Christmas Pictures 2010

Reading the Christmas Story on Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning

A whirlwind of present opening

At church on Sunday

Christmas Letter 2010

All new for 2010! The Blakeslee annual (or semi annual or once in a while)Christmas letter now goes green. No more printing, no more stamps and envelopes, no more trying to fit pictures from a whole year on a 8x10 page. It must be the 21st century.

This year it seems I've heard many disparaging comments about 'Christmas letters'. So I decided to post mine on our blog where only those who wanted to read it would. So thank you for wanting to!

We thank and praise God for this year. Things have gotten smoother on the home front, but also quieter. Our family of nine has spent most of the year as a family of 6 with our three oldest out of the house.

Annie has been really stretched in her first year in ministry with Formando Vidas in Bogota Colombia. Rebecca is still enjoying her volunteer job at Overlook Farm in MA with Heifer International. She spends her time doing farm chores and being an educational volunteer . She shows people around the farm and encourages them to think more about world and their part in it. In her spare time she enjoys bread making and apparently, judging by all the hand crocheted gifts today, she has been enjoying crocheting.

Tim just finished his first semester at Adelphi College in New York. He did really well, but decided to take a semester off to work and look into another school for the fall.

Jonathan, Kai, Daniel and Sarah-Grace are all still homeschooling. This blog is mostly about them, so if you look back through the posts you can see lots of what they've been up to.

Dana and I are well. We can not believe we are in our fifties! Last night, after reading the Christmas Story and The Night Before Christmas to the kids, Dana admitted he was ready for grandchildren! He said the excitement level with our kids at Christmas time just isn't there anymore.

We hope Christmas and the New Year bring many blessings to you and yours!

What Kai Learned

This is a manger scene made by Annie's students in Colombia

We've been looking into the Christmas Story this year for school. We've learned a bit about shepherds and sheep, St. Nicholas of Myra and angels among other things. I decided to do this because last year the entire Christmas season went by and I'd only read about 2 of our Christmas story books with the kids. So we've taken advantage of "school time" and read our favorites.

Of course among the favorites is the Bible account of the birth of Jesus. While reading from Luke 1 about John the Baptist's birth and the Angel Gabriel coming to Mary we read about the Virgin Birth. Surprisingly, this was a new concept for Kai. He had thought Joseph was the biological father of Jesus. Thus missing the whole glorious truth of "God becoming man." And he really seemed to get it. He looked totally awestruck. It was a good time for him to learn this fact because we are just finishing up a unit on human reproduction--so he knows all about how babies are conceived and grow in the womb. He was really amazed that God "put" Jesus into Mary and then he grew there--Son of God and Son of Man. It was also a wonderful time to talk about adoption. Joseph was the earthly father of Jesus; Jesus, had a "different" biological father than the rest of his siblings. I felt like it was an extra special Christmas gift from God for my adopted kids.

I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year. Feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the shopping I still have left to do. We saved getting our tree until Annie, with Jonathan who went down for a 2 week visit in Colombia, came home. So we have a busy weekend in store: cut and decorate the tree, Christmas choir/play rehearsal and play for Sarah-Grace and Daniel and of course the ever present shopping! Hopefully I can post some of these events with pictures!

Despise not the day of the small thing

We've been working really hard here. All three of the younger kids are grade levels behind where they should be academically and sometimes that strikes fear into my heart. So this year we've really been working on English grammar, reading, phonics, reading comprehension, spelling etc. Hard work! However, I do see progress and that is good. But, all this hard work takes its toll. So over this past week we've taken a couple of "mental health days."

Last Friday was a cooking day. We made Lithuanian LOG for our co-op class to share on Daniel's birthday. He turned 11. We also made roast pork and a corn casserole for dinner because we filled out our state sheet on Iowa earlier in the week and Iowa is the top producer of both hogs and corn. And we made applesauce from some apples we had picked earlier in the season. Kai and Sarah-Grace were both surprised to see that applesauce was really just cooked down apples. We didn't even add anything to them but a tiny bit of water and the applesauce was delicious.

Yesterday I let the kids sleep in since they were up late playing with Daniel's new Wii game. Then we only did English and math. So they had a good bit of free time. While Daniel was eating lunch I looked over into the living room and Kai and Sarah-Grace were on the floor playing with Legos and cars. This is the first time I've seen them play at imaginative play alone together since Sarah-Grace came home last year. It really warmed my heart and made me realize that time for mental health is good for us all!

Fall 2010

I've been wanting to blog and feeling guilty for not blogging--but basically my life feels rather boring right now--as far as new thoughts go. At least thoughts I want to share. So here are some pictures to save 1000 words:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my husband of 28 years this month!

Dana and Kai ready to go out hunting

Matryoshka dolls we made during our study of Russia in our homeschool co-op

Daniel as an Anglo Saxon for Halloween
Kai as a stickman and Sarah-Grace as a little person

The Beginning of the End

I just dropped Jonathan off for his first day of work.  As he walked into the local grocery/gas station I thought, 'it's the beginning of the end.'  His first job, his first step towards real independence and my first "little boy"  growing up.  

Once they have a job, it's a lot harder  to tell them what they can't have.  After all, now they can pay for it themselves.  But I have gotten smarter over the past few years.  We have a new house rule:  If you buy 'it', you must save the same amount you spend on 'it' in the bank and you must tithe 10% of the cost of 'it' to your church or favorite charity.  This way I figure, I won't have the 'work to spend' problem I've been noticing.  

