Sorry I havn't posted in a while...

Somehow, time is getting away from me again which is why I’ve neglected to update. Between home and school my days are full; I’ll give you a run down on what’s been going on.

We’ve decided to turn the nursery into a homeschool/play room this weekend. We had the homeschool room in the bonus room the first year but when we thought we were going to get a baby we moved Turtle up to the bonus room, the school room into our, very small, sunroom and started calling her old room the nursery or baby’s room. The sunroom isn’t really much of a room. It is more like a wide hallway connecting the living room, breakfast nook and master bedroom. I can’t fit our large calk board anyplace in the sunroom so we have been using Bri’s play easel which is small. We could really use a little extra room and since we have it, we might as well use it. I have been going back and forth on this decision as it feels like giving up; but I think we need to pack up the baby stuff and move forward. Besides, if a baby came to us today, we wouldn’t put her in her own room for at least 6 month.

We have been working on the kitchen. We have a 1963 Flair oven that has been sitting in our garage. I love it and hate the glass top that was in the house when we bought it. We’ve had plans to do this for a while but at some point we thought we might sell. Then the economy took a dive so we took the house off the market. Now, we’ve decided, since we can’t sell we might as well continue with our plans. Moogoo works in metal and brought home a beautiful stainless counter top Wednesday night for our island. He is working on the tops for the rest of the counters but the island is beautiful! The Flair, meanwhile, needs a lot of cleaning and Moogoo has been working hard on that. If you don’t know what a Flair is, Samantha Stevens used one on Bewitched. Our plan is to replace the glass top with the Flair, cover all the counters with stainless, put in black and white checkered floors which will continue into the sun room, and find a unit (Hoosier, side board, credenza?) to store some small appliances and extras like our silver and placemats, and also give us a little more counter space.

We have been using our weekends wisely lately. We went to Rock Hawk and Rock Eagle weekend before last. They are both Native American effigies and parks. One weekend we went to the GA Aquarium and another we went to a Schoolbox store and exploring. We would like to go explore a nearby town over the weekend if the weather holds. They have a lot of antique shops and specialty type stores so besides being fun we will keep our eyes open for a unit for the kitchen.

School is going well. The kids love their new books and have been doing very well with them. I hadn’t done grammar with Butterfly because it was like pulling teeth. She just didn’t understand it. Now, it seems, she is ready. This is proof that if your child isn’t ready for something it is no use forcing her; simply put it away until she is ready. Part of the benefit of homeschooling is teaching to the individual child’s abilities. Not only does she understand grammar now, but she is excelling at it.

For Butterfly, I am using the following resources: Singapore Math, Spellwell, Ridgewood Grammar, Sylvan Vocabulary, and Spectrum Science. I use my own curriculum for history and geography that I’ll post one day.

For Turtle we use: Singapore Math, Vocabulary from Classical Roots, Rules of the Game (grammar), Power Basics Earth and Space Science (she is a little behind as she should be on Biology now) and Power Basics World History. Both girls have various reading, religion, art, social studies and values resources.

All in all, we are keeping busy and doing well. I am actually looking forward to cleaning out the nursery this weekend and getting the homeschool moved into that bigger room. Is it an end, a step forward, a closed door or an open window? I guess we’ll see; it isn’t for us to know what’s to be.

New Semester = New Schedule

This is the first week of the new semester. We have a slightly new schedule and some new books for the second half of the year.

We are starting a week later than I had scheduled because the books didn’t come in time but in homeschool that doesn't matter much. We will make it up at the end of the school year or little by little on weekends.


