Friday, June 11, in EL PASO

The children were up and around early Friday morning. We decided to start our day building toys with ZOOB. I bought a bucket of these toys for Matthew's fifth birthday. He is kind enough to share them with his sister and brother. They are good builders!

Christopher's building project was the most intricate ... he was building a "spider robot" and was trying desperately to get eight working legs on this beast of his!

Later in the morning, I managed to get connected to the internet and show the kids some stuff on my blog. I had posted a birthday greeting for Jackson (since June 11 was his 6th birthday) ahead of time, before I had left home for El Paso and programmed it to publish the post on Jackson's birthday. When Emma, Chris and Matthew learned it was Jackson's birthday, they immediately wanted to "make him some presents!"
So they went to work on it!
Christopher made some pictures and cards. He was very intent on writing Jackson a letter, but his spelling is a little bit ... primitive ...
Matthew thought Jackson should have dinosaurs on the card he was making ...
Emma was SO excited to be making cards for Jackson!
She looked all through that huge pile of stickers until she found the #6 ... perfect ... just right for Jackson's 6th birthday! We phoned over to Aunt Sabrina's house so that the children could wish him a Happy Birthday ... but we missed him both times we called! The first time, we got to speak with Aunt Sabrina who told us Jackson was out with his daddy for a special birthday time together. The second time we called, we ended up singing "Happy Birthday" and leaving it as a message on Sabrina's phone ~ no one was home!
I attempted to stretch out my arms and take some pictures together with me and each kiddo ... none of them turned out very much like I would have liked them to. Matthew was a very willing participant.

Sophie, the family dog, is very affectionate with the children. Many of the neighborhood families have moved in the last little while, so the kids have lost many of their playmates. Emma told me that they talk to Sophie and Sophie talks to them ... "She keeps us from being so lonely, Grandma."
I'm posting these days of my visit in El Paso kind of backwards ... I apologize, but I can't seem to figure out how to post them any other way. But if you have read some of the prior posts, you will learn that Emma has been on medication now (for her ADHD) for about three months ... just a minimal dose ... but her reading has improved SO MUCH. She picks up books with so much enthusiasm now and she is a very good reader. I also noticed that her grammar improved right along with her reading skills!
This is not a good picture of either one of us ... but it's US!
We went back outside to play in the water in their front yard after lunch. This is Matthew on their slip-n-slide. It was only in the 90's on Friday, so it wasn't too terribly hot!
Christopher showed me how easy it is for him to float! He floats just like me! I absolutely cannot sink in the water ~ I'm not kidding. Grandpa Jones thinks this is quite amazing because he absolutely cannot FLOAT in the water ... ever! Christopher is part fish in the water. He enjoys every single minute ... notice his squirt gun too! He is a good shot!
After swim time, it was back in the house for story time!

The Story of Jesus and Zaccheus!
Since I was a MOPS worker this year over at church, I made copies of some of our craft papers for my files. I really liked the one we had for the story of Zaccheus, so I brought it along to El Paso to teach it to the children.
On their sheet of paper was a picture of JESUS, the sycamore tree (that Zaccheus climbed), the bag of money (that Zaccheus stole from people), the house where Zaccheus lived, and ... Zaccheus himself! They colored each object and then cut around the lines ...
And then I played the song about Zaccheus for them! And as they heard each object or person mentioned, they would hold it up!


So here is the song (there are motions that go with the song) ~ the above picture is Emma telling Zaccheus to "come down!"

Zaccheus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he!
He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.
And as the Savior passed that way, he looked up in that tree ~ and he said,
"Zaccheus! You come down! For I'm going to your house today. For I'm going to your house today!"

We had a great time telling the story ... because it's a great story of redemption and love ... how Zaccheus had cheated everyone by exacting too many taxes and stealing their money. He had NO friends! Everyone in the town hated him. But he'd heard that Jesus was coming to Jericho (where he lived) and he wanted to see him ... but he was too short in stature to see over the crowd who had gathered to greet Jesus, so he climbed up the tree ~ I was actually reading a very good rendition of this story from a new Bible story book I bought: "The Lion Storyteller Bible." And we had such a good talk after the story about how wrong it is to steal. I told the children about the time, when I was five, that I stole a little bag of gum from the store and what happened as a result! They hung on every single word. How wonderful it is to pass on, not only the stories from the Bible that are full of love and truth, but my own story of salvation because of the love of Jesus.
Christopher drew a picture of Sophie ... I like how he spelled her name ...

I also brought along with me a little game that I purchased 25 years ago (!) for my own children to play with. It's from Discovery Toys. It's a very cool educational toy that children can play all by themselves ~ if they get all of the questions correctly answered, the color tiles make a pattern in the tray where they have placed them.
Emma especially loved playing with this. She got 100% on a very difficult page of one of the books and she is very pleased with herself!

And I cannot possibly neglect to tell you about Skippyjon Jones! I had never heard of him until my niece, Shelley, posted about him on her blog. I knew I just HAD to get a few of these books to share with my grandchildren. I ordered three of this series of books on-line and brought them to El Paso. When Emma saw me take them out of my suitcase, she jumped up and down and told me her teacher had read one of these stories to her class and how much she loved it!

Skippyjon Jones is a naughty little Siamese cat who likes to pretend he is a chihuahua. He puts on a mask and a cape and ... voila'! He goes to old Mexico on all sorts of adventures with his other chihuahua friends ~ there is a lot of tricky dialogue in these books, made-up words that are difficult to read, a little bit of Spanish thrown in the mix, and a lot of fun and nonsense. I was so please that Emma was able to tackle these books, sound out the words, and help me with some of the Spanish! WOW. Her improved reading is such an answer to prayer!

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Friday morning, we also played Beauty Parlor. Emma has long and beautiful blond hair ... but she does NOT like having it washed. It's difficult to get all of the soap rinsed out and she hates it when water and soap get in her eyes. SO ... hmmm ... what to do?

I brought their fancy step-stool into the bathroom, lined the bathroom sink with a towel, and Emma and I played Beauty Parlor. I told her how some ladies go every week to the beauty parlor to have their hair done. I told her all about her Aunt Emily who is a beautician! All the while we talked, I managed to wash Emma's hair without ever getting any water or soap in her eyes, and then meticulously rinse all of the shampoo out. I was going to style it with my hair blower, but by that time, Emma was out of patience with the whole "beauty" thing (which was OK with me!), so she let me comb the tangles out of her hair but then she put it in a low ponytail. I was going to fix it up kind of fancy, but we had taken a lot of time just to get all of her hair washed!

The boys had been watching the process, in-between playing in their room, and after I was finished with Emma, they announced it was their turn! So I did Christopher first ... he just wanted his hair sprayed down with water and combed out ... so it didn't take very long and it looked very nice. He was pleased. Matthew wanted the same treatment as Christopher, but when I was finished, he stood up on the step-stool, looked into the mirror and announced, "Look, Grandma! I'm a handsome boy!" Ah, yes, indeed you are, Matthew!