To my firstborn son,

 I didn't give you

The gift of life,

But in my heart I know

The love I feel is 

Deep and real,

As if it had been so.

For us to have 

each other

is like a dream come true.

No, I didn't give you

The gift of life.

Life gave me

The gift of you.

Author Unknown

Dear Isaac,

This morning I stumbled upon this photo of you with your beloved "Small Dog" and "Blue Bear." These two stuffed animals remain your absolute favorite, and you have yet to sleep a night without them.

Maybe I was already feeling nostalgic when I took you to play your two festival songs for a veteran piano teacher in the area. Your own teacher wanted this other woman to hear your songs and see if she had missed anything in her teaching and preparing you for your competition this weekend. 

As you played one of your songs (Prelude in C), I found myself so nervous, I had to shut my eyes. I just listened to you playing and didn't watch you or the "judge" at all. About halfway through the song, I realized ... I was crying.

Now I am not sure what I will be like when you read this letter someday when you are older. Maybe I'll be a hormonal bunch of tears. (I mean, your Papa Coach never cried when I was growing up and now he's just a pile of sap when it comes to his eight grandchildren.) For an easy crier, crying during a song, might not be a big deal. But I am not an easy crier. I don't cry that often, and rarely at happy things. 

But I had tears in my eyes. I was so moved by my ten-year-old and his God-given gift with music and the fact that I had been given the privilege of raising him and loving him for this last decade, that I just found myself with tears streaming down my face.*

Of course, it wasn't the piano that was making me cry.

My love for you? Oh I can confirm to you in every way that is absolutely identical to your three younger siblings. You are my boy. You are our Isaac. Heck, a lot of people have always told me you even look more like me then any of your siblings.

I love you Isaac John. I am so proud of you. I continue to pray that you will be the man the Lord called you to be. I pray that He will use your hands to bring peace to people from all walks of life. I pray that your quiet spirit and dry humor will be a loyal friend to those in need of your kindness. And most of all, I pray that I have the honor to see you grow into a man filled with peace and faith.

Love,

Your Mom

P.S. To anyone reading this letter who thinks that adoption is second-best or second-rate ... you are just wrong. Period. Yes, adoption has many other facets that have to be considered and understood. There is loss involved and sadness and grief. Jody Landers wrote, "A child born to another woman calls me mommy. The magnitude of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege are not lost on me." While Bri knows she did the right thing, it doesn't mean that her decision to place Isaac in our arms was easy or pain-free. 

We Bought a Farm: Another Day, Another Farm Injury

 "Injuries are our best teachers."

I wish I didn't have another bruise to show you.

But I do.

In order to understand what happened to me, you have to understand what cattle panels are. 

Since I didn't know what they were before I became a farmHER, you may not either. So here is a picture of what cattle panels looks like:

We have one little sheep (whose name is Patience ironically enough) that kept jumping our lines so many times, we had to put her in our "arena." (When her babies are old enough, she'll have to be processed as we can't afford for her to teach other sheep how to jump paddock.) The arena is a fenced in area on our farm that we have separated into six sections using ... 

cattle panel. 

I was over in the arena, moving Patience and her twins to a new section. They were successfully moved, and it was time to move her waterer. 

This is the moment that I wish the Holy Spirit would either talk faster (to keep up with how fast I am moving) or simply knock me upside the head so I definitely listen to his voice.

I heard that still small voice say, "Wendi. Don't go that way. It's too muddy and you are carrying a big watering tub that looks like this:

But I went. And I fell. My right arm got caught on one side of the cattle panel, and my whole body got caught on the other side of the cattle panel. 

I fell. The water splashed all over me. (And yes, it was cold!) And I laid on the ground for a solid 1-2 minutes trying to determine if I had broken anything. It hurt sooooo badly.

I knew it would bruise.

And it did.

I've decided that with farming comes more opportunity for injury. And then based on how nimble or young (or smart!) you are, you see how many injuries you get. 

Here's to hoping the rest of the month is bruise-free,

 

I Love this Kid!!!

She was very specific about how she wanted her hair for church this morning! I offered many other options, but she was insistent that the look was identical to what I produced.

