I Love My Family!!

Cass's Heart and Brasilia - Check; Moving - Here We Go

Thanks so much for your prayers.

Cass's heart checked out just fine...as far as we know. :) The doctor (radiologist I guess) said everything looked normal. Not sure why the murmur then, but we'll see what the pediatrician has to say. No biggie though...that was good. I was never really worried, but I have Mitral Valve Prolapse and was just kind of curious if she maybe had it too. That was a negative though...yay. And, just a sidenote...I've never really had symptoms...just the occasionally flutter. The only surgery I've ever had (the D&C after my miscarriage...first pregnancy in Dec. 2002 for those of you who didn't know or don't remember), my heart activity on the monitors sent the nurses out to the waiting room to ask Joel frantically if I had any heart issues. :) Oops...apparently it truly is pretty asymptomatic since I completely forgot to even tell them before surgery. :) But, I went to the cardiologist right before coming to Brasil, just for a check and what little symptoms I did have are now basically gone. I will always keep a check on it, but it was just really cool to have that gift. (and so cool, Susan, about your little girl...thanks for sharing)

After the heart check, we were off to Brasilia. We were not turned away at the gate this time and turns out that once you get in, they are actually really pretty darn nice. :) It all went VERY smoothly (again, thank you so much for your prayers). Here's the scary part. Like I said last night (actually, early this morning...oh, no, it is now Saturday...so, early yesterday morning...eeesh), it will take 2 weeks to get the passport...that is the average. Since our appointment wasn't until today in the afternoon, we were told that the process probably wouldn't actually get started until first thing Monday morning. So, that puts us at Dec. 22nd getting the passport. We can pick it up between 2pm and 4pm that day. Guess what folks? We fly out (from Brasilia...that same city) at 8pm that night. Yeah...like I said...cutting it close. That really is a tad bit stressful, so you can continue to pray for that. But, I'm pretty confident that it will all work out too.

And, now we are off to the next thing on the checklist for this weekend...the BIG MOVE. We've been packing up and basically it is almost all done. We've been here in this apartment about 5 weeks. It's been fun. We'll miss it in some ways. But, I am SO EXCITED about the house we are moving to (although we REALLY hate to see our friends who were living in that house go...bittersweet...we will really miss them). I really do love it and can't wait to get all settled in. It will be interesting to see what all we can do in the next 2 weeks before we leave for the states. I'll keep you posted I'm sure.

Not sure how soon we will have the internet hooked up over there. Could be immediately...I really don't know (Joel's job and he's sleeping so I can't ask him). But, I will post again soon and let you know how it went. I know the kids are just going to go hog wild with all the space they will have...inside the house and out. So fun.

We head over in a few hours (Saturday morning). Moves are so much work, aren't they? We will be working non-stop today, so again I must ask...keep us in your prayers. Thanks. I'll post pictures of the house soon. So, so cute.

Prayers for Cass

She's getting so big, right?

We have a couple of Cass-related things to take care of today.

1. We went to the pediatrician the other day (I'll blog about it at some point) and the doctor heard a murmur when listening to Cass. It was a slight murmur and lots of times murmurs are considered 'normal' and nothing to fret over in the least. But, we will be going in to see it on the big screen (ultrasound) tomorrow morning. Pray that it truly is nothing.

Also, she was sick today. She ran a fever mid-day and then after the fever was gone, vomited several times tonight and just laid on me constantly. Then the switch was flipped (as it seemed) and she was playing and crawling around on the floor, squealing with excitement (at 11pm). Just pray that it doesn't come back. Not only is it just yucky period, but we have that ultrasound as mentioned...then after the ultrasound we will be traveling...

2. ...to Brasilia. We have to get Cass registered as an American and also request a passport for her. She can't come to the states with us if she doesn't have one. :) We'd kind of like for her to come along. Seriously, we had this on the to-do list for when Joel was on a break from Asas in January...but now, with the trip, it is a MUST. And this is cutting it close. It takes about 2 weeks to get the passport. So, if it comes 2 weeks from tomorrow, that will be on the 19th, a Friday. What if it doesn't come then? Well, hopefully it would come in on that Monday. But, that Monday is the 22nd...the day we fly out of Brazil. Yikes. Yeah...everything needs to go smoothly. And they require a WOW amount paperwork and proof that she is, in fact, our daughter. Understandable, but also very stressful. We have it all, we think. We are even taking the birth video. :) Just pray that our visit with the people at the embassy would be smooth and that we would have favor there. We are Americans, it is an American embassy...but unfortunately, their reputation preceeds them...and they are not always the most helpful of people from what we hear. We actually have experienced it firsthand (#6), so we're a little skiddish. Anyway, just pray that it go well and that everything just goes off without a hitch this time. Thanks so much.

