Nadia joined our family 6 years ago today and it seems like the time has just flown by. We love you Nadia and we are so blessed to be your Mommy and Daddy!!!
In China July 2007.
July 2008
July 2009
July 2010
July 22, 2011 – Celebrating Gotcha Day with 2 other girls from our travel group who came to visit.
July 22, 2012
July 22, 2103 – We told Nadia that this year she was big enough to choose what she wanted to do for Gotcha Day. She asked if we could eat and have play time at Chick-fil-A. Then she asked if she could pick out a toy at Target. It sounded perfect to us so we headed out and had a great time.
This years VBS theme was “Upward Bound.” Once again I was on the skit team for the start of the day and did the fundraising information for at the end of the day. Just like last year, the girls got a kick out of coming early and seeing us rehearse the skit. Nadia especially liked knowing what was going to happen in advance. I was a puppet names Molly and our Youth Pastor Jacob was a puppet named Calvin. Pastor Darwin was Dunbar the Mountain Goat and Ian was Timothy the wanna-be goat herder.
The girls had a wonderful time with their friends and learning about God and following the “guidebook.” Nadia told me each day that I did a great job as the puppet and mid- week she asked me to come see her in crafts each day to take a photo.
It was fun, fun, fun!!! And by the end we were all tired, tired, tired. The best part of the week was telling the kids about the 2 children we were going to try and sponsor for a year. Rose from Bangladesh for the girls and Clerson from Haiti for the boys. The kids broke a record and raised a combined $768!!!!! The grown ups made up the last little bit to get them a full year. It was wonderful and I was brought to tears many times by the stories the kids told me about how they raised the money for the kids. This year I think it meant a lot to them that it was real kids that they could learn about that the money was going too. It was VERY exciting.
And one day this week Nadia said she wanted to “work for real” to earn money to help Rose. Mike had her working for a full hour. She swept the front and back patio and then sprayed the back patio & patio furniture down with the hose. She was sweating and guzzling water and saying it was so hard. But she kept at it and we used that time to remind her that most of the kids in the world don’t have the life she has and that MANY children work hours and hours everyday. Mike paid her $8 and told her she could do whatever she wanted with it. She kept .50 and said the rest should go to help the little girl Rose. *proud parents here*
Nadia said that the singing and dancing was her favorite thing for the week. Amelie said playing a game in her class was her favorite.
The last day of Museum School was 4 days after Amelie’s surgery and I knew she would be so sad to miss, but she had been in a lot of pain. But she slept all night on Monday so I gave her some pain meds and warned them not to let her operate heavy machinery when I dropped her off 🙂
Nadia wanted to make candy for her teachers for a goodbye and then decorate the bags. All the little items on there had something to do with what they learned this year or something about the teacher. It was really sweet to see all the effort she put in for them. I found myself feeling a little emotional that it was her last day of Museum school after taking her up there for 3 years. What a wonderful place and she has learned so much and loves science more than anything else we study at home. The good thing is that she will be able to visit when we drop Amelie off next year.
I am so glad that the girls were able to go for one year together and the teachers told me that frequently they would be outside at the same time. They said that Nadia would always check on Amelie to be sure she was okay. I was told over and over, by both sets of teachers what a great big sister Nadia is to Amelie. Another great year is in the books!
And for reference – the first day of Museum School 2012-2013 on September 11, 2012.
A really exciting thing for the kids who get to go to the 3rd year of Museum School is the parent/kid field trip to the Botanical Gardens. It’s lead by one of the scientists from the Science and History Museum named Ms. Spotted Bear. We dropped Amelie off at the school and then headed over to meet up with the group at the gardens.
The first thing we did was walk over to one of the ponds and Spotted Bear had a net to scoop up some of the water. She asked the kids for observations before we started and then put the pond water in a bucket. She let the kids look and also put things in a containers for the kids to pass around and get a closer look.
Nadia was a little timid at first since most of the other kids are a lot more boisterous than she tends to be in large groups. But I encouraged her to get in there and look because she loves science things so much.
At each stop, Spotted Bear encouraged the kids to point out the things they were seeing, smelling and feeling. Several times she had the whole group close our eyes and she asked us questions about the sounds and the breezes. She pointed out a lot of very cool trees and had facts about them and why they do so well in Texas, even if they are transplants from other places.
The kids had a good time feeding the fish and turtles in this area of the gardens. Nadia was trying to throw hers out as far as possible so the turtles would pop up and grab a bite.
This is a duck box high up on a tree. While I was taking this photo the kids on the other side noticed a large snake working his way into a crack in the back. They started screaming and jumping up and down yelling, “Don’t get the duck eggs!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” It was hilarious.
Here is the whole class with their teachers who were so sweet! Nadia just loved them.
Nadia and Ms. Spotted Bear at the end of the field trip. What a fun morning we had at the Botanical Gardens.
