Thru the years

Five years ago today I received the referral of a beautiful bouncing baby girl, and what a girl she is!!


five year 2010

four year 2009

three year 2008

two year 2007

less than one year 2006

Tuki's Birthday

Yesterday was Tuki's official birthday. We celebrated last night with Kiki and friends R & W came over for a short visit. Tuki celebrated all day at Angie's school, 4K and then last night. Happy FIVE Tuks!!!

Downtime again

Didn't do much today either, but I am suffering from flu symptoms...enuf said. Hard to believe in only one day we will be back to the grindstone.....we sure are loving this downtime.

Texturized and Styled

Marly came over and texturized and styled all three of the girls hair today, and that is about all we did. We stayed home, took care of the animals, finished picking up from the party and just relaxed. It was wonderful!!

separating the hair and working the texture in with a tongue depressor

working it in deeply with your fingers making sure there are no dry areas

rinsing out

combing out the hair

she demonstrated hair extensions, it will be difficult at first for me but I think I can do it. Marly said to only do this for special occasions

Ve's getting ready to be rinsed

long and curly

french braids

Tuki's twists


Final photo of Marly, the girl's new hair dos and the DR furbuddy team

Thanksgiving and Tuki's family birthday party

A few members of the family and my old neighbor were missing, but Marly and my other family members came and we all had a pleasant time anyway. The girls had a great birthday celebration.

Tuki's Cinderella's Birthday cake that my sis made

Mim writing down what she is thankful for. I asked everyone who came to write 5 things down that they are thankful for onto the paper table cloth.

Ve's thankful items, she spelled them all herself.

Prince Uncle W escorting Tukirella down the steps

Tuki and cousin N entertaining for us..N was Hannah Montana and Tuki was Cinderella

N and Tuki sitting behind their cakes holding up their ages

Tuki opening presents

All Rella'd Up----she still loves playing dress-up more than anything


Now the Southern Belle...I purchased many of the items after Halloween...they were costumes greatly marked down

Uncle J, Rembrandt and Hubble

The trio; 6 (soon 7), 6 and 5 year olds

more singing and dancing

dancing with Aunt J (Uncle J's sis)



While the other's were playing "boyfriend" in the other room...I guess boyfriend is talking to a boyfriend on the other end of the phone

Eve of Thanksgiving

Well it is the eve of Thanksgiving. I have much food prepared already, but still have much to do tomorrow before family and friends come to give thanks. Naturally, since we are trying EXTRA hard to keep the house clean, our 11 month old pups are messier than ever....but that is Murphy's Law all over again.
















What am I thankful for:
1. first and foremost my daughters. I have been more than fortunate with Tuki and then also in that my two eldest, who came home as older children, are pretty issue free, dare I say nearly typical behaviors (kids who have not been traumatized or experienced a major upheaval in their lives) that you would notice in biological children. I feel so so fortunate of this. And my friends this IS REAL, for US!! I am glossing over nothing here. My girls are amazing!!!

2. my health, it is problematic, but really nothing life threatening

3. my employment, sometimes I am completely humbled how God takes care of us with full employment, especially since my income is the only income into this family

4. my friends and family, ALWAYS there for us, ALWAYS ..Love you guys!!!

5. Our home; we have a home, a shelter, a place to call our own, an abode to gather with safety and love

6. Our pets; irksome sometimes, but way worth having around

7. Our country: it goes without saying...we are lucky, fortunate, blessed to be Americans

8. Our faith in God, without it we would lose our way, it anchors us in hard times, dark times. Our faith and love in God carries us so that our burdens are light and I am more than thankful that God has been patient with me when my faith wanes, but his is everlasting.

I read this quote somewhere and I instantly liked it.
"Even if we don't love or believe in God, it doesn't matter, because we can't change the fact that he always loves and believes in us"

I have been quoted!!

http://oneclick.indiatimes.com/article/0d1F7Jl3o300m?q=Earth+Day


Related Quotes
"Everything starts with an idea. It's always worth a try ... The group is excited. They want to do a lot of good stuff for Ben Franklin. Part of the neat thing is it empowers kids to make a change. They say we have a generation who is not aware of all this, but listen to them. They're aware. "
SOURCE: The Stevens Point Journal

What is America?

me and the girls had this conversation last night.

America was one of Ve's sight words. She correctly sounded it out and said proudly "America". I congratulated her and then asked her "What is America?" She thought for a moment and then said "Barak Obama" I said "Barak is the President of America but he is not America?" She kept saying "I just want to say Barak, because he is cool" Typical for Ve she tends to stick with her first guess for a long time before moving on to another.

So then I turned to Mim and asked her the same question. She gave me many examples of countries, Mexico, Haiti, I kept saying "close but what are these examples of?" she then gave examples of states and cities and I said "no, much bigger, those are cities and states" She could not tell me what America was.

