My Life as an African Gypsy

I'm proud of myself keeping up with Anaya's daily activities. While we will cycle through through them and repeat, for now most days are new and exciting.

This one is one of the easiest and one of my favorites for working with colors. Get 2 pieces of contrasting colors of construction paper and then go hunt for a variety of toys those colors. I hide them in a gift bag and hand them to Anaya one by one and have her place them on the correct sheet of paper. At first I thought the activity was a little too old for her, but by the second time we tried she understood. I don't like her to become frustrated, so if she decides to play with the toys instead of placing them on the paper, no biggie, we try again later. She now asks to do it from time to time. 

This was another fun one for Mama, because I got to be part of the reward. YUM. =) I baked cookies in the shapes of ABC and 123 and then whipped up some frosting colored red, blue, and green. I  let Anaya frost and sprinkle her cookies. She'd repeat was letter it was and what color she was using. Then it was off to the bath. Ha! Hard to believe Anaya used to not like feeling different textures and getting dirty.




Then today we played with Russian nesting dolls. Aunt Tara, who knew when you bought me these in Russia, my daughter would love playing with them? She had so much fun and played for such a long time, content as could be. She liked saying things like "big one" and "little one".

 One day I'll learn these little activities get messier than you think... but oh so fun.

















We practiced saying the colors we were playing with, writing on the tub wall, and then just had fun. =) Easy to turn on the shower and rinse it all away. Love my Anaya girl.

So in effort to do more planned activities/learning with Anaya, I made some homemade doughs for her to play with.

Play dough

The first was play dough, which turned out to be super easy and so much better than the stuff you buy. You can find the recipe here.The only thing I would say is that  I added my food coloring after the dough was made and separated; it worked great.




















So fun! I saved our dough in a big ziplock, and I think we'll be able to use it a few more times. What a fun morning. It was like being at the beach, but in our living room! Awesome!

Anaya soaks up one on one time. She loves playing pretend, coloring, painting, reading, singing, etc. Her little brain fascinates me, how she has been hard wired to learn. I've decided that while she is only 18 months, she's ready for some intentional learning on my part. I've been intrigued by the whole 'play based learning' theory, and so with some research I am coming up with activities she would enjoy.

We are also rearranging our guest room to have a small learning space for the girls. We sold a couch that was in there, so now I have a small budget to work with. I've gotten a little plastic table and chairs and plan to start my supply of crafty items. Also, Jon is going to build us a light table to work on. I'm super excited. I'll post pictures when I'm done creating/decorating.

The idea of homeschooling elementary overwhelmed me a bit. I may have my teaching degree, but it is to teach high school English, and even then I haven't been in practice in a long time, however, I am starting to think I can rock this. ;)

I was driving down the road today and saw a man shuffling along with a make shift cane. My heart went out to him and I breathed my usual prayer for the Lord to bless him especially today, for Him to heal. Because of various reasons, we have come to the conclusion that giving money is not always the best, so we rarely if ever do. Still I am left feeling a bit helpless, wanting to communicate the love of Christ in the few seconds that I am near in my car, but not sure how.

Today I had an idea, I think from the Lord, to assemble little packs of food items with a scripture and carry them in my car. Then when I am moved by the Holy Spirit, I will have a way to bless them.

I've had ideas before, but never followed through with them, so I knew I better just do it. Jon had the girls and I was alone, so I ran into a store, grabbed a few items (oranges, cheese puffs, fruity chewy candy), and then assembled them as soon as I got home. I'll have to update and let you know how it goes handing them. I hope my girls can take part, too! (Jovie is a little young at the moment...) I'll let Anaya help me put them together and if she wants, hand them out from her carseat.

The plan is to refill once a week. We're starting with 12 little packs.

The Olympics have been so enjoyable for me. I love watching gymnastics. I was in gymnastics much a of my young life, from about age 5-12 or 13. Towards the end I focused on tumbling and did a little cheerleading. I like to think I was decent for my age. Tonight Jon and I were goofing around with Anaya, doing headstands, cartwheels, and handstands. When I tried a back-walk-over, I couldn't do it. I felt old, but could laugh about it. Gone are those days...

Earlier this afternoon Jovie lay next to me on our bench outside cooing away, while Anaya ran wildly from activity to activity. I laughed a bit and said to Jon, "Oh, my life as a cheerleader!" His eyes lit up. Hmmm... nope! Not quite like he was imagining. I was talking about my role as a Mama.

When my girls are awake you will frequently hear, "Good job!" "Awesome!" "Go girl!" "YAY!" "Very good!"

Sometimes I feel like it is constant, from one girl to the next. Our kiddos vie for our attentions and desperately seek our approval. As Anaya learns to talk she will say a word over and over until we acknowledge we know what she said, and I am nearly positive she knows when we just say, "Yeah!" and don't really understand. She wants to know she communicated well.

We are shaping our little ones, building their self esteem, preparing them for this harsh world. Lord knows there are many obstacles and hurdles our children are going to have to overcome, and we parents need to be the loudest ones in the bleachers, shouting above the "Boos!", never losing hope. If they fall, we meet them where they are at, walk beside them, and help them continue, much like the father of Derek Redmond. Our role as cheerleaders is crucial.

Jen Hatmaker (If you don't know of her, you gotta check her out!), frequently talks about her Dad and the way he would encourage her and her siblings. Read this. I want to be this kind of Mama.

So for now I cheer when Anaya dances like Elmo, when Jovie smiles, when Anaya gets one leg in her pants, when Jovie says, "Ahhh", when Anaya finds her baby in her room, when Jovie kicks her legs fast, etc.

While I may not be able to do a back-walk-over anymore, I think I'm a better cheerleader than I've ever been.

I'll be honest, it is hard to find time for romance with a 18 month old and a 6 week old. By the time the girls are in bed, I'm in veg mode or frantic clean everything up and then pass out mode. I feel like maybe it'll be better when Jovie girl goes to bed at a reasonable hour and isn't feeding at 7 and 10 or 8 and 11. Once we drop that evening feeding, we'll be back to having 7:30pm-7am to ourselves again. Jovie just started taking a bottle and I just started pumping, so maybe a babysitter is even on the horizon. While that is all good and well, I am still married and still need a little lovin' with my hubby. Can I get an 'amen'?

Because I married such a stellar guy, last night he planned an evening by the fire with me. Sure, it couldn't happen until about 9-9:30pm, but he went outside, made a fire in our fire pit, and got some marshmallows to roast and hot chocolate to drink. We put on our pea-coats, pretending it was cold enough for them and enjoyed an evening sitting on a bench, talking about our relationship from when we met to Jovie being born. It was fun reminiscing. There was some laughing and even some tears. Such a sweet time with the one I love most.

Now, it took some determination to make it happen and were it not for my hubby's insistence, I might have said, "Not tonight." Don't you guys with kiddos know, however, that every night will turn into to a "not tonight". Sometimes you just gotta stay up later than normal, push aside your tiredness, and be purposeful about romance. And that is just what Jon did for me. (And I said romance, not sex! While many times they go hand in hand, we ladies like some straight up romance.)

I think we both enjoyed it so much, we'll make more concerted efforts to continue.

I love you, Jon Heller! You've always been the exception. I am so proud to be your wifey-wife.