AR T-Shirts!

BBS has a great Accelerated Reader program. Each student has to acquire a certain amount of points from their AR tests...when they reach the required amount they receive a t-shirt. Iris Anne got hers for 2nd grade back in the Fall...so Asa has been striving to be like his big sis and get his shirt. Well today was the day! He was sooooooo excited!

Mom and Dad are so proud of you guys...keep up the hard work!

Public vs. Private

So many parents have their opinions of private and public schools..... sometimes very strong opinions. I just want to share with you how we came to the decision of sending Iris and Asa to a private Christian school. When it came time for us to start preparing for our kids to start school we really began to think hard about what type of environment we wanted them in. The public school that we were zoned for was considered to be a great school in our area but we just wanted more for our kids. When I was growing up we had prayer over the intercom each morning...now that isn't even allowed in public schools...we just weren't ready for our kids to grow up without that being a part of their day at school. It wasn't about not wanting them in a school with a large amount of Hispanics(which there is a lot of in our local public schools)...it was about having them in a school where they could pray freely and learn about Jesus Christ openly and be taught by Christian teachers. Private school was a big decison for our family...it is expensive and the one we wanted them to attend was 25 miles away. We considered a local private Christian school but after having a couple of situations happen we decided that wouldn't be best for Iris and Asa. First, Kelly had a friend he grew up with tell him that we should send our kids to that local Christian school because it was like Dalton schools "use" to be just without the "brown" kids...well we knew that's not what we wanted our kids to be a part of. Also, we had some friends whose daughter was a great student with straight A's but had gotten involved with the wrong crowd her freshman year in public high school. They went to that same local Christian school asking to have her transferred there because they felt she needed to be in that environment. Well they were turned down because they weren't members of a church and couldn't provide a letter from their pastor stating that they attended church on a regular basis and were involved within the church...well all I can say to that is...WWJD??? This is the type of environment we didn't want our kids in...where a Christian school would turn their back on a child in need...those parent's were only trying to protect their child only to have the door closed on them when they were asking for help.
When we first met with the Headmaster at BBS one of the first questions we asked him was "are the students here only from Christian families?"...his answer was that anyone of any faith or religion could go to BBS...they don't even require a letter from your church or pastor. He explained that regardless of whether a child comes from a Christian home or not that while they are at BBS they are going to learn about the Bible and Jesus Christ and be taught by Christian teachers and that can make all the difference in a child's life. After hearing that we knew this was the school for us. We may not always be able to afford to send Iris and Asa to a private Christian school but as long as we can that is what we will do. If they do go to public school in the future hopefully the time they have spent at BBS will better prepare them to witness to kids who aren't Christians.
Some parents seem to think if you send your child to a Christian school you are trying to shelter them from the bad in the world. Before we started at BBS Asa's Pre-K teacher came to our home to meet us and we asked her what she thought about private vs. public school and if we were only trying to shelter our kids. I will never forget what she said, "as parents aren't we suppose to want to shelter our kids, they will learn about all the bad in the world soon enough so why not protect them as much as we can while we can"...after hearing her say that Kelly and I knew we had made the right decision.
I pray that we can continue to send Iris and Asa to BBS...watching them learn and grow as Christians each day has been such a huge blessing to our family.

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Date Night

One of my favorite things to do is go on a date with Kelly. I love being a mom and being with my kids...but there is something about getting to spend that alone time with your spouse. We try to go out alone atleast twice a month and it makes a huge difference in our marriage. I'm not the type to want gifts...Kelly and I don't buy each other anything for Christmas, Valentines, etc...all I ever want is to go out to dinner together and spend time just talking and feeling like a couple. Kelly will occasionally send me an email or write me a note that tells me how he feels about me and that means more to me than anything he could ever buy me! I want Iris and Asa to see us caring enough about each other to go out on dates....it shows them that we enjoy each others company and that will help them to hopefully do that w/ their spouse when they are married. We have always made time to go on dates since the kids were born and I hope it's something we will always continue to do. If you haven't tried dating your spouse...give it a try...it's really a lot of fun...it helps remind you why you fell in love in the first place!

