What Will Your Mother’s Day Card Do?

THANK YOU for your interest in the Mother's Day cards. We had an enthusiastic response and all of the cards have been sold! We created a specific number of cards in advance and they have all been designated for specific Moms in honor of Mother' s Day. All of the funds given will help fund a new school building in Ethiopia for orphaned and destitute children! On behalf of the children who will now have an opportunity to go to school - WE THANK YOU!

UPDATE!!  OVER $3000 HAS NOW BEEN DONATED ON BEHALF OF OUR MOTHERS
TO HELP BUILD A SCHOOL IN ETHIOPIA!!

I’m very excited to share that in the past few days, over $800 has been donated on behalf of our mothers to the building project at the Kind Hearts CarePoint. WOW!!! To those of you who have chosen to be a part of this, I can’t thank you enough. If you are just reading about this for the first time, here’s what’s happening:

Outside of Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, Children’s HopeChest manages a carepoint named Kind Hearts. Currently, there are 150 children who are either orphaned or from very poor families that are served at this location. They are provided with food, clean water, clothing, medical care, Christian discipleship, and education. It is a wonderful program that is having a life-changing impact on the kids who attend. However, the classrooms are overflowing, the furnishings are in disrepair, and still more children are waiting in hopes of joining the program.

There are plans underway to construct a new school building at Kind Hearts, creating the potential for the older children to advance and making room for new students who will be enrolling. This will allow the carepoint to DOUBLE in size and serve up to 300 children!!! In addition, the plans include bathroom and shower facilities for the kids. For most, this will be their first experience with running water, flushing toilets, sinks with faucets where they can wash clothes, and showers where they can actually bathe. It is hard for us to comprehend the reality of daily living without these things, so you can imagine the excitement this new project will bring.

If this sounds like something you would like to be a part of, would you consider making a donation to this project in honor of your mother or another special woman in your life this Mother’s Day?

For each donation received, I will send a card to a special mother in your life letting them know that a donation was made on their behalf to help build a school in Ethiopia. What mother wouldn’t be proud to be celebrated in this way?

Here’s what the front of the card looks like:


Inside top of card:


The bottom half of the inside, which I will personalize for you:


And the back:


If you would like to make a donation and order a card, you can use the PayPal button on the left. Be sure to include the recipient’s name, your name, and the address you would like me to mail your card to. I would also be happy to send the card to you (tucked inside a larger envelope) so that you can deliver it yourself. Just send a message to let me know. Absolutely 100% of your donation will be sent to a special account set up at Children’s HopeChest. If you don’t have a PayPal account or you have other questions, you can contact me at davidsonfamilystl@sbcglobal.net and we will make it work! All cards will be mailed to the recipients a week before Mother’s Day.

For many of us, we have a hard time thinking of something our moms will really appreciate. If mom’s kitchen cabinets are already stuffed, she probably doesn’t need another kitchen appliance – even if it does make little baby pot pies. It doesn’t matter if you got the Kohl’s 30% off coupon. If mom already has a stash of scented candles, she might not care if she adds Coconut-Breeze to her collection. If you want to show your appreciation for your mom but there’s not a thing she really needs and you’re looking for a fresh idea, I encourage you to start a new tradition and honor your mother by changing lives.

Maybe you already have a special Mother’s Day tradition and mom has been hinting around for weeks about how much she really would like a magic pan that makes perfect little brownie squares. If that is the case and you still plan to run to the store and stand elbow to elbow with everyone else trying to find the perfect Mother’s Day card, consider presenting this one with your gift. I don’t think you’re going to find a more meaningful card. Plus, I looked and all of the good cards are already taken ;)

To learn more about Kind Hearts, visit www.family-from-afar.blogspot.com

In Honor of Inspiring Mothers…

When our family traveled to Ethiopia in 2010 for our adoption court date, we were able to visit the kids at the Kind Hearts Care-Point outside of Addis Ababa. Kind Hearts is a care-point managed by Children’s HopeChest which provides nutritious food, clean water, clothing, medical care, Christian discipleship, and education for orphaned and destitute children. Our friend Karen Wistrom, who is the coordinator for Kind Hearts, encouraged us to make time in our schedule to spend a day with the kids there. We would be able to meet our sponsor child and see first hand the care-point that we had become involved with.