The girls have a slightly different schedule from each other. It can get confusing at times but since Turtle is in 6th grade and Butterfly is in 3rd, they can’t do the same things and Butterfly usually requires a little more hands on from me. It took some work but I finally got the schedule together; it is as follows:

Morning Chores

Shower

Breakfast

10:00-10:20 Tefillah

10:25-11:00 Turtle: Math
           10:25-10:30 Butterfly: Penmanship - copy work (just a quick exercise to keep her on target)
           10:35-11:00 Butterfly: Spelling

11:05-11:40 Turtle Grammar (M&W) Vocabulary (T&T)
           11:05-11:25 Butterfly Vocabulary (M&W) Reading or Math Facts CD (T&T)
           11:30-11:55 Butterfly: Grammar

11:45-11:55 Turtle: Free Reading

12:00-1:30 Lunch and recess

1:35-2:40 Turtle: History/Science/Free Reading: She has deadlines to meet each week
        1:35-2:00 Butterfly: History (M&W) Science (T&T)
        2:05-2:40 Butterfly: Math

2:45-3:00+/- Religion: Torah/ Hebrew/ Jewish Life Skills

Chores

Fridays are a little different. Turtle makes the challah for Shabbat and starts around 9 or 10 AM. Butterfly has a spelling test each Friday and we take care of that while Turtle is making the bread. Then we discus the Torah parsha and do a simple activity, read a story, do a craft project or watch something having to do with the parsha. We then clean the house and I begin cooking for both Friday and Saturday. We are not shomer Shabbat, but I do like to make Saturday as easy and family oriented as possible. We set the table after lunch and get ready for park day with the homeschool group which begins at 3:00 at various parks and churches, it changes each week. If we have time before park day we may watch some Mr. Wizard or something that I’ve recorded that is educational. This time of year we usually have to leave the park early but during the summer months we frequently stay until 6:30 or so.

Happy New Year

I’ve been thinking a lot about the New Year and specifically whether or not it is my new year at all. I did a quick search on the Gregorian calendar and came up with a few facts:

•  It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII and the name Gregorian is a tribute to him.
• The Gregorian calendar is an adjustment of the Julian calendar, both of which exist primarily to help the church calculate when Easter should be celebrated.
• The names of the months come from Latin and most pertain to Roman Catholic or Pagan gods, people and events. For example; January = Janus = Roman god of gates, doorways, beginnings and endings. August = Augustus = First Roman emperor
• BC & AD mean Before Christ and Anno Domini which means “In the year of our lord” (not "after death" as Turtle's public school teacher told her. Is it no wonder I homeschool?!). This comes from the Julian calendar and was first used around 527 A.D. It was surmised that the incarnation of Jesus was the 25th of March in the year 754 and therefore the year 754 became year 1 A.D.
• Some countries who were not Catholic felt trepidation taking on the Gregorian calendar. Many protestant countries worried that this new calendar was an attempt by the Catholic church to bring them back to Catholicism.

Nowhere in my reading did I notice anything about the Gregorian Calendar being secular, on the contrary, it is, in fact, a Catholic/Christian entity. This therefore, makes the Gregorian New Year a Christian holiday. In the US it is celebrated as a secular holiday, however we can not fool ourselves into thinking it is secular. This is how the Jewish community gets lost and Christian holidays end up in our schools and our children don't understand why we don't celebrate Easter (becuase the teacher said Easter is a secular holiday!!!). We become too complacent and one day wake up and wonder why we can’t remember how to celebrate Passover and why our children have Christmas trees in their homes (you may say I’m not one to talk and you’d be right).

So, I’ll leave the celebrations to the goy on New Years Eve. I acknowledge the passing of a year much the same as a passing of a school year or a birthday; but that’s all. I also have no choice (because I am not in Israel) but to use the Gregorian calendar but I will not call it a secular calendar any more.

Coincidently I’ve noticed a difference in my thinking between New Year and Rosh Hashanah. This is actually what got me thinking about the differences between the two and what lead to this rant on the matter.