Waiting

Lately I haven't had anything to write about our adoption....it's really been a difficult time. This is such an emotional thing to go through and there are days when I don't know if I can handle it. I am the type that once I get my heart set on something I just become fixated on it and I can't quit thinking about it. It's so hard to know there is a child just waiting on us and we are just sitting here and can't do anything about it. We are really struggling to come up with the funds for our adoption and some days we don't know where that money is going to come from....but we just know it WILL come...when God feels the time is right. I am bad about wanting what I want when I want it....I'm human...and most of us are that way. It's especially hard to have patience when it comes to providing a home and a family to a sweet child that is suffering. So many people ask us how the process is going and right now I just don't have a lot to say...just keep praying for our family. I don't want to have doubts about what we truly feel God has called us to do....it's just hard to have faith sometimes.

Encouraging Visit To The Dentist

I don't always love going to the dentist but when it's just for a cleaning it can actually turn out to be a nice way to spend an hour. Yesterday I went for my visit and I love talking to the hygienist. She has two teenagers...a girl and a boy...so I love hearing her views on parenting! Sometimes I feel like Kelly and I are part of the minority as far as parents go. We don't rush out and buy our kids the latest toy, my kids don't have cell phones, a Wii or their own laptops....they don't even know what Facebook is. There are times when I feel like we are the only parents that haven't introduced these things to their kids...so it's nice to come across another parent who is on the same page...it's very encouraging. The hygienist told me her kids didn't get cell phones until 7th grade...mainly because they were very involved in sports and needed to be able to reach their parents to let them know of any changes in games. Also, they are not allowed to have their cell phones turned on from 8-3 during the school week...which they check each month on the cell phone report. Their kids are not allowed to delete any texts that they send or receive until they have also been checked at the end of the month. If they don't follow these rules they lose their phones. She explained that they make it clear to their kids that it's not that they don't trust them...but in this day and time it's better to be safe than sorry...and staying involved in what your kids do is very necessary. I think those are great ways to monitor the use of cell phones...it gave me some really good ideas. Like she said...there are so many parents now that want to be "friends" w/ their children and they don't want to be a parent to them. It's really sad....they need parents...not more friends. I know I love my kids way more than any friend will ever love them and when they grow up and look back on the way Kelly and I raised them they will hopefully appreciate the choices we made on how to parent them. There will be times when they don't understand why they can't have something that another child has...but that is life...and hopefully that will better prepare them for life as adults and help them to not always want what they don't need or can't have. I can say from personal experience that I wish my parents would have been stricter when I was a kid...I honestly think that deep down all kids want that...whether they would admit to it or not...they want to feel like their parents truly care about them even if that means saying "No" sometimes.

I don't think Kelly and I are perfect parents or that our kids aren't going to mess up and do things they shouldn't...but we will try our hardest to make the right choices for them while they are in our care. God entrusted us with our children...they are our responsibility...I just hope He gives us the parenting skills we need when they hit those wonderful teen years!!!
I just wanted to share this post with those parents who think they are alone when it comes to being this type of parent...stick to what you believe is right for your children and know you're not alone!

Sweet Boys!

We told Asa that when he turned 6 he could have a friend over for a sleepover...well of course he invited his best buddy and cousin Hank! They had such a big time together. Iris has been doing sleepovers since she turned 6 and I must say that boys definitely act different than girls. Boys love their Nerf guns and girls love their makeup and dolls. Asa has had boys over for playdates before but not to spend the night so we really didn't know how it would go...it ended up being great! Boys do have a little more energy than girls but they played together so well!!! Asa and Hank played mostly with their Nerf guns and ran around playing Mario and Luigi. We popped Jiffy Pop and watched a movie, made brownies, and built a fort. Asa and Hank actually fell asleep before 10pm!

It was a great first sleepover for Asa...can't wait to have more!