Thursday, August 18, 2011

My new adventure...

I was so excited to get my pink box!!  



So what was in it, you ask?

Super cute (and affordable) Thirty-One products--from signature purses and totes to storage solutions that help organize my life (and you know how much I LOVE organizing!).  Here's just a sampling!  This is their fall line, there's many more fabrics to choose from.

(stock photo from Thirty-One)

I had heard of Thirty-One before, but never really gave it much thought until I received an email from a sweet friend of mine who was a consultant for Thirty-One.  She shared the fall starter kit info with me. When I started looking through the catalog, I was hooked!  

From their philosophy:
   I love that Thirty-One is a Christian based business, even their name.  Their name comes from Proverbs 31 in the Bible.  The Proverbs 31 woman is dearly loved and respected my her husband and her children, yet she is an individual.  She manages her home with kindness and integrity.  Her savvy business skills are partly brought about by her desire to serve others, to do good deeds and prosper.  

To their mission:
  To celebrate, encourage and reward women by offering quality products and an outstanding opportunity to become successful business owners. We have seen this mission play out through the years in the individual lives of so many women who now have their own "Thirty-One story." Many work full-time jobs and use their Thirty-One income to help pay for those extras in life like vacations. Some of our Consultants had a dream to be debt-free and have paid off houses and cars. Others have seen Thirty-One become a lifeline to their families in difficult economic times. 

What's my dream? 

My decision to join was twofold. I want to be able to contribute to our adoption fund and to be able to give more to care for the orphans. Being a Thirty-One Consultant allows me to do both.

I'm having a get together this Saturday to introduce my friends and family to their awesome products! Hop over to my website to get the details!

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Our 2011-2012 curriculum

Not Back to School Blog Hop


 Our school year has actually been underway for 7 weeks.  We try to take off more time in the spring and fall.  We took off half of May and half of June.  We have some extra time scheduled off in November to go hunting.  It's just too hot to be outside right now!

I've tweaked our schedule a bit since we started, but overall I've kept it pretty much the same.  I think I'm pretty pleased with our plans for this year.    

Raising Arrows Christian Academy 
Curriculum for 2011-2012
Subject
 Connor
Jacob
Shaoey & Grace
Bible
One chapter a day
One chapter a day
Bible story a day
History 
Bible Study
Scripture Memory
Simply Charlotte Mason                               Scripture Memory pack
Simply Charlotte Mason                               Scripture Memory pack
Writing



Literature
American Literature
American Literature
Learning to read
Math
Saxon 8/7 &              Teaching Texbooks
Saxon 6/5 &              Teaching Texbooks
MUS Primer
Language
Language Lessons for Little Ones
Spelling
--------------------------
Copywork
Student chooses
Student chooses
--------------------------
Science
Nature Journal &                 Apologia Physical Science
Nature Journal &                 Apologia Flying Creatures
Poet/year
Composers   (using the CM method and Getting To Know the World’s....)
Artists     (using the CM method and Getting To Know the World’s....)
Hymn Study
Spanish
Spanish songs and books Flip Flop Spanish
Family Bible Study
Handwriting

Character
Poetry
I tried to link to each book that I use.  Some of these click through to my Amazon store.  This is another way I am helping build our adoption fund.  THANKS! 

I realize the chart may look overwhelming.  Keep in mind that I have it listed out for the whole year and some subjects we only do once a week.  Here's a chart showing how often we do each subject.


Subject
Times per week
Bible
Daily
Math
Daily
Science
Daily
History 
Daily
Scripture Memory
Daily
Literature
Daily
Copywork
Daily
Spanish
Daily
Spelling
Daily
Handwriting
Daily
Family Bible Study
3 x week
Copywork/Dictation
3 x week
Language
2-3 x week
Writing
1 x week
Nature Study
1 x week
Poetry
1 x week
Composer
1 x week
Artist
1 x week
Hymn Study
1 x week
Art
1 x week
Character
1 x week



Jonathan Park sale!




My kids, especially the boys, LOVE listening to Jonathan Park!