Look at this cutie that you are praying for today.

Sportin' some of the big bro's whitie tighties. Thanks, Daddy! ;) Oh, and Happy Birthday, Uncle Tucker!! Love you and see you soon!!

Homeschooling Update

You might remember that I started lightly homeschooling in August. It was so, so, so much fun. But, I wasn't working with a curriculum at all and just didn't have the time to keep up the pace that I started out with. I was just doing fun things revolving around the alphabet, but it took WAY too much time to prepare...way more time than I had to give to it. It sure was fun though. After I had already decided to do something different, my Aunt Jessica (ha ha ha, Jessica...doesn't that sound weird) told me about this curriculum...seriously AWESOME!! If you are looking for free pre-K curriculums online, look at that site. I really love it and even made out schedules and such already for if/when I do use it. But, like I said...I had already decided on and bought another actual curriculum. Anyway, so here's what we are doing...

I've always LOVED the concept of the Sonlight curriculum. Love their method, love that you get everything you need in one box, love that the work of planning is already done for you, LOVE the books that they use to teach our children, love their approach to worldview, basically love everything about it...and esp. since we have no access to libraries or other resources needed to use some homeschool curriculums, Sonlight it was. We are so excited about the huge library we are building for our kids (and us...hee hee hee). Well, let me just paste a quote from their website:

We founded Sonlight Curriculum on the principle that great books make great libraries, and great libraries are the core of great education. You won’t just get the books you need for one school year, you’ll begin a legacy by passing on a love for truly great books that inspire your kids—AND you— to be life-long learners.

And, even though it's a bit expensive on the front side, since the base of the curriculum is good books that we will use over and over throughout our lifetime (not 'textbooks'), there are 2 great things we are excited about...1) we'll only have to pay the big bucks once and then with all our other children we only buy the consumables (workbooks and such) and 2) as said before, we are building a GREAT library. So fun!! And completely worth every penny for us. This year we are using the Pre-K curriculum - P4/5. LOVE it!

We are also using the Sing, Spell, Read, and Write, Pre-K. We really enjoy it. It focuses on things like colors, shapes, seasons, opposites, sequencing, etc. the first part of the curriculum and then teaches the alphabet at the end, along with numbers 1-10. It's so age-appropriate and the kids really get a kick out of it.

Another thing we will be starting up in January is the Math-U-See Primer. It's so overwhelming, this homeschooling thing. For some people, one curriculum works and for others another works...and some do better with no curriculum at all. As we go along, we will figure out more and more what works for our family and the different learning styles within our family. We haven't started this yet, so we'll just have to wait and see how this curriculum works for our family. It looks really cool and I love it so far by just looking at it. But, we shall see. I'll let you know what I think after we use it.

One other thing that we will be doing this year is the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons book. I plan to do it with Grady, but probably not Hadley this year. I'll wait and do it with her next year. That is the plan. We'll see if that changes. Even if I don't wait until next year to do it with Hadley, I will most likely at least go through it completely with Grady first before I even start with Hadley. Like I said, everyone is different. I've heard of some kids who this book just didn't work with...they hated it. So, again...we shall see how it works with us. I'll let you know. But, I am excited about teaching my kids to read...so, so fun! Talk about a very tangible and forever practical reward. So cool.

We "do school" every day while the little girls are sleeping. Usually we start around 2 and end around 4. The kids love it and so do I. Our schedule everyday:

Prayer
Sing, Spell, Read, and Write work
Pledge of Allegiance
America the Beautiful
Memory Verses
Sonlight Read-Alouds
Sonlight Workbook work (with the P4/5 curriculum, these are the only workbooks for the year)

We'll add the Math-U-See in January, finish up the Sing, Spell, Read, and Write in February/March, and start the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We'll be done with everything sometime in October, just in time to get ready for our scheduled furlough.

The Sonlight includes Bible, but after we get back from this unexpected trip to the U.S. at the end of this February and things settle back down a bit, I definitely plan to pull out the Betty Lukens set too that has been put away since we moved from the seminary house into the apartment. Right now we are just surviving in the mornings, but I normally really like to do that with the kids in the morning...that way Eissa gets in on it too.

