Yes, the Prairie Family had yet another birthday this week!  Kara turned 6 years old on Sunday.  She had a very special day!

A special friend’s mother remembered the occasion and brought cupcakes to Sunday School to celebrate Kara’s birthday–that was a sweet and thoughtful surprise!  Then the pastor announced that it was her birthday, and the whole congregation sang Happy Birthday!  That definitely made Kara’s face light up!

We did our usual celebration of birthday presents and cake.  Kara had found a picture of a cake in a library book many months ago that she liked and asked my Mom to make for her birthday.  My mom did a great job, and Kara’s princess cake turned out just right!

Like all of the rest of us, Kara enjoys electronics and computers, and her gifts all reflect that.  She got a new game for our DS, a new Webkinz, a Dora Links doll, and a Crayola kit.  The Dora Links doll is really unique.  It hooks up to a computer and has a game that goes with it.  The game actually changes the looks of the real doll.  For example, changing the color of the eyes on the computer changes the eye color on the doll.  It took all afternoon to get the game to download, but once it did, it worked fine.  I was a bit disappointed, though, to find out that most of the activities are locked until additional playsets are purchased.  I should have figured….

The Crayola Color Explosion Glow Dome kit has been a favorite.  It involves tracing images onto a plastic dome that lights up and spins to “animate” the drawing.  I saw it at Wal-Mart and thought it looked like something Kara would like, but I had problems finding any videos that shows what it actually does, so I made such a video in case anyone else is trying to decide on gifts:

It really is pretty cool, and there are more patterns to download off of the internet.

We finished up Kara’s birthday celebration by letting her choose a place to go out to eat.  She always picks China Buffet, and we don’t complain! 

This time of year Kara’s birth parents always come to my mind.  I wonder if they think about Kara and wonder where she is and what she is like.  I would love to be able to tell them what a happy, lovely girl she is!  We are so thankful to have her in our family.  I pray that God will somehow reach out to them to draw them to eternal salvation.  Then they too can be part of Kara’s eternal forever family.

Here are my three thoughts about my beautiful girl:

1. Kara is such a happy girl!  Even the door greeters at Wal-Mart call her “the girl who smiles all of the time!”  She lights up the room everywhere she goes.

2. Kara tries her very hardest.  She doesn’t do things half-heartedly.

3. Kara loves Jesus.  She speaks lovingly about Him every day.  She says that He forgave her sins and became her Savior one day during Sunday School, and for that I am so grateful.  It is truly a blessing to see her growing in her Lord.

Happy birthday, Kara Joy Mincui!  You are truly a delight and a blessing to our family.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

In yesterday’s post about Brock’s birthday, I wrote that we all had an unplanned surprise for his special day!  Well, here it is:  meet our newest guinea pig, Chip!

Now for the story:  We got our first two guinea pigs back in May as part of John’s pets merit badge requirements for Boy Scouts.  Dan brought them home from a pet store that assured us that both of them were females from the same litter.  Weeks and then months went by, and the pigs settled into their new home, and since no baby pigs appeared, we assumed that the pet shop was right and enjoyed our girl guinea pigs.

On Thursday after Brock opened his birthday presents, I sat down at the computer to check emails, and Luke came up the stairs telling me something.  You know how it is, though–most of the time, the kids come up telling me about what they did on their video game, or arguing about turns, etc., so I kind of half-listen sometimes.  Such was the case as I was reading emails on my computer.  Luke talked on, and I kept reading my emails.  Luke turned to go back downstairs and said, “So, what should we do?”  That caught my attention, so I asked Luke to repeat what he had been telling me.  He said that something was underneath Snickers, and he was pretty sure it was a baby guinea pig!  So, I went downstairs to check, and sure enough, there was a brand new, freshly born guinea pig!

Well, now we know that Abilene is a boy, and Snickers is a girl.  We immediately had to come up with different housing arrangements!  We scrounged around and found an old cage to put Abilene in until we can get something better, and left Snickers and the baby in the other cage.  I have never had much luck with my pets raising babies, so I cautioned the kids not to get too excited until we could see how things were going to go.  Within hours, though, that little pig was running all over the place, and Snickers was doing a great job taking care of it, so now I think it’s safe to say that we have three guinea pigs.

There is one problem:  we have NO IDEA if the baby is a boy or a girl!  So, this story might repeat itself in a few months. . . .