Today and tomorrow at Vision Forum, save 40% when you purchase any three or more individual Jonathan Park albums. Or, save 50% when you purchase the 7-album Jonathan Park Complete Adventure Collection or the 4-album Jonathan Park Creation Guide Series. That’s as little as $12.50 per album!

Sale ends Aug. 12, 2011!

I am a Vision Forum Affiliate.  I earn a small percentage of each sale made through my link (http://www.visionforum.com/1219.html).  Everything I earn through VF is going into our adoption fund.  THANKS!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Shaoey turned 6!

Our sweet Shaoey turned 6 yesterday!  

Where have the years gone?  

She has such an incredibly sweet spirit about her.  She is my little helper and is always looking to see how she can be of service to others.  I love her passion for God.  I love how she sees His hand in the day to day things around her.  Precious!

Shaoey had a few friends over yesterday to celebrate her special day.  

She is into horses these days.  She's begging daddy for one!










Happy birthday, sweet Shaoey!  
We love you!

What does attachment disorder look like? Part 2

I realized that I jumped ahead of myself in the last post.  I want to step back and give you some signs and symptoms to look for.  Remember, not every child will have all the symptoms and not all will show them to the same degree. 


Attachment Disorder Symptoms:


Superficially engaging & charming 
• Indiscriminately affectionate with strangers 

• Lack of eye contact on parents terms 

• Not affectionate on Parents’ terms (not cuddly)
Destructive to self, others and material things (accident prone) 
• Cruelty to animals 
• Lying about the obvious (crazy lying) 
• Stealing 
No impulse controls (frequently acts hyperactive) 
• Learning Lags
 • Lack of cause and effect thinking 
Lack of conscience 
• Abnormal eating patterns 
• Poor peer relationships 
• Preoccupation with fire 
• Preoccupation with blood & gore 
Persistent nonsense questions & chatter 
• Inappropriately demanding & clingy 
• Abnormal speech patterns 
• Triangulation of adults 
• False allegations of abuse 
Presumptive entitlement issues 
• Parents appear hostile and angry

  My info comes from Nancy Thomas.
(I boldfaced the ones that I was seeing in Grace.)

What did this look like in real life?  One frazzled mama!  One of the first things we noticed was that  when someone would come over (especially a man), she would be all over him--sitting on his lap, touching his face, getting all worked into a feeding frenzy of attention.  When we would go to remove her, she would act as though we were in the wrong, that we were the stranger.  I lost count of how often she did this one.  Of course the person she was playing would think it all cute and precious and be flattered that she wanted him/her so much.  She would get so worked up that she was hyperactive and had no self control.    Grace is a very physical little girl. Everything she does is full force and full of gusto. She has broken more toys and books than all the other 3, even more than Connor on asthma meds!  And she wouldn't care.  Tornado Grace would strike again and again with no remorse.  She can be quite rough with pets.  On this one, I'm not positive she was trying to be cruel as much as she just doesn't think and acts so physically in everything she does.  She would often just babble and chatter and not care if you understood her and she loves babytalk.  She asks the most obvious and nonsense questions.  Nonstop.  And could she ever play one parent/adult against another!  (That's triangulation.)    She would get mad at one of us and go climb on the other parent and look back at the first parent and smile this victorious smile (out of sight of the parent she was on).  Very manipulative.  Ahhh, and entitlement?  She thought she deserved everything even if it wasn't hers--things, time, activity.... She couldn't stand to think someone was getting something she wasn't.  

And after all this, don't you think the parent would feel a bit hostile?  Add to this that most parents (of a normally attached child) a RAD parent talks to will tell them, "my child did x too, she'll out grow it" or "she looks so happy and well adjusted, you're exaggerating," or "she's just outgoing."   It's not just one or two of the above signs.  It's the multiple signs, the repetitive signs, and it's what the child allows the other person to see which is probably not at all what she shows her parents.  One thing I cannot stress enough is that God has given us wisdom and intuition.  Trust your parent's intuition, if you feel something's not right, it probably isn't.  You are around the child the most and you see the child in his/her most natural state.

Tune in to Part 3 to see what we have been doing to help Grace to heal.