The difference between my daughters in one 12 second ballet video

This is Hannah's ballet class. Abigail helps in the class. Hannah is in blue in the front. Abigail is in the green leotard with the pink skirt. This is my girls for you right here during some "free dance" time in the class. You really need to watch it twice to concentrate on each one of them each time to full appreciate the dichotomy.

And for those who really care, here are one and two more fun videos of Hannah showing off for her dad during her ballet class.

Friday Funnies

My kids LOVE the show Brain Games on Netflix. Recently, two new seasons came out for them to watch, and the kids were super excited.
Isaac: "I'm so happy about the new seasons. The last time I was sick, I watched every single episode they had available."
Me: "Well now they have more. Which is great!"
Isaac: "Yeah. I need to get sick again."

*****

During the professional ballet we attended, Abigail and Hannah wanted to go down at intermission to see some of the dancers in the lobby. We walked down. A lot of other little girls were taking pictures with the dancers, but my girls both said they didn't want to do that. They both said they just wanted to see them.

So after about thirty seconds of staring at the dancers, I told the girls it was time to go back upstairs.

Hannah: "But Mom, I don't want to go."
Me: "Hannah you said you just wanted to see them."
Hannah: "I know."
Me: "And you saw them."
Hannah: "I know. ... But they didn't see me."

*****

I am always commenting that when John is home from work, the kids still give me so many of their complaints and concerns. I keep saying, "Go talk to Dad."

But tonight was one of the funniest. Sidge walked past his Dad to me and said, "My chest hurts right here."

"Sidge. Behind you is a doctor. Talk to him!"

*****

Our little niece, Genevieve is six months younger than Hannah. While the two girls were playing the other day, Hannah had trouble accomplishing something Genevieve was getting easily. "Don't worry Hannah," Genevieve said. "You'll get it when you're my age."

Priceless

A Sweet Spring Day

 "Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's Party'!"Robin Williams 

Today I want to share two pictures that pretty accurately sum up today on the farm. Here's the first one: 

This picture seems provides proof that spring is in the air!

This picture above makes me so happy. There are two reasons: 

1. Ultimate Beastmaster and American Ninja Warrior are very popular in our home -- and they've stretched to our front yard. I love our "Ninja course" because I love my kids wanting to be strong, active, athletic, and outside. We have a lot of plans for our course. We want to make it bigger and better and especially add some upper body work. 
2. The second reason I love this picture above is because it shows what playing outside when the weather is warming up means. I was "babysitting" some of my cousin's children, and there were eight children playing outside. As they kept moving, they got warmer, and that meant clothes being stripped off and smattered hither and wherever. I love kids being active. And I love spring weather. We are still dealing with abnormally cold temperatures for March (was in the teens the last two nights). But today provided sunshine and the ability to get outside. 

My "nephew" Gabe holding one of our baby rams before he is castrated. 

Today included lots of hard labor. I got over 12,000 steps and over 100 active minutes on my Fitbit as proof of this. We started the day by Grampa, Jacob, and I going with our neighbor Lloyd's house to load logs on Lloyd's tractor. The county took down a bunch of trees for power line issues at the church he attends with Grampa and Grama. Around here they let you choose: they'll remove the tree or they will let you remove the tree. Because so many people have wood stoves and fireplaces around here, most choose to leave the trees behind. 

Lloyd helped cut the wood, and we loaded it up so that we can have wood through the winter. This morning we made two trips. While I didn't lift as much of the heavy stuff that Grampa and Jacob did, there was still a lot of activity.

After that, I returned to the house where Grama was holding down the fort while JB was at work. The kids were mostly through their piano lessons with Ms. Leslie. I jumped in and did my lesson, and then Jacob suggested we go and get some sheep work done since it was such a beautiful day. 

Jacob, Gabe, his sister Kari, and myself headed out to the paddock while the other kids watched a movie. We needed to put collars on some of the new baby girls, check castration on some of the males, and castrate a few that had recently been born. The picture of Gabe is him holding one of the little lambs before the deed was done. (For those of you who are interested, we use a rubber band system that causes no pain and just a little discomfort.) 

We finished off the evening with the boys taking karate. It was a great day on our sunny farm. I love that my kids can go flying out of the house without me even knowing where they are going. There is so much adventure and green grass and sunshine. I know for certain that while I never dreamed of living rural, I could never do anything but that now. 

