Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is hands down my favorite holiday.  It has everything to do with family and food; it is the one celebration that hasn't been turned into a consumer frenzy and candy gorging free for all; it can't be secularized (although the godless media tries) because it begs the question of "to Whom are we Thankful?"  I am so thankful to God that my husband is the man that he is, taking care of his family and sacrificing time with them to protect and secure the freedom of many.  I am also thankful that I have wonderful parents to stay with during the holidays while my brave husband is overseas.  We celebrated Thanksgiving a week early this year to accomidate work schedules.  My uncle and his family drove down from Wyoming with my other aunt who flew in from Florida.  My sister and her family came up from Las Vegas and we had a FULL house for the weekend but it was great and I wouldn't have had it any other way.  The girls both slept in my room and did great, I even loved hearing the peals of laughter way to early in the morning becase they were making each other laugh.  My two cousins, Janna (15) and Johnnie Leigh (13) were so great with the girls, and the girls adored them.  Just yesterday Faith announced that she was going to live in Wyoming with them!  In addition to a bounty of delicious food, all of the women (and there were a lot of us) went down to the Cedar City Aquatic Center and had a blast playing in the warm (indoor) pool.  It was a wonderful celebration and I am thankful that God has blessed me with such a family.



 

A Quick Trip to Salt Lake City

Because we were so close, I decided it would be really nice to spend some time with our good friends the Foxes who we knew in both Virginia and Illinois and are now stationed at Hill AFB in Salt Lake.  So, I loaded up the girls in the wee hours of the monring and took the 5 hour-ish drive to Salt Lake at the beginning of the month (sorry I am just now getting this on here).  Jon and Jenn have a 3 1/2 year old who Faith just adored and a 4 month old who is the spitting image of his dad.  It was so nice to hang out with this great couple and I am so glad our kiddos had a great time playing together!

Faith loved pulling her Dolly around in Kathleen's little wagon.  By the time I took this picture we'd been outside for a while and I think the cold had zapped away the smiles but they really did enjoy it, I promise!

Faith August - 2 Years, 7 Months

Faith is very nurturing and loving; she doesn't like anyone crying or having owies.  Her goal in life is to make Rebekah laugh and I just love that.  We've had some sharing issues and first time obedience is beginning to decline so I need to work on those things. 

Eating:

The amount that Faith eats at each meal has certainly diminished; though she still loves food, she just doesn't love as much of it.  She continues to eat well and I have started allowing her to take sips of my V8 and coffee at breakfast, both of which she really enjoys. 

Sleeping:

We were working on nighttime potty training most of this month and that really wreaked havoc with Faith's nighttime sleep.  After she stopped wearing diapers at nap time last month Faith asked if she could wear panties at night as well.  So, we started a sticker chart and I began waking her up before I went to bed to take her to the bathroom.  It started out really well and the waking her up at 10 or 11pm didn't affect her much at all and she was waking with a dry diaper.  About 2 weeks into it though she began waking again a few hours after I would wake her when I went to bed.  I would take her potty during the second wake up but she didn't always have to go.  Eventually the 2am wake up ended and she started waking at 6am and then not going back to sleep.  So, I was interrupting her sleep and she wasn't getting enough of it which led to a cranky kiddo and a tired Mama.  So, I decided we were done with nighttime potty training.  Her sleep got immediately better and we've still had several days of dry diapers!  On a humorous note, one day I was talking with Frank on the phone and Faith walked in to hear me tell him "I am so proud of you."  Faith pipped up with "Did Daddy have a dry diaper?"  It was hilarious! 

Skills:

Faith speaks incredibly well.  She has a huge vocabulary and her grammar is nearly flawless.  She does say "Rebekah and me" rather than "Rebekah and I" and she uses "got" occasionally when she should use "have" but I have met many adults who don't speak English as well as Faith.  She continues to love being read to but now she has started holding her own book and pretending to read while I am reading to her and Rebekah, repeating the last word or phrase that I say on each page. 

Play:
Faith's imagination play has really taken off this month.  She has played mama to her dolly for a year now but she has started really enjoying solo play because her imagination has just taken off!  She really enjoys her wooden doll family and puts them in her shoes which act as cars for the family members.  She also spends a lot of time "reading" and I am always amazed by the book she chooses from the library to just love that period, it is always something to do with babies or small animals.  It is sweet.  I got the girls an early Christmas present, a  Little Tikes School Bus Activity Gym.  I thought the slide would be the biggest hit in this toy but Faith really enjoys "driving" places as well, armed with her purse, books, and Dolly of course.  She drives everywhere, the swimming pool, the commissary, church, St Louise, Salt Lake, the med center, and (thanks to my dad for teaching her this one) the liquor store!



 

Our Schedule:

0800 - Wake up, get ready, breakfast

0900 - Sister play, free play (or errands and outdoor time), if we aren't running around I try to work in craft and chore here as well

1200 - Lunch, then whatever we didn't do in the morning (i.e., free play or outdoor time)

1415 - Nap (somedays it takes her a long time to fall asleep somedays not)

1630 - She is usually up by this time, although somedays I do let her sleep a few minutes later.  Snack, free play, solo play

1800 - Dinner, reading, bath, bedtime o/a 2001

Pottage of Lentiles

We read through Genesis 25:21-34 over the last week and a half.  Faith really loved coloring this story because there were two babies involved.  She rarely called them both Esau and Jacob, usually it was Esau and Faith or Jacob and Rebekah but she still learned the names :)

The first craft we did was making Jacob's bowl.  We made it from a clay recipe using salt, water, and cornstarch.  The craft and recipes came from http://www.dltk-bible.com/crafts/mbowl.htm   I let it dry for several days before we filled it with the pottage of lentiles later in the week.

