Reunited

Ebony and Ivory

The kid came home saying, "Working is so much fun!"  And I do believe that I heard Truman give a cheer from Heaven!

In between gulps of my oat straw infusion...

Wow.  Has it been a whirlwind!  Thankfully, the craziness has calmed down, and now I can breathe again.  "Hu, hu, hee" and a giant lion's breath!

Where do I even start?  Let's see... after finishing up the festive time of year with an outing to The Nutcracker (which went so well, considering I had the three kids alone), we focused on our "lasts" with some of our students.  We took C., C., and Rafiki up North so that they could have fun in the -15 Fahrenheit, you know, Wisco-style.  We, including the kids, tubed, cross-country skied, played some broomball, rode the snow mobile, etc.  And then we came home to have a good-bye Cristian, hello Diana party.

Unfortunately, the best photo of us all is this ridiculous one.  Ay!  Well, here we are with our beloved Cristian, all decked out in our ponchos llaneros, from Yopal.

Since then, we've been settling in with Diana, how we usually do, with lots of rounds of Spot It, thank you, Wetzels, and lots of reading aloud.  We are so thankful for our new student.  God, bless her!

What else?  Oh yes, the twins sang in the church choir for the first time last weekend.  They did so well.  It makes me so happy that they are finding their place in the church.  We also started our "MamA WILL make it through the winter" distractions: the Domes every Monday and the art museum each Friday, thanks to Tati and Tato.

I told the kids to put on some more elegant clothes for the museum, and this is what I got.  Not bad!

O!  And let's end with our family's new trick: the Stensberg Stack!

The Preacher-Ma

Ha!  So, this week with the twins, we are reading about Solomon building the temple.  During the reading, a question was asked that led to the following train of ideas:  the destruction of the temple, the Wailing Wall, "Why not rebuild it?", Israel and Palestine and all of THAT, the Living Temple, etc..  That looks short, but it took a while to try to explain it all in Spanish to 6 and 7 year olds.  Nearly at the end of my ¨lesson,¨Ty said, ¨You sound just like Pastor Matt!¨ What a lovely compliment!

And even more Christmas-time fun!

A Kopp's treat!

Bunuelos a la Lizeth!

They are so happy, clad in their thermal sets!

More Christmas-time fun!

Rob's been baking cookies and I've been brewing chai.  The kids happily frolic in the snow, while our students take photos, photos and more photos of the Magical White Stuff.  Ha!

Ty, at a Christmas Concert for kids at our friend's high school.  He has been saying that he wants to study cello, and so he got to try it.

Dancer Sophie and The Girls.  Their class danced at a retirement home to spread the cheer.

Our house is full, and I love it!  Over the next month we will have so many dear students in and out, on air mattresses, on sofas... I am so happy to be able to share our home!  Thanks to God.

Catching up... again

Ach!  I am so behind!  And I feel like I need to record all of "this" so that the kids can remember their young life.

So, where do I begin?  With the theater!  Ty and I went to the theater together for the first time last week to see A Christmas Carol.  We both LOVED it!  I knew that of all of the kids, he would appreciate it the most... and he did.  However, he is having a very difficult time distinguishing between real and fantasy now.

Next up will be The Nutcracker.  I will be taking all of the little kids and one of the big ones.  Yikes!  It could be ugly.  But, hopefully, they will either pass out because it's during nap time or love it and be so engrossed that there will be no problems.

"What happened last night," you ask?  Oh!  Last night!  Well, the kids suggested a wrestling match with PapA.  While Rob was getting ready, or secretly folding laundry in the closet, the kids held a strategy meeting.  I heard Girumy say, "OK, Sophie, you'll pull his socks off.  I'll get on him because I'm the biggest.  And Ty, you get his renal insulation."  Ha!  Ty then asked me what exactly he should do with the renal insulation.  "Pinch it, of course!"  Then Rob came out...

... ready: with renal insulation protection!  Ha!

Then, the games began!

So much fun!

In the realm of books, we just finished reading Zoro, which our dear Linda suggested to us.  It was properly Colombo-fantastic... a bit too much so for me, but the kids are still forming their literary taste, so they dug it.  Then, this morning, we read a Christmas story which made me seriously cry.  -sigh-  My sweet Ty got up, fetched a hanky and proceeded to dry my tears.  Girumy went to my room to get my...

... bit of sun.  In the book Zoro, some magic helpers give the protagonist a piece of sun to protect him.  Girumy proceeded to make and give me a piece of sun, which I so desperately need right now.  

My sweet, sweet children.  I am so proud of how they, without prompt, took care of Sad Old Me.

And finally, my dear Colombian son, Cristian, has returned for a visit!!!  We love him so much and it's so good to have him with us.  God, bless him!

Around here

Ush.  The days pass so quickly.  It must be because I'm 40 now.  Ush again.

So, the cold and dreary has begun.  There are only a few green memories and hopes in the yarden now to cheer me: leeks, kale, parsley, lettuce and the baby garlic.  Thank God for bits of verdure!  (Can you tell that I've been reading Jane Austen?)

Somehow, pumpkin carving seems like so long ago, but we did have fun.  Rapha and Girum worked out a Mexican calavera and Carlos and Sophie stayed simple.  We had a judgment, and by a smidgen, Carlos won.

First-time pumpkin-carver, Carlos

Oh, and then, thanks to a piece of oh-so-chewy sourdough bread, we had our own little live Jack-o-Lantern!

The time between then and now has been filled with lots of...

... archery practice.  Yes, the kid made his own bow with a piece of wood and some rubber bands!  It is actually quite powerful and accurate for what it is.

And also lots of studying.  School is going quite well for us.  We are in a good rhythm and making progress.  We shall finish Term 1 of 3 next week.  I always love a new start!

Every day, at 9, we sit down and listen to our current composer (Dvorak) and then go on to read sections out of the day's books.  Quite a pile, no?  That's a hymnal (Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts), la biblia, Fifty Famous Stories, An Island Story, la enciclopedia, a world map, Our World (currently we're in the Middle East), a map of Asia, Aesop's Fables, Parables of Nature (Such a great book!), Fray Perico y su borrico, Mary Poppins and Oxford's collection of children's poetry.

They love to read a page ahead in their reading book, Coquito, so that when we get to that page, they know everything.  I love it!  They struggle together, WITHOUT me!

And, oh yes, let me not forget!  Music practice.  Oy, oy, OY!  Girumy LOVES to play his guitar (Gracias, Linda.), Ty is keeping the beat with chopsticks on his pillow drums and Sophie is usually the director, also wielding a chopstick, and singer.

G's first official guitar lesson was this week.  That's our beloved Michel, his teacher.  When he came home he was SO, SO happy, smiling incessantly.  

And, that pretty much (with the exception of that important trip two of my men took) brings us up to date.

Blooming right on time!

I have already started cooking for our big Colombian-United Statesian Thanksgiving Feast!  I've never made such a meal before, so I'm a bit unsure of myself.  It will be almost traditional... I mean, c'est moi after all!

TTFN!