The kids favorite backyard game

Tess and Cameron love to do archery in the back yard.  Cameron loves to go online and learn about it and then teach Tess.  He sets up the target and they spend 1 hour shooting.  Tess is not bad...Cameron is a natural!

We had the meeting with the principal and Tess's teacher on Friday.  It went really well and she is now on track to be moved up to 3rd grade in the fall.  She has to finish out 1st grade this year.  She'll go to summer school for 2nd grade this summer and I'll work with her at home...hopefully she'll be ready to move up in Sept.  Jeff and I feel it's really important for her in the future to be with kids her own age.

PS.  We've had less questions since the skit!!  It worked for now!!

working through the "stuff"

It has been a trying couple of days for Tess and I.  It is hard to get down in words exactly what I struggle with because it probably doesn't seem that bad when you read it...but here it goes...I love her but she drives me crazy with all the demands and questions.  That's it in a nutshell...I guess it's just not what I ever experienced with my other kids so it's hard for me.  From the minute she wakes up and starts arguing about what she will and won't wear, then onto breakfast where she almost always complains about what food, how much or why there isn't a different type of waffle...then nags Cameron because he takes longer to get in the car...she is just plain demanding!! Not in a mean way...in a nagging, whiny way...( oh, man...why you take so long cameron!!) She complains a lot.  She seems to have her own idea of how things should be going ( like the first day she skied..when we picked her up she complained that she styed on the bunny hill, that she didn't have poles and that she was hungry)  After school yesterday I answered no less than 200 questions, maybe more.  Jeff said I should not answer and just tell her to stop...and that if I answer she'll keep coming. It is true, if you open that door she's coming through with force!!.  I'm back to Granny's suggestion of a behavior chart to modify this behavior but I'm also trying to understand where it's coming from.  It goes beyond the need to know because Jeff and I have noticed that many times it's questions she has asked over and over.(for examlpe.."what's your favorite food mom? What's your favorite color?I have answered those question 100 times easily)  It's almost like nervous never ending chatter...she just can't shut up and after hours of it your head FEELS LIKE IT'S GOING TO POP.  

So this morning Cameron and I did a skit to act out what the daily "question bombardment" looks like...  

Scene 1 cameron sat eating breakfast and we had normal dialog (Is your homework done? Hurry and finish so we can go.  Other than that it was quiet)  

Scene2 Cameron sat eating breakfast and I fired about 50 questions and complaints at him before he had a chance to answer even a few.

Tess sat and watched.  I asked  which scene was about her.  She said scene 2.  I asked her if she understood why we did that.  "Yes".

So, off to school they went.  I'm sure she'll have 65 questions about it when I pick her up from school!!!

Fundraiser @ the Jonas'

This was the front of the invite to our fundraiser...

We continue to be very involved with CWA and the building of the new ACACIA VILLAGE which will house 250 orphans.  The director, Louis Fawcett, flew out and spoke to a group of our friends who joined us.  Louis brought some footage of his recent trip to Ethiopia and photos of the beautiful kids that are at the current facility.  We did raise a nice amount of money and awareness for the project.  Our hope is that this was only the first of many efforts to help these kids who would have nothing and nowhere to live were it not for CWA.  SO a big thank you to everyone who contributed financially and/or brought food to our event.

Tess's age...

Tess on the day we got her in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia...
Tess today, 6 months later...

One of the biggest challenges of adopting an older child (and there are many!!)  is that we do not really know how old she is.  There are no birth records for any of these kids.  When you adopt a baby, the margin of error is less because the chld is so young.  We were told at the time of Tess's adoption that she was 7 1/2.  The government had assigned her  birthday as January 2001, which means she just turned 8.  The problem is that because she is so bold and so smart and sassy that she seems to be much older.  She has lost 7 teeth in 6 months including 2 back molars.  I have had several talks with her dentist and he told me it's hard to acurately give an age based on teeth.  He told us she is for sure between 7-10 years old.

A friend who has a little girl from Ethiopia took her to the International Children's clinic in Long Beach and had a dr. there x-ray her hand and wrist.  I guess that is another way to get a better idea of age.  Her little girl ended up being 1 1/2 years older than they thought ( not 4 1/2 but 6 yars old).  This all really only makes a difference in school.  We currently have Tess in 1st grade.  We knew turning 8 in 1st grade was old but thought she needed to start there since she had no english. But now that she may even be older, we really need to move her up.  She plays much better with her 8 and 9 year old cousins and friends than her 6 year old classmates.  She is doing really well in school and her language is amazing for 6 months of english.

Friday I have a meeting with the principle and her teacher...I'll keep you posted.

Mean while...back at SMU...

Christine continues to LOVE college life!  We miss her around here and our vacations aren't the same without her!!  She is back to keeping her college blog so check it out if you want to see what is happening at college these days... christinejonas.blogspot.com

Lunch break at Deer Valley ski rsort...