I have to say that one of the best things I could've heard came out of Grady's mouth a while back. It was at the end of September I believe. The school where they went to "Portuguese class" had been back in session since the beginning of August. We'd been homeschooling since then also. Some neighbors had brought the kids' things back from the school that they hadn't gotten at the end of the spring semester. Things like pencil holders, etc. Grady's hadn't been brought to him, so Joel and Grady went one day after lunch to get it. I wondered what would happen. Would Grady see his friends and wish he was back there every day? I didn't say a word though...and just asked him nonchalantly, but a bit excitedly when he got back, "Grady, was it so great to see your friends again?" He said calmly, "Yeah. It was." Me: "Oh, good." Grady: "I like it there, but I want to be here with you and Daddy."

I hadn't even asked him anything about that. And me and Joel hadn't even talked about it. If we had, we wouldn't have done it in front of them. Anyway, it was just real confirmation for us that we'd done the right thing. Not that it will always be the right thing for him to remain home with us whenever he wants to instead of going somewhere...that's not the point. But, it had been a bit of a struggle to really come to the final decision of homeschooling being the best thing for our family at this time. So, again...it was just like God prompted him to say it so that we'd have this confirmation. It was so great to hear. And we continue to LOVE homeschooling. So thankful I get to spend time with my kids and teach them myself. What a great time we have together!!

Anyhoo, there you go...what we are doing these days. Should be it for the 'updates.' Now, some pics and video footage. Enjoy. (again, with the captions problem...sorry)

Grady LOVES to draw. He's become quite the artist with very interesting detail. It's so fun to see the things he draws. And I am truly a fan...I think he's really good. He could seriously get a job as a children's book illustrator right now. I think his stuff looks like the things in Dr. Suess books or something. Anyway...here's one of the first things he did. I'll have to just post pictures the kids have drawn on here one day. They're so cool.
Close-up of Grady's art.
I love homeschooling because our kids are always home with us and they model what we do...Hadley with an example of that (although she's never seen me use a bottle...no, there's nothing wrong with a bottle...just pointing that funny thing out).
Grady's castle.
Hadley's art.
Close-up of Hadley's art.
Doing some worksheets.

This day we read "Old King Cole" in the Nursery Rhymes book we have. I just happen to have an Old King Cole blanket (where did that come from, Mama?), so I got it out and showed it to the kids. Then they covered up with it and looked some more at the book. Fun.
Then after school, the girls are usually up and everyone enjoys a snack.

So, the story is that my homeschooling, missionary friend went home on furlough and they were at this baseball game or something. They said the Pledge of Allegiance there and her little Brazilian/American kiddos didn't know it. Her family was mortified. :) It wasn't in the homeschooling curriculum guide/checklist, so she didn't even think about it. I thought that story was so funny...and remembered it. My kids, after about 5 days of repetition, have now mastered the Pledge. :) Whew...checked off the list in my head.



And some of their memory verses...they learn one a week. You can also see some of our MAJOR silliness shining through here. Don't worry...we're not like that all the time.

Christmas Cards This Year

Oh, how I love the hustle and bustle!!

I think we might have to extend the Christmas festivities until at least mid-January since we aren't getting there until 2 days before Christmas. Maybe we can throw an extra Thanksgiving in there somewhere too. :) Ha ha ha.

Alisha nailed my next post on the head with her recent comment. (seriously, homeschool update is next)

Remember we LOVE getting Christmas cards, so please, SEND US ONE! And the fun thing this year, since WE ARE COMING TO THE STATES (I'm still shouting that phrase out a lot these days), is that you can mail them to us there. So easy, right? That's our focus...making life easier for you. ;)

So, send them to:

Joel and Michawn Ebersole
P.O. Box 42
Saline, LA 71070

Thanks so much!

Heads-Ups

That is plural. :)

Before I give you an update on homeschooling, I wanted to spout off some randomness.

1. I wanted to tell you about a movie you should avoid like the plague. I wouldn't even admit that I watched it, but it was horrible enough that I thought I should be a good friend and warn you about it. It's called "Jude." If you've watched it already, I'm so, so sorry. You can pray that God will completely just cleanse your mind of it. If you haven't, thank God I reached you in time.