All of a sudden Tuki is standing in front of me, looking intently with her hands moving (she talks with her hands when she is focused on sharing information) Tuki says "America is like a. a. a. Country!! I exclaimed "Yes Tuki you are right!" I was over the moon, and I was floored, that she got this correct. As I have stated in previous posts, sometimes I feel she is too smart for her own good.

Quickly Approaching

My baby will soon be turning 5. This feels like a HUGE milestone. MY BABY FIVE!!! Where did all the time go. I have been looking at old pictures of her lately and it seems like it was just yesterday that she couldn't crawl, walk or talk, and I was obsessing about each one that wasn't coming fast enough..I am sure there is a lesson to be learned in all that. I can certainly tell why parents relax with each additional child. You soon realize that all kids progress at their own pace. Tuki is now a walking, talking, counting, spelling, reading, singing, dancing wonder. She is a great problem solver, out of the box thinker that explores new ideas and a creative annoying little sister, much to her sisters dismay. Independent to the core, pink loving, dress wearing, high heels, make-up wearing girly girl all the way. Life would be very dull without her...

The following pictures are of Tuki with her SUPER-STAR poster she made for her 4K. It will be displayed in the classroom the week of her birthday.

Life is funny, yet magical

Today was a casual busy day, and C... O... L... D, for sure, but very productive. Last weekend we cleaned the 2nd & 3rd level of the house and this weekend we cleaned the 1st level, i.e. the basement. It was the one room we DID NOT clean this summer, but since we are hosting the Thanksgiving family dinner next Thursday, I decided it was time to tackle it. Surprisingly it went sort of fast, plus we were able to visit with my sister and her daughter N. Sis and N came over today since it was what N wanted to do for her birthday, visit with her cousins. N turned 6 today. Thursday we will celebrate N's 6th and Tuki's 5th birthday with the entire family as we always do every year.

After they left, we did more cleaning of the basement, but then we had a surprise visit from Bart and Marly. Ve met Bart when she first came home. He was one of the care givers at the Y's Adventure Alley He also knew a little French and had a band partner who was Haitian. We became fast friends and he has been in and out of our lives for the last two years. Apparently when visiting a neighbor awhile ago, he saw Ve and Tuki outside and he realized that we live here. So today, he came over with Marly (a Haitian women who has lived in MN for 20 years). They are both in a Medical Mission training with Seventh Day Adventist. They will be graduating on the 4th of Dec. I asked if they had plans for Thanksgiving, Bart did, but Marly didn't so she will be joining us on Thursday and then on Friday she will come over and will work with Ve's and Mim's hair to help relax it and then she said she could show me how to place extensions in their hair as well. Bart will be around for 6 or more months so I told him he could stop in at any time. What a wonderfully weird and crazy visit.

Conferences

I had Ve's conference tonight. Her reading ability has jumped from a DRA 1 to DRA 6...huge jump, her addition is OK, and she needs help on her subtraction. Ve's behavior is great. I almost felt like I was hearing about a completely different girl. It was quite an amazing conference. I strongly feel that Ve's reading, spelling and writing has improved so much due to the sight word flash cards I require her to do daily. I started this last spring and she has improved dramatically since. Her teacher also said that Ve was a "ruler follower", pretty good for a girl who really didn't know the difference between right and wrong a few years ago.

I also saw Mim's reading level...Below Basic...Now I know why this is, but it was about this time after home arrival that I started having Ve work with flash cards, so I informed Mim that tonight she is now required to do the cards daily as well. She balked at first, she has incredible pride, but I told her that is the only way her reading will improve, so she finally consented to my "demands". I haven't pushed her as hard in certain learning strategies simply because she was much older, but I think that has been a bad decision. She feels she is too old to do some of these basic rote strategies, but in fact she needs them to build a firm foundation for her next level of learning.

As for Tuki's dance conference, the words used to describe her were: "she has a BIG personality", "she loves to be a line leader', and "she is a visual learner", many of the same things her 4K teacher said...I guess Tuki remains true to herself...and I must say both teachers were correct in their observations.

Routine

Tuki likes routine and she hates transitions. Simple transitions such as getting out of the car to get in the house after I pick her up from Angie's school will sometimes set her off into a tirade. I noticed many years ago that she does much better with everything if I tell her what is coming next after next after next. She needs to know to feel safe and secure.