My resolutions for this 2010 year are much more superficial than my resolutions for Rosh Hashanah 5770. In 2010 I want to loose weight, wake up and go to bed earlier, be more organized etc. In 5770 I want to pray more, be thankful more, give tzedakah, and be more vigilant about reading and discussing the Torah portions with my children. I recently read a funny article that compared the Hebrew New Year with the “Goyish” New Year. The article was funny, meant to mock extremes however they make a good point. The Goyish new year is time of football, drinking, partying and Dick Clark. The Hebrew/Jewish New Year is a time of prayer, repentance, family, and Gd. At the beginning of the year we Jews feel a new hope for the future. Having cast off our sins we can make the appropriate changes in our lives and make plans for the future. We take a deep breath and realize we have a second chance to make ourselves and the world better. At the beginning of the Goyish year we (they) are tired, hung over, and wishing for a few extra vacation days.

While we are here lets talk a little about the Hebrew calendar:

The Hebrew calendar has its roots in the Torah (five books of Moses in the Old Testament). There are several commandments in the Torah that relate to the calendar. It was established around 400 C.E (Common Era – noted on the Gregorian calendar as A.D) by Hillel II.

Years in the Hebrew calendar are numbered from the date of the creation of Adam. This was figured by adding up the ages of the people in the bible back to the time of creation of Adam. Note, this is not how old the universe is, it is how old mankind is. There are differing opinions on the age of the universe which I’ll not discus now as it advances beyond the scope of this article. To find the current year add 3760 to the Gregorian year if it is before Rosh Hashanah. After Rosh Hashanah add 3761. So today’s date is 19 Tevet, 5770.

The moths are: Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av, Elul, Tishrei, Cheshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat, and Adar. In the leap years we add Adar I and the regular Adar is called Adar II. The names are actually Babylonian month names brought back to Israel after the return from the Babylonian exile. Most of the months in the bible are referred to by number rather than name. So Nisan is 1, Iyar is 2…and so on. Rosh Hashanah, btw, is “the Head of the Year.” However, it is not the first month in the year; that is Nisan. The number year is increased on Rosh Hashanah in Tishri which is the 7th month.


The head, or start, of each month is also taken from the Torah. "The L-rd spoke to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 'This Chodesh shall be to you the head of months.'" The Chodesh is the crescent new moon and this is where each month starts. Originally there was no fixed calendar so the Sanhedrin (the Rabbinical Supreme Court) would determine the length of each month based on the length of the last. Hillel II realized that this system could not go on forever and came up with the current system.

The seven days of the week are taken from the seven days in which the world was created. In the Hebrew calendar the days are not named. They are simply counted as they are in the story of creation with Shabbat being the 7th day. Yom Rishon = first day = Sunday; Yom Sheni = second day = Monday; Yom Shlishi = third day = Tuesday; Yom Reviʻi = fourth day = Wednesday; Yom Chamishi = fifth day = Thursday; Yom Shishi = sixth day = Friday; Yom Shabbat = Shabbat day (Rest day) = Saturday.

The length of a day is from sunset to sunset. When Gd created time he began with night and then day. So the Jewish calendar begins with the night before the day. The Gregorian calendar begins and ends at midnight while the Jewish calendar begins and ends at sunset. You’ll understand why when I get into how time is measured but this is why Shabbat begins at sunset on Friday and ends at Sunset on Saturday. This makes our 24 hour clock irrelevant. The hour of the day is calculated by taking the total time of the daylight of a day from sunrise to sunset and dividing it into 12 equal parts. So the 5th hour of the day would not be 5:00 is would be 5 hours after sunrise. This also means that an hour is not necessarily 60 minutes. On a day when the sun rises at 6:30 and sets at 7:30 the “proportional hour” or “sha’ah zemanit” is 70 minutes long.

I’d like to also add that the holidays on the Hebrew calendar do not change. They are the same time every year. It is the difference between the Hebrew and Gregorian calendar that make Chanukah (for example) seem like it jumps around while Christmas remains stationary. If we used the Hebrew calendar regularly then it would seem the other way around.

So I'd like to take this time to wish my Christian friends and all who celebrate it a Happy New Year!