I'm so glad we bought this farm even though I still can't believe this is my life,

 

Review: Homeschool Complete

Are you a new homeschool mom wondering if this is too hard for you to do? Do you not have a clue where to begin? Are you on a budget that won't allow you to go with an intense curriculum that costs a ton of money? Would you like to know what to teach your elementary student with nothing more than a few inexpensive products and a trip to your local library? Then Second Grade Complete from Homeschool Complete  could be the program for you. I have always tried to homeschool my kids inexpensively. My means of doing that has been to "work" for the Schoolhouse Review Crew and do reviews in exchange for my honest opinion of that product. Or I find free products online. However, this means piecing together a lot of different puzzle parts to make a full curriculum. It's hard. It's exhausting. It requires a lot of work. (Add to that the fact that you are homeschooling many kids who are totally different ages and you have a whole lot of "planning to do.)  And in the end, you are often wondering: Did I cover it all? When I talk to other homeschool parents, without a doubt the number one question they are fretting over is: How do I know I haven't missed anything? And that is exactly what Homeschool Complete is designed to do. It is designed to provide you with CONFIDENCE. It will take the GUESS WORK out of the equation. Homeschool Complete provides and entire semester curriculum for you and your child. This all-inclusive curriculum is literature based and also Biblically based. In addition, the cover every topic without you have to piece things together and do a bunch of planning ahead of time. Content included in this all-inclusive curriculum include:  Language Arts Math Social Studies Science P.E. Fine Arts Character Development Bible For the purpose of this review, I had the opportunity to review the Second Grade Complete Curriculum. However, if you read the reviews from other Crew members by clicking on the link at the bottom of this post, you can actually see reviews from all grades through Fourth Grade. In addition, other reviewers covered Unit Studies as well! Okay, how much will this cost me? Before I tell you anything about Homeschool Complete let me breakdown the cost for you. I am doing this first because I think this is the part that can win people over. This program will cost you around $340 for an entire year of schooling! If you want to just do the digital download (which is what I did), you can actually use the program for under $250! If you want to order by semester it will run you about $200 per semester. This means that you basically have everything you need for an entire year of schooling for no more than $340. This means that you can homeschool your child for about $20-$30 a month!) Seriously? I won't need anything else? Well, you will need to get some books from your public library. You may also be asked to get a spiral notebook for your students to journal or some basic craft materials. But truly, nearly everything you need is included in the curriculum. All right. How does the program work? You visit the website and buy the program. Then you receive the curriculum in the mail. (Or you download your digital program if you choose to go that route.) Depending on which "Bundle" you buy, you will receive a Teacher's Manual and Student Workbook. (There are options to receive more  "bonus" materials as well.)  And then you jump in. The Teacher's Manual walks you through what you need to do step-by-step and the Student's Workbook has all the pages your child needs to learn along the way.  I was incredibly excited to review the Second Grade Complete curriculum being as my Abigail (who is sort of in-between first and second grade) has been very challenging being as she doesn't "fit in" with the other eight kids we are schooling. We have three kindergartners and three fourth graders and two middle-schoolers. But we only have one "Abigail" who is sort of in-between the other groups. So I worked specifically with Abigail on this curriculum.  C'mon Wendi. Break it down even more. I loved this program. And I think you will too. I really want to make sure I paint this very clearly for you so you can see what every penny of your money will get you. Here's a detailed breakdown: The 604-page Digital Download that I received began with a Table of Contents

Next up? The Introduction which includes an explanation of the types activities you'll find in the curriculum. If you can't zoom in on this, I want to share a little of what the Introduction includes. It explains that the information surrounds thematic units and provides step-by-step instructions for parents. It reiterates that all supplies and low-cost and includes books that can be borrowed from your local library. The parent is also guaranteed that there will be activities for the auditory, visual, and tactile learners. "The lesson plans are designed to keep you organized, and it is recommended that during school hours you concentrate on school alone." 

After that, parents are given a School Year Overview so they can see what they will be covering during what month of the year. 

Pages 5-10 include all the things your student should be able to do by the end of the school year. This is broken down into the major subject areas (i.e. Language Arts, Math, Social Studies etc.)

After some discussion about Daily Lesson Plans, Organization and Planning, Teaching Procedures, Handwriting Guidelines, and Calendar Skills, it was time to jump into our first thematic unit. 

