Liberty's 9th Birthday

This weekend we celebrated our third daughters birthday.  Born the smallest out of the 5 and still to this day remains that way....

1. Liberty is a quiet and unassuming child.  
2. She doesn't do well in crowds, but loves individual attention.  She's sincere and will share her heart if she can trust you.
3. She's easy to please...
4. and grateful for all that she receives.
5. Takes care of her belongings and remembers who gave her what..and for what reason they gave it.
6. She's an excellent student, the apple of her teacher's eye.
7. She's a picky eater but will tell you I'm the best cook in the world.
8. She gives the best hugs....and most of all....
9. I LOVE that she's mine!

So there you have it, 9 reasons I LOVE my Liberty.

"Happy birthday sweet girl!  I Love you! ~Mom"

Friday Photo Flashback

My first three children were born very close together. Then there seemed to be a little breathing room before #4 and eventually #5 were born.

Having those three baby girls was so much fun but equally as much work......wow...those days were almost a blur!


This was one Sunday after church. They were sitting on the guest bed. I believe it was a weekend when their Mimi was visiting us. We were living in Georgia.



This was taken at our favorite Pumpkin Patch, just outside of Atlanta. We loved that place!!



And here was the first day of school 2004.

Tonight I'll take them all to basketball practice...they sure grow up fast!




Hope you guys have a great weekend!

8 Things I Love About Liberty

My sweet, little girl Liberty just turned 8 years old.



But it was just yesterday, she was 18 months old...promise!



Lib with her teacher and a few classmates during her party at school....






We had banana pudding at church....





Starting this year I want to adopt a birthday tradition of some of my blogger friends, and list things (the number of their age) that I love about my children.

So here goes:

I love Liberty because.....

1. She's MINE!!
2. She's easy to please.
3. She's very helpful, talented and gives the best hugs.
   
4. She's beautiful, reminds me of my mother and always tells me she loves me.
5. She's an excellent student, and I never have to remind her she has homework.
6. She makes up words that make me laugh...but she doesn't know she's done it.
7. She's sincere, honest and trustworthy.
8. She's got Jesus in her heart!
   

Happy Birthday Squirty! I Love You! ~Mom

We Call Her "Frank"

What do you get when you mix the head of our 'spaziest' kid with the hatch back door on our van???......

Frankenstein!!

But....she likes 'Frank' for short.

Move Over Little Debbie

A few days ago, with a longing in his eyes, my husband told me how nice an oatmeal cream pie would be. Since Little Debbie is prejudice against Portugal, I did a little experimenting in the kitchen. Here's what I ended up with. (Those of you on Weight Watchers need to skip over this picture very quickly....or else you may 'fall of the wagon' like I did!)


But I get tired of eating this....even if it is pretty!



Here are a few pictures of Liberty's birthday party we had to postpone til this weekend.

We may not have Little Debbie, but we have sparkler candles!!





She is so excited about her calculator!




Last Friday, after my 4 year old's convicting words, we ended up squeezing in a Mommy/Daughter day. It was horrible weather outside. Cold, rainy and wind blowing something like 650 mph. She didn't really care what we did on her special day. All she requested was that I buy her something.

She said, "Mommy, I'll only get one small thing, so I don't use up all your money."

(I tell you what...I don't know about you, but when my kids say things like that...it makes me WANT to use up all my money!! She was so sweet!) She picked out a pair of dress-up shoes that had matching hair bows and necklace. The quality is about the equivalent of toys from the Dollar Tree. She waited patiently on us to get home and ripped open the package, flung off her socks and to both our surprise, her little fat foot wouldn't fit in the shoes! She was sweet again....she said "I'll just give them to Justice...he can play with them." My son wearing pink high heels was not a pretty thought...but I was focusing on her kind heart. Twenty minutes later I found the hair bows on the floor. Each with their pretty pink flowers torn off.....I guess she gave her hair bows to Justice too?!

Liberty's Day

I survived oral surgery.

Not only did I come out alive, I still had a little goofy pill left in me, so everything was funny.

We made a quick stop at the grocery store in search of ice cream....doctor's orders. (I'm starting to like this lady) then home to relive Ms. Dawne who stayed with the kids. My dentist even told me to sleep late and watch movies. I forced myself out of bed about 10:00 this morning and shorty thereafter my dentist called to check on me. Now I CERTAINLY like this lady....and I probably owe her an apology.

I spent the day with Liberty. Just me and her. Her birthday is tomorrow so we went shopping, ate lunch together (salad for me...thank you very much) drank a coffee together (she had chocolate milk)and we even stopped by McDonald's for ice cream (fruit and yogurt parfait for me...thank you very much and McDonald's ice cream is my absolute favorite dessert in Portugal!)



