The Riddler

Our Emily is good at tying us in knots with her wit in riddles. Here are a few samples of her latest zingers. Post your guesses in the comment section and I will post her answers in a few days.

Deep in the heart of the Amazon
He springs upon his prey from the tree tops
And with silence and stealth
that would put a sniper to shame
He vanishes away into the moonlight.

What am I?

I am found in the wastelands of the North,
where the wild winds blow strong
I fill many with fear and dread
causing the mighty warrior to bow
And the lowly ant to meet it's death

What am I?

I dwell in the hearts of the people;
Where no man's eye has seen.
My mission is to destroy and enslave
and my harvest is great.
Yet, most deny my existence
and thereby prove my presence.

What am I?

When Emily was early elementary age we would do Dr. DooRiddles. She loved doing these associative reasoning puzzles and they helped her to think outside the box. She is now working on this skill with Andrew by making up riddles for animals and he is doing very well. He loves to play the "Animal question game". Big sisters are sooo much fun!

Status Quo

Andrew had his monthly eye appointment with Dr. Mazow. While the very optimistic(we love this about him) Dr. Mazow believes Andrew is still improving he is still testing at the same acuity as a month ago, 20/60. We are continuing with the patching for another month to see if he will improve or if we have reached a plateau. Likely we will begin talking about surgery options at our next visit. We ask for your continued prayers as we trust the Lord to lead us through this decision making process to help give Andrew the best possible vision. He is such a trooper! While he does not like to wear his patch...he does and he never complains. It is as if he knows how important this is for him to wear...he has an amazing attitude about it that we believe could only come from the Lord. So we proceed for the 3rd consecutive month of patching all waking hours everyday.

Kathlena did not have her appointment as we had scheduled. A series of scheduling issues on our end and Dr. Mazow's had us postpone Kathlena's appointment until next month...perhaps a blessing in disguise. Although, Kathlena was trying to help Andrew see some of the pictures by calling them out while he was being tested...we quickly assured her that her time would soon come. Big brother appreciated the gesture though :)

Now our usual after our appointment routine is to head over to the Museum district since we are already downtown and have a picnic lunch before heading to the Zoo. We are making good use of our Zoo Pass. We were disappointed though since it was cloudy and threatening to rain the 11 day old baby giraffe was not visible for us to see nor the baby Safica Lemur. Fortunately, though we were able to watch via YouTube, but it would have been great to see them in person. Well maybe we will get to see them next time. We also spent quite a bit of time seeing the Primates. We started a new BFIAR book called Caps For Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina. It is an adorable little book about a peddler who sells caps and gets them snatched up by some curious little monkeys. We had fun monkeying around and watching the Mandrills, Lemurs, and Orangutans.

Here are a few pictures Emily captured for us at the Zoo.
Mom reading our new BFIAR book, Caps for Sale



Resting under a big tree like the peddler in

Caps For Sale!

Andrew loved watching this funny Mandrill, he had quite the
personality.


With the threat of rain looming over us we decided to check out a tip a friend gave me that The Museum of Natural Science has free admission to it's permanent main exhibits on Tuesdays from 2pm-8pm. It was fun since Andrew and Kathlena have not been before and it has been ages since Emily and J.Michael have been so it was like a first for us all. We were able to see how enormous dinosaurs would be standing next to us. We spent most of our time though touring the Energy exhibit. It was really informative and we even rode in a Geovator, which is a simulator that lets you experience what it would be like to go hundreds of feet below the surface on a drilling expedition to find oil. We also toured the Gem and Mineral exhibit...this was a favorite for Emily and I. It was so neat to see all of these huge pieces of rock that encased some of the world's most beautiful gems. We also went into the vault to see the collection of precious jewels. There were two pieces from St. Petersburg, Russia that were once worn by royalty.

It was a good day...almost all fell asleep on the long ride home in traffic, but it was so worth it! We will have more on our visit next month until then we will keep checking on those Zoo updates and plan our Butterfly Exhibit trip. Spring is such a wonderful time of year!

