Last Day of Summer

It seems like I was just letting my kiddos play with sidewalk chalk on the last day of school. And now...it's the last day of summer. Yep, I go back to school Monday for planning and then I meet my class Friday. School officially begins Monday the 9th.

Raleigh and I have been spending a lot of time praying for my new group of families- the parents and the kiddos. They really are kind of like your family during the school year. I mean I spend most of my awake hours each day during the school year with my class. I came across this John Eldredge quote from Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul. (Have you read it? It's a good book.)

“A woman of true beauty is a woman who in the depths of her soul is at rest…..she exudes a sense of calm, and invites those around her to rest as well……she speaks comfort….she offers others the grace to be and the room to become….in her presence, we can release the tension and pressure that so often grip our hearts…..Her spacious beautiful soul invites other to come, to be, to taste see that the Lord is good…A woman who makes herself vulnerable and available for intimacy invites others to do the same….in her presence, you can breathe again, you are free to be you….she unveils her beauty and invites you to life."

Oh how I long for this to be a picture of my soul. Especially when you are around children, they really do feed off your energy. When I am calm it truly does invite the children to feel at peace and comfortable in the classroom.

Lord, please calm my heart as I prepare to begin a new school year full of adventure, and reading, and friendship, and tears, and laughter, and math, and band-aids, and puzzles, and songs, and experiments, and discovery. Let me continue to discover You.

Zephaniah 3:17
The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
He will quiet you with his love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.

365 days...52 weeks…12 months…1 year

However you want to break it down, we’ve been “officially” waiting for our referral for one year. We started researching adoption and attending informational meetings in the summer of 2008, but it has been one year since all of our adoption paperwork, known as our homestudy, was approved. Raleigh and I are anticipating that we will hear from our social worker any day about scheduling a home study update. She will come to our home and basically talk to us and update any necessary information in our paperwork. I’m not sure if she will do a detailed tour of our home again, since she has already done this, but we will see.

Raleigh and I are thrilled to celebrate this fun milestone along our adoption journey. In honor of 12 months of waiting, I thought I would make a list of 12 things we have learned along the way.

1. When God calls you to follow him, he really will provide. (Did we have a savings account full of all of the money we would need to pay for this adoption? Absolutely not! Has God provided each time a large portion of the money is due? Without a doubt! There are creative ways to save and raise money.)

2. Supportive family and friends make the journey so much easier.

3. There is a relatively large Korean population in Atlanta. There are lots of Korean restaurants and stores. H-Mart is a great grocery store to buy ingredients for Korean cooking.

4. The Dol is a child’s first birthday celebration in Korea. Hopefully our child will be home by his or her first birthday so that we can incorporate this special tradition into his or her birthday party.

5. Going through the adoption process has opened our eyes to the vast needs of orphans all over the world. We are so incredibly blessed that our child will most likely spend time living with a foster family before he or she comes home. However, millions of orphans do not have this opportunity. Please pray for the millions of children that will go to bed tonight without ever being told “I love you” or “goodnight.”

6. Pororo is a cartoon character that is really popular in Korea.

7. Korean meals are served with lots of side dishes, known as banchan. You don’t have to order them, they just come with the meal.

8. Tae kwon do originated in Korea.

9. Holt International and Holt Korea are two different organizations. Isn’t that confusing? Holt International has an “online guidebook” that I tried to gain access to because I knew our agency works with Holt in Korea. However when I called and tried to figure it out, I realized that Holt International is based in the US and is totally separate from Holt Korea. I was totally confused about this for about 9 months.

10. Kimchi is served with almost every meal in Korea and is the ingredient in lots of recipes. It is basically spicy fermented cabbage. I’ve read that Koreans say “kimchi” when posing for pictures, but I’m not sure it there is any truth to that.

11. Korean babies usually sleep on the floor on a mattress. When our child comes home, he or she will most likely be used to sleeping on the floor with his or her foster family.

12. I am so thankful that I am on this journey with my best friend, Raleigh.

Korean Cooking Night 2

Last night we had our second Korean meal for the week - stir fried noodles and vegetables. It made A LOT of stir fry so next time I'll use fewer noodles. It was very good and I think we will try it again sometime. I might change one thing about the recipe....it has you cook the noodles first and then cook all of the vegetables and meat. I found that by the time everything was ready, the noodles were a bit room temperature instead of hot. I would probably cook the noodles last next time so that they would be really hot when served.


Yummy meal! Tonight we are trying sweet pancakes!