Even though we were doing this during Semester 2 of the school year, we decided to start with the first unit: Johnny Appleseed. 

Here is a picture of Abigail working on one of her worksheets in her Unit.

Here is a picture of Abigail reading through one of the books I easily requested at our Public Library in order to do this review. 

Abigail and I would sit at the dining room table together and work through each assignment. Here is just a smattering of things she did as we worked through the unit:

• Read a list of words with the short "a" sound. 
• Match numerals with the written out version of the word.
• Add.
• Circle a number that doesn't belong in a pattern.
• Create an apple pattern using a sponge. (An example of a very inexpensive item you might have to purchase to do the project.)
• Observe a variety of different kind of apples and fill our a chart about them.
• Recognize vowels.
• Read sentences.
• Use a word in a sentence.
• Learn how to use greater than and less than signs.
• Add using a number line.
• Various P.E. assignments
• How to read a calendar.
• How to explain what the weather is outside on a particular day.

So are you saying you loved this product?
I am absolutely saying I loved it. I think it is an incredibly affordable option for people and truly covers everything. It eliminates the lack of confidence that so many struggle with!

And if you want to give it a try, you can get 10% off until 3/31/2019 by using the code CREW2019.

Please check them out!
You can find out more by visiting Homeschool Complete on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube or by reading the reviews from my fellow reviewers by clicking on the link below:

Tuesday Truth

We Bought a Farm: Farm Hiccups

 "The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn't still be a farmer." Will Rogers

I am no longer surprised by hiccups on the farm.* I've realized that the nature of what we are doing means that what we are doing can result in hiccups. Most people aren't trying to move their egg-mobile to dry ground. But because we are, errors result. Hiccups happen.

Error #1: Putting the Egg-mobile in this section of the farm during the rainy season.

Error #2: Thinking that the ground was frozen enough to pull the thing out of there. 

The boards didn't work, so now we will implement plans to try and get the truck out:

Plan A: Wait for tonight's freeze and hope the ground is harder.

Plan B: If that doesn't work, load a huge tote of water in the back and fill it to add tons of extra weight.

Plan C: Call one of our neighbors with a tractor to pull us out.

In the midst of this mess this morning, I said to JB and Jacob: "Why do these things keep happening to us?" and they both said: "Because we are farmers."

We take these errors and learn. I realize how much I've learned when people come to visit and have no idea how to move the sheep or set up line. Or they make suggestions that are not even close to possible.  We keep learning.

I wonder how many more lessons we have?

 

To read a previous post I wrote on this topic, click here: The Plan "B"

Hannah Can Swim

Typical Hannah-style, Joan showed Hannah how to swim just one time, and she took off! She was swimming nearly immediately, and by day 3, I captured this video. This is just like my Hannah-Girl. When I potty-trained her, she looked at me like: "Why didn't you tell me this before? It's so easy." Same thing with swimming. I always think it'll be a process to get her doing something, but she jumps on it so fast!

Hittin' the Ground Running

 "Isn't it amazing how much stuff we get done the day before vacation?" 

This quote above cracked me up because it is SOOOO true. Man oh man is there a lot to do to prepare to relax. (Although, I will argue that going on a trip with kids is not a "vacation"; it is a "trip" and it isn't relaxing. But still. A vacation takes work.) 

And then, when you get back from the vacation, there is so much to do as well. JB went right back to working nights. Abigail had a ballet practice on Saturday and today we had church and an event to attend. Monday is co-op and Tuesday is our "one million activities" day. (We have gymnastics, two ballet classes, karate, and speech all in one day.) 

The event today was the Russian Ballet's performance of Cinderella. Dad and Mom had never been to a professional ballet and watching Abigail dance had gotten them interested. So for Dad's birthday, his kids all pitched in to get them tickets to see this performance.

We are very lucky that we have the NPAC in Greeneville. It really is higher quality than a town our size would normally afford so getting this opportunity for culture so close to home is so wonderful. 

Here are some pictures I took of our afternoon out. (JB was supposed to bring the girls, but he could not get off of work, so I took them and my cousin's family watched the boys.)

They set up this cool display in the lobby for photo opportunities.

Grampa and Grama all dressed up with the girls (in matching dresses.)