My favorite Andrew and Kathlena words

When we first started this blog we would periodically post J.Michaelisms. While J.Michael still zings us with his wit, his two younger siblings take the stage with some of their cute linguistic concoctions. Here are a few of our favorites:

Andrew

"Mom, is this Breafkist?" (breakfast)

"My name is Andrew David Shiff-ah-let" (Shiflet, I must admit though I had trouble with this too at first when I became a Shiflet)

Kathlena

She was out whacking the bushes in the yard with a large stick yelling "I kill the dime-o-saurs!"

"Daddy wearing your meeting shirt" translation "Daddy are you going to work today"

In the morning Kathlena will greet me with "I sleep good my beg (bed)" the greeting when she gets up from nap is " I happy"

Cultivating a love for learning

After reading and talking about scarecrows in our BFIAR
book this week...Runaway Bunny. We decided our garden
needed a scarecrow too. I found one in the attic, an old fall
decoration and said Why not?

Kathlena with her first braids. Emily use to wear

her hair in braids like this all the time. Her friend

Chloe called them "Emily braids" because Emily

always wore them this way. Emily is so excited that

Kathlena's hair is now long enough to braid. It turned

out pretty cute. Emily has dreamed about having a

little sister to braid hair with and I am so thankful that

she has Kathlena and that Kathlena has such a wonderful

big sister to look up to.

Kathleeena Braids!!

After our first year of homeschooling from a box a couple of veteran homeschool parents in the homeschool community taught me how to cultivate a love for learning. This method of learning completely changed how I viewed education and my motivation for teaching and learning. I like most went to public school and I did quite well in school. I attribute most of my success though to the fact that I had "home school" parents who were teaching me to love learning. They just did it with less hours per week. My Dad I have talked about before, he can fix anything and learned this from his father. So, I learned from him that failure gets you one step closer to success, how to problem solve and be resourceful. I married a man who was raised this way also.
I think in part this is also why home school veterans like Steve and Becky Lambert, Chris and Ellyn Davis, Ruth Beechick and Little Bear Wheeler resonated with us so well and steered us in the direction of thinking about education outside the box. I am so thankful for this because I think I would have drowned amidst the "schooling" at home methods. The idea of sitting up late at night grading papers reminded me why I did not want to be an education major in college. I prefer the Hebrew method of learning as we walk along together learning.

In the eight months since Andrew and Kathlena have been home I have become even more sure of this way of learning. This is how they have picked up English. They do everything with us. I continue to be amazed at their growth both physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally.

Recently, we were watching Dr. Jobe Martin's Incredible Creatures DVD's which talk about amazing features that animals have that can only point to a creator whom Dr. Martin, once an evolutionist now turned creationist clearly names as the one and only God of the Bible. Andrew has retained so many interesting facts from watching one DVD one time. It has also caused him to ask questions in light of what he is learning from our scripture reading time and what he has learned from the Catechism for Children. He is so inquisitive and I love that I am here for those moments of discovery.

Today while on our walk, Andrew started working on his Mailbox Math again. He is now quite good at reading random 2-digit numbers as we go from street to street. We are working on predicting what number will be next and the concept of evens on one side and odd on the other(a practical lesson for finding addresses one day). Math has become a game to him and he likes the challenge. He also learned the concept of more and less, most and least today with M&M's. M&M's are one of my favorite math tools...well and jelly beans. Now the pages of his math book come alive from a few hands on activities. He enjoys doing his math or maph as Kathlena calls it.

Kathlena has been cracking us up on our walks lately as she is beginning to recognize more about her surroundings. In her Scarlet O'Hara sounding voice she calls from her stroller while pointing to houses in our neighborhood "This is not my home!" until she sees her home and gets very excited exclaiming "It's my home, It's my home, It's my dog-Chase" I remember months ago when Andrew began to recognize and distinguish our home from the other houses in our neighborhood. It is a sweet sound to hear them exclaim "It's my home!" like a soldier who has come home from the battle.

The my dog in question being walked.

Emily and J.Michael are good at working independently and responsibly on assigned tasks. There favorites are doing research on projects. Whether it is how to raise crickets or photography composition to anything they can dream of or read about. Of course this is the way I learn too. If I don't know something then I can head to a book or the Internet and find out.

Emily our photographer. This is a self portrait. I love this picture

as it captures the essence of our sweet, creative Mimi.