Murry

Go to get a gerbil and end up with a dog. We are the only people that could mess that one up lol. We did come home with a Mr. Cutie though. He is a Yorkie Silky mix. I've read that it is called a Silkshire Terrier. Our other three (Peekapoo, Aussi Shep/Chow mix & Poodle) seem to like him and he loves them.

Murry

Chanukah

Well, Chanukah is over but I thought I'd share some of my decorations and ideas. If for no other reason, than to have a record for myself so we can do it all again next year.

First, let me start by explaining a little bit about our family. I am Jewish from day one. I went to a Jewish pre-school and went to Hebrew and Sunday school up until my Bat Mitzvah. In our home, however, daily life was pretty secular. We celebrated Chanukah and went to other people's homes for other holidays. We spent Passover at a cousin's and Sukkot at the Temple. We never stopped eating bread at home, however, and never built our own Sukkah. I knew about Shabbat but never celebrated and I knew, a little, about keeping kosher but it wasn't important in our home. As I grew up I realized how deprived I was.

My husband (I call him MooGoo) was raised Lutheran. He was dragged to church every Sunday by his parents and told he must belive or go to hell. He remembers asking questions only to be shut up by the Sunday school teacher who told him he shouldn't ask questions but just have faith. This didn't work very well for him and he grew up with a hatred of church and proclaimed himself an atheist. Still, he was tolerant of me wanting more Judaism in my life and we celebrated Shabbat (Friday night only at first) and little by little other holidays too.

My kids are both adopted and came to us when they were 8 and 5 years of age. Before they came to us they had gone to a Southern Baptist church. They were our foster children only, so we felt as if we had to take them to church. MooGoo tried every church in town but in the end the girls and he decided it just wasn't for them. We had also stopped celebrating Shabbat. The girls had a hard enough time adjusting without these strange rituals.

Before the girls we went back and forth between celebrating Chanukah and Christmas. We lit the candles on Chanukah (sometimes) and gave eachother gifts for Christmas. At the time, I was a secular Jew. We compromised on a white tree with blue and silver balls. Truth be told, I was looking for a pink tree at the time, but couldn't find one.

The first year the kids were with us we celebrated both Christmas and Chanukah. We lit the candles and gave small gifts for Chanukah and the bigger presents were saved for Christmas. That first year looked like a toy factory in our living room. The girls didn't have a lot of toys and I guess we tried to make up for all the years Santa forgot them. The second year I started getting more religious. We had decided to start celebrating Shabbat and some of the other holidays. I tried not to push anything on the rest of the family but they all seemed to enjoy it. Chanukah the second year was a little more even with Christmas in terms of gifts. They still had presents from their birth family who expected them to celebrate Christmas. They were also in the public school with no other Jewish children and already different because they had two families. I didn't want to make them feel any more out of place.

Fast forward to this year. This year we all decided to give presents on Chanukah and Christmas we would still have the socks hung by the fireplace. For some reason I've yet to figure out, my mother is giving gifts on Christmas now. The only thing I can think of is because my grandfather died on the first night of Chanukah. My brother married a Catholic girl so they celebrate Christmas. We usually all go over to their house for Christmas dinner. This year they are away and Christmas falls on Shabbat. We've decided that I'll make a big Shabbat meal and my parents can come over and give gifts. We will only be doing the socks. The kids are happy with this and happy to celebrate Jewish holidays. I wish the presents didn't have to be a part of it, because rightfully, they shouldn't be; but I feel bad taking things away from the girls. We are all, MooGoo included, now very happy being a Jewish family. Yes, we are still holding on to some things, like the tree and the socks, but I have a feeling they will fade out over time. MooGoo still puts out a few Christmas items from his childhood but he is more Jewish than anything else, and yes, he belives in Gd now just not the New Testament accounting.