I guess I'm thinking a lot about the beginning of the end.  We dropped Tim off for his first year of college this past weekend.  Tim is 20.  I am of the opinion that 20 year old males should NOT live at home.  Even mother lionesses agree with me!    Don't get me wrong.  Timothy is a great guy.  Fun, intelligent, a creative thinker and he's been super helpful this past year since the his sisters have been gone.  But, there is just something about the adult male psyche and moms that don't mix so well.  

I'm looking forward to seeing my "boys" grown into men.  I believe in them and I know God has a plan for them.  It's the getting there that has me worried!

HONDURAS

Finally I am taking the time to write about our awesome adventure in Honduras.  When Kai first said he wanted to go with our church's children's program to Honduras I really did not want him to go.  He has only been in this country for 2 years I thought.  He is still adjusting to this culture and this language.   He doesn't need a trip to Honduras to further complicate his life.  But I guess God had other plans.  

Our trip to Honduras was one of ministry for kids with kids. A small team of 5 children in 5th and 6th grade and 4 adults  shared Bible stories, songs, crafts and games.  I was so excited to share the stories of David and Goliath and Daniel in the Lions Den because they show the power and presence of God so well.  I decided to share in Spanish to save the kids having to listen through a translator.  I’m fairly proficient in Spanish, but it was a hard and humbling task for me.  When I teach in English I will often interject with thoughts or other scripture that pertains as the Lord leads, but I can’t do that in Spanish and it was frustrating.  Sometimes I wondered if it was worth it and if it wouldn’t just be better for the kids to hear the stories translated in perfect Spanish.  But I just felt it was a good way to get their attention and also to relate to them.

Here is Kai with Morgan and Dan during our pretrip preparation(Dan is another adult member of the team--Kai is on his shoulders in this picture) Fortunately for Dan we only needed Goliath to appear once in the 90+ degree heat!

Children from a rural school with their lion puppets

We were in Honduras with CURE International.  CURE is a non profit agency that seeks to help the world's poorest children and their families by providing medical care for surgically treatable ailments such as club foot and cleft pallet to name a few.  They also provide spiritual counsel, love and treatment for the whole family.  Some patients have said their experience with the hospital in Honduras is the first time they have felt loved and valued by those in authority.  

We sang songs and shared games and stories and gifts with the kids:

We also visited a Nutrition center where children are brought who are not thriving.  Here they are cured of intestinal parasites and given nutritional meals 3 times a day.  To see the photo album of before and after shots was amazing.  

I got to hold and feed a little girl who was there to get strong before she was operated on for cleft pallet.  Although she was 7 months old I felt the need to support her wobbly head.  However malnourished she appeared physically I really felt in holding and interacting with her that she had been loved and attended to in her short life.  She made good eye contact and seemed really interested in what was going on around her.  I’d love to see her in another 7 months with her surgery completed, healthy,  and back home with her mom!  About 50% of these children are able to go back to their families, who are given training in nutrition and health.  Sadly, the rest end up in orphanages.  There is currently no international adoption in Honduras.

Most of our ministry was done in schools.  It was so much fun to work with the children and see our team kids interact and play and share their stories of God's power in their lives.  The most awesome gift came in the testimony of a 15 year old school girl.  I had shared how God had answered prayers and provided for us  during our adoption of Sarah-Grace and asked if one of the students had a similar account they could share of God’s goodness. This sweet young girl came to the mike and shared a heartfelt and beautiful personal testimony as well as a theologically accurate gospel presentation sharing with all her classmates how sin separates us from God, but in his love he has made a way for us to come back to Him through Jesus Christ’s death. 

Honduras is a beautiful country:

With beautiful people and beautiful places:

Good fellowship and good food:

There was also much sadness in ministering in Honduras.   From meeting the young mom with the paralyzed infant and the couple with the dying baby to the garbage in the streets and the shanty towns I often felt as though there was nothing much I could do against such hopelessness.  But again, God was good.  In my devotional time God gently reminded me that this life we live in the flesh is not our final end.  Here is just one of the verses from Isaiah chapter 35

       “And the ransomed of the LORD will return. 

       They will enter Zion with singing; 

       everlasting joy will crown their heads. 

       Gladness and joy will overtake them, 

       and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”

While no one person or program can solve all the problems, deprivations and sorrows of poverty the Person of Jesus Christ is certainly enough hope and future for all individuals.  

Kai and I at the Maya ruins in Copan on our recreational day.

A Good Day

Here's what happens when you say no to electronics:

It only took them half the summer, but they found their imaginations.  They are playing medieval times and they each set up shop.  They played for about 4 hours outside on a really hot day.  I made sure I told them how happy I was to see them play so nicely!  I also let them know I'd post their pictures so their big sisters would be happy too!

Home and posting!

Honduras was great and we had a safe trip home, but I haven't uploaded my pictures yet and I figure I'd better finish up with vacation!

The last part of our vacation was spent in the White Mountains in New Hampshire.

Psalm 90

 1Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

 2Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

It is definitely awe inspiring to walk among the mountains.  I love to see the peaks rising all about me and look down into the valleys and rivers below.  It has always astonished me that a person could look on these beautiful manifestations of God's greatness and not believe in the creator.

While we certainly noted and enjoyed the grandeur of our surroundings we also enjoyed some much needed exercise and GORP eating!

It was really windy at the top of Mount Washington.

We hiked from the summit down to the AMC Lake of the Clouds hut.

From the road we hiked to several waterfalls and 'the Basin', more beautiful, natural wonders :-)