More Fun in September!

Ok, I'm back to finish out our fun September.

Sophia started her after school activities mid month and seems to be liking both of them.
On Mondays she has arts and crafts. My hope was that I would get more artwork sent home that I could post everywhere. So far, they have been working on making a pond and therefore, no artwork for me. :/ Who knows, we have until December!
On Thursdays she has gymnastics and she really loves it. She loves coming home and showing us how she can now do backbends and somersaults and other bendy things. It's cute to see her get excited about it.

Ok, on to the things I actually have pictures for. These last couple of things had a few more pictures so I wanted to give them their own space. :)
Sophia's school put on a Back-To-School BBQ in mid September to welcome everyone back from the summer break and boy, do they put on a party. There was a band, food, and good times for the kids.

Again, I felt like it was ridiculous how fancy these tickets were. Do you remember the tickets from the Queen's Jubilee? Such a waste of money. Honestly, they could have charged us half the price and just had us print out an email to get in or something. Ridiculous... :)

So the party was held on the front area of the school. It's a large open playground so we all could put down blankets and set up our picnics. Here we've got Liz, Laura, and another friend, Adam, with his daughter, Clara.

There was food we could buy but many also brought stuff from home and we all snacked and chatted while the kids just ran around ferrel. :)

Coop did surprisingly well for most of it. It was only when it was well past his bedtime and the band was getting loud that he decided he had had enough. He really is doing so well. My boy...

Although there were several drinks available for purchase that night, Ben and I chose to drink our beloved bottle of cherry wine from home, from Black Star Farms Winery, where we'd stayed overnight to celebrate our 10th anniversary. It was gooood. :)

 The band. They were pretty good, too!

A side view of Sophia's teacher, Mr. Jones, who was there that night. Does he not look 12??? :)

As the evening progressed, Sophie got more and more wild but was having so much fun dancing around with her Dutch friends, Jenna and Floortje.

Cute girls, all in a row. :)

 Ben with Isaac and Patrick with Quentin, dancing around.

The band started playing Maroon 5's "Moves like Jagger" and it was all over. Liz loved it!

Cooper having some fun with mama.

On Spetember 25th, Laura, Patrick, Sally, Matt, Ben's coworker John and his wife, Robyn, Ben and I all headed out to the Maroon 5 concert. We were all very excited for a bit of home this concert was bringing. However, I believe Laura, Robyn and I were most excited to see us a little Adam Levine. :)

This is Ben and I outside of the Mercedes-Benz Arena. It was originally made for the World Expo back in 2010 and now they use it for concerts. Looks like a space ship. :)

Our seats in the arena. I do believe this shows the only time we sat the whole concert. :)

Ben and I in the arena with the stage in the background.

Right off the bat, he's at a payphone, trying to call home, but all of his change he spent on me. :) For those of you who are not Maroon 5 fans, these are lyrics to one of their most popular songs right now. Really, that was just geared towards parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Everyone else should already know this. ;)

Ben was the photographer for the night as he (and the other husbands) weren't acting the crazy fans that the women were. When he took this picture, Laura and I actaully squealed like we were 13.

The previous picture was followed by Ben taking this picture of us- yes, Laura is trying to look as crazy as possible. We were all convinced by the end of the night... :)

Next to Ben were some locals who thought Minnie ears that blinked and glowed would be a great addition to a Maroon 5 concert. Ok...

Ah yes, good times had by all. It was, like I said, a lot of fun to go do something that felt so much like home and reminded us that the world is actually a pretty small place.

So, that concludes September.
Oh, wait. I forgot. Cooper got Star of the Week at his school this month. He has been improving his use of PECs a lot in this last month so they actually threw him a little party with a cake and gave him this certificate.

For those who don't know what PECs is, it is when Cooper uses pictures to help him communicate with us because he doesn't speak yet. For example, if he wants some M&Ms, he goes and gets the picture of M&Ms and brings it to the teacher, handing it to her. She then gives him the candy. Eventually this can lead to him being able to fully communicate anything using this system.
The hope is still that he will one day learn to speak, that using this system will actually be more work than just saying the words. Time will tell. Ben and I are truely looking forward to the day that he is able to communicate with us in any form!

Prayer Requests:
-I have some people very close to my heart that are going through the beginning stages of filing for divorce after being married for more than 10 yrs. They have children and my heart is breaking for the whole family. Please pray for this family that I know. God knows, when you pray this, who you are speaking of, and that's all that matters.

-Please pray that Cooper's night terrors end. They have been increasing in number over the last few months and are hard on all of us. They seem to be related to poor sleep and changes in routine but there are times these things cannot be avoided. He acts the way he did on the plane coming here and it breaks our hearts. He's so scared and his mind seems so full of terror and agony. It's really hard to watch, especially since nothing we do seems to help. We just try and keep him from hurