Fall is for changes

Erin grilling for the first time.  Dave taught her.  Those are terkayi chicken drummies.  She did an awesome job

Open a present she got in the mail from the Forseen family...Thank you

The youngest 3 girls playing with their cousin after school

Monika and Jenny playing in the leaves

We have been having such a wonderful warm weather week.  Spending a lot of time outside.  The trees are so beautiful.  It is amazing how things can change from Good to Bad, to so so to Good and Bad, never the same each day.  Life in never boring that is for sure.

We are learning more and more about Erin and her academics. This week she started to come home with homework.  One sheet was math and another was for reading.  She really struggles understanding the math. I am not sure if it is language barrier or just not knowing how to do it.  When we are working with her, she needs a lot of explaining in many different ways before it finally clicks.  She is very eager to learn and that is a good thing.  She likes to just "copy" what you are saying, even when we are trying to explain something, she thinks we are giving her the answer when we are showing her a number.  When she finally gets it, there is a lot of high fiving going on and knuckles hits and the smile that she gets is priceless.  Her signing is doing really well, she is learning a lot of new words.  She can sign very good, but she is still struggling to understand everything that is signed to her, another words you can sign something to her that she knows all the signs for, but she doesn't necessary understand what it is that you are saying.  I know this is her still trying to process ASL.  I am able to read signing a lot better then I can do it.  She is the opposite.  She is also bringing books home that she has to look at the picture and describe it by signing, I then read what the book saids and signing it.  She is really enjoing having homework and showing us what she is learning.  We are very proud of her.
Erin personality is really coming out.  She is such a charater.  Her and Dave love to pick on one another, she not ready to wrestle with him, but when she sees him wrestling with her younger sisters, she will stand just out of his reach and then try to "kick" him or help rescue the girls, but she doesn't want to actually wrestle.  She is also starting to pick on the younger ones and somehow last night was playing with Katie and Jenny after they took their baths, their clothes were on the floor and they started to have a clothes war and a underwear ended up in the tub and there was still water in there.  I wasn't home but I guess the 3 girls thought it was the funniest thing.  When I left to take Monika to gymnastic, we were just finishing eating supper.  Erin started a conversation with Dave, this was a first, usually she only talks to him when she needs something or is using her manners.  She then signed "do you like drawing"  Dave didn't know what that sign was, so that killed the conversation.  When I got home, he asked me what "drawing" sign was, she saw him ask me and when I told him, Erin looked at him and then called him over to the computer and showed him drawing.  He was so happy that she is trying to talk with him now and not just when she needed or have to.
Wednesday night we went to our first sign language class, we took Erin with us.  She didn't get much out of it, but wrote all the words down for us.   The topic was food and we learned about 30 words.  I knew most of them, and Dave has been practicing them.  I have been working with Erin with trying to spell some of the simple 3 letter words, she is also learning numbers.
Monika is also struggling with school.  She comes home with about 90 minutes of homework vs her sisters that is about 29 minutes.  Monika has gymnastic two night during the week (also on Saturday) for 2 1/2 hours.  She sees everyone else having "fun" and she is stuck doing homework, we had a long talk about it on Thursday and it was decided that one of the parents will sit with her at the table while she is doing homework, so last night, I sat with my laptop doing things while she did her homework.  She was unable to finish it all before going to bed (she stays up a hour after her two younger sisters goes to bed on gymnastic night), she did much better.  Monika loves school and she doesn't mind the homework other then it take "forever" for her to do it.  With spelling they get to pick 6 different ways to practice their spelling words, there are easy one and challenging ways, she like to do the challenging ones, which is good, but they are time comsuming.  Please say a prayer for her as we work with her on this.  We believe playing is a very good thing for her, so we are trying to balance everything out for her.
Katie continues to do better, her retention is getting better again, she is starting to remember some of the basic signs and is really trying hard with them.  She is back in gymnastic and is loving it, she is so strong, she isn't quite as limber as Monika is and I think that is due to her built, but she is a solid mass and fast.
Jenny is Jenny, she is really a comedin and poser.  She still love reading and has no problem with just sitting and reading.  She is excited that she comes home with homework now and it just isn't reading anymore, she comes home with Math.  So we are staying pretty busy with homework now and juggling them.  When Dave starts tax season and I am on my own, it will be interesting to do them all.
Jade continues to enjoy college and she is having a grand old time.  She is changing and you can see the young beautiful women she has become and stylish at that too..