Name Day 2015!

There is a popular Bulgarian tradition called Name Day. Each Bulgarian name has a specific day on which all people with that name are celebrated. The family may throw a party for the person on his name day, he may get gifts, and have cake, just like the way we celebrate birthdays here in the U.S.

Today, January 7, is name day for people with the names Ivan, Ivaylo, Ivanka, Vanio, Vania, Encho, Enio, Zhan, Zhana, Ivayla, Ivelin, Ivelina, Ivet, Ivo, Yoan, Ioan, Ioana, Yonka, Yonko, Yoncho, Yoto, Kaloyan, Kaloian. All these names are derived from the name of Saint John (Ivan). The Eastern Orthodox call this day John's Day, or Ivan's Day. Ivelina celebrates her name on this day too!

We chose to keep this fun Bulgarian tradition alive in our family. This is most likely a celebration that children in the orphanages did not get to celebrate, but I told Ivelina that in her country where she was born many families do celebrate Name Day, so we will continue to celebrate here as well.

During school this morning, Ivelina did a whole bunch of name activities. She kept saying "Ivelina Moorhouse Name Day" all morning long.

Then, she helped Jeremy bake a Name Day cake. I let her choose the type of cake and the type of icing she wanted at the store. Then, we wrote a big "I" on the cake for Ivelina!

She made a good choice: chocolate cake with chocolate icing. She was giddy when it was time to eat the cake!

It was a fun day to celebrate Miss Ivelina Anne Moorhouse. If you would like to read more about her name, here is a link to a old post about her name. Also, here are a few links about Bulgarian Name Day:   Only in Bulgaria    Another link here    Bulgarian Namedays

Thanks for reading,

Shelly

December in Photos

We made Christmas cookies for our neighbors and friends.

We had a Christmas craft day. Ivie made some very cute things including this Santa!

Our friends came to help us finally cut down the tree in our front yard.

We enjoyed Christmas Eve with Shelly's family.

Oh boy!  Ivelina received three seasons of her favorite show, Emergency!

Ivelina got snow boots, bibs, and a sled for Christmas. Now all we need is some snow here in NC.

Miss Josey loves opening Christmas presents. Here she is opening her new dog blanket.

Our first Christmas morning together as a family was very special.

Hugs for her new Ariel doll.

We now have a trampoline in our back yard. Ivelina has already jumped with me, Taty, her friends, and Blue Monkey.

We had several days of mild weather and were able to get out and enjoy beautiful December days.

I made my own laundry detergent. Been wanting to do this for a while now. I used this recipe.

I also made my own Larabars. They were extra easy and extra tasty! I used a nut-free recipe found here.

For home school, I set up a reading corner for Ivelina.

At school we learned Letter S for "snowman."

Ivelina also learned Letter J for "Jesus." She went on a number scavenger hunt.

After she found the numbers, she had to match them to the correct box of dots.

 

December was a wonderful month to cap off 2014.

I can't wait to see what fun January 2015 holds for us!

First Advent

The word advent can mean "arrival" or "coming into view."

This advent season for us has been really special as we await the day when we celebrate the arrival of Jesus on this earth. For Ivelina, it has definitely been a time of bringing Jesus into view for her. Who is he? What's so special about this baby? Why do we celebrate this holiday that bears His name? It has been easy to get her excited about the true story of Christmas because, well, the story has a baby in it...enough said for her.

We have wondered what her past experiences with holidays were like. So far, she has been able to give us a few clues. We know that her orphanage had a Christmas tree, for we have a photo of her taken last December that shows a small one in the background. She also seems to have knowledge of Santa, and points him out in every store we visit. We are also pretty sure she received a gift for Christmas last year (a baby doll), but it seems that it either had to be shared (and she was not very happy about that) or another child took it from her. Either way, the toy was broken at some point in her old home. That is about all we know of her past Christmas experiences.

Obviously, I am on a mission to make this Christmas, her first real Christmas with a family, the best one yet! We decided that a big part of that needed to be teaching her what Christmas is all about. Along with a gazillion other folks, we ordered Unwrapping the Greatest Gift and have been reading a devotion out of it every day since December 1. Along with a gazillion other folks with littles I have high hopes for our advent devotion time each day, but usually spend it redirecting Ivie's attention or shouting at the dog or battling Ivie's urge to go mess with our nativity scene people. We have been pretty consistent and are praying that some nugget of truth is sinking in.

We start dinner a little earlier these days so we can have extra time for our advent activity each night. After dinner, we begin by taking a link off our Christmas countdown chain. Although she doesn't know numbers this high yet, she can tell the chain is getting shorter every day, and I think she is getting more excited each time we remove a link.

Next we attempt to sit on the couch together and read the daily advent devotion from Voskamp's beautiful book. I like how it clearly traces Jesus' lineage through the family tree of Jesse. After the story, we usually pray for someone or talk about something nice we can do for someone to share the love of Christmas with them. For us, we took on a little family project to bake cookies for our neighbors and friends. I thought this was something Ivelina could easily help with and have fun with too.  She loved choosing the cookie cutter and adding the sprinkles.

We also spent some time together making cinnamon ornaments. I didn't know the recipe would make so many, but I was overjoyed when Ivelina came up with the idea to give some of them away as gifts. Ahhh....evidence that she is capable of thinking of others and being thoughtful!  Yippee!

Then, Ivelina colors the Jesse tree ornament of the day and we attach it to our Jesse tree. (Our tree is made from green dollar store wrapping paper taped to the back of our door.) Then, we color our advent coloring page for the day. I'm keeping all these and will bind them together for her when the season is over.

Lastly, I usually give her two options: tell the birth story using our nativity scene or watch Promise, a new movie I picked up for $5 at Lifeway. I actually do not own a nativity set, but I made a bulletin board style one this year that Ivelina could interact with. It might not be the prettiest thing, but it is Ivelina-friendly and we like it. I tell her the story orally and have her help me put each character into the scene. She has learned about shepherds, wise men, king Herod, Joseph, Mary, manger, stables, and animals, and of course, her favorite, baby Jesus!  She is still working on pronouncing frankincense. The movie Promise is very good for her. It's about 45 minutes long, and it does a good job of telling the Christmas story, and Ivelina loves seeing John and Baptist and Jesus as babies toward the end of the movie.

It has been a delight to get the honor of teaching Ivelina about the true meaning of Christmas and why we celebrate this holiday. I am having the most fun Christmas ever just watching her wait on the arrival of Jesus' birthday. Watching her squeal with delight and jump up and down as we erected our little artificial Christmas tree, seeing her crane her neck to check out baby Jesus in the manger scene, and hearing oohs and ahhs from the back seat when she notices twinkling Christmas lights on peoples' houses has been a true blessing for all of us.

I had a small glimmer that maybe the giving and loving spirit of Advent is rubbing off on Ivie just the other day when we went to the grocery store. As soon as we entered the store, she started talking about wanting to see an orange toy. I had no clue what she was talking about so just brushed her comments off and kept shopping. As we were strolling past the pet aisle, she exclaimed "Yes, the orange toy!  Remember, Mama?"  I didn't remember, but she demanded to look at the display of squeaky dog toys, and wanted to hold the orange one. She told me she wanted to get this toy for our dog Josey and put it in Josey's stocking for Christmas. It was only $3, and it had a coupon on it. I couldn't resist her desire to be thoughtful. I gave her the coupon and two dollar bills and let her buy the toy separately at the checkout. She was overjoyed to hand the cashier money, get change in return, and hold her very own bag containing a present for the dog. I praised her for being so thoughtful and thinking of what someone (or what some dog) would enjoy.

So yeah, Josey is just a dog, and some people may think it's silly to get a dog Christmas presents at all, but my girl acted selflessly and thoughtfully in the grocery store that day. It's the small victories, ya know. I was proud of her, and I have to believe that she is slowly learning to be compassionate, caring, thoughtful, and loving toward others. This Advent season has been a great time for teaching her those important things.

So yeah, she will get a few gifts this year, and she has met Santa, but we are intentionally trying to downplay all that and teach her boldly that Jesus is the reason for the season. This is a time for joy, loving, giving, and celebrating the birth of our Savior, who was really the greatest gift we could receive.

November

Where did this month go?

Overall, this has been a good but quick month for our family. 

We had our second post-placement report with our adoption social worker. 

Ivelina also had her second check-up since being home. This time she was screened for tons of stuff which meant several vials of blood were drawn. She also got caught up on her immunizations. She was a trooper through it all!

We finished up Ivelina's psycho-educational testing and had our first IEP meeting at our local school. We discussed a placement for her for next year IF we decide to place her in public school. 

We celebrated our first Thansgiving as a family of three!
We also celebrated two birthdays; our dog turned 8 and Jeremy turned 35!

Much to Ivie's delight, we put up our Christmas tree. This girl LOVES Christmas trees, especially ours. 

Ivelina also got to meet Santa (probably for the first time.)

Jeremy celebrated 35 wonderful years on this earth!

Like, I said, it has been a fun, busy, and very fast moving month for our family.

Here are a few photos to represent our month:

One thing we focused on this month in home school was recognizing and spelling Ivelina's name.

Ivelina coloring in her life-size body.

A Pinterest idea for a puzzle that I actually pinned and then tried with Ivelina. She loved it!

I thought about doing a separate post this month about Ivelina's "Big Body," but I never got around to it. As a part of doing Letter I and a week all about her and her name, we traced Ivelina's body on large paper. She is really into anatomy, so I drew all kinds of different bones, organs, and such. Ivelina colored it in. We cut it out, and Voila!  "Big Body" I never knew this simple activity would bring a whole afternoon of play. "Big Body" played with blocks, watched TV on the couch, took a nap in Ivie's bed, and we made paper clothes to pin on it. It was basically a life size paper doll! 

"Big Body"

Just Big Body taking a nap.

Our little turkey doing some Thanksgiving crafts.

My little family at Thanksgiving lunch.

After Thanksgiving lunch, Ivelina got to take a little tour of the fire station down the road where my cousin works.

She saw six fire trucks, got to sit in three of them, and got to wear a helmet, or "hoomet," as she likes to say.

Our dog Josey received a new bed for her 8th birthday, and she loves it dearly.

We celebrated Jeremy's birthday and Thanksgiving together this year at Baba Gran's house. Ivelina helped make cookies.

I learned about a little place only 15 minutes from us with a free walking Christmas lights display. The family who runs it gives out free hot chocolate to every visitor, and Santa is there!  Ivelina loved meeting him, and she promptly asked for the most random things I'm sure he heard all night:  bath duckies and a crocodile.  lol

Merry Christmas a little early from Ivelina

Our October in Photos

October is my favorite month.

I love when the weather turns cool and crisp.

I love it when the leaves turn red, orange, and yellow. I even like raking them up!

I love October because Jeremy and I celebrate our wedding anniversary in this month.

I also love Halloween!  Not so much the creepy decor, but I loved dressing up and trick-or-treating when I was younger. I love making Jack-o-lanterns and pumpkin related desserts. Now that we have Ivelina in our family, October is even more enjoyable.

Here is our October in photos:

After Ivelina's bedtime, we went out alone for the first time in 4 months to celebrate our anniversary! We ate at Olive Garden and saw The Good Lie. We also tried not to talk about Ivelina while we were out. It was wonderful!

In home school, Ivelina learned letter P. We made home made popcorn on the stove, and she made a popcorn collage.  She giggled and giggled when she heard and saw the popcorn bouncing around in the pot.

While we were out on our date, I was craving Krispy Kreme for dessert, so we brought a dozen doughnuts home. I got a special Jack-o-lantern doughnut for her and a hat. She wore it all day!

One day during home school, we went to a local produce stand and picked out one carving pumpkin and two small pumpkins for painting. She enjoyed painting them different colors.

We read SO many pumpkin books this month. This was her first look inside a real pumpkin.

Ivie's sheer delight as she touched the slimy pumpkin pulp. I was surprised that she didn't hesitate at all to get her hands dirty.

She was content to play in the pulp and separate the seeds into a bowl while I cut the face. Later, we baked the seeds.  I learned that carving pumpkin seeds aren't all that good to eat. They had good flavor, but they are super waxy and not all that crunchy. It was a fun cooking experiment though.

Me and Ivelina and our scary Jack-o-lantern.

We started formally learning shapes this month as well.  Ivelina seems to be catching on with some of the shape names already!

Now that it is getting colder outside, I thought learning letter Q for quilt would be appropriate this month. At the end of letter Q week, Ivelina used some of my flannel scraps to make a simple small quilt for her stuffed animals. She also did a lot of work with squares!

Working on a triangle puzzle.

Making a paper quilt.

Happy Halloween from our little fireman

She went through 3 mustaches before we went trick-or-treating-- two during trick-or-treat!