Lib then got to pick out a few things for her birthday. One of which was a calculator. She is such a nerdy little thing. She always has a notebook and pencil in her hand. And now she has her calculator too. The entire half hour drive home she quizzed me. "Mom, how much is 2,456 x 3,769?" When I couldn't answer she'd tell me how smart she USED to think I was.



While at the mall, I ran into the dentist's assistant. She was shocked to see me shopping the morning after surgery. She asked if I felt okay then told me I needed ice. I felt like I was in trouble, so I said a quick goodbye and fled.

Now I'm home, checking email, blogging and drinking a cup of tea called, "No Belly".

Hope it works.

Heroes Come In Small Packages - Guest Blogger

Charles Barkley’s not one, by his own admission. He’s not even in the running for a spot on the role model team. He’s not even worthy to sit on that bench. Would you elect a governor who told you not to let your kids look up to him?

Many former presidents, legislators, and judges fail the heroic litmus test miserably. The current crop of movie stars and media moguls have burned out like a match in the face of hurricane Ike. Yet, today we continue to knight people with the moniker of “hero” based solely on one qualification - their appearance on a plasma screen. All of this while true public servants (police officers, the military, ministers, teachers and the like) are rebuked and reviled by the faux Hollywood heroes.

In bygone eras it just wasn’t so. Those called heroes exuded courage, wisdom, and morality. They did what you prayed they would. They made decisions that you and I only have the fortitude to consider, and that, only at times.

Walter M. Schirra and I share common ground here. Schirra, the only astronaut to fly the space shuttles Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, once said this of heroes. He said that you don’t raise them. Instead, “...you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they’ll turn out to be heroes, even if it’s just in your own eyes.” (As an aside, those of us with more common sense than fear of the sensitivity police know, with certainty, that when Schirra spoke of sons, he included daughters.)

Therefore, in the Schirra school of “hero-ology” the first prerequisite remains - parents must raise their children. We can no longer simply “play an active role” in the raising of our children. We’ve got to actually do the raising.

We can’t rely on the government, the village, the church, or the rectangular box of moving lights that we keep in our living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, and now in our SUV’s and minivans. Too many of my generation rose to adulthood with the extent of their home training being done by Cliff and Claire Huxtable of the Cosby family. Sadly enough, many times all the raising this generation gets comes from Hulk Hogan and Ozzy Osbourne, and it’s called reality TV. What a bizzaro world we live in today?!

Last week, in a foreign country, with a foreign language and culture, we took a very small step in raising our daughters, as daughters. We took them to school with only a cursory knowledge of what they are getting into. They understand only a small part of the language, and they verbalize even less.

Two years ago, when we started the journey to come to Portugal and start churches, they had no choice in the matter. When we took them to school and told them to behave and try hard and not to embarrass us - the only Americans this school has ever known; they started trying to do just that. They didn’t rebel, and they never mentioned a child’s favorite four letter word - fair.

They didn’t have a choice in coming, but they do have a choice in responding. You may wonder - what of their response? Well, suffice it to say, in my eyes, they just took a small step on the path to heroism.

