Life Lately...

Wow. I opened my blog and realized I hadn't posted in 10 days! Sorry about that! We have been up to the usual here, with tons of rain (huge storm now as I'm typing, and the kids are rushing out of the house to get to school without getting soaked...because we don't own ANY umbrellas....#imcheap #savemymoneyforvacation)! We have had some trials these last 9 days, but we know God is going to get us through it all. He reminded us of that today as we will be receiving in just a few hours (assuming they can cross the bridge!!) a new member of the New Day family! His name is Chipego ("gift"), and what a gift he will be! He is a 5 year old double orphan who was living with his grandmother in Macha. And his birthday is the same day as mine. And our Precious. :)

Chipego will be living in the house with Mama Cecilia and Baby Luyando!

Uncle Mulenga trying to say hi!

A little peek...

That face...can't wait to see his smile!

Loved watching the kids swarm the truck to say hi!!

We also had our February Monthly Birthday Party! It was a little strange as we only had Kefbert, who turned 8 on February 11th, and Mweene, who turned 10 on February 14th, to celebrate! Aunt Mirriam is attending school about an hour away to get her teaching diploma, so she is gone for 3 months at a time, so we didn't get to celebrate her!

Awesome Spiderman net cake for Kef!

And yet ANOTHER Superman cake...he's popular this year!

Mama Liz got soaked too since she tried to skip out of her birthday in January!

Let's see...we also had a Teacher's Workshop led by Laurie that was REALLY good! It was a great reminder to make the "Christian Worldview" the primary goal of our teaching, not necessarily the material. Great reminder to connect my lessons to Jesus and not worry so much about 5 digit multiplication. And I won M&Ms, so that was good. ;)

We played a game where you had to pat the person next to you on the back and say "Ha" without smiling! Dad won...

Carolyn was in the final two!

Laurie did a great job!

We took turns giving presentations related to connecting our subject matter to Christ.

It seems like most of my life these days revolves around the classroom, so here are a few pictures from school!

In Reading class, we are reading a novel called The Puppy Place, with lots of new vocab for the kids (ie. animal shelter). They had a birthday party there and ate a bone-shaped cake, so I brought one in to show the kids!

I made them sing "Happy Birthday" first!

Every other Friday, I teach Creative Writing to the 1st-3rd grades. We have been doing stories on ants this term, so today's story was about a huge picnic, with potato chips as the featured item. I'll take any excuse to bring food to school!!

And some other randomness!

Blu gave Teacher Carolyn a light bulb (and changed it) and got a dirt pudding in return! #spoiled

Nurse Carol subbed for Laurie some this week and one morning I looked out to see them doing jumping jacks at the flagpole - you never know at New Day!

Cute little Raston!

Deb getting some love from Stanley!

Football practice - every day at 5pm at the Tidwell House!

Jacey's parents, Jay & Cindy, have been here for the last week. They leave (with our Jacey!) on Sunday! :(

Mom gained a new Science class this week, and it sounds like they are having lots of fun from next door!

Dad also picked up THREE new classes this week - lots of Science (blood pressure!) and Bible for him!

Fun with my girl on a Saturday night!