Stellaluna's Mama

There is a children's book called Stellaluna that I have read to my children many times. It is the story of a little fruit bat that is separated from it's mother, and how the bat struggles to learn to live among the birds. The story reminds me of how difficult it is to go from living one way (where you hunt at night and eat fruit) to another way (hunting by day and eating bugs).

I pray that Natalia and Will will be able to embrace wonderful things from both cultures that they have experienced.

Last night an injured mother bat lay on the cement next to our garage door. When we scooped her up gently with a broom and a dust pan, we noticed that she was covering four tiny nursing bats tightly with her wings. As she was rolled over, she immediately spread her wings out over the babies in a stance of protection. It immediately reminded me of the scripture that talks of Jesus longing to cover (Jerusalem) with His wings, and the psalm that talks of God's protection over us.

Andy relocated her to a nearby pine tree and she seems to have regained enough strength to move on.

Strange, the maternal connection you can feel with an injured bat.

You can hear the story of Stellaluna read by Pamela Reed at

http://www.storylineonline.net/

The Davises, trying to figure one another out

by Janell Cannon

 

Lord Jesus, help us to be this kind of family.Help me to be this kind of mom.Humbly valuing another's interests.

 

 

My soul trusts in You. In the shadow of your wings I will make my refuge.

Psalm 57:1

Prayer Shower

Love these girls who got together to pray over us and celebrate God's goodness

Where in the World is Latvia, anyway? game

Hostess with the mostest

Writing a note of welcome to Natalia and Will
photo bombers in the background

beautiful hearts, beautiful faces

Stephanie's craft-tastic gift presentation

I loved being surrounded by friends who care in times of celebration, and in times of distress

 Brenda emptied out her teacher closet and loaded us up with flip charts and poster boards for our summer Camp-Learn-Some-English adventure.

Prayer request bookmarks and bracelets to remind friends to journey with us while we are away.Betsy is praying for our wi-fi connection!

A year ago we prayed for and celebrated Vivi.
I felt "loudly" impressed to pray for "one more" from our group...not us!

Who will it be?

Operation Summer

The third day of summer was spent making a bucket list...er....notebook with lots of possibilities for "Camp Learn Some English".

We made a marshmallow catapult for our craftsy-science activity of the day and spent quite a while bouncing mini marshmallows off the ceiling. That's when I decided that some academic structure might be a good thing, even for summer fun.

We are going to try to introduce/review one letter of the alphabet each day and tie in summer fun activities as well as key concept words that begin with that letter. It's a lot of coordination to reproduce kindergarten in a summer! My house is full of  bins and baskets of school things everywhere.

For instance, on Ww day, we might weigh a watermelon, measure it's circumference, see if it floats, eat the watermelon for a healthy snack, and have a watermelon seed spitting contest, and measure the distance of the seeds for math. Then clean up the sticky mess with water activities, and spell the word "wet".

I'm not sure how much education we can get in, however, since most of my day seems to be moving left stuff back to the place where it belongs.

In thumbing through my enormous idea binders and perusing Pinterest, I liked this "stop the madness" organization idea from a Family Fun contributor. She posted a stop sign with pull apart tabs. Each time a child forgot to do something routine (such as pick up their dirty socks from the floor), she would pull a tab, make a note of the infraction, and wait. At the end of the week, any leftover tabs could be redeemed for something good. This is not unlike the pay-for-performance business model some companies use, right? It could be translated into allowance, or extra spending money, or time on the computer, or money towards a special trip or outing.

Idea adapted from "Positive Signs", p. 40 June/July 2012 Family Fun Magazine, Shannon Popkin

I made a little power point slide for quick printing. We'll see how it works with the  Davis Clan.

I had to laugh when I picked up my three kids from Kids Care at the gym where I work. The Kids Care worker hollered out "Davis clan!" to pull them away from the syncing of Nintendo DSi's and watching of Despicable Me. When another worker questioned her choice of words, she shrugged and said, "more than two is a clan."

We are that family

A few months back I noticed that someone I knew was expecting again. As she walked past me in the sanctuary at church I struggled to remember...what is this...baby number four...five? All of the sudden it dawned on me that I AM THAT WOMAN.

Davis, party of seven, is preparing. We are now that family with the really big SUV that needs to park in the back of the parking lot so as to not crash into any other cars when we open the doors and all pile out. We once waited five minutes for a motorcycle to leave a parking spot in the movie theater, only to learn that our new car didn't actually fit in the spot because some other family with a really big SUV was over their line and we stuck too far out into the road.

We have a high-tech whiffle ball dangling from the ceiling to help us park the Suburban so that we don't crash into the garage shelves when we pull into our house.

