Letter A Week

J has been begging to learn her letters. I wasn't planning on teaching her the letters until later in the year but she wanted to learn them so bad, that I figured I would encourage her enthusiasm. We are starting at the beginning of the alphabet and working our way through to z. One thing that has helped is the learning DVD from Leap Frog about letter sounds. She has enjoyed watching that and it has helped to teach her some of the letters and their corresponding sounds. Our first week and letter was A. We learned about alligators and how close they lived to Josh. We learned about ants and apples and airplanes.

We are still learning about the farm and we made hand print sheep that we glued cotton balls to and added to our mural. You can see one of the sheep above J's head. Also, if you haven't noticed, J is fascinated with the color pink.

We stamped alligators and letter A's on a letter a.

We made a letter a with some fun foam puzzle pieces that I made.

We matched apple number cards to apple seed cards to review our numbers and counting.

We traced the letter a using wikki stix. These were new to her so we played with them for awhile. We also made an ant using the stix. You can reuse these over and over.

 We made ants from egg cartons and read about ant cities. We read The Ant and the Elephant by Bill Peet about an elephant who helps everyone in the forest and no one will help him - except the ant.

We made simple apples from squares of fabric, stuffing, and green pipe cleaners. No sewing, we just gathered and tied. We then used the apples for silly apple rhymes.

We played a silly game of trying to get the apples in the basket blindfolded. She thought this was fun as long as I didn't turn her around! We had fun this week for the letter A. It is definitely alot of work but she has enjoyed learning all about it. Next week is the letter b, she has already told me what our letter is and we had borrowed some books for it. She is excited and is always begging to do "school" even on the weekends!

What was baby Kaleb doing while we were in school? He was sleeping in the bassinet. We try to do "school" while he is taking a nap. We succeed most of the time but it turns out, Kaleb isn't on a schedule so sometimes school is in the morning or after lunch. We are flexible.

A Nice Surprise

Friday, DH arrived home with these pumpkins. It was a nice surprise for us. They may look like ordinary pumpkins to you but to us, they are a reminder of autumn in America. You see, we don't have pumpkins that look like this. Our pumpkins may taste like pumpkins but they definitely do not look like the ones we are used to seeing around town. These pumpkins were grown by a lady who brought the seeds back from America to raise money for the boy scouts here. We don't have the fall festivities that you may enjoy here. Gone are the hay rides, decorating pumpkins, picking apples, apple cider - anything that reminds you of fall. You think you wouldn't miss that but you do. So this is alittle piece of America for J, she will get to decorate the pumpkins. We will probably cut it open and count the seeds, scoop out the inside and maybe even cook it for pumpkin pie. (We don't have canned pumpkin for pies either) What a nice surprise-thanks DH.

What we did this week

Well, most of us......

Mama J

Having a new baby in the house definitely takes some adjustment. My main concern was for J and how she would react to a little one taking the attention away from her. She has been a big help for me. She wants to help change diapers, feed him, wash him, hold him. She is always checking on him to make sure he is all right and, if he makes the slightest sound, she comes running to me to tell me the baby is crying. Now, I am not saying that we haven't had any problems but J is a trouper and she loves her brother. I am constantly telling her how much I love her and how good she is at being a big sister. It is still an adjustment but we are working on the transition. I love it. Yes, having a new baby means little sleep but it is worth it. We are all enjoying our new addition.

A New Adventure

We have several family sayings in our house that have quickly become somewhat of "family mottos."  One of them is "Let's go on an adventure," which is really just saying "let's go out our front door." Living here, everyday seems to be an adventure, some more than others. Our DD Keke cringes when she hears that because she know something interesting is going to happen. It could be good, bad, or frustrating but it seems like it is life here in T. Well, we had an adventure once again.

Sunday, October 3rd, I was skyping my DS who is in college. We were video chatting and during our conversation, we had a mild earthquake. I believe it was a 4.4 on the scale but it was scary enough and my son got to experience it with us via our web cam. Everything shook in the house, I all most thought I was dreaming. It didn't last long but even though, I don't think I want to experience that again. I hope and pray that I won't.  That was adventure number one....of the week.

On to adventure number two....at about 4:40 a.m. Monday morning, I began to feel uncomfortable pains. I wouldn't call them contractions but maybe cramps. It was enough that it woke me up and I stayed up for awhile, waiting for them to either increase or go away. I had this happen the other day and all I got was 1 cm dilated, so I wasn't taking any chances. Well, they stayed the same so I woke up Scott and told him that he should be prepared because I thought we would have the baby today. But I wanted to rest alittle and I went back to sleep about 6 a.m.

After an hour, I decided to get up because they weren't getting any better. I wasn't timing them so I couldn't tell you how close they were. We started to get ready to go to the hospital. We made some phone calls, arranged a babysitter for J, called the insurance to tell them we thought it was going to be today, I took a shower, DH took a shower, I got J ready. The pains started to get closer and it was DH that made that observation. He began to run around, trying to get the bags, and I am telling him not to worry, that we have plenty of time.

We get in the car and take J to the babysitter and begin our journey to the hospital. We live in a major city and, well, traffic decided to be extremely congested. And I say, extremely congested. We got stuck in traffic at least 3 times going to the hospital. In the beginning, it was fine and I was doing okay. DH was weaving in and out as the contractions decided to get even closer together. He began to pray as I began to cry that I wasn't going to make it. Then the "oh no" my water broke. That totally concerned me.

DH was praying and I was begging him to stop the car and deliver the baby. He kept telling me that it wasn't far and it was going to be fine. "Hold it in.!!" he kept saying, "hold it in!!" Like I could do that. I laid down in the back of the car, as he ran a red light trying to get us there. I was still begging him to deliver the baby. He pulled up to the ER and started beeping the horn yelling "Hadi, hadi..." which is "hurry" in Turkish. A whole crew came out with a stretcher and they had to pull me out of the car. I couldn't move, the contractions were too close together and I truly expected to deliver this baby right where I was - the backseat of the car.

We were rushed through the ER (apparently they have a parking service for those who come to the hospital in emergencies) and, in less than 15 minutes of arrival, baby Kaleb made his appearance. I will have to say this was the fastest birth I ever had. The funny thing was that I was joking with Scott about having this baby in the car and I was not too far off. If it was up to me, I would have. It was the hardest thing to do, not to push. But it was Scott who wouldn't let me and he kept praying that we would make it. He said he felt this overwhelming peace come over him, telling him that we would make it. Unknowing to us, at that time, Keke was praying with her teacher and classmates in her class while we were struggling in the car.

It was an adventure, to say the least. And now, we have a new member of the family to share in all of our adventures. It should be fun - he has already been inducted into the family with his own adventure - his birth. We will have this story to tell for ages - an earthquake and a baby. Wow, what's next? I shouldn't ask that, should I?

By the way, in another post, I explained that I don't have 8 pound babies....well, Kaleb was a whopping 9 pounds 2 oz. All most born in the car....over nine pounds....wow. I still can't believe he was that big. He is a sweetie and he fits nicely in his newborn clothes and diapers, I wonder for how long though. I just wanted to share, enjoy the pics. Love ya guys.