. And she can sound out many other short words if we help her with the vowel sounds.

We're also going to start working with Kaylen on numbers. She gets really confused between 6 and 9, and I think sometimes she misses 7 and 8 as well. She counts very well - up to the 30s, and beyond if we help her after the x9's, but she doesn't know what the numbers all look like. I'm working on a big chart to post somewhere. She's also started getting curious about the clock and telling time. So, what do we do when she starts to learn to tell time? Sometimes it's good that she doesn't know what time it is - like when it's only 7:30 and we decide it's "bedtime", instead of her normal 8:00. :)

It's a chilly week. I was hoping it'd go down about 10 more degrees so we could have our hard freeze, even if for just one night. The allergies have been horrible this fall! No such luck this week though, try again next week. The leaves sure are a-turnin'. It'd be a beautiful weekend for a drive/hike out in the country or along the lake - if only the wind would die down so those pretty leaves don't all blow away by then!

The cold weather a couple weeks ago (despite the 80s last week) got me thinking about winter gear for Kaylen. We got her a winter jacket, but I'm thinking I"m going to take it back. It's an impossible color to try to match for snowpants and boots (especially knowing she doesn't want black ones - she'd survive, but you should have seen her face when that was suggested!), and I was in another store today that had matched coat-snowpants sets for fairly low prices, and they'd would be easy to find boots to match too. We'll see...

I filled up my gas tank today for $2.44 per gallon - and I thought last week's 2.47 was good. Hope the downward trend continues - especially since we started the heater this morning. The tile floor was biting my toes this morning, and Kaylen was probably shivering at breakfast. I'm gonna have to get out my fuzzy slippers too!

We should have our monthly photos of Elijah & Josephine soon. We're so excited for the little bits of information and pictures we receive each month. This adoption process is a strenuous exercise in patience!

And, last but not least... For His Glory is starting to organize their Christmas drive for the orphanage. They want to be sure that each child has a gift to receive at Christmas. I assume that most children will be sponsored by their adoptive families, but some families may not be able to, and some children don't have adoptive families. The Christmas drive also includes a donation drive for Christmas bonuses for the staff, which by Haitian law, is to be equal to one month's salary. This doubles the December payroll, during a time when they are struggling financially already. If you'd like to participate in this, you may contact me, and I can forward your message on to the person organizing this. Or, you may be able to contact FHG's director through the website if you'd like to participate. It's hard to believe that Christmas is only a little more than 2 months away already!

I guess I had more news/info to pass along to you than I though. Tidbits are fun, aren't they?! I'll have to do this more often!