It’s Birthday season at the Prairie Family house again!  This past Thursday was Brock’s 11th birthday.  He had been counting down the days for weeks–I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so excited about his birthday before!

He had a nice day.  Grandma made him a birthday cake featuring his most-recent favorite game, Harvest Moon.   We gave him the Wii version, Tree of Tranquility, and his virtual farm has been the main topic of conversation since then!  He had also requested Nerf swords, which seemed a little out of character.  He doesn’t have a very long wish list, though, and since the swords had stayed on it for several months, I decided to buy a couple for gifts.  Believe it or not, the kids have had such fun with those silly things!  John really thought I was crazy when I got them, but even he has admitted that they are more fun than he had anticipated!

Like I said, Brock’s wish list is usually pretty short, so sometimes I have to get kind of creative to come up with just the right presents.  I don’t even know where I came up with this idea, but it has been a hit:  wrist rocket slingshots and a box full of paintballs.  I had no idea how far those wrist rockets can shoot!  In fact, I really wasn’t even certain that they would have enough velocity to work with paintballs!  Boy, was I wrong!  It works great!  We got out an old piece of plywood that the kids can shoot at, and even printed off some targets from the internet to tape onto the plywood.  They have had a ball splatting those paintballs!    I do have rules, though:  shooting at the target is the only shooting that is allowed.  No people, no houses, no fences, etc.

We all got a BIG surprise on Brock’s birthday, but since it was definitely unplanned, it deserves its own post in a day or so….. Now there’s a cliff-hanger for you!

This year I am posting three special things about each of my kids on his/her birthday.  Here are my thoughts about Brock:

1. Brock is the leader of the pack.  He always has fun ideas and kids just naturally follow along.

2. Brock has a soft heart.  He loves our pets and spends time gently talking to them and petting them each day.

3. Brock has a great sense of humor.  He sees the funny things in life and knows just how to say them.

Happy birthday, Brock!  We love you so much and are thankful that you are in the Prairie Family.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

 

Well, this is long overdue!  I actually took these pictures several weeks ago, but I just got time today to get them edited and sorted through!

Anyway, I used to have the kids’ school pictures taken professionally each year, but it just got to be too expensive.  So a couple of years ago, I started taking them myself–with varying degrees of success!    This year the kids all cooperated, but my poor camera has seen better days.  It just doesn’t seem to focus right no matter how I have it set.  I really need to get something different–these days with the kids will be gone all too soon.

I made a Smilebox slideshow of the pictures I ultimately chose to use for this year’s school pictures, and then I included some of my other favorite shots at the end of the slideshow.

Make a Smilebox greeting

Kara’s Scripture memory schedule is just a little different than the other kids’, so every now and then, she will have an extra post all to herself!  (Which she doesn’t mind!)  In this video clip, she is saying the verses that go with the letters B, C, D, and F.

A common bedtime occurence in the girls’ room is nighttime chatter.  They get snuggled in their beds, the lights are turned off, and then the chatter begins.  Sometimes it’s serious, but usually it’s a bunch of silliness and teasing!

One night this past week, I had the privilege of listening in on one of these bedtime discussions.  I’m not exactly sure what brought up this conversation, but I was surprised and thankful for what was said.

Kara asked Cosette, “Why is Obama our President?”

Cosette answered, “because God is in control.”

Kara paused a moment and then said in surprise, “You mean that GOD is our President??”

Here is Cosette’s wise reply:  “No, Kara.  God is not our President.  He is the KING OF KINGS!”

 

On Tuesday of this past week, my Caravan girls joined Luke’s Wolf Cub Scout den on a field trip to our local fire station.  This was a special treat because our town got a brand new fire station only a few months ago.  So, it was interesting to see this new, spacious, up-to-date facility.   The kids were all really impressed with the fire trucks.  Luke especially enjoyed seeing the jaws of life tools that they had on board one of the rescue vehicles.

It’s been fun helping with Luke’s Wolf den this year, and I am thankful that the other leader not only allows my girls to tag along since Dan and I are both involved in leadership, but she actually allows them to participate in many ways.  This has been a great blessing for the girls as they are getting to know other kids in our community.

 

Yes, this is a Thanksgiving paper!  We are enough ahead of schedule, that we are pretty close to Thanksgiving in our schoolwork.