 

I found all the ingredients for our pottage of lentiles on clip art and printed them out for both girls to tape (with double sided tape) onto a paper plate.  We talked about each ingredient and then I let them color on te back. 

Finally, we made a pottage of lentiles using this recipe: http://www.hungrybrowser.com/phaedrus/m0712M04.htm

It actually turned out pretty good, although the bowl that Faith made earilier in the week didn't really work well for an actual bowl for her so she used it to feed her Dolly. 

Rebekah Joy - 13 Months

My little pumpkin is such a cutie! This has been quite a busy month for Rebekah and she has borne it remarkably well.  We temporarily left Arkansas to stay with my parents in southern Utah for the remainder of the year.  She has been inundated with new sights, new people, new places, a new bed, and has kept her smile through it all.
Sleep:
Although it was a little rough during the first few days after our arrival in the west, her nighttime sleep continues well.  She, her sister, and I all managed to share a room on several occasions at my sister's house in Las Vegas as well as visiting some friends in Salt Lake City and we all slept very well  in such close quarters.  Although I don't think she is ready to drop her morning nap, she doesn't necessarily need it everyday.  Towards the end of this month I have begun experimenting with giving her a morning nap two days out of every three.  My goal is for her afternoon nap to be longer than 45 minutes or an hour which is where is started to get to around the middle of the month.  We are still in the trial phase right now but it seems to be working.
Eating:
She continues to eat like a little piggy, after I make sure she gets all her milk which is 18oz a day (8 at breakfast, 5 at lunch, and 5 at dinner).  We have had a few incidents with fish and chicken in her refusing to eat them.  I offer her whatever I think she is going to like the least as the first course in her meal and nothing else until she finishes that.  I have also started correcting her for crying when she sees what I put on her tray.  Really she only cries when she sees that it is meat.  Veggies, fruit, bread, cheese, she does great with all of those.
Skills:
My sister lent us my niece's walker and that has really helped improve Rebekah's walking skills.  At the beginning of the month she was straight kneed in walking but now she is cruising everywhere and bending both her knees when you walk with her.  She has learnt to roll a ball and I know she is trying to say "sister" when she sees Faith.  She is also imitating our speech a great deal and blabbing away all the time.  She still has yet to attempt to say "Mama" but we hadn't been her a week and she was already working on "Granddad"!  She has also started to dance! 
Play:
Her solo play has actually started to improve.  I don't know if my playing the Mozart Horn Concertos during her solo play has helped but she is quieter now!  She has solo play in her bed here in Utah so I can watch her on the camera and she does a lot of laying down clutching her doll or other stuffed animal that I give her to play with but there is some play that goes on as well.  She and Faith are doing very well with Sister play.  I actually do it in my room while I am getting ready in the adjoining bathroom and it works well.  There are 2 play areas in the house here in Utah and Rebekah enjoys the different toys in both of them and is good about respecting Faith's bin as being off limits until a toy is taken out and left by her sister. 
Our Schedule:
This is a lot more fluid now that we are at my parents' house, who are both retired but this is loosely what we do each day:
0800 - Wake, dress, breakfast, sister play
0915 - Freeplay upstairs (if it is a nap skipping day we try to go out to the park, pool, or run errands here)
1030 - Nap; I wake her at 1130 if she isn't already up
1130 - Kitchen play
1200 - Lunch
1245 - Outside time (walk, park, etc.)
1400 - Nap
1600 - Snack, Freeplay with Mommy, Freeplay downstairs, solo play
1800 - Dinner
1845 - Reading time, bath, Bible story, bedtime o/a 2001

 

Isaac has 2 As

10/7/12 - UPDATE
For our second go round with Isaac and Rebekah, I found this great song/hand motion poem here and the girls both loved hearing it and acting out the story!  For our first craft we revisited the water pitcher craft from last year (but updated it using old water bottles). 

We also made bracelets like those given to Rebekah by Abraham's servant (although these were made of pipe cleaners and foam shapes rather than gold).  Faith insisted on making 2 each to conform to the story, I just love her little attention to detail!



 

11/6/11 -

This was the first Bible story time we did where a name in the Bible was someone Faith knew, namely her sister, Rebekah.  Although I think it might have confused her at first but she figured out that her 1 year old sister had never ridden on a camel.  It was also great timing because we'd been talking about my ring and how that meant I was a wife, and then we had to point out every one's rings to show whether they were a husband or a wife and Genesis 24:67 states that Rebekah "became his [Isaac] wife" and she was proud of herself that she knew that the Biblical Rebekah must have worn a ring. 
We read Genesis 24:4, 12-26, 58-67.  Our first craft was making bracelets like the ones Abraham's servant gave to Rebekah.  Ours were not gold however, they were beads!

Our next craft was a water pitcher, like the one that Rebekah carried on her shoulder.  I printed out Genesis 24:13-14 and Faith helped me tape it with packing tape onto a water bottle with a pull top, one that she could open on her own.  When she is older and we repeat this craft (and we will because she liked it) I'll give her a pitcher with a screw cap.  She poured her water into Lady's water bowl since we don't have a camel trough! 

Of course we had to make one for Rebekah too!  She wasn't interested in carrying it on her shoulder as her namesake did but she still loved the craft.

Finally, I made a camel out of an egg carton and Faith painted it.  Painting is one of her favorite things so of course this was her favorite craft!  I didn't have any brown paint so I asked her what color she wanted to paint the camel and her answer "yellow and maybe some pink too."  What an awesome looking camel!  http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mcamel.htm