Somehow, we have reached the end of another month. With our busy schedules and full days, the time seems to fly by. School is in full swing, AWANA is in full swing and Tim’s back into gear at his new/old job. As October comes to a close, we are starting to look towards the holidays and end of the year. Where did the time go!?
Cordelia faced several social-emotional challenges this month and is learning to mature. She has been dealing with a boy at school who is being unkind to several classmates. She’s doing her best to be a good friend to the other girls and politely ignore the boy when he’s being rude to them. She also had to deal with a similar situation in her basketball league. Her team was soundly defeated in all 7 games of the season and some boys on the other team where trash-talking her. We’ve been talking with Cordelia about who gets to define her identity and letting God be the one who we look to for our value and worth. In spite of all the social and emotional challenges, Cordelia had a fairly good month. She’s doing great academically at school and has been having a much easier time with her homework this year. She’s continuing to improve her form and stamina in swimming. She’s being challenged with new skills in her Basic 3 ice skating. She continues to improve in her piano as well. In spite of her basketball team’s poor performance, she personally developed and is improving her basketball skills. She’s also doing great at AWANA and enjoying her first year in T&T. As always, she’s a girl who never backs down from a challenge.
Anthony’s school year has been bumpy but is starting to smooth out at the end of the month. With the additional Phys Ed class and Co-op meeting, it’s become more challenging to get the week started with school work. But Anthony is learning to be more independent with completing his work in the last couple of weeks. Anthony struggles with his emotions and letting his frustration get the better of him sometimes. We’re continuing to remind him of his identity and how he can choose good because God is living in him. Anthony is having a fun time in PE class and co-op class. He’s making some good friends in both places. He’s also doing really well in his soccer class. His swimming is also improving and he leveled up at the end of the month (level 10 of 12!). Anthony is playing piano songs that Cordelia used to play when she started piano. It’s fun to hear him playing the same things and listening to their different styles.
Lydia is really enjoying her time in school. She’s making lots of friends and has a great time every day. She’s learning a lot too and is able to read basic short words and sentences. She’s also working on her numbers and identifying the different unit places. Her attitude has been a bit up and down this month. She seems to be a bit more irritable, especially after her days at school. But she also understands rules, with cause and effects. This allows her to quickly turn around from her bad attitude, understand the consequence, and then move on. Lydia enjoys her gymnastics class and has a fun time. She got a little ribbon for doing a “safety fall” correctly; she’s very proud of that. She’s making slow progress in swimming. She’s getting into the freestyle form, working on bringing her elbows high out of the water.
Natalie has certainly transitioned into the toddler phase. She’s walking all over, navigating our one step sunken rooms and large/long outside steps. She likes slides and bouncing on the trampoline. She enjoys playing and being around her family. She’s starting to get into everything! She’s doing tons of baby talk with a minimal of recognizable words like mama and dada. She also uses her signs for more, milk, and all-done. She’s not a picky eater, but she does like variety and seems to prefer slightly stronger flavors over bland ones.
Alicia has had a whirlwind of activity this month. Things started out pretty bumpy at the beginning of the month with Alicia feeling like she had to carry the whole world. But God spoke to her through several means to refocus her on God’s strength not her own. She’s making the verse “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6) and the corresponding song her verse for this season. She’s got an amazing team at AWANA helping out with the large work load. She’s trying to find a good balance in how much time she devotes to work. God always bring the pieces together. She had a work meeting at a very inconvenient time that got moved. Alicia’s parents have also been coming to help out, which has been a huge support. Alicia enjoys getting to be involved with the kids’ extra-curricular activities and has a fun time cheering them on and watching them learn.
Tim is back to his old/new job. Things are both challenging and satisfying, which has been a nice change from when he left 6 months ago. Everyone seems happy to have him back and he’s been on some stable programs as well as some side challenge tasks. At home he’s keeping up the regular maintenance of the never-ending yard duties. He completed chopping the large trees from the front yard down into small pieces to burn or trash. He’s also working on getting his garage workshop in order (hopefully finishing soon!). He struggled with a cold that kept him up coughing half the night for about a week. He’s glad to finally be over that! Tim has enjoyed the off-Fridays at his job. He took Anthony for a hike two weeks ago. Recently, he took a day off to go with Anthony to a pumpkin patch followed by another off Friday doing a pumpkin carving event with Anthony’s co-op. We were able to spend a fun family day together this last Saturday and went to the Museum of Making Music, which Tim enjoyed a lot.
We’re thankful that things have mellowed out a bit towards the end of the month. We’re glad that we got to spend some group family time together. We’re also starting to connect with the people in our bible study life group and hoping to continue forming those relationships. We pray that we will be able to continue in this more positive groove as we head into November. We’ll be trying to have some more family days as well as hopefully some “couple time”.