Mandu Update

Tonight was our first night of Korean cooking for the week. We made vegetable mandu, otherwise known as dumplings. We served it with Asian sticky rice and Publix sushi. It is a bit time intensive to prepare the filling, but we have a lot leftover that we will freeze and save for next time. In the end, it was worth the time and effort! We even found some Korean music on Grooveshark to enjoy while we cooked.

(Please ignore my disheveled hair and lack of makeup. I've been working in my classroom all day trying to get it ready for the start of school.)

Approaching 12...

12 months of waiting that is! This Friday, July 30, we will celebrate the one year anniversary of our homestudy approval date. In honor of this special day, Raleigh and I decided to cook a Korean dish each night this week. We got prepared today by taking a trip to H-Mart for lunch and groceries. Raleigh ordered bulgogi and I had kimchee fried rice. Yum!



We also found these cute Pororo tables! Pororo the Little Penguin is very popular in Korea! We didn't buy one, but they sure are cute!


So the menu for this week is....
(each menu item links to the recipe in case you are feeling adventurous and want to cook something new)

1. Yakimandu (dumplins)
2. Bee bim bop (mixed up rice with vegetables)
3. Hoddeok (sweet pancakes with brown sugar filling)
4. Japchae (stir fried noodles and vegetables)
5. Beosoeot Sanjeot (skewered pancakes)

I'll keep you posted as we start cooking!

Closet Cleaning Day/Weekend

We put the date on our calendar (just so we would really get it done before I start another school year) and the day is here...Today!

We have only lived in our house for two years, so the closets are not terribly unorganized, but we still need to go through and get rid of things we are no longer using.

Also, the main reason we are doing this is because the closet in the room that will become the nursery is full. Raleigh currently hangs all of his suits in there. We also have odd item in that closet such as extra computer bags, our scanner (that we don't want to get rid of but really only a couple times a year) and extra office supplies such as notebooks, printer paper, and printer ink.

So...the goal for the weekend is to reorganize the closets so that the nursery closet is empty and the other closets are simplified. Once we are finished, we'll see if we have enough stuff to have a yard sale, or if we need to just take a trip to Goodwill.
Happy Friday!

New Games for School

I've been making a few new games for school that I thought I would share. If you have a school-aged child and are looking for fun ways to practice sight words and basic reading skills, I recommend visiting Kelly's Kindergarten. I like her site because most games are in Microsoft Word format so you can easily change the letters/words to make the skill appropriate for any child. Even though the games are designed to be played a certain way (example: Memory) they can all be played in a variety of ways to keep things interesting!

Here are a few of the things I've made...

Sight Word Go Fish or Memory- Finding Nemo style

Raking Leaves Rhyming Game

Princess Color Word Memory

Monster's Inc. Color Word Memory

This game can be used with virtually any math or reading skill. Each child gets a puzzle base. All of the puzzle pieces are face down on the table. You also need an additional set of skill cards, or the teacher can orally ask questions. If the child answers correctly he or she gets a puzzle piece. If the child needs the piece to complete his puzzle, he keeps it. If not, he gives the piece to another player who needs it. The first player to complete the puzzle wins.

What's for Dinner?

When my parents came to visit us in April, my mom helped me plant a few pots of flowers and a pot of basil. Well, the basil is so yummy and has resulted in several batches of homemade pesto. Who knew making pesto in the food processor was so easy?

Well as I was making my menu/grocery list for the week I realized I had several tubs of homemade pesto with a little bit left in each tub. I'm not sure how that happened, but anyhow I decided to find a recipe to use all of the leftover pesto before it went bad.

Then I remembered the Hope's Gardens website. When Raleigh and I first moved to Atlanta, we rented a cozy little guesthouse in Buckhead. Our neighbors started making homemade pesto and selling it at the local farmer's market. The pesto was delicious and they now have a business called Hope's Gardens. You should go check it out for other yummy recipes. This is what I found....

Pesto Lasagna

Oven Ready Lasagna (this is such a time saver)
15 oz. container Ricotta Cheese
Shredded Cheese (select desired cheese) (use whatever you have in the fridge)
1 egg (I forget to put this in and it still turned out great)
Tomato Sauce (I used a jar of spaghetti sauce because that is what I had)
Hope’s Gardens Pesto
Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper
Drizzle Olive Oil in deep baking dish. In separate bowl blend ricotta cheese, 1 egg, 2 cups shredded cheese, 2 oz. of Hope’s Gardens Pesto, salt and pepper. Spread one cup of tomato sauce in baking dish, top with lasagna sheets. Spread 1/3 of blended cheese and pesto mix on top, repeat layering (tomato sauce, lasagna sheets, blended cheese mix) until you have three layers. Top with 1 cup shredded cheese and spoonfuls of Hope’s Gardens Pesto. Cover with silver foil and place in 375 degree oven for 45 to 60 minutes. Remove foil and cook for another 5 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before cutting.

