A little visit from a new friend.

Lylah met a new friend last week. He came for a short visit, and even though he had never been to visit before, he was actually very social. His visit was short as we didn't have any food he liked and no comfortable bed for him.

Lylah wanted to name him Lydia, but I told her that was her sisters name so she had to choose something else. She chose Africa. So sweet. His little visit left quite an impression as she hasn't stopped talking about him and she loves to look at the above picture on my phone for long periods of time. So even though "Africa" is happy in the forest now, he is welcomed back to our house anytime.

Gardens

We decided to give a garden another go this year. Last year our garden was not a total flop so we're hoping this years will be even less of a flop. Anyway with that being said, I knew I wanted to start some "learning time" with Lylah as well. Now this learning time does not look like school. Most everything we have been doing is hands on and of course we read lots of books. Other than continuing on working on some very basic math and phonics skills, I thought it would be fun to have a topic as well! I decided that it would be totally appropriate to learn about gardens. So we've been talking about every plant we see outside and caring for our garden and Lylah's flowers. I also made this really fun sensory bin:

I used soil and some small pots as well as a toy trowel some worms (pipe cleaner pieces) and Lima bean seeds. I also made some little seed markers and put in sone fake flowers. Funny thing is much to my surprise when we opened the box to explore it.....

The Lima beans sprouted!!! I thought it was too cool and Lylah did too probably because I did :)

After talking about the parts of the Lima bean plant Lylah dug in....for about three minutes!! We'll try again when she is in a better mood-we've been fighting tummy yucky this week.

She did enjoy her soil play dough though!! It was actually chocolate play dough. I gave her little pots and fake flowers again plus some flower cookie cutters.

Next topic for July....transportation!

A field trip revisited

Some of you who have been following my blog for a while may remember that last year we did a field trip every week of summer. I plan on doing that again this year, though I'm not promising that every one will be blogged about in it's own post. However, when we decided to revisit the airport this year I figured it was "own post worthy". If you remember last year was not exactly what I had planned. Good news, this years trip was a BIG success!!! We got to see two planes take off and land. Lylah is even more into planes (and all transportation) this year so it was so fun to see her reaction. She kept saying, "plane there it is...over there!". So sweet!!! Since then she has actually mentioned the trip several times. I think it left an impression!! :)

Best Friends Already

Part of Lylah's bedtime routine includes saying her prayers before bed. I'll hold her next to her crib and ask her who she would like to pray for. The names change each night. There was one night that she wanted to pray for Bebe and Papaw; that same night they actually had a tornado go right through their neighborhood!! God sure does hear the prayers of His children. Anyway, one name that is ALWAYS on her prayer list is Lydia. In fact there have been a couple of times when we have been eating dinner and Lylah stops to want to pray for her sister. When we pray for Lydia before bed, we always pray for her protection, salvation, and provision that she would come home soon. We also pray that she would have a smooth transition and that she and Lylah would be best friends. Well today Lylah was in the back seat of the car signing. One of the signs she did was "friend". I asked her who her BEST friend was to which she replied, "Lydia". I thought it was sweet that she understood my prayers for her and her sister! Now we just need little Miss Lydia to be home so they can begin practicing being friends!!!

As far as the adoption goes we are very close to being able to send off our dossier! We have our finger print appointment next week!! God has continued to prove to me that I set very lame boundaries on the fundraising aspect of this journey! In the past few weeks we had another significant donation from some friends, and continued ongoing support from some other friends. We had a successful thirtyone party and an AWESOME yard sale. We also had a barn quilt donated by a friend of ours' sister. We have already sold it and have several interested in ordering one!! I'll blog more on that later because it is just that awesome!!! We have plans to have a cookout fundraiser in July (more on that later as well), and I have a couple other ideas in the works too. We still have blocks that we would love for friends and family to decorate for a suggested donation of $10. So as you can see, God is moving as we work to bring Lylah's best friend home!!