Our Annabelle Hydrangea

Last weekend, Andy's Mom and Stepdad came to visit and brought us this plant that a friend of theirs got for us.

It's an Annabelle Hydrangea, how awesome is that?! Here's the proof:

It blooms white, just like a pearl, which is the birthstone for June. I love it!

And, They're Off!

Last Saturday we packed up 33 blankets and sent them off! It felt so good to pray over them and smile at the thought of some of God's precious little children being wrapped up in them in just a few short days.

Our good friend, Pete Davis, is a fantastic photographer and offered to take some photos of the quilts once they were ready to go. Here are about half of what we sent:

The orphanage also wanted me to share the word that they are trying to raise some money for some bunk beds. They are $75 each. They also need pots and pans. If you would like to contribute to either of these needs, please contact me.


Thank you to everyone who played a role in all of this! Stay tuned for our next project. There are plenty more needs to be met.

Thankful Thursday

Parenting 3 kids is hard work! (Duh!)

What makes it bearable even in the darkest of days are those encouraging friends and family members constantly reminding me to keep the course, brainstorming with me new ideas to try and lifting our family up to our Lord, the best parent of all!


We have had some really tough days lately. Days where we wonder if we will ever see progress made in any area of our lives, with us and with the kids.


When we felt like we would never have breakthrough in a certain area, alas, it comes!

3 other moms and I have started a little co-op for our children. Some of us are planning on continuing to homeschool and others are not. But, we have gathered our gifts, pooled them together and are organizing different lessons each week that will hit on more creative areas that each mom might not be focusing on with her own children. It has been a blast.

I am so thankful for my friends, men and women, who are teaching my boys in the areas God has gifted them, not just in our co-op but all of our family and friends. You all are gifted in ways, I definitely am not. The boys' eyes are being opened to new things and their hearts are continuing to be softened to the things of God.

And what makes it all worth it, is that I get to have a front row seat to watch these masterpieces in the making!

Dating My Husband A Week at A Time

God wants us to be in love with our spouses, not just coexist with them.

So, for the past couple of years we have always set aside Tuesday nights as our date nights. We put the kids down early or on time and then make an extra effort to do something special together. We have gotten pretty relaxed with our Tuesday nights and often find ourselves sitting next to each other one with the computer and the other reading a book and calling that 'a date'.

So, we are taking a dating challenge. It's pretty much just a way to check ourselves and make sure we are continuing to go the extra mile each Tuesday night.

We had our kickoff last Tuesday night. I taught Andy how to sew. We keep journals to each child where we'll just write in their composition notebook during various times to documents certain things in their lives. Since they are just composition notebooks and not very pretty I decided we would make some covers for them. A good tutorial can be found here. We didn't finish, but we had a blast. Andy really enjoyed it and even asked to sew again sometime really soon. I loved bringing him into my world of sewing.


The way it works is that people post on what their date was to give others ideas of what to do. It seems like it will be a great way to keep it up knowing others are doing it as well.

Here's another neat resource on date ideas. Alphabet date ideas, how fun!

Who wants to join us?

A Ridiculously Cute Pink Bear?!

We're not letting the chilly fall evenings keep Annabelle inside. She just gets bundled up in her adorable outfit some friends of ours let us borrow and we just head right on out. She's a happy little bear (or whatever animals those ears are suppose to be from).

I just love Fall in Virginia!

PS. I have totally succumb to dressing my daughter in ridiculous outfits that are completely unpractical just for the sake of looking adorable. I'm pathetic, I am fully aware. It's in my blood! But in my defense, this outfit is all about practicality :)

Camping Trip

Andy and Poppa Bear took the boys camping last weekend. They all had such a fabulous time! So many great memories were made that none of them will ever forget. They are aready talking about next time!


Don't you just love their little camp chairs? They were presents from Poppa Bear and Oma!



There favorite part was the food, but not the broccoli, just ask Joseph!

Annabelle and I stayed home and did nice and quiet girly things.

We're excited for the next time they go camping too :)

Thank you SO MUCH Poppa Bear for spending the weekend with them camping. They had such a fabulous time! Hope they didn't scare you away from doing it again.

Quilts Update

When I first decided to do this whole quilts for orphans bit I originally thought I'd choose an orphanage and then once we collected as many quilts to give each child one, we would ship them over.

Well, we've since had a better opportunity come along... having a couple who is adopting a daughter from Uganda bringing them over with them and giving them to the children themselves. Their originally scheduled time to travel was in December, but now, it's in 3 WEEKS! That means they want us to mail them the quilts by this weekend!