We had no idea what our visit would be like. However, with the exception of meeting our son for the first time, this was the highlight of our trip. Upon our arrival, the children came pouring out of a small school building where they had obviously been waiting for us. They were running, they were smiling, and they were cheering. Every child wanted a hug. Every child wanted to be noticed. As soon as you would put one child down, another would be reaching up into the air hoping you would love on them next. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. They sang for us, prayed for us, and thanked us for coming. While we had brought donations (food and small gifts for the children), it was clear that we were the ones being blessed that day.

At the end of our day at Kind Hearts, before we piled back into our van, one of the men approached Dave and I to say goodbye. He shook both of our hands and with great sincerity he humbly said, “Please, do not forget about us.” Of course we would never forget this place or the beautiful children we had met that day, but I knew what he meant. He meant, “We need you. We need others to help make this work. We need others to keep partnering with us.”

So, I am incredibly excited to be helping with this year’s Mother’s Day fundraiser. When we visited back in 2010, there were 90 kids enrolled at the care-point. Today they serve 150 children, and Karen said the classrooms are overflowing. There are plans underway to have a new classroom building constructed, allowing the older children to advance and to make room for new students who will be enrolling. The plan includes a new school building with four classrooms. They will also need desks, chairs, chalkboards, and school furnishings to replace the broken and rickety furnishings they are using now. The construction of a new school building will allow the care-point to serve 300 children!

Would you consider making a donation to this project in honor of your mother or another special woman in your life this Mother’s Day? 

For each donation received, I will send a card to a special mother in your life letting them know that a donation was made on their behalf to help build a school in Ethiopia. The photo up top shows what the front of the card will look like. Below are pictures of the inside and back. All cards will be mailed to the recipients a week before Mother’s Day.

If you would like to make a donation and order a card, you can use the PayPal button on the left. Be sure to include the recipient’s name, your name, and the address you would like me to mail your card to. Absolutely 100% of your donation will be sent to a special account set up at Children’s HopeChest. If you don’t have a PayPal account or you have other questions, you can contact me at davidsonfamilystl@sbcglobal.net and we will work it out!

To learn more about Kind Hearts, visit Karen’s blog:

 www.family-from-afar.blogspot.com

Note to Mothers:  Please know that it is completely appropriate to give your family hints that you would enjoy being a part of this fundraiser.  You can leave my blog open on your computer (repeatedly, if necessary.) You can send your husband and children links to this post.  You could also try making seemingly random comments such as, “While I truly love the snow cone maker I received last year for Mother’s Day AND the oversized soup ladle I received the year before, I have always thought it would be amazing to help build a school in Ethiopia!”  Let me know if you need more ideas. 

Smiley Face :)

Samantha ~ Age 12

Braces are so much fun…on the first day.

Florida 2012

The GQ Level 7 Girls & the Davidsons at St. Pete Beach

for the Tampa Bay Turners Meet.

Davidson Party of Five 2011

Thanksgiving 2011

Trey celebrated his first Thanksgiving today.  Everyone helped prepare the meal.  Trey’s contribution was the green bean casserole.  He was thankful for Sammie and Toby, his cousins, and the turkey.

Sammie made the Pretzel Jell-O Salad.  Some people call it Pretzel Jell-O Dessert, but we stick with “salad” so we can feel justified having a slice of pumpkin pie later.  It’s a family favorite and we use fresh cranberries for Thanksgiving.  Yum.

Sammie was thankful for her home.

Toby prepared his favorite part of the meal, the mashed potatoes. 

He was thankful for his grandparents.

Mimi made the stuffing…a lot of stuffing.  If Grandma Sammie were here, she’d say, “Bobbi, are you cooking for thrashers?”  Mimi also brings the lefse each year, a traditional Norwegian flatbread made from potatoes which is spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar. 

Mimi was thankful for many good memories.

Earlier in the day, mom and I walked around the lake with the kids, while they gathered bits of this and that to arrange in little vases for the table. 
I love the simple combinations of weeds, berries, and grasses.