This week I am going to write about something that I really don’t notice much, but that does come up from time-to-time:  Kara’s hands.  Kara had multiple birth defects, some of which have been corrected, and some of which are permanent.  Her hands are permanent.  When she was born, her fingers on both hands were fused together ( a condition called syndactyly.)  In fact, she had quite a bit of syndactyly on her feet as well, although that didn’t cause her nearly as much trouble as her clubbed foot which we had corrected after her adoption.  She had already had surgery on her hands when we met her, so her fingers were already separated.  She was left with very functional hands, but with permanent deformity on both.  Her left hand is missing her thumb and one finger, and even though her right hand has all of the digits, they are all misformed and of differing sizes.  This really has not affected Kara in any way, and she functions so well that most people don’t even notice her hands!  So, on a day-to-day basis, it is not something that we think about much.

Every now and then, though, we are reminded.  Like when Kara was learning to tie shoes.  That was a trick!  She didn’t have enough fingers to tie them like I do, so we had to invent her own way–and it works just great!  Other times were when she learned to hold a pencil and began learning to play the piano.  She always manages to figure out how to get along and adapts accordingly.

This week in school we had another “hand encounter.”  She was supposed to trace her hand to make a Thanksgiving turkey.  It didn’t even dawn on me that this would be different for Kara because of her fingers.  She is right-handed, so the video teacher said to hold her pencil in her right hand and trace her left hand.  She asked me if it was all right for her to hold her pencil in her left hand and trace her right.  I asked her why, not even thinking about the obvious!  She said that if she could do it her way, her turkey would have all of its feathers!  Of course, that was fine.  I told her if she could manage the pencil in her left hand, to go for it.  Well, as usual, it was no problem for her, and I think her turkey came out just adorable!  In fact, we have done several handprint art projects over the years, and I think her special hands make very cute projects!

Last week I wrote about how our electricity going out for over an hour really threw a wrench into our school day.  Well, October must be the month for technical difficulties, because today we had two more problems!

Cosette has complained all week that her DVD’s were skipping, getting stuck, etc.  I just assumed it was a recording problem, and told her to do her best.  Well, this morning the video completely froze!  We couldn’t get her class to play at all!  It would go straight from the beginning of one class back to the menu or skip to the next class.  I decided that it was worth trying the disk in a different DVD player, so we took it upstairs in our living room to try it out.  Lo and behold, it played just fine!  So, I guess the problem was not the disk, but the player.  Really that was no surprise since she was using one of our older units–and those units get used a lot each day!  So, I temporarily let Cosette move her school to the living room.  She didn’t mind being able to relax in my recliner for a change!    She did admit, however, that running up and down the stairs for questions, books, papers, etc. got pretty old very fast, and she is ready to get back to normal.  After school we went to Wal-Mart to pick up a new DVD player.  I got it all hooked up so it will be ready to go tomorrow morning.

Believe it or not, that was not our only technical problem today!  Brock finished his classes early today, so I decided to put Luke on his system so that he and Kara could finish up their classes at the same time rather than taking turns with their one television which is what they usually do.  Luke was thrilled to get to use the “big boy” desk and headphones.  When his class was done, though, he forgot about the headphones, and as he got up to come upstairs, they pulled off of his head and pulled the cord right out of the headphones!  Ugh!!  Oh well, we were already going to Wal-Mart for a new DVD player anyway, so I just added another set of headphones onto my shopping list.

I am thankful that this equipment usually works well, and that replacements are not that expensive anymore.  Being able to pick up a new DVD player for less than $30 and new headphones for less than $5 is a blessing!

We have been busy selling Boy Scout popcorn for several weeks.  It is really not our favorite thing in the world to do, but it is important to support the organization so there are funds for the boys to use throughout the year.  So, we do what we can.

In the past, we have gone door-to-door, and that just has not worked for us.  So, this year we tried a new approach:  we set up a table outside of the main grocery store in town for a couple of weekends to sell to people who were interested.  This by far has been our most successful year, and we are grateful.

All of the kids took shifts in selling–including the girls.  In fact, since Dan and I are both helping with Cub Scouts this year, the girls have been coming with Luke and me to the Wolf den meetings.  They have had a lot of fun, and the boys in the group don’t even seem to notice that there are are couple of girls hanging around!  Actually, that is not surprising since my girls are pretty rough-and-tumble.  They fit right in with the Cub Scouts!  They actually enjoyed selling the popcorn more than the boys did, but they all did their parts with good attitudes.

Here is a picture of Kara at the table.  Look at that smile!  She loves meeting people!