Anyway, we love crafting and decorating the house with our crafts. This year we made some pictures which I talked about in a previous post. We also used some of our sukkah decorations to hang around the house and made a simple dreidel decoration. My favorite is the envelope ribbon. I took 8 small envelopes and decorated them each with one letter from the word Chanukah and threaded them on a long ribbon. Inside each envelope I put a note card with an activity on it. Some examples are "Movie and Popcorn" and "Family Game Night". Each night we picked a card and did the activity. MooGoo wants to spoil the girls on holidays and birthdays but I did have another idea for these cards. Rather than give gifts you can come up with a list, as a family, of small gifts or activities that you could do each night. For example; one night you can give eachother home-made gifts, the second night can be family game night, the third can be a scavenger hunt for the kids (maybe the prize at the end could be a large dreidel pinata filled with candy). I'm sure you get my point. You can do a mixture of gifts and activities that everyone will enjoy. As long as you do them together as a family, that is the important part.

The only thing I would suggest doing in the future is either tying bows or knots between the envelopes to keep them from sliding together. Otherwise, I think it was very pretty and I plan to use it again next year.

To the right is the tree. You can't really tell in this photo but it is white with blue and silver balls and a royal blue cloth wrapped around the base.

The stars are from our sukkah. They are cut out and decorated with glitter pen. We glued a clothes pin to the back of each. This helped us with decorating the sukkah. We strung a ribbon through each clothes pin to hang it from the posts between our family room and living room.

The other side on the posts are just simple driedle shapes cut out and decorated with glitter pen. We then strung them on ribbon and hung them up. Cute and simple.

Most of our other holiday decorations are store bought so I won't waste the space here. All in all we are quite decorated and had a lot of fun with it.

One last thing; when Christmas is over don't forget to go get some strings of lights on sale for your sukkah. They are a great way to decorate and add some light outside and they sometimes go on sale for more than half off after Christmas. Don't be afraid to use garland and other Christmas decorations in your sukkah as well. I used gold garland this year and it was very pretty. I plan to pick up more in other colors for this year (Hebrew year). Also, look out for Thanksgiving decorations that are on sale and other fall items as they are perfect for Sukkot.

I love that Sukkot is after the summer too. I always look out for sales on summer items like lanterns and outdoor deocorations and furniture. They also sell fun outside dishes and table wear that is perfect for Sukkot.

Build-A-Bear

We took the girls to the Build-A-Bear Workshop yesterday. It was fun making our bears. I was a little dissapointed that they didn't have any Chanukah shirts left, but the kids and I made our bears anyway.

Yetta is mine; she is in the first photo above. Ella the one on roller skates. Butterfly loves to skate so chose to get skates and a purse for Ella rather than a second outfit. Caramel is Turtle's puppy; she is in her "loungewear" LOL

We had a good time at the mall yesterday. It was crowded, which I usually hate, but the people were nice and respectful of eachother, which is all I ever ask. We went to a different mall than we usually do and I think we will be shopping there from now on.

Butterfly got holiday money from her grandfather so we went to Toys R Us as her request. She spent every dime of it on Barbie stuff...I tried to talk her out of it but she insisted LOL...we let them make their own choices with their money and she loves Barbie. Turtle got some Nintendo DS games and play dough. I got books (not from Toys R Us). The only one who came home empty handed was Dad. Oh well, better luck next time I guess :(

What's for dinner

I've started making my shopping list and thought I'd share my trick for making menu planning easy. Getting started is a little work at first but once you get going it makes things much easier.

I used a calendar program to make a year long calendar with each month on its own page. With the program I have all I do is type in the date range and it does the rest for me. You can find calander pages from various websites for free or you can purchase a calander and do the rest with a pencil. I find it easier to use the computer because I get most of my recipes online.

When I find a good looking recipe I put the name of it and the location of where to find it again on a date of the calendar. If it's a summer recipe I place it in a summer month. If it's a fall recipe I place it in a fall month. When I get closer to the day I can always change it if I need to in order to take advantage of sales or coupons.

People look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them that I have all my dinners planned for the next couple of months; but it is easier to fill in my shopping list at the begining of the week and I don't spend hours looking through recipes.