Dave fretted about, wrestled with, sang love songs to, and cooked the turkey. 
It was delicious.
  He said he was thankful for me,
but I know he was thinking about the Dallas Cowboys.

Grandpa Paul was in charge of finding the football game on t.v.

He was thankful for good friends and good food.

I’m thankful for my family. 

I’m thankful that Trey was at the table this year.

I’m thankful the dishes are done.

By Trey, age 5

Happy Birthday #66

Happy 10th Birthday, Toby!!!

You make me so dang proud…

even if you won’t hold my hand in public anymore.

Love - Yo Mama

Back to the Books: Take Two

You may have noticed I haven’t been much of a blogger lately.  There’s a reason for that.  You see, shortly after posting the back-to-school pictures of the kids two months ago, I took on a new job.  Now, instead of chatting with my mom-friends long after the bus has pulled away, I rush back into the house to get started on my workday. 

My new job is a little different every day.  I might start off by reading a little about the ancient Sumerians or the Code of Hammurabi.  A little later, I may need to assist in calculating the area of a parallelogram.  It’s possible that at some point I will need to review the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs.  By noon, I could be having a discussion about the benefits of a double-blind experiment and the importance of recognizing experimental variables. 

Some of you are thinking, “This woman gets crazier by the minute.”  Some of you – especially those who share similar work duties – are simply thinking, “Oh, she started homeschooling.”  The answer is…you’re both right!

Approximately a week after the kids returned to school for the fall semester, Samantha started asking me if she could be homeschooled.  The topic had popped up periodically in the past, but was always dropped after I quickly dismissed it, ensuring her that she would miss school and regret such a drastic decision.  However, her homeschooling requests had started coming more frequently, and understandably so.  She would leave the house for school early in the morning, go immediately to gymnastics for four hours of practice, then come home for a quick dinner and homework.  I could tell she was exhausted and overwhelmed.   So, after a very eye opening curriculum night at the middle school she was attending, I brought the topic up with Dave over the weekend.  His response was, “I think you should do it!  In fact, don’t even send her back on Monday.  You should just start now.”

What???  I was shocked at both his certainty and his confidence in my ability to suddenly pull this together.  Perhaps it was because I remembered the first time someone told me they homeschooled their children and how my first thought was, “Really?  I didn’t know you were Amish.”  That’s what we did though.  We went to  the middle school on Monday to let the administration know that she would no longer be enrolled and cleaned out her locker.  Samantha’s sureness was unwavering.  I, however, felt a bit like a delinquent lunatic, one step away from churning my own butter.

I spent the next few days frantically researching curriculum options and reading curriculum reviews for 7th grade homeschool students.  Luckily – although not coincidentally - several of Samantha’s good friends at her gym are also homeschooled and I was able to sit down with their moms for a crash course in Homeschool 101.  All of her books were ordered online and started arriving within a few days.

We’ve been at it for eight weeks now.  While it took a while to find our groove, I think we have a good system in place now.  I think that I’m a better teacher than I was a student, and I absolutely love spending my days with my sweet girl.  Although I have very little free time, I have no regrets.  I’m not sure how long Davidson Academy will be open.  We’ve agreed to a two-year commitment, which will wrap up her middle school years.

To anyone out there who homeschools their children and is curious to know, here’s a list of what we’re using.  I’d love to hear your thoughts and advice.

Math: Teaching Textbooks.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this and wish they offered other subjects. 

Science: Apologia Science, Exploring Creation with General Science.  We like this – even though it is very similar to the science I took in high school!

History: The Mystery of History.  I’ve never really cared for history, but we look forward to every lesson.  I enjoy learning everything I missed the first time around.

Language Arts: Easy Grammar PLUS, Wordly Wise, and Editor In Chief.  We like both Easy Grammar and Wordly Wise.  Editor In Chief…not so much.  We’ll be choosing a replacement next semester.

Spanish: Rosetta Stone TOTALe.  This was a little pricy, but we think it’s great.  Feels like you’re playing a game.

If, after reading my blog, you are disturbed that I am teaching my child to write, worry not.  Samantha is also working with a professional online writing coach.

Science is more fun with safety glasses on.