My attempt at a selfie (I stink at toese things.) 

Abigail's friend Bailee was at the ballet too (sitting somewhere else!) so we got to see them before the show. Bailee attends public school, does ballet with Abigail, and has recently started attending our church!

A pic with their friend Ember: homeschool, ballet, and gymnastics friend

The ballet was FANTASTIC! We really enjoyed it. Abigail came home and immediately went to work doing ballet. :) Hannah isn't in love with ballet and was probably a tad young for the ballet, but she enjoyed it too and did very well for the show. 

 

I just read ...

I do LOVE me some Francine Rivers. If you haven't read her books, you are MAJORLY missing out. Everything she has written is great. I especially recommend: Redeeming Love, The Scarlet Thread, and her "Mark of the Lion" series. 

The Masterpiece was another great one. Fantastic. Really great love story. I truly felt like I was growing as a Christian while reading this too -- simply from being reminded what childhood trauma can do, what sin causes, and the power of redemption. Don't miss this one. 

Finding the Best

 "Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine." Anthony J. D'Angelo

At Busch Gardens with our friend Troy

We are home from Florida.

It was an Uh-Maz-ing trip.

Beside the fact that we got some much needed quality family time in, the beauty of this trip went much further than this. 

JB and I have not lived in the Sunshine State since we were in our late teens. I left for college and have never been back permanently. John left after he received his Associates Degree from the Fort Lauderdale Art Institute when he was 20. 

We really have sort of "lost the love" of this place. 

• It's hot.
• It's crowded.
• The traffic is simply HORRENDOUS.
• There is a lot of crime. 
• (Oh, and it is so stinkin' long to drive to when your family lives at the very bottom. )

But when JB and I decided to take this trip, we decided to find the hidden gems in Florida. Growing up, financial and time limitations for our families meant we didn't see much of this great State. But we decided: this State is great for a reason. Let's enjoy its greatness.

So on the way down we . . . 

1. Stopped in St. Augustine (fantastic city!)
2. Birded on Merritt Island (beyond a gazillion birds we saw alligators and manatees)

Both of these things were basically places we passed on the drive to Coconut Creek! All these years of driving down the East Coast, we've just kept driving. 

This time we STOPPED and ENJOYED!

We arrived at my parents' house and decided to AVOID THE TRAFFIC.

(Seriously. South Florida traffic is a post in and of itself. It's insanity. Truly. It should require a different kind of license to drive there.)

We hung out at my parents' house. My brother and his wife and four kids live just three doors down now meaning we didn't have to try to drive all over and see people. We just hung out. JB went and did some birding. I did a little shopping. We swam. We went to the park. We took walks around my parents' lake. We got out of the craziness and just hunkered down. John's brother Matt and his wife and kiddos came by too. I went out to dinner with my two amazing sister-in-laws. 

(Oh and we enjoyed the cuisine! Man oh man is there good food in this melting pot of people. Greek and Indian were the top of my list!)

After a few days in Coconut Creek we drove South to Roy & Joan's house. They live across the street from the intercostal so we enjoyed some time at the beach. Hannah learned how to swim too which was super fun. John's Aunt Betsy (who lives even further south in Miami) joined us for an afternoon too. And we got to see Isaac's birth mom, Bri, and her husband Robert. 

After that it was off to Tampa. But on the way we stopped at Sanibel Island, another place we had never been before -- to let the kids collect shells. We arrived at Patty and Yami's, ate Turkish, and spent a day at Busch Gardens before driving home -- this time along the west coast and thru the Chattanooga area.

I will be sharing more -- some fun videos and pictures. But for now, I just wanted to share how blessed we were to get time with all of our family. We are so blessed for the Kotynski family and Jacob and my in-laws who help keep the farm going while we are gone. And to JB's co-director at the hospital who fielded all the calls so JB could NOT be in charge for awhile. That was great too.

More to come, but for now, I'm heading to bed!

 

Oh the memories!

I have so many things burstin in my heart. We needed this time together as a family soooo much. We left Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday morning and headed to Tampa where we stayed with our old friends (and owner of one of puppies) Patty & Yamil & Troy. We did Busch Gardens with their family and my parents who drove up to spend the day with us. 

We are now stuck in traffic on the way home but just loving have time together!!!!