Here is one of my favorite recipe websites. http://www.recipezaar.com/

Butterflies can dance

Today was the dance recital. The teacher is a 15 year old girl from our homeschool group. She has been taking dance since she was 4 and it shows. Butterfly has learned more in this little dance class in less than half a year than she learned in 2 years at the 'professional' dance studio and she is having more fun too. The recital was very nice. The little girls were so cute in their red and white skirts. They had a lot of fun and Butterfly is really getting to be a good little dancer. I was also so proud of how she remembered all the steps. Last year (in the other school) she depended more on watching the teacher or the other girls.

After the recital we went to pizza dinner with my parents and brother and sister-in-law and their baby. We exchanged gifts for the kids and had a nice time.

Tomorrow we go to Build a Bear Workshop. We are all looking forward to it; even me, as I intend to get a bear too.

Winter break = just as much work

We are currently on our winter break.We follow a year round schedule so we have a big break in the middle of our year. We start our year in July; this year it was July 20^th. We do 90 days and then stop for a 30 day break. This year we stopped the week before Thanksgiving. We will start the second semester January 4^th and end our 90 days some time in May. Our summers are shorter than the average American child gets; approximately 50 days; but we don’t mind. It gets very hot here in the summer months and there isn’t a lot to do. There are no day camps in the area and sleep away camp (as much as Turtle would like to go) is out of our price range right now. We don’t work a whole day anyway and the rest of their time is their own. We spend much of the summer in the pool, but there are days when it’s even too hot for that.

Speaking of the pool, it is never too early to shop for a swim suit. If you like a modest suit, like I do, then you might enjoy the suits from Princess Modest Swimwear. I love my suit and I don’t feel self conscious wearing it. I did shorten the sleeves since I don’t mind wearing short sleeves but otherwise I love it. Shipping was also surprisingly quick and easy from Israel.

http://www.modestswimwear4u.com/

I love this long break. It gives me a chance to catch up with myself, work on my curriculum and get all my ducks in a row for the second half of the year. If it goes half as fast as the first half, we are all in trouble. The hardest part is fitting in everything I want to cover in one year.

We've done some Chanukah crafts/decorations during the first part of our break. A project the kids loved was to color a picture with crayon and pencil. Then we watered down a little white glue and painted it over the picture. Before it dries sprinkle salt over the picture. Don't sprinkle too much or when it dries you wont be able to see the picture through the salt. When it dries the picture will look frosted. Place it in a frame (under glass) to keep it safe and enhance the look.

I’ve been working very hard on a full curriculum; k-12. Even though my kids don’t need the k-2 anymore I thought it would be handy to have just in case a little blessing arrives or someone else needs it. I'll be posting it little by little as I can...

but now my husband is forcing me to go to bed LOL. I should get some sleep. Butterfly has a dance recital tomorrow and then we will be going to dinner with my parents and brother and his family. We will also be exchanging gifts with my brother and sister in law (for the kids only). Fun for all!

We still think adoption is a wonderful way to create a family

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34461338#34461338
We've been living this nightmare for a year. Last year (2008), Christmas day, we were having dinner with my family and my mother told us Kevin Cohen told my aunt about a woman who was pregnant and looking for a loving home for her baby. Cohen befriended my aunt a year earlier and followed our adoption ups and downs through her stories and pictures. He was well known in the field of adoption so we trusted him. To make a long story short, we were promised, first, a baby in AZ. We drove all the way there and were told the birth family changed their minds. Then, we were promised a baby in PA. Before the due date Kevin Cohen was arrested; there were never any babies.

This has been so hard on us all. We all fell in love with the idea of a new little one. We still think adoption is a wonderful way to create a family. We may try again, as soon as we get over the financial blow. Meanwhile, we walk past the baby's room every day and I can't help but to feel a real loss.

Unfortunatly the lesson to be learned here is that you have to be very careful who you trust. It is a shame. I so want to teach my children that the world is a wonderful place full of love and beauty...