I say this because the last two days have been very hard on Tuki. Angie School has been closed since Monday. Angie and her son has pneumonia. My friend W watched Tuki for the last two mornings, and Tuki loves going there, BUT it isn't the normal routine. W watched Tuki until noon in which she then dropped her off at 4K. Yesterday I picked her up from 4K (normally the bus takes her back to Angie's), and then today Kiki picked her up since I had a meeting until after 4:00pm. Kiki brought her home just around 4:00pm and then Tuki, Ve and Mim were home waiting for my arrival, which was about 5 - 10 minutes later. I drove into the driveway and there I see Tuki sitting next to the door staring out at me. She was crying. I get out of the car and she greets me at the door crying even harder. I thought she was going to tell me that one of her sisters did something that made her cry. But, that wasn't the case. She burst out in tears "I missed you" and started crying harder.

I knew then the last two days were over the top for her. She held it together like a champ for W, Kiki and her 4K teacher, but when I got home she had had enough...After a few hugs and words of understanding she was all better, and she insisted well enough to attend AWANA tonight, and attend she did and she was fine. Thank goodness Angie's school is open tomorrow. Back to our routine. It may be busy but it is our routine and we all find comfort in it.

Cat Scratch Fever!!!

Tuki's P/T conference was tonight. Mrs. P said Tuki is doing very well at school, but a little dramatic at times..yah, we know all too well. These are photos of Tuki's face. She was attacked by the cat at her day care yesterday. No, I am not upset, just wonder what happened since it was unlike the cat (has been there since Tuki started attending at 9 mos old) and unlike Tuki. Must have been a bad day for both, but Tuki is well, no bites just scratched.

Dear Haitian Mom

So many posts today. Mim came to me with this letter on Friday. She wrote all this on her own. I spell checked today (no time before this), she corrected them, sort of, still some misspellings, but what the heck, right!!! I scanned and sent to our friend again today. Our friend is working on getting these letters to Mim's Haitian mom.

First Quarter Grades for Mim

Social Studies - C
Science- B
Math - C
Art - A
Read 180 - A
Choir - A-
Phy Ed. - A

As you can see the classes that depend on English comprehension in order to answer the questions correctly are her lowest grades. Mim does have an aid that goes to each class with her to help her read and understand her work. When she was tested early in the school year, she tested very low, I believe the lowest in our building, in her English comprehension, so she was selected to have an aid with her.

P/T Conferences are coming this week and next week for Ve and Tuki. I am anxious and excited to see how their teachers feel they are progressing this year.

We adopted each other

Since it is National Adoption Month and this comment just came up again yesterday, I thought I would share how I usually handle the "you are so good to have adopted the girls blah blah blah".

Yesterday we had an all day basketball tournament for Mim. The team played 4 games nearly straight in a row. Without a doubt, Mim is lowest skilled on the team, and understandably so since she just started playing whereas the other girls have been playing for years. The first game she wasn't put in AT ALL...I was peeved, Mim was disheartened. I didn't say anything to the coach waiting to see what would happen in the next game. Game two; she played a little each quarter, much better, I was good with this and more importantly Mim felt good about it too. We ate lunch after the second game.

Third Game: Mim played a lot...fantastic and she did a great job and she had many compliments from her teammates and her teammates parents. She felt GREAT!!

Now there was a small break. A sister of a teammate knew Ve, so she was hanging out with us. She started asking many, many questions about adoption. We tend to get this as a family when we first appear in new groups of people. We tend to stand out, even tho we forget that we stand out. She started telling me the statement that I had started this post with "you are such a blah blah blah". I answered her the same way I answer that statement for any who say a similar thing.

my typical response is

"If that is the case, then the girls are just as good and incredible because they adopted me as their Mother, and they adopted each other as sisters. We all adopted each other. WOW, aren't we a COOL family?"

The usual response, from old and young alike is "Yes you are a cool family" Topic done, and me and my daughters walk away thinking we are a cool family and we just educated others that we are indeed a cool family. Which of course, we are!!! LOL Naturally we have deeper and heavier discussion on this topic at home, but for members outside the family, I feel my response works perfectly!!

Back to the Basketball game four: we won, Mim was played a little in the 3rd quarter and our team placed 3rd out of 7 teams. After, we drove to grandma's house for a family party. Ve and Tuki were also well behaved the entire time, so we all think it was a great day!!

We left the house at 9:00am and returned at 9:30pm...long day and a HUGE shout out of thanks to Kiki for coming over and making sure the dogs were well cared for while we were gone.

One year ago

today we (me & Mim) were boarding the plane from Haiti to begin a new life together as a family of 4

Mim gave a power point presentation about Haiti and her trip home to her Read 180 (ESL class) and we also made Haitian Love Cookies to share as well. She was shy but did well. I was off the hour she presented, so I could help her and watch her present. It was a wonderful day, and VERY hard to believe it has been 1 year already. This past year has gone by very quickly.


together in Haiti, Nov 2009


boarding the plane for America. 2009


together with her sisters 2009


This summer. 2010

Haiti

An outbreak of cholera that is reported to have killed 300 people thus far and now Tomas....Pray!!!