I think it turned out yummy and it was SOO easy and inexpensive!

Better Late Than Never....pictures from the beach

Raleigh and I went to the beach the first week of June with my parents. Thanks mom and dad for a great trip! I have been going to the same beach since I was 6 weeks old and the daily routine is still the same....get up and eat a quick breakfast, go down to the beach and read, listen to the waves and take walks, go back up to the room and make a sandwich for lunch, enjoy the beach until you start to get hungry for dinner, go in and clean up and go out to dinner. What a perfect vacation.
(more pictures to come...the internet is not cooperating)

First Care Package Item

While we were out tonight we decided to go ahead and purchase a photo album for our care package. I know it might be a little early, but it will be fun picking out pictures.

Thankful Thursday

I know that God is the God of the Big things….healing cancer, sustaining families through tragedy, caring for orphans, restoring broken relationships. I know because I have experienced God’s faithfulness in my life. God is the God of Big miracles and He delights in these things.

But don’t forget that as His followers, God also desires to know us intimately and provide for our seemingly small needs. So…for my first Thankful Thursday I’d like to share an example of how God knows me personally and provides for even my smallest needs.

I’ve been going to the same hair salon since we moved to Atlanta 3 years ago. I did like my stylist, but he was not cheap. Recently Raleigh and I have been really trying to look at our finances and make sure we are being good stewards of our money. So I’ve been praying about ways to save money on my hair cuts. Raleigh and I actually went to the mall and I almost went to one of the salons in the mall (it would have been a huge savings) but I just couldn’t do it. I guess I am that prideful.

Anyway, at the beginning of May my stylist left the salon to start his own shop. I checked it out online but he was still charging the same amount for a regular hair cut so that didn’t really solve my problem. So I’ve just been waiting to get a hair cut. I figured I could at least wait until the start of school.

Well, one day when I opened the mail I noticed an envelope from my hair salon. They are trying to keep the clients that used to go to my old stylist by offering an incentive. The letter was basically a coupon to be used on my next three visits. I would get 30%, 40%, and then 50% off my next three visits. Also, my stylist used to have an apprentice, but now the apprentice has her own booth and her prices are almost half of what I was paying before. Yippee Jesus!!!

As if this wasn’t enough, a couple of weeks later I got another letter in the mail from my salon. This time it was a gift card for $150.00!!! WOW!!! See, God does care about us in ways that we cannot even fathom and He wants to bless us in ways that we cannot even imagine.

What are you thankful for today?

Spontaneity

I have never been one to be very spontaneous....well if I'm being honest, I'm really the opposite of spontaneous. I prefer to have a plan, but I am learning the joy of being more spontaneous.

Here is an example...the other day I bought a box of chocolate cake mix because it was on sale. Then, I got home and thought about when I should make the cake. I decided I should probably wait until next week because we are going to visit my parents in Nashville this weekend and so we wouldn't have time to eat the whole cake before Friday and the leftover peices might get old while we are away. When Raleigh got home he thought we should go ahead and make the cake. Why not? Why save everything for the "perfect" time. Just enjoy it now. I decided why not! So at 9:00 I baked the cake. We will enjoy a yummy bite when it gets out of the oven and it was fun being a bit spontaneous!

100th Post

I can't believe this is my 100th post. I had planned on some sort of fabulous topic (not quite sure what that would be), but as it turns out my 100th post will be about.....

school supplies.

That's right, school supplies. A teacher's heart just goes pitter patter when she sees the aisles of W*lmart filled with boxes of pointy new crayons, glue sticks galore, and folders in every color of the rainbow. We were at W*lmart looking for primary colored index cards. I'm making a few new games for the first month of school and index cards are the perfect size for mounting the game pieces I've made. Unfortunately, there were no primary index cards to be found...and we went to three different stores. Oh well...the pastels that I bought instead will do just fine. After all, the kids will never even notice.

Anyway, we came into W*lmart through the garden section, so we didn't see the school supplies until we were leaving. All you teachers out there know what I mean, when you see Crayola crayons on sale for 25¢, you just can't resist picking up a few boxes. At home In a kindergarten class, you can never have too many crayons!

Soft Baby Photo Albums

Once we recieve our referral, we will be able to send our child a care package. One item that we know we will include is a soft baby photo album. I've been looking for ideas and this is what I have found so far.