Praise the LORD that an orphan will be with her forever family sooner, but yikes on our deadline being so soon!

So, if you have a blanket, quilt or are finishing one up, please send it to me immediately so it can be added to the shipment.

*If you cannot get it to me by then, have no fear. We have another friend who is traveling to Uganda between Christmas and New Years who will be able to bring a few with her, but not a lot.

Thanks so much for your support!

New Buddies

Annabelle has made some great new friends lately. Her feet and her two lovies. She found her feet a few weeks ago and they are her best friends.

She's just now started laughing. It sounds more like a hacking/coughing sound, but it's definitely a laugh. Of course the boys are the ones that bring it out in her. She thinks they are pretty neat.

She's lost her love of reading because apparently her feet are way more interesting. The boys still keep reading to her, though. They know it's just a phase! She'll come around eventually...

And here she is with her other friends. Meet Mr. Doggie and Sleepy Bunny. She loves them dearly!

Here's her new quilt. She loves this thing, and so do I. We use it all day long! Isn't it amazing?! It is the perfect play mat. A dear friend of ours just sent it to her. (Briana, you are THE BEST!!!) It's Annabelle's very first quilt! We call it the magic quilt. Every time she gets on it she rolls over immediately. (Her best friend Grayson actually did his very first roll on the quilt too).

She will not stop rolling these days. She rolls on her belly and tries to crawl and of course can't, so she screams, but refuses to roll back onto her back. She seriously needs to realize that she's only 3 1/2 months old and she's got the rest of her life to do big girl things. I just need her to be content with being a baby. But, she doesn't agree. She's got two really fun brothers to keep up with.

Hair Accessories

After seeing my fair share of babies with adorable headbands, I just had to join in on the fun! Nana was more than willing to indulged me and got Annabelle some hair accessories. I can't get enough of her in them! She obviously can't do clips alone, but when you clip them to a headband they work great! Oh, I've finally fallen in love with the little girl stuff and it doesn't look like I'm falling out of it anytime soon. I mean, seriously, can she get any cuter?!?


We call this her cheerleader pose.

We got them off etsy.com

Thankful Thursday

Nana has come and gone and in her wake she's left many "special treats" as the boys would say, behind.

My mom got a flip video camera last Christmas from her company and never uses it. I was finally able to convince her after almost a year to give it to me... with the promise of taking a video a week AND sending it to her. So, there will be lots of videos in the future of The Eckert Escapades.

So, yes, I am thankful for one of those special treats being an electronic. But, I'm even more thankful for the wonderful memories that were made during her trip here. We can't wait till Christmas, Nana. We love you!

What Homeschooling Looks Like for Us

We're already 7 weeks into our school year and I have yet to share with those of you who are interested exactly what we're actually doing.

A mentor gave me an old curriculum of hers just in passing and said I could pass it on if it didn't look like it would fit us. I looked through it and absolutely loved it! It's called Five in a Row.

The foundation for each week is a classic book. Then after reading the book each day you have about 12 different activities you can do. They all fall under the categories: Social Studies, Science, Math, Language and Art.

This past week we did a review week, but I'll go through what we did last week for an example.

The book was Madeline.

Social Studies:
Geography- We located France on a map, learned what the France flag looked like and learned how to draw it (which was pictured in the book). We learned about the Seine river (which was pictured in the book) and talked about what rivers are used for.

Human Relationships- learned some good character traits the girls demonstrated in the story. "Smiled at the good and frowned at the bad..." Reviewed what it's like to have compassion on others, just like the girls did in the book.

History- Noted that the book was written in 1933. Discussed some things that might have happened around that time. (Like grandparents being born). Looked for old fashioned things in the book like steam-heat radiator, the ambulance and the bus.

Language:
Literary Devices- The author uses a lot of poetry and repetition in the book. We looked for those things.

Vocabulary- words learned: appendix, solemn, disaster

Art:
Architecture- pointed out different famous buildings in the book and looked to see in other books if we could find the same landmarks.

Appreciating Variety- comparing all of the different kinds of drawings used in the book (black and white, small, large, full color palette). Practiced drawing our own pictures to look like the ones in the story.

Math:
Grouping and Dividing- used counting chips to represent all the 12 girls. Learned how they could be divided up into different groups with the same number of girls in each group.

