Too Much Fun!

I don’t really have much time to blog tonight or for the next few days, my two grandbabies who now live out of state are here for a few days for a visit, and I’m having too much fun with them.  I have missed them so much, I am trying to enjoy every minute with them while they’re here.  Here are a couple of photos of them playing outside.  I’ll post again in a few days and stop by to catch up on everyone’s blogs when they leave.  In the meantime, I’m getting all the hugs and kisses I can!

                       Blue Eyes

                      Cupcake

It’s so wonderful to have them here, we’re having a blast!!!  I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Love, Velvia 

Queen of Hearts

Drama Queen had her dance recital this past Saturday, and it was wonderful!  I only got to see her dance, and the dance of the group of 3 and 4 year olds I had volunteered to help with, but what I did get to see of it was great!  They put on Alice in Wonderland and each dance class took part, they had ballet, jazz, tap, and hip hop in the show.  Drama Queen’s class were the Cards and they did a jazz dance to the song Queen of Hearts, they did such a great job and their costumes were really cute.  

Drama Queen having a great time onstage

Unfortunately, the pictures came out a little blurry because of the movement, but I still got some good shots.  I had to take pictures of the dress rehearsal because no cameras were allowed during the actual show.  Drama Queen was a little nervous for both the dress rehearsal and the actual performance, but she did a great job anyway.  It was a good experience for her to perform in front of a crowd and gain some self confidence.

     Watch me dance!

She says she doesn’t think she wants to take dance in the fall,  that she’d rather play basketball, but she may change her mind.  Actually, she could do both even though it would be a little hectic, but I think it would be good for her.  She really did enjoy taking dance this year, and she made some new friends, so it was a good experience for her.  I really hope she’ll decide to stick with it, at least for the next couple of years or so.

Have a great night!

Love, Velvia 

Happy Mother’s Day

 

 

WONDERFUL MOTHER

God made a wonderful mother,
A mother who never grows old;
He made her smile of the sunshine,
And He moulded her heart of pure gold;
In her eyes He placed bright shining stars,
In her cheeks fair roses you see;
God made a wonderful mother,
And He gave that dear mother to me.
–Pat O’Reilly

 
M-O-T-H-E-R

“M” is for the million things she gave me,
“O” means only that she’s growing old,
“T” is for the tears she shed to save me,
“H” is for her heart of purest gold;
“E” is for her eyes, with love-light shining,
“R” means right, and right she’ll always be,
Put them all together, they spell “MOTHER,”
A word that means the world to me.
–Howard Johnson (c. 1915)

I pray you have a wonderful, blessed Mother’s Day!

Love, Velvia

A Mother’s Love

With Mother’s Day coming up this Sunday, I want to pay tribute to two very special moms, my mother and my mother-in-law.  These two precious women have helped shape my life, and been wonderful inspirations to me.  They’ve had different roles in my life, but have been equally important in helping me become the woman I am today.

My sweet little mom will be 75 this July, physically she has been facing some battles and has had to slow down quite a bit.  The one battle front she will never retreat from is her prayer life, she is a mighty prayer warrior.   I know that my mom is praying for me and my family daily, as well as each of my siblings and their families.  She prays for our country’s leaders, her pastor and church leaders, her church family, relatives, neighbors, friends, and anyone God lays on her heart.    She is an incredible spiritual role model.

               My sweet mom, Joy

The other wonderful mom in my life is my mother-in-law, for the past 29 years she has been a mentor to me.    I have learned so much from her, one of the most important things was how to stand up for what I believe in and not be afraid to speak my mind when necessary.  She is a very strong woman and that carries over into her faith.  I know that she prays for us daily also.  I am most grateful that she raised her son to be a godly man, because of her influence I am blessed with a wonderful husband who puts God first and his family next.

         My wonderful mother-in-law, Ethel

Both my mother and my mother-in-law are Proverbs 31 women, they are not perfect, but they strive to live a life that pleases God.  They have blessed my life tremendously.

Proverbs 31: 28 - Her children arise and call her blessed…

Have a great night!