This was our first day skiing with Tess.  She had been in ski school until today.  We were so surprised to see how well she did.  We literally did not have to wait for her.  We went right to "blue" runs because she did so well on green.  She will not be going back to ski school. She just needs time on the mountain.  
Bennett took the day off from snow boarding to ski with us...OK, we made him ski with us!  He is such a great skier that we don't want him to lose that.
My favorite part of the ski day...a latte at lunch!!
The best part of skiing is that we can do it with our whole family!  What other sport can you do with grandparents, parents and kids all at the same time!!
My sister Eva and Joao Paulo are Bennett's GODPARENTS.  It was so much fun to ski all together. Joao Paulo goes back to Portugal tomorrow.  We had a great week away!!

Mountain fun...

The kids put on a show for the adults...it was a version of American Idol...I remember doing these cute shows when we were kids!!

The gang ready to perform their acts...
Tess and cousin Brittany at the ranch...
The boys-ready to be pulled on the inner tube!!
Each kid took a ride on the inner tube, Quad and snow mobile...They couldn't get enough!  And all this after a full day of skiing!
Daddy was the snowmobile driver.  Tess loved it and wanted to go FAST!!!
Bennett took all the kids for a ride around the ranch on the Polaris.

Brooke, Tess, Brittany and Kate ready for mountain fun!!!

Why am I not surprised!@#$%!!

Once again Tess has amazed us all.  She was sking Blue runs by her 4th day!!  She went to ski school for 4 days at Deer Valley.  On the last day we kept her with us and we all skied together.  We were with other families who had kids that have been skking for 4 years and Tess beat them down EVERY time!  She was absolutely amazing!!  She just gets it!...and she so badly wanted to keep up with her brothers and the big kids that she jsut went for it.  On one run I thought she was going too fast and a bit too straight down, so I tried to catch up to stop her...WELL, it took me 3/4 of the run to catch her!  She just zipped away and she was gone!  It was very cute to watch and she really loves skiing.  She was always upset at the end of the day when the mountain closed and we had to go home...of course she wants to know when is our next rip and when  we are skiing again!!

...gone skiing

We leave today for Utah and Tess's first ski trip.  She starts ski school tomorrow morning at 10 am.  I can tell she's anxious because she keeps asking questions about it.  I can't wait to ride on the chairlift with her!!  She'll do great-just like everything else!!!

Miss President???

We are slowly getting back in our family groove...I was in the kitchen cooking dinner tonight and Tess came in and started talking to me...

"Mom, what if someday I am the President?"

Yes, this bold little girl will settle for nothing less...trust me if she could she probably would.  She is so determined and competitive that she might actually go for it!!  So I had to decide whether to burst her bubble or go along with it...I decided to be honest and tell her that she could never be the president of America because she was not born here.  She didn't really understand. I explained that she was born in Ethiopia and that she could not become our president because the law says she would have to be born in America.

BUT...the point is she thought about it and had decided she wanted to be President!!  That is very bold for an 8 year old child who has only been speaking english for a few months!! She literally sees no boundries and is not intimidated by anything...it's going to be a wild journey watching her bloom!!!

Some pics from our Europe trip...

At a cafe in Forte di Mare, Italy with Joao Paulo and Emmanuelle.
At the street market in a small town in Italy...can't remember the name!! Loving every minute...not really missing the kids that much...hee-hee!!!
Forte di Marmi where we stayed...near Carrara where Jeff went to look at some stone quarries.
A beautiful neiborhood in Forte di Marmi...it was a fantastic town...reminded us of an Italian version of St. Tropez.
Out to dinner in Lisbon, Portugal with some friends which included...2 Americans, 2 Dutch, 2 Italians, 2 Portuguese and me!!  I love these dinners where we get such an amazing mix of people..it makes for great dinner conversation!!! and beats the heck out of carpool!!!

So there you have t a few shots from our trip to Portugal and Italy.  To my family in Portugal that I did not get to see...sorry but the time was so short...I look forward to seeing everyone soon...OXOX

Back to reality...

Well, I had a great 2 weeks off from my life!!  I decided to join Jeff on his business trip to Europe and my mom came to stay with the kids.   All went well.  We had a very cold and rainy trip but Italy is always magical no matter what...and I loved visiting with my 93 year old grandmother in Portugal who kept asking me all about Obama!!  I thought that was so cute!  I loved staying at my aunt's and spending time with them...It's hard to live so far away.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...my mom did just fine being me!!  She said Tess and Cameron were great and Bennett was never around...AHHH  teenagers!!  What a great mom I have!!  That was a big task!! Thanks mom!!OX

Tess did really well considering this was the first long trip (12 days)  away from her.  We only spoke about 4 times while we were gone...My mom said Tess was a good girl but has a very strong personality...that's the boldness I always talk about...she said we're in for it when she's older...ha-ha.

My mom also shared that she had some really deep conversations with Tess about her past and her family.  I thought it was great that Tess opened up and really shared a lot about her past with my mom.  I always want her to feel she can openly speak about it...it's part of who she is.  

Anyway, still jetlagged so goodnight.  I'll get some new photos tomorrow.