It starts out interesting. Set in the 1800s or so. Got Kate Winslet in it (I usually like her movies). There are some parts that you have to fast-forward through, but that's the norm with movies. We actually started watching it Friday night and I got so disgustingly sick (contents of my stomach deciding they wanted to make a u-turn) that I went to bed instead of watching the last half. I should've taken that as protection from the Almighty One and not ever gone back to watch the rest. Oh, but no...we watched the last half last night.

It went from bad to worse. You all know the feeling...you just keep watching thinking that surely it will get better. Most movies do, thank goodness. This one got WAY worse...worse than any movie I've ever seen before in my life. About 3/4 of the way through, it happened...the most disturbing thing I've ever seen in a film. We thought surely after that, it will end halfway decent (hope is a good thing, but that hope that is God-given can't always be trusted when dealing with a man-made thing like a movie). It never redeemed itself...not even close. I have no idea what these people were thinking in making this film. Seriously, STAY AWAY. We had to pray really hard and watch a comedy sitcom before we could go to bed...but were still heavy-hearted.

It goes against my constitution to give away a movie, even one like this that I'm begging you not to see. Please do not let curiosity drive you to get this movie...if you want to know what happened, feel free to ask me and I will tell you. But DON'T rent this movie.

2. Since we are now going to the states in 3 weeks (see last post if you didn't hear), instead of waiting until the 11th (when Joel is done with Asas for the semester) to move into our new house, we are actually moving this weekend (the occupants of the house vacate the premises on this Friday). That will give us more time to set up the house a bit and also pack for our trip (I need to find the cold weather clothing that we have...). :) I'm so excited to move on. We've enjoyed this little apartment, but we have so much to do before we travel...I'm so glad that I won't be forced to just sit around here in the apartment for another week and a half...we can go ahead and start all that work. So keep us in your prayers this week as we pack and this Saturday as we head over to the new house.

3. If you are a family who does the Santa Claus thing at your casa, just wanted to pass this on...super cute.

Now, off to start packing up...again.

Update on the Parents

Oh, where to begin. :)

(By the way, if you missed the update on Cass yesterday, scroll down. I don't usually post 2 days in a row these days, so I don't want you to miss her.)

Joel continues to plug away at the aviation dept of our mission. He is more and more focusing on the maintenance and avionics side of things. He is the maintenance coordinator at the school now, which basically just means that he is in charge of making sure the school airplanes are up and running and the students are gaining the most experience possible. He really loves it and finds satisfaction in it. He has done a little flight training but not as much as before. He is currently working on a WYCLIFFE Cessna 206. This project has been really interesting for him. One of the things he said was so neat was that at one time there were people from JAARS, SIL, New Tribes, and Asas all working there together. Mission aviation is really, in some ways, becoming more of a partnership at times and it's really neat to all pull together and share resources, working together for the good of the people we are reaching.

I continue to be in the process of language learning. I found the perfect teacher for me back in August. She lives very, very close to the seminary. I was going every Tuesday - Friday, but now (at least while we are living here in the apartment across town...a good drive) I am only going Tuesday - Thursday. This schedule works out great. It's a LOT of work for Joel. I leave when he gets home from Asas, so I'm basically gone from about 6:15 - 8:15 those three nights of the week. That means he has to shower, feed, and put the kids to bed all by himself. That is the 'high traffic' time in this house, but we both agreed it was the best time to do it, even though it's lots of work for him and I miss out on those family times too for those nights. But, of course it's worth those things for right now...it's only temporary.

Anyway, I just L-O-V-E this teacher. Her name is Kelma (if you want to pray for her by name with me as a student). :) It's really awesome because it's just more of a friendship than a teacher-student relationship. She's LOTS of fun and I really do enjoy it...that makes learning fun.

Homeschooling here in the Ebersole household is completely underway now. I'll post more later about what we are doing exactly, but needless to say, that is a daily time commitment for me also. So, that's some of what I do with my time each day.

Other than that, it's just the normal everyday living. Taking care of a baby, a toddler, and 2 small children. Cooking. Cleaning/organizing. Nursing. Feeding. Laundry. Showering. :) Thank goodness. Playing. And, of course in our case these days, packing and more packing.

We are all settled in to a routine here in this apartment after 3 1/2 weeks of being here. Now we are starting to look ahead to when we move again in 2 1/2 weeks.

December is going to be a WHIRLWIND!! It always is for everyone I guess, isn't it? :) Some have very different reasons though.