As I was writing this tonight I heard Chase barking and barking which means he has found something. He had cornered a opossum. It was a big, ugly one too. Andrew, J.Michael and Emily were still awake so I let them get up and come outside with a spot light and camera in hand. Another learning opportunity knocking at our door...never a dull moment. I am sure that tomorrow we will be talking about nocturnal animals such as the opossum and how one could end up in our yard.

An Interview with Andrew and Kathlena

Remembering 1yr ago today

Andrew at 4 almost 5

Andrew today at 6...learning to write his name
and read in English.

Kathlena we believe at 2yrs old

Kathlena today sitting with her dog "Chase"

in our front yard.

One year ago today we received the news we had longed to hear, "We have a referral for a couple of kids". I don't think I will ever forget that moment of running about our ordinary day and answering that phone call. I was stunned, surprised, excited, terrified, crying inside, cautiously trying to guard my heart the next moment ready to get on a plane, afraid of medical information and no information, but so hopeful that this was really my two babies that I had prayed for years to meet. Staring at 4 little pictures and 3 pieces of paper we mostly didn't understand; thousands of unanswered questions would pass through our minds, but then were quieted by faith and hope that the Lord would give us what we needed when we needed it. It was by that faith that we ultimately accepted those unanswered questions this side of the Atlantic and began believing these are our longed for children, clinging even more to the Lord to trust what we could not see or understand at the time.

Over the next three weeks our hearts were drawn to this far away place called Arkhangelsk, Russia that we would soon lay eyes on and never forget this city because it held our precious Andrew and Kathlena, the place of their birth. Adopting Andrew and Kathlena has tested and challenged us on so many levels. We had no idea how hard and how wonderful this journey would be. You begin this journey with this burning desire that somewhere out in this world are children that are yours. You have no names or faces to look for only groping through the dark, trusting and believing they are out there. As we fought through the system to be given approval to adopt it was in our weakest moments that the Lord strengthened us to become more resolved at all costs through every hardship that He had given us kids to bring home--our hearts ached to know them. As in all fights there are bumps and bruises, moments of "I QUIT!, this is too hard and maybe we were wrong, this is never going to happen!" then after much time before the throne of God we would get back up--stronger, more committed and resolute to find and bring home the children we believed the Lord had given us(John 10:29;Romans 8:37-39; Jude 24-25).

Adoption-the beautiful picture of redemption. Through it all we were washed anew with a vivid picture of our own redemption in Christ. Paying a debt we could not pay, rescuing us out of a life of sin and misery(although we didn't always see it as miserable-as we were dead in our sin), given a new life-hope in Christ our Saviour. Walking(and sometimes running!) through this adoption we recaptured the picture of God's grace through salvation in His son. Earthly adoptions remind us of our own greatest deliverance through Christ alone. One day Andrew and Kathlena will have to sort through their understanding of their earthly adoption and we pray that the answers they seek will always lead them back to their saviour, Jesus Christ who sovereignly delivered them to us in their earthly adoption and we pray earnestly for His ultimate deliverance of them as their Lord and Saviour, and only redeemer for their second adoption for eternity.

Ophthalmology Update...progress!!!

We went for our follow-up appointment today with Dr. Mazow, Andrew's pediatric ophthalmologist (maybe I will finally learn how to spell this word!) who specializes in strabismus and amblyopia. We were so thrilled to find out that Andrew had improved 3 lines, from 20/100 to 20/60. He is almost back to where we thought he was at last summer, although now we have to wonder if he really was 20/50 since two other Dr.s showed him at best 20/70. At any rate it was a great relief to have him going in the right direction. So, we continue to patch all waking hours for another month and pray we can get him to 20/30. This is Dr. Mazow's optimum for him before surgery. The truth is this would truly be a miracle given the likely length of time he has gone untreated as we believe him to have had this since birth. We trust our sovereign Lord and pray His will be done as He created Andrew's eyes and knew all of this would come to pass.
Dr. Mazow will do the surgery even if Andrew does not improve from where he is right now, but we are unsure how long he will wait. I believe as long as Andrew is showing improvement that we will continue to patch month to month. Once progress plateaus I am sure we will begin to talk about surgery options.

