Saturday, March 31, 2012

Game and fish expo

Roman caught his first fish! With a little help from the volunteers at the expo, but still! It was exciting for him to catch and hold a real fish! He even pet a HUGE snake!! It was amazing!

On the drive up, roman had fun practicing sounding out words with his cousin Brendan. Brendan and Andreja were excellent examples for Roman as they were polite and kind to each othe and others. We even heard Roman apologize to Brendan and ask him to forgive him for accidentally hitting him with a ball. Our hard work is paying off and we are so thankful to God for helping us with his behavior. roman is such a kind hearted boy, with a passion or kindness and all things boy!

Kindness

So today I was stranded at Costco. It's not the worst place to be stranded, however. After loading up the groceries and Roman my key turned silently in the ignition; not even a click. The battery was dead. So I quickly thought: stay calm, this could be worse. God will provide a way out. I called Chad (who was home with Brooklyn, vehicle-less) and told him what happened. Roman handled having to get out of the car shortly after being put in the car very well. After I explained that we were going to find someone to help us, he held my hand and stuck to my side. What a great boy! We ran into a cart boy (after being turned down by a group of ladies with a large truck) who offered to look under the hood. To our surprise, my once dead car suddenly started honking as he touched the battery connections. He said the connections were loose and then proceeded to clean off the corroded connection and tighten the bolts so that the battery had a better connection. While this was happening, a man in a huge pickup drove up and asked if we needed help. God was sending so much help our way. It all worked out and I was able to drive home safely with Roman. While it was happening, I used every opportunity to show Roman that God wants us to be kind and compassionate to one another. I truly pray that he was able to experience and make that connection of God's protection for us just like in the story of the good Samaritan. Now I know we weren't beaten or robbed, but nonetheless we were in a situation where we needed help and God sent help.

It was a wonderful afternoon of running errands and shopping with Roman, reading books while eating at the Costco food court, and being a part of something amazing: kindness.

Praise God! Maybe now Roman will see how good it is to be kind and will make an intentional choice to be more kind to Brooklyn instead of poking jabbing or hitting her. God is good.

On the drive home he read his books like it was just another day. But it wasn't, it was special.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Reading and Walking

Wow!  How time flies...Roman learned to read and Brooklyn learned to walk this week!  I'll post pics later, but for now...Just thought I would share...

Brooklyn took her first steps a couple days ago!  She even did it for the camera!  Hooray!  Then about an hour later she was standing at the ottoman in our living room and saw Roman doing something exciting.  On her own accord and free will (no parental coaxing) she turned and took a few steps towards Roman.  She is definitely more stable that Roman was when he first started to walk since I even saw her pivot too...all in her first day of walking.  Way to go Brooklyn!


Roman's first word he read (where the lightbulb clicked on, registering in his mind that he had just read a word) was "fast".  It was in one of his Thomas books: The Big Race where Thomas races Bertie the bus.  So yes, there were lots of words that he could pronounce on his own such as "bus, up, fun, fast, stop"  He was so excited that he did it!  Daddy let him stay up late (which wasn't hard for our night owl) to show me when I came home from coaching.  Sure enough, he did it!  Then this morning he read 4 more words that I had made on some flash cards.  Wowza!  He sounds out each letter then says the sounds faster and then says the word.  A friend of mine who is a kindergarten teacher said that what he is doing, at a VERY early age of 3, is called decoding.  His intense love for books has catapulted him into the world of reading.  To all you moms out there....read to your kids and read a lot!  They will soak it up!