~Questions Answered ~

Last week, I did an “Open for Questions” post. I had a few questions (until my friend Mindy emailed me a slew of them). It was fun getting your questions and I'm happy today to share the answers to each question!

First of all, Lois (Walking on Sunshine) asked:

Didn’t your oldest become engaged? Any plans for that yet?

Yes, our oldest (very soon-to-be 23 year old son), Colt, did get engaged. But no definite marriage plans yet. When I have news, I will most definitely share it!

From Sharon (New Country Girl):

When will you start homeschooling Luke?

Actually homeschooling Luke started immediately, since he was learning English from day one. We have worked with him in an informal and natural way. Just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, let me give you a little glimpse of what his schooling looks like.

He has mostly learned his letters and their sounds from watching Leap Frog Letter Factory (DVD) this past summer. After watching it about 3 times, he had his letter sounds down. We have expanded on that. Since it came with flash cards, he asks us to “do school” with him, so we review those with him. We also have letter magnets on our refrigerator and we play games with the letters. He likes for us to give him a mission like a detective to find a certain letter and bring it to us (something like I need a little or baby e or a big or capital E, for example). We have a muffin match game that matches the capital letter to the lowercase one also. We work with him on counting, memorization (Scripture and other), colors and shapes, and we sing learning songs with him (like days of the week) at various times throughout the day (or week). We read to him a lot. He sees us reading and knows it will be a very important day when he can read. We practice counting things when the opportunity arises, especially when we’re driving in the car. He loves to “spell” when Joy does (like his name and small words that he’s learned like cat). We like to use big words with him to build his vocabulary. For example, saying that’s most impressive, are you prepared to do that again?” It is amazing how he remembers the words and uses them correctly later. And he just learns a lot by listening in on us, (especially Joy and I as we do school) and by using his imagination through play. For Christmas, he received several educational toys that are great for developing thinking skills (another post coming on that). He loves to watch Bob the Builder and Blues Clues and learns a lot from those. We love to tell stories and have him make up stories or add to ours. But again, this is most of the time, not planned out and is very informal and just done in a natural, stress-free way as the opportunity lends itself.

Since Luke will be turning 4 the end of this month, this fall we will begin a little more working towards actual reading if he seems interested and more on the fine motor handwriting skills, since he will be “preschool”. As far as “officially homeschooling” by registering with the state, that will be the fall of 2013 when he will be 5 years old.

Rachel asked:

When did you feel convicted to adopt?

When we adopted the first time, our son Colt, 23 years ago, it was more of a natural step toward building our family. Since there were some fertility issues and we knew it didn’t matter at all how God grew our family, we just stepped out on faith and began the adoption process and the Lord provided and blessed us with our baby boy – Colt. We couldn’t imagine our family any other way and we were blissfully happy!

Almost ten years later, God decided to grow our family in the old-fashioned way and blessed us with our baby girl – Joy. Her addition made me as the Bible says, “the joyful mother of child(ren)……plural.” We were so thankful for the two children God gave us.

Jason saw our family as complete. I kept seeing a third child. During the almost ten years that followed, I desired to adopt again, knowing the blessing of adoption. And with God having grown our family in both ways, we knew the beauty and blessing of both, I really desired another child. Joy had asked and asked her daddy if we could adopt (from China) for quite awhile and had been praying about it. She had it all figured out. I felt convicted to adopt as well. That was the fall of 2009. Jason wasn’t quite convinced, however. He was “sweating the small stuff”. To read more on that story, you can read our adoption journal here.  God really sped our journey to Luke along. Nearly 8 months to the date of beginning the adoption process, we were in China meeting our Luke, completing the adoption process and bringing Luke to his forever home!

Now my friend Mindy E., who I met through blogging although she doesn’t blog herself, must have felt sorry for me since I was only asked three questions, because I got this email from her:

Well, I have some questions, lol! Let's see...how did you think of Joy's name?
What type of work does Jason do? What do you want to be called when you are blessed to be a grandmother? What is your favorite food? Let's see... How did you think of Colt and Luke's names? Does your family like sports? Any favorite teams? What books did you like when you were a girl? And now? Do you paint your toenails? If so what color? Gotta run...thanks!
Xomindy



Mindy, you are a nut (but as an old friend of ours used to say….. you are screwed on the right bolt). I actually loved your questions and am going to answer each and every one!

Okay, here we go:

How did you think of Joy's name?Her name is Joy Maxine. I've always known Joy would be at least a part of my little girl's name. It is my mama's middle name. Joy after my mom. Maxine after Jason's mom. She has the middle names of both of her grandmothers. And she is very often called Joy Max, which really fits her personality! Bet not many of you knew that! :)


What type of work does Jason do? Jason is an insurance adjuster.

What do you want to be called when you are a grandmother?I really like Grammy. It sounds alot like Tammy. :) But I love what your grandkids call you, so I'm really liking Honey Gram too! :) I know it sometimes depends on what the kids pick, but I"m hoping for one of those!

What's your favorite food?
Mexican food is my favorite!!!

How did you think of Colt and Luke's names?Okay....Colt has 3 names. He is Jason Colt Lee. Jason (obviously) after Jason. Loved the name Colt and some of you may remember the show, The Fall Guy, with Lee Majors? Well that's where I got it. I had only heard it one other time. Since then, I found a blogger friend, Hollie, who has a son about the same age named Colt. She got hers from The Fall Guy too! I didn't want it to be Colton (which you hear more often), just Colt. Lee is part of his Korean name. I still love his name!

Luke's name is Luke ZhiJie. Luke is the only boy's name the entire family agreed upon. Obviously the ZhiJie is part of his Chinese name. It is pronounced similiar to this: jer jiah with the jer said more quickly and more emphasis on the jiah (also said quickly though). I wanted to name him Luke Silas ZhiJie, but Colt begged us to not give him 3 names since he never really liked having 3 names. He said it was confusing especially on paperwork. So we listened to him, since he was the one with 3 names. :)

Does your family like sports?I know everyone will think we're a little weird here, but no, not really. We don't watch sports on TV. I do like any sports that my kids happen to be participating in, which have been soccer and baseball.

Any favorite teams?Not really. Just whatever team my kids are on. :)

What books did you like when you were a little girl?
I liked spunky girl books. I loved Laura Ingalls, Caddie Woodlawn, Little Women, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, etc.... I loved pioneer books, biographies, and historical fiction. Any kind of book with a country theme to it. I started writing a book that was critiqued by our librarian in middle school, Ms. Stokes. She was a great encourager to me. The name of my book was Country Girl. Imagine that! :)

What kind of books do I like now?
I like inspirational books. I just read Kisses from Katie, by Katie Davis and Choosing to See, by Mary Beth Chapman. I love historical fiction and still love books from the pioneer era! I love reading chapter books aloud to my kids!

Do you paint your toenails?

Yes, in the spring and summer when I wear my flip flops and open toe shoes. I don't do it in the fall and winter.

What color? Shades of red, pink, or orange usually. Although a couple of times, I did paint them lime green to match my outfit. :)


Thanks for the questions! And thanks to everyone who stops by my little corner of blog land! It is very humbling to me and very much appreciated. It is my desire that when you leave, you are encouraged!

Have a great day! :)