Love, Velvia

Prayer Challenge

Lorie over at Encouragement From My Heart is hosting The 31 Days of Prayer Challenge.  We are challenged to pray for our husbands for the next 31 days.  Details are on her site, please go over and check it out.  It’s a great opportunity to invest in our husband’s spiritual life.

Nana’s Silly Little Ones

We’ve been missing Natalie, Joey, Cupcake, and Blue Eyes so much lately, we haven’t seen them in over a month and we’re having withdrawals.  I was looking through my photos on the computer and  decided to post these adorable pictures of the grandbabies being silly.  They brought a smile to my face when I was looking at them, so I thought I would share them with you.   Please bear with me, I’m a proud Nana and I love sharing my precious little ones.

      Blue Eyes - Too cute for words!

     Cupake - Whaddya mean I look silly?

         Ladybug - This playdoh tastes yucky!

      Spiderman - GRRR! This is his mean face!

 

Aren’t they just too cute?  I love them more than life itself, they have blessed our lives with more joy than we ever thought possible!

I hope you have an awesome, blessed week!

Love, Velvia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

School Days

I thought I would post an update on our homeschooling and some of the fun things we’ve been learning lately.  We just finished studying about sound in science and did several fun experiments.  Science is Drama Queen’s favorite subject and experiments make her giddy with excitement!  I’ve been trying very hard to make school more interesting for both of us, I know if I’m bored then she certainly must be.  So, I’ve been spending a lot of time researching online to find hands-on things to make learning something we both look forward to. 

 

         Can you hear me now?

Here’s Drama Queen with the old fashioned telephone I remember making when I was a kid.  We made one with paper cups and one with styrofoam cups and compared the difference in the sound.  We found that the paper cups reflected the sound, making it easier to hear, and the styrofoam cups absorbed more of the sound, making it more difficult to hear one another talking.

          Whistle while you work!

Drama Queen filled plastic soda bottles with different amounts of water and then blew across each of them to hear the varying pitch each one made.   She journaled her discoveries in her science notebook.

 

  This was DQ’s favorite experiment.

We made a panpipe from drinking straws and duct tape.  Drama Queen cut the straw to different lengths and then blew across the instrument to hear the low and high pitched sounds the panpipe made.  The sounds were not very strong, but she got the concept, which was all that mattered.

We’re now studying ecosystems in Science and tomorrow we’re taking a field trip in the afternoon to the park to study the ecosystem of the creek that runs through it.  It should be a lot of fun!

Have a great Friday!

Love, Velvia

 

The Quest for a Healthy Lifestyle

We’ve decided once and for all to make getting healthy one of our goals as a family.  We have made this decision many times in the past, but eventually fall back into our old bad habits.  In my last post I mentioned that I had taken Drama Queen for her check up, her pediatrician was concerned about her weight as I knew she would be, but she talked to both DQ and I about the importance of taking control of her health now and she had some great suggestions for us.  We are taking them all to heart and are trying to make these changes.

We are cutting way back on the sweets, eating more fruits and vegetables, and trying to get more exercise.   I’ve been reading the labels more at the grocery store and making smarter choices, such as low fat cheese, 1% milk, and limiting the amount of sugar in the things I buy.  This is going to have to be a lifestyle change, not just a “diet”.  We’ve only been doing this for a week, but we are beginning to see a difference.  I’m having trouble with the sweets,  I still crave them, I know that the less sugar I eat, the less I will crave it, but it’s difficult at the start.

My heart’s desire is for us to make lasting changes that will improve our health for the rest of our lives, I know this is God’s will for us also.  Please pray for us as we seek to make these changes.

Have a blessed night!

Love, Velvia 

Immunizations - Too Much of a Good Thing?

Last week went by in a blur, it’s hard to believe it’s over and a new week has begun.  Drama Queen was sick for a few days and I was caring for her, and somewhere along the line it feels like I lost a couple of days or so.  I took her to the doctor on Wednesday for her annual check up, she had to have three immunizations which still seems excessive to me, and she had a bad reaction to one or maybe a combination of the shots.

