Nine months of Ruthie

Nine months! I can’t say enough how much we love Ruth, how much she has changed our lives, and how we wish every home could have a Ruthie V. 

Ruth and Caroline continue to be BFFs. Trent and I often look at each other and ask, “What did Caroline do before Ruth came home?” The answer is probably “puzzles” which she has scarcely touched in nine months. They are always together, playing, running, chasing, bathing. 

Ruth loves doing whatever the big girls are doing! Look at those amazing fine motor skills she is learning by stringing fruit loops!

She watched history happen when the Philadelphia Eagles win the Super Bowl. This is how she felt the next day when she was still tired. She had asked to get down from lunch and I told her to wait. She completely lost her mind, pulled her ponytails out, and sobbed. Needless to say, she had a great nap that day. 

We celebrated Valentine’s Day with lots of snuggles and kisses. 

She ate and highly enjoyed spaghetti at the Youth Group’s spaghetti dinner. 

Took her bike for a walk. She’s not quite tall enough to sit on the seat-hopefully by summer she’ll get it!

Played in a box. 

Celebrated Chinese New Year! 

Told her daddy how to open the butter properly. 

Played “dead” in her glow-in-the-dark skeleton pajamas. 

Played memory with daddy. She is starting to learn the rules to some games and seems to enjoy them!

Wore the most adorable panda shirt that was gifted to her from another little girl, Finlay, who was also a Peace House / foster baby at the same time as Ruthie. I’m blessed to be in contact with two families with girls from similar situations as Ruth. 

We ate the first ice cream cone of the season which ended poorly for this girl. 

Ruth looks angry here, but I promise she was having fun! They were playing school. Maggie and Abbey were the teachers and Ruth and Caroline the students.  It cracks me up when they play school in the evenings since they’re in school all day. 

Ruthie chilling at Aunt Audrey’s house while the big cousins played pool. She was literally the only smal kid left in the basement. I went to check on her and found her like this; totally absorbed in her play phone. 

These two love playing “mommy”. This day I was grandma and was babysitting all their dollies. The doll babies wouldn’t stop crying because they only wanted grandpa. When I asked if he was at work Carrie said, “No. He’s at the hos-ba-ble because somebody shooted his hand.” Never a dull moment!

This was their shadow monster. 

Ruthie loves books! Isn’t she so sweet reading to herself at the library?

I wanted a 9 months home picture of Ruth but she was more interested in having pictures with her sisters. 

In fact, she turned her chair around until I agreed to do a sisters picture. 

She is full of sass and big personality. Her speech is slowly but surely improving. She still has limited sounds that she is capable of saying but she makes up for it in volume. We’re still working on getting her to understand that just because she says it louder doesn’t mean it’s more intelligible. 

This is her “not impressed” face. 

And her “cheese” face. 

Happy nine months home, little deer! 

We love you, so much!

And, she’s off! We’re so excited to see what joys the next month brings. 

Special thanks to my mother-in-law who has helped out multiple times this month when we’ve had so many appointments for speech transition and when Ruth was sick. I know sometimes people think I am a super-mom but I’m really not. I have a very supportive family who are truly amazing! I wouldn’t be who I am without them. 

When Dreams Become Idols

I have this insane, creative mind which allows me to have lots of really great (in my humble opinion) ideas. I'm always coming up with more things I want to do with my time or who I'd like to become: be an artist, a writer, an interior decorator (that one didn't last long), a nurse, a teacher, and a farmer, just to name a few. Within each idea there are heaps of sub-categories of specifics: watercolor or acrylic artist (florals? words?), children's literature, parenting, or a yummy novel?, NICU nurse?, and on and on.

As Americans, we live in this weird Disney culture of following your dreams. While it's all well and good to have ideas and to enjoy life, as Christians, I believe we need to be careful not to get caught up in this "follow your arrow" movement. Because sometimes our dreams are desires of the flesh, things that go against what God would have for us. And not because God hates us. No, my friends, it's because he loves us so much that he wants only what is the best for us. Just like we give rules to our children. It's not because we hate them, it's that we love them so much!


What if your dream is not "of the flesh"? There doesn't appear to be anything sinful about it, so how can we know if it is what we should do or not? I'm not an expert on, well, anything really. But I know that when I get completely wrapped up in a new idea, that the dream can rapidly explode into an idol. Most recently I've wanted to become a farmer. I know. Weird. Anyway, I've spent hours and hours researching, planning, thinking, taking notes, and pondering out how on earth you can make a living being a farmer. The reality is, I'm not going to be a farmer anytime soon. Or ever. And it struck me the other day that I've wasted so much energy on something that is not going to happen. Is it a terrible dream? Probably not. Is it going to happen for me in the next couple of years or ever? No, not likely. So why am I focusing all this energy on it?

I have made the dream of becoming a farmer an idol. The idea of a lifestyle that looks attractive to me quickly took over the reality that I should be following God unswervingly in the real life I have before me. And when I focus on what is before me, I can see how much I already have. I can see the blessings in living my best life with my amazing husband who gave me deep roots into Lancaster county, and preserves me from flying off on my thousands of ideas; the gift of my five little Hesses. When I pay close attention to home, I realize I don't need a farm or anything else to fulfill me. With the grace of God, I am learning I can be content.