Size and Degree- explored the concept of smaller and larger, and then small, smaller, smallest and big, bigger, biggest. Sorted items into those categories.

Symmetry- noted pictures in the book where the things were the same on side as they were on the other, like the girls in their beds or at the table. Then noted asymmetrical. Science:
Health- noted what good habits we can practice to maintain good health. Noted what healthy habits the girls in the book performed.

So that was all from the book.

Along with that we have some other things we focus on each week: A letter, a country and a Bible verse.

Last week was France and that is where Madeline lived, so that worked out great.

~ We learned about how people in France go out each day to the market and get their food. We took a trip to the bakery so Samuel could buy a French baguette.
~ We learned how they eat their different food groups separately like the meat and the veggies separate. So we had a meal one night making sure it was divided out like that.
~ The Tour De France is in France, so we learned about bikes and different uses for them.
~ There was a game they play in France that the kids saw in a book we got at the library and they learned how to play that game.

So, anyways... that's a look into what our weeks look like. It's really exciting to see what the boys get excited about and then we go in that direction. It's not necessarily what they are learning right now, just that they are learning.
We stress letters and our Bible verse for the week, but other than that, we just try and hit on the big stuff. But, it's amazing that at the end of a week after writing it all out like that, how much they actually learned.

We go to the library each week to get the book and then read it there. While we're there we choose other books that help us dig deeper into different areas that our book of the week provides.

We paint, color, use play dough, draw, build in response to the books as well.

And a huge factor that I cannot leave out is the fact that I am homeschooling 2 very active boys! So, there are forms of physical activity woven throughout the stuff that makes it all the more interesting for them. Physical activity is their love language! The more play for them, the better.

So, in a very large nutshell, if you are considering homeschooling your kid, I would highly recommend this curriculum. Even if you aren't homeschooling, I would recommend it. The books are not specifically Christian, but the author of the curriculum is and there is actually a Christian Character and Bible Study supplement you can get to enhance this curriculum.

I am obviously super new at this whole homeschooling bit, but it's already getting easier by the week and we are finding quickly what works and what doesn't for our family. One thing that I promised myself starting out is that I would not make myself feel guilty for not being 'perfect'. I would do what I could and forget the rest. They are 4 and 2, not 14 and 12! It is a learning process and we started when we did so that we'd get better with each year. I have no idea how long we'll homeschool but for right now, it's perfect for our family!

One day, I would love to post on the reasons why we have chosen homeschooling. Stay tuned...

Thankful Thursday

As always, we have so much to be thankful for this week!

I catch myself thinking, "what did I do to deserve all of this? This is a little too good to be true." But, the simple answer is absolutely nothing! Because the Lord loves me, he has lavished me with his love and poured out blessings on my life. It sure helps my overachieving self to know that I can't earn God's love. It's a gift! All I have to do is confess that I am a sinner and ask Him to take up residency in my heart and give me the strength to live my life to please Him.

Cool thing is, he loves you the exact same way!

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The overarching theme this week that we are thankful for is our extended family.

We just got off of a visit with my Grandma and Grandpa which was very short, but very special. They made the trip down to meet their first great-grandaugher and to lavish their love on the rest of us!

Then on Saturday, Nana comes from Colorado to visit for a long weekend. The boys have been tearing off a link to their paper chain for the past 2 weeks and are just overflowing with excitement since they don't get to see her all that often.

And then in a few weeks the boys are going to be going on a camping trip, this time with Poppa Bear! Andy got his love for the outdoors from his Dad and of course is passing that down to our children. Annabelle and I will stay home this time while we let the boys do their thing. I'm sure there will be some great tales to tell after that trip.

Thinking of when families used to live so close to one another, we often pity ourselves that our closest family member lives 2 hours away. But, we are quickly reminded that in today's age, that's nothing. With phones, email, skype, planes trains and automobiles distance is no longer a major barrier. It sure could be worse.

So, we will still pray Charlie and my Mom move East very soon, but while they are far away we will skype like it's our job and be so ever thankful it's 2010 and not 1910!

Rollie Pollie

Annabelle rolled over from her back to her front yesterday for the 3rd time. I thought it was a fluke the first 2 times, but it seems like it's here to stay. I am not a happy mommy. Yes, I'm proud of her for accomplishing such a large feat, but I am definitely not excited she is growing up so quickly. I don't know what she thinks she has to prove to us all, but I want it to stop! Maybe if we work a lot harder on making her feel loved just the way she is, she will stop trying to do such big girl things :)