We left the doctor’s office at 12:30 and by 4:30 she had a temperature of 102.6 and was so nauseated she threw up.  She ran a fever for a total of about 48 hours, about 30 of those hours it was over 102.  I realize that sometimes kids have a low grade temperature after their immunizations, but none of my kids including Drama Queen,  ever ran a temp that high or was that sick afterward.  I made several calls to the doctors office over the course of two days and was told that although it’s not common for a child to have such a reaction,  it does happen on occasion.

With all the controversy over immunizations lately and our own recent experience, I have grave concerns about them.  I  know some of them are necessary, but I feel like children are given too many overall, and too many at once.  I am not a doctor, but as a mom and a grandmother, I feel there needs to be more research regarding immunizations and their effects on our children.   Are we doing more harm than good in an effort to protect our kids by giving them every vaccine that doctors decide is necessary?  I refused to let them give Drama Queen the vaccine for the HPV virus, because I don’t think there’s been enough research on the long term effects, and I refuse to let my child be a guinea pig.

This is just my personal rant on this subject, but I’d love to hear your opinions.  Have your children and/or grandchildren or anyone you know, ever had a bad reaction to their immunizations?  I’m curious to know how often this happens, and I’m interested in your thoughts.

Have a blessed night!

Love, Velvia 

I’ve Been Tagged for a Memoir Meme

A precious blogger friend, Lorie, at Encouragement from My Heart,  has tagged me for a Six Word Memoir meme.  Whenever you get a chance go over to her site and check it out, she writes beautiful, inspirational poetry and has such a heart for God.

Here is my Six Word Memoir: (I changed it just a little and used phrases instead.)

1. Crying - out for mercy

2. Forgiven - by God

3. Grateful - for His blessings

4. Open - to His Will

5. Praying - for wisdom

6. Focused - on heaven

Here are the rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir.

2. Post it on your blog, and include visual illustration if you like.

3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post.

4. Tag five more blogs with links.

5. Remember to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

I am tagging:

Daisy - A Daisy a Day 

Angie - More Sugar Than Spice

Kimmie - Over the Moon with Joy

Sharon - Rose of Sharon

Kim - The Chosen Child

Anyone else who reads this and would like to play along, consider yourself tagged!

I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Friday!

Love, Velvia

A Visit with Her Birth Mom

                  Marcie and Drama Queen

Drama Queen had a visit with her birth mom yesterday and it went really well.  We had been unable to arrange a visit for almost a year due to coordinating schedules, etc., but now that Marcie has moved closer to us again it makes things easier for everyone.  We met for lunch and then Marcie came back to the house and visited for several hours.   When you see the two of them together you can really see the resemblance,  Drama Queen is a smaller version of her birth mom.  She even has the same laugh, it’s uncanny how much they sound alike when they laugh. 

                 Intent on their painting

Drama Queen is taking art lessons and loving it, so she wanted to paint with Marcie.  They had a great time, Marcie showed her some new techniques and really encouraged her to delve into it.  It was really sweet watching them spend time together, I tried to make myself scarce so they could have some alone time together, but I had to take some pictures.  I’ve tried to document all their visits in photos, and I keep a special scrapbook for Drama Queen of photos of her and her birth family.  I make CD’s for Marcie of Drama Queen’s photos, so she can keep up with what’s going on with her in pictures too.

                     Move over Monet!

It’s easy to see where Drama Queen gets her creativity from, the picture they painted together is beautiful!  It gives Drama Queen something to aspire to with her art.   I’m so glad they finally had a visit, it was overdue for both of them.  They really enjoyed spending time together, and we encouraged Marcie to keep in contact more frequently now that she lives closer. 

Having an open adoption is wonderful, but it does have it’s drawbacks.  Sometimes, it can be very hard on Drama Queen’s emotions, and we try to be very sensitive to that and help her work through them.  Fortunately, Marcie is very understanding and she also wants what’s best for DQ, so we are all able to work together to do what’s best for her. 

We are grateful for the trust Marcie placed in us in allowing us to adopt Drama Queen and raise her as our own,  and we won’t ever forget the sacrifice she made to give Drama Queen a better life.

Have a great night!

Love, Velvia

*** Just in case you’re wondering, I checked with Marcie to make sure she was O.K. with me posting these pictures and blogging about their visit***