Image from: http://www.sunnydaysnice.com/full-day-trips/verdon-gorge-and-lavender-fields/

In the midst of learning to be content I'll continue to be an ardent admirer of farms, especially lavender farms. After all, God is the original artist, and I intend to enjoy his creation.

February: The Armpit Month

Nature has made me an optimistic, think with my heart kind of gal. Throughout the year you can generally find me smiling and appreciating life. 

And then February comes. I’ve taken to calling it the armpit month because that’s what it reminds me of. The weather stinks, I’m tired of being inside, things start to get a little hairy as patience wears thin. 

I find I have to make concerted efforts to draw myself out of the depression that sneaks up on me. If I’m not careful I can take a 3 hour nap on a Saturday, go to bed early, and still be grumpy, listless and despondent the next day. 

To pull through the month I try to make an effort to step outside everyday. This may seem crazy to some of you, but I can easily go 3 days without going outside since I homeschool. Even if it’s just to walk to the mailbox and back, I am trying to get out. I may lock myself in the bathroom for 30 minutes to try a new hairstyle. If we get a warm day, school gets put on the back burner so we can energize our bodies with the sunshine. 

I try to plan something fun. We had an indoor picnic that I tried my best to enjoy. While I was cringing inwardly at the spilled popcorn I was outwardly laughing at the failed attempts to toss and catch it in our mouths. 

We shook the blanket off outside and ran the vacuum. Who knows what memories my girls will hold on to from their childhood? I hope when they look back on how their mom did with this whole parenting gig, they will recall my perseverance through the armpit of winter. 

January Generosity

January has already wrapped up but I wanted to quick mention what the girls did this month to work on our word of the year: generosity.

At a friend’s suggestion (thanks, Paul) we donated food to our local food bank. Solanco Neighborhood Ministries is very near our home so we loved starting the year off with something that will very directly impact our small town. 

Since the girls take turns going with Trent every Monday to the grocery store this was a simple one to work on for the month. I assigned each girl a meal (breakfast, lunch or dinner) and they got to pick things that they love to eat to donate. I didn’t add up the dollars spent or even the number of food items purchased because that wasn’t the point. 

The point is that each child got to physically pick up something that will be given to another family in our community who is going through a difficult time. 

They were proud of the nice box of food we delivered to the food bank and are looking forward to February’s non-profit. 

Luke 12:48 “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who had been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” 

Happy 100 Days of School

Sometimes I feel bad about homeschooling my girls because they miss out on some of the things that were my favorite parts of going to a “brick & mortar” school. One of those things is friends outside our family, and the second is all the fun days that happen at school. 

It has become tradition to do a big celebration on our 100th day of school. I stay up late the night before preparing all sorts of crafts, games, and often a big sign. It also happens to be Groundhog Day which is a more random “holiday” but one that I remember always enjoying as a kid. 

Last night I prepped a special crown for each girl in their favorite color with “Anne (insert child’s name)  is 100 Days smarter”. One craft that we have done every year is stringing 100 fruit loops onto a necklace that they can wear all morning and nibble from. It cracks me up that even Anne, at 10, still finds joy in the fruit loop necklace. 

Under their crown was a beautiful big packet of activities, coloring pages, all related to either 100 days of school  or Groundhog Day. 

This year’s sign included the Groundhog, a red door with Ni Hao (hello in Mandarin), and wishes of warmer days with the apple trees and a happy sun. Also, I did draw this but I was looking at a picture. My girls felt like that was cheating. 

Stringing Tootie Fruities (which we bought at BBs for 50 cents). The cereal was literally the only thing I purchased for this celebration. We had all the other materials on hand already; your celebration doesn’t have to cost a lot to be fun!

We did an interactive game that I really loved. I found a lot of material on the website TeachersPayTeachers.com :: but the ones I used were actually free downloads. The activity the girls are doing in the picture is “Hold a silly face for 100 seconds”. There were tons of very similar ideas that their partner would initial beside once they completed it: such as 100 jumping jacks, stand on one foot for 100 seconds, see how far you get in 100 steps, hold completely still for 100 seconds, etc. 

After being wild they settled down to a writing activity. They had to draw a picture of themselves at 100 years old and fill in the blanks about their 100th birthday party celebration. The girls definitely went the silly route and treated it like a mad lib, but they had a great time. Words are fun! 

They really didn’t want to take a picture in front of the sign but I asked them to. When they were not eager to smile I was literally acting like Stuart (from Mad TV like 100 years ago) saying, “look what I can do! I’m a gazelle, leaping through fields! I just want you to love me and smile!!” Sometimes when I’m weird the girls just roll their eyes, but thankfully they thought it was funny today. But Ruthie was most interested in her cereal necklace. Haha!

It was a really, really great morning. The girls had finished their tiny bit of Friday homework by 10:00 so we spent the rest of the morning and after lunch on the fun stuff. To top off the day, I gave them a break from studying World War 2 and told them to snuggle up and watch a movie together after I put Ruthie down for her nap. 

If you want to find activities for your 100th day of school I would recommend the previously mentioned site: TeachersPayTeachers as well as simply typing into Google, 100 Days of school. No need to reinvent the wheel, the ideas are out there waiting for you. It’s totally up to you how simple or elaborate you want to make the day! Have fun and give yourself a pat on the back! Just 80 more days to go until summer vacation!