Patching all waking hours is difficult. We are seeing some changes in Andrew. As you can imagine he tires more easily, concentration and focusing on tasks has become much more challenging for him. In the evening I can more visibly see his nystagmus in the left eye as he is so tired. It is a sacrifice as his learning has slowed also although he continues to amaze us with his impeccable auditory learning and memory. The Lord has given him such a sweet spirit of perseverance and joyful attitude with all of this. Of course that smile says it all. We know the sacrifice is short term for long term benefits. We trust the Lord to guide us to make the best decisions for all of Andrew not just his eyes.

Dr. Mazow was so excited and so good with Andrew. It was a good day as we all went to this appointment together so, we all got to share the joy of this news first hand. In talking with the Orthoptist she noticed Kathlena's head tilt and we talked to her about Kathlena's nystagmus. We will be taking Kathlena in for evaluation at Andrew's next visit too. We feel so blessed by Dr. Mazow and his staff. All of them have been so good to us and the kids. We praise the Lord for leading us to this Dr. at just the right time.

I continue to research on both nystagmus and strabismus and surgical options. A book that has been very helpful to me is Navigating Nystagmus with Your Doctor. The man who wrote it has lived with nystagmus his whole life and fought to get the treatment he needed. He has done tons of research and even has yahoo groups of people who share this diagnosis. There have been some new surgical procedures in the last decade that may be what Andrew and/or Kathlena will need. I am continually in awe of how the Lord is providing for them in ways I could never have imagined.

Both Andrew and Kathlena continue to grow in stature and knowledge. They are truly incredible kids. I am so privileged to be their mom.

After our appointment we headed over to the Houston Zoo. That Zoo pass is going to get lots of use as we are going monthly for Dr. appointments. Here are some pictures from our day.

My beautiful girls!

Zebras were Andrew's favorite.

This little lizard was too funny. It was playing with Kathlena.

It would jump towards the glass at her and she would giggle.

I wished I had videoed it. It was too cute! The reptiles are not

usually so lively so we were surprised.

Andrew and Kathlena's first time on a carousel. They are

hooked now and can't wait to go back next month to ride

again.

Daddy is coming to pick us up and none too soon

as the littles are ready for a nap. It has been a long,

exciting day. Mommy is ready for a nap too!

Merry 1st Christmas

Our family portrait (this was the best of over a hundred
hillarious shots...shiflet portraits are always so much fun to get!)

Emily and J.Michael so grown up!

Bubbie and Kathlena

Andrew and Bubbie

Is this not the cutest picture? I know I am
a little bias.

Our first Christmas was full of the wonder of seeing it for the first time through Andrew and Kathlena's eyes. We read through the story of Joseph and Mary and baby Jesus in Luke 2 each night the week before Christmas. While the kids didn't wake us tooo early they were quite eager to find out what was in there wrapped presents under the tree. We opened some on Christmas Eve, Eve, then on Christmas Eve and then again on Christmas morning before heading on the road for a week of visiting family.

Andrew's favorites were his crane truck and legos. J.Michael's were his erector and lego sets that he built the very next day. Kathlena had fun with some kitchen accessories like her mixer and coffee maker so she can be like Mom. Sweet Emily got more yarn for knitting blankets and a longed for new watch. Mom and Dad received the Clearplay DVD player that we have been wanting for our family movie nights. It works great and love that we can now watch movies without the excessive gore, language, and nudity.

Christmas Day Eve we headed to Hillsboro for Christmas with the Davis's (my parents and brother, a.k.a Nana and Doodad (Dewey) and Uncle Todd). We had so much fun as always visiting until late at night, playing games, and exchanging gifts. We also had fun taking pictures together in the plaid disney p.j.'s my mom got for all of us. Here are a few pictures.

First annual Davis-Shiflet Family Christmas

Plaid P.J. Portrait.

Grandparents and grandkids portrait.

...10 seconds before last picture.

Isn't red a good color for us?

On Friday we headed over to Garland to have Christmas with the Shilet side of the family. The kids of course excited to see their PawPaw and Grandmommie, Uncle Steve and his family and Uncle Paul. Emily and J.Michael immediately persuaded Grandmommie into a game of Monopoly.

Let the buying begin!

J.Michael "money bags" Shiflet was cleaning up this game.

Meanwhile, PawPaw was showing Andrew and Kathlena

how to build with these really cool blocks.

J.Michael and Daddy enjoy playing with one of their new toys.

J.Michael even managed to get me the photographer in to

the fun. I love this picture that smile says it all.