 

Last summer when we were hosting and went to Chick-fil-A, we must have looked like a bunch of clowns crawling out of the minivan as someone commented "are all those YOURS?" I couldn't think of a good response at the time, but as I've perused adoption boards on Pinterest, I've come to like these come-backs:

 

God's protection

Abbott Handerson Thayer (American artist, 1849–1921)

I am thankful for little things. Meeting the babysitter will take care of our children during the day while Mom works and we are away. A chance to eat dinner and see a movie with friends. The gift of hand-me-down flash cards from a friend who has adopted and been through the rigors of Camp Learn Some English.

Thank you, God, for taking care of details, one step at a time.

God will watch over


your comings and goings


both now and forevermore.


Psalm 121:8

Happy Hunger Games (birthday party)

After reading all three books together and seeing the first movie when it came out with friends, we decided upon a Hunger Games Themed birthday party for L's 11th birthday. We needed to celebrate early because of our upcoming adoption trip, so this doubled as an end-of-the-school-year pool party bash as well before all the fifth grade friends go off to different middle schools. The Hunger Games was also one of her assigned summer reading choices, so this was also reading enrichment. (Have to think like a homeschool mom now. :-)

Thanks Pinterest for the girl-on-fire cake idea! I love being able to share creativity and learn from others.

A boy scout mom taught how melted colored sugar sprinkles turn into candy flames.
http://cake-decorating.livejournal.com/932249.html

Blueberries as "night lock". The girls made night lock muffins for breakfast from Peeta's bakery.

Mini cornucopia bent from a microwaved ice cream cone with survival supplies borrowed from B's Star Wars collection of mini figures.

Earlier in the week, Laurel and our babysitter crafted parachutes with loaves of bread and jars of ointment falling from the sky (tied to the ceiling fans). Thanks again, Pinterest (and Miss Amanda)!

The girls played Taylor Swift's music video to "Safe and Sound" over and over to commemorate the loss of favorite tribute Rue. This made for some good 'tween melodrama.

Movie posters (50% coupons at Michael's) and red, black, yellow, and orange fire colored paper goods, balloons, and streamers from the Dollar Tree.

L's birthday...REAL OR NOT REAL?

L actually turns 11 while we are away in Latvia, so this quote proved to be a fun addition to our theme. It was REALLY another party guest's birthday so they shared the fun and blew out the candles together.

Birthday Buddy BFFs

Mom came over to be Cinna the Stylist. We took turns braiding hair, doing nail art, and make-up.

Katniss braid

A little extra sparkle

The girls received mocking jay pins (ebay) and a shiny tea cup from the glittery "capitol". We intended to have hot chocolate for breakfast, but they were so eager to get going with "the games" that we never did. We sent the tea cups and chocolates home instead.

The girls took care in creating name badges for each tribute with a district, job, and fictitious teen-age

Our family gave Laurel, an avid reader, a Kindle Fire...what else for the "girl on fire"? We plan to load it up with library books for the long waits on our Latvia trip.

The girls originally planned to sleep outside on our screened porch (next to our bedroom), but the muggy summer air led them to "rough it" by "camping" in sleeping bags on the den floor.

An epic battle ensued in the backyard the next morning. The kids packed their backpacks with water bottles, bandaids, raisins, crackers, mini beef jerkies, and whatever else they might need to compete in the games such as marshmallows for the marshmallow bow shooter. Each "tribute" chose a survival strategy...stealth, speed, wielding a pool noodle weapon, camouflage...

Since we did not include actual fire in our games, we substituted red, orange, and yellow water balloon bombs.
We had bought sparklers to use at night, but the afternoon thundershower made everything muggy, so we decided to stay inside instead.

The "cornucopia" where all the battle supplies were place in the center of the yard to grab and go.
Each tribute lined up in  a circle around the pile for equal opportunity.

In a battle between a marshmallow shooter and a pool noodle arrow, who would win? Both took a sticker for that one.

Stickers signified the number of lives left. Three times being caught equaled being "dead" or out for good. There was some squabbling over whether "you got me" or not, but I let them arbitrate their own backyard disputes.

Before the party began, the kids celebrated the end of the school year with a swim in our neighborhood pool and formed "alliances". They ate pizza and we had root beers from World Market. (The glass bottles reminded the players of former tribute, Haymitch, who tried to forget his Hunger Games past.)

The girls played Hunger Games trivia and entered their names into an apothecary jar for each correct answer. There was a "reaping" for the winner of one of the movie posters.


I think the girls had a good time. We are all worn out and will sleep well tonight, especially since our family business company picnic followed the sleepover fun festivities!

Adopted by God

Before the creation of the world

         I have been chosen by God and adopted 
                              as His child.

Ephesians 1:3-8

The Message (MSG)

The God of Glory

 ^3-6How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He's the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.

 ^7-10Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we're a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.

This morning, God "high-lighted" for me the planning part of His nature...He decided to adopt us...He took pleasure in planning...He thought of everything...a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together.

These words aptly fit our life stage right now. God is not alarmed. It is all coming together. He has thought of everything even if I leave something out of our suitcases. All is well with my soul.

Animated NLT version of Ephesians 1:3-8