First Grade Friends

Emilia's teacher sent me an email yesterday to let me know that Emilia's friend G. had won a Lunch With The Teacher.  She was allowed to select two classmates to share this prize with her and she chose Emilia and A.  Miss M. told me that these three kids have a very special friendship and it warms my heart to see Emilia so relaxed and happy in the company of her first grade teacher and friends.  It means so much to know that Emilia is accepted and valued by her peers, regardless of the challenges she may bring to social relationships.  The children who can look beyond those challenges and recognize the spunky, funny, bright girl Emilia is are remarkable and their kindness will ripple through Emilia's life forevermore.

Picture Of The Day

boy + mud = happiness

mom + mud = laundry

Ella's Law

Her social studies assignment was to write a new law.  She worked hard to present this final version today:

Valentine's Day Take Two

Our first Valentine's Day as a family of five was in 2015.  We captured the photo on the left that year.  Yesterday morning before school, I snapped the one on the right. #growingupbeautifully

International Adoptions from Bulgaria in 2017

The Bulgarian Ministry of Justice has released the 2017 statistics for inter-country adoptions.  

As in the past, more than 1/3 of all adoptions were for identified waiting children with special needs.  The remaining procedures were direct matches made by MOJ between a registered family and a child cleared for international adoption but not yet entered into the Waiting Child Register.  Many of these main procedure referrals likely also had identified special needs.  The overall number of completed adoptions from Bulgaria decreased in 2017.

USA – 104 total procedures, including 78 for identified waiting children

Italy - 36 total procedures, including 1 for identified waiting children

Spain - 22 total procedures, including 1 for identified waiting children

France - 21 total procedures

Netherlands - 13 total procedures

Canada - 7 total procedures, including 2 for identified waiting children

Ireland – 6 total procedures

Germany – 4 total procedures

Denmark – 4 total procedures

Norway – 4 total procedures

Belgium - 3 total procedures, including 2 for identified waiting children

Luxembourg – 1 procedure

Cyprus - 1 procedure

TOTAL -  226 total procedures for 306 children, including 84 procedures for 133 identified waiting children

Fat Tuesday

Ella's receiving a special home school lesson on Mardi Gras and Lent today.  To start off right, I made these for breakfast:

And everyone enjoyed.

Valentines 2018

Craig and I are not really holiday people (unless you mean on holiday - then we're big time fans), but with the kids in school we get roped into all kinds of celebrations throughout the year. Today I finished some simple Valentines for Rex and Emilia to share with their classmates.  No candy, of course, that's against policy.

I saw this idea online and it took me just a little over an hour to make 48 of these Valentine felt fortune cookies.

1) Cut out your circle
2) Glue in a pipe cleaner and let dry
3) Add your fortune
4) Fold

Cheap and easy and fun.  It's the best I can do.