We will be moving to the seminary house starting Dec. 11th. We will have our end-of-semester meeting with the Asas leadership sometime around then. We will start unpacking and organizing. We have to do some Christmas shopping and attend at least 1 Christmas party here (remember, Christmas isn't quite the huge celebration it is there in the states). So, LOTS to do in the first 3 weeks of December. Including...

We will be traveling to the US Embassy on the 5th to apply for Cass' (I'm going to try out the possessive spelling this way for a while...then I'll decide at a later date which I like better...Cass' or Cass's) passport. We also have to get her Brazilian passport taken care of. We will be headed back to the US Embassy to pick up her passport on the 19th. We also have to get Joel's Brazilian passport renewed. Why is this so important? Because...

WE ARE COMING TO THE STATES!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's right...you read this right. My mom is completely and totally done with not seeing her grandchildren, so she bought us tickets to come home. We will be arriving in America the Beautiful on Dec. 23rd. We will be leaving Feb. 24th.

You have no idea how excited I am...to be somewhere familiar and eat my most favorite foods and be able to understand even the smallest details of what EVERYone around me says. :) I know that I will also miss the things that I adore here, but it's only for 2 months...I won't have a chance to start missing those things that much.

Anyway...SUCH a great gift from my mom (not that we asked...she insisted that we come home...those grannies!). :) In my head, I'm ready to go NOW (!!), but logistically we have SO MUCH to do. It's going to be crazy, but so much fun too. Can't wait.

So, maybe we'll see you there? Can't wait! But for today...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

The Kiddos Update - Part 4

Sweet, sweet Cass. She is now 8 months old (as of yesterday). I've said it before, but there really is no better adjective to describe this little girl. Just perfect. I continue to be astounded by her.

She is all over the place these days and into everything. She is not interested at all in sitting up. In fact, when we sit her up (she still doesn't sit up on her own and even when we put her in that position, she doesn't stay that way), she fusses and cries because she wants to get down and scoot around and explore. She still isn't crawling either, but gets up on all fours and looks as though she's halfway interested in the crawl. But, don't think that stops her. No, she's got the scooting/army crawl thing down pat. Like I said...all over the place now.

She is SO VERY easygoing. Seriously, if every baby was like this little girl, everyone on the whole planet would want at least 25. :)

With Cass, I'll just SHOW you all about her. Unfortunately, my captions still aren't lining up with my pics. Is anyone else having this problem these days? So annoying. Seriously, if anyone has any suggestions on how to maybe fix this, please let me know.

Now for the pictures...and video.

#1-Laughing and playing with a neighbor friend.
#2 - "Hmm...how do I get out of here?"
#3 - Her sibling lounge chair.

#5 - Cass sneaking some popcorn that was dropped. She had some in her hand and had already touched it to her mouth.
#6 - Cass, the reader. She seems to take after Grady with books. Hadley and Eissa (but esp. Hadley) were like little puppies. Our little board books were in perfect condition after Grady. Hadley got ahold of them and they were chewed to bits. :) Eissa wasn't much better. So far Cass is very gentle.
#7- Cass was trying to get Hadley's popcorn.
#8 - Hadley thought it was so funny.
#9 - Hadley moved it behind her.
#10 - So, Cass slung her arm around Hadley's body and was still trying to get to it.
#11 - She was determined to get some popcorn. :)
#12 - A cute little rubbing of the nose.
#13 - Her position for jumping out of an airplane...she also likes to do this often.
#14 - Getting up on all fours.
#15 - One of her favorite things...the nose squench.
#16 - Again with the squench.
#17 - And the head throw-back. :) Too cute.

#19 - Doing a little upper body workout. :) Her tricks are just endless.
#20 - I went to get her after her nap (she had been playing in there a while) and her little toy was all the way up on her leg. Funny.
#21 - "Thanks for my rattle, Enna!"



#25 - And this new trick she did this morning. Grady said, "Look Mama!" :) She's almost pulled up to her knees before, but this time she really did it and stayed that way for at least 5 minutues.
#26 - I thought she'd probably fall trying to get back down, but she didn't...just eased herself down like a pro. Will she be one of those babies that pulls up and walks across the room without ever really crawling? :)

Video 1: 11-17-08 Cass making her way across the floor. Her scoot/army crawl in full display.

Video 2: 11-15-08 Daddy helping Cass see life from a different perspective.