Don’t subscribe to this particular path? Perhaps Oprah has a little more room on her couch.


~~~Written by Michael Andrzejewski for The LaGrange Daily News.

First Day of School

Here are pictures of them heading out the door this cool, foggy morning.


Today was the first day of school and everything went well. During a parents meeting Tuesday night, (the night before school started...waited a little late didn't they?) we discovered they had Brooklyn, Faith and Liberty in the same grade. First grade. Faith and Liberty probably need to start in the first grade with the opportunity to work through first and second grade in the same year. Which is what we are trying to do. But Brooklyn absolutely will not go in the first grade. So we kept her out today as we made a trip back to the school later this morning with her language teacher who is a retired teacher of 33 years at the same school to discuss this matter with the school officials. I tell you what, messing with my kids is a sure enough way to see the wildcat in me. I take after my Grandma when it comes to this. My family knows what I'm talking about when I say that. My sweet girl, who is much taller than the average 9 yr. old here in Portugal, will not sit in a class with 6 and 7 yr olds. She'd barely fit in the chair!! Why would they do that to a child?!

Anyway, after a meeting with officials and the girls language teacher putting her neck on the line saying she would be responsible for her they agreed Brooklyn needed to be put in the third grade provided she could pass a test that she will take tomorrow morning. So those of you praying, please keep praying. Brooklyn was very nervous this morning as we sat in a very small, crowded meeting room with three Portuguese people talking very rapidly around her and about her. She was addressed directly from the school officials and she understood everything that was asked of her, but she was very shy in responding. She doesn't like all this attention.

Onto another thought before I get fired up again. After the parents meeting Tues. night we all went to the classes where our kids would be so that we could get specific instructions from the individual teachers. The first grade classroom didn't have a single thing on the wall. Not even the letters of the alphabet. The bookshelves were empty and there were three potted plants in various places. Nothing that indicated school started in the morning. Now this is a first for us, public education, but don't teachers in the States start decorating their classrooms weeks in advance? And get this, this morning when I dropped off Faith and Lib we arrived about 10 minutes before school started and we went straight to their room so I could introduce them to Professora Fatima. But the class was empty so we waited outside the school for her arrival. School starts at 9:00 and she showed up about 9:05. Unbelievable!! And she wasn't carrying anything in her hand but her purse! ----When will she decorate the room?----Can you tell this bothers me...maybe I need to volunteer? Be her "room mom". Do they still have those? I loved room moms when I was in school. They were the coolest moms who always brought cupcakes and threw the best classroom parties. That's what I want to be. "The Cool American Mom" who barely speaks Portuguese. Kids love it when I try to talk and mess up. They think I'm hilarious....wait a minute...my kids probably won't think it hilarious, huh. Embarrassing is a much better word. Maybe I need to rethink this.

First day of School?

Update: The girls did great! The first thing Brooklyn said to me as we were leaving the school was, "Mom, I wish tomorrow wasn't Saturday, but Monday!" As we were all walking down the sidewalk, kids kept running up to the girls to say "bye". Liberty responded to one boy, "Bye, potato boy!". I said, "Liberty, why did you call that kid 'potato boy'?" She said, "Mom, all day he would come up to me and say...potato, chicken, rooster & banana....he kept saying potato over and over again!" I laughed, visualizing these boys and girls using the English that they had been taught. Even if it meant saying 'potato' over and over again!----And get this...usually the few kids in the neighborhood look at us funny, as if we're changing colors right in front of them. We've had a hard time meeting other kids for our children to play with. Well, today...two girls came to our house to play with the girls!! These two girls had seen our girls at school yesterday and one of them had played with our girls, so they came over today to play!! This is a really big step for us. Please pray for our children and the Portuguese girls, Carla and Clada.

Yesterday, my husband went to the local school here in our small village to discuss with them the "possibility" of our three oldest children attending next year. He wanted to see if they were prepared to have students who understood very little Portuguese. In America, any kid, no matter what he or she speaks is welcome in school. But we don't live in America. You have to do things their way around here, or they don't get done! So we wanted to know 'the rules".

Everyone who has asked why our children weren't in school this year thought it very odd that we "schooled at home". They have no idea what this means and would always ask if that's even possible to do here in Portugal. "Of course it's possible...we're doing it aren't we?!?" (That's what I'd like to say...)

So Michael walked down to the local school yesterday with Brooklyn. They took a short tour (it's a very small school) and talked with the director who spoke no English, but was a very friendly lady. They went into the 3rd grade classroom and met the teacher. All the kids called out to Brooklyn, using the English they had been taught..."Hello!" "Hello, my friend!" Brooklyn's response was, "Ola". (Which is the only way she knows to respond right now.)

Later when they returned home, Michael and Brooklyn both walked in with wide eyes and smirks on their faces. I was eagerly awaiting their return as I desperately wanted to know what the outcome of this meeting would be. Michael started off with, "Brooklyn, do you want to tell her or do you want me to do it? Brooklyn giggled, "You do it Daddy." Michael responded..... "They're going to school tomorrow."

"Tomorrow...!!" "No...not tomorrow...I'm not ready..."

"Why tomorrow?....schools almost out....they don't have 'school clothes'....I don't have snacks to send with them...I'm not ready for this...THEY'RE not ready for this...they don't speak Portuguese for goodness sake!!"---All these thoughts ran through my mind in less than a second.

After Michael told me how everything went while at the school it was determined that going to school today and all next week, which is the last week of school, would help them know what to expect next September.

After talking with Brooklyn, Faith and Liberty, I felt better because they were all pretty excited about going. Each had their reservations, but the excitement was to great to ignore.

"Maybe they were ready...maybe it's just me who liked the security of keeping them safe at home...shielding them from the sneers, giggles and cruelty of other children....Maybe it's time to test them...to see what they can do...to let them try to make it in a foreign place. They've seen their parents try to do it in a foreign place, so they know how to mess up.....I'm sure of that! But maybe they also learned how to do it with 'grace'."

Brooklyn's alarm clock went off this morning and within 3 minutes, she was dressed and standing at my bedroom door rubbing sleep out of her eyes telling me she was ready to go. She was so very excited.

Faith had her usual, "I don't really care" attitude. She's fine either way.

Liberty was a little sad acting with a worried look on her face. She got upset when we were trying to pick out a bag to carry her snack in. The one I chose was too big, she said. Liberty turned 6 in January. The average 1st grader in Portugal is 7 when he/she begins the year. So I'm concerned about her age. But when she left, she was fine.

So.....after much prayer and a few tears....this was our departing moment this morning. Michael took them. It's a 10 minute walk. I had to let him do it, cause if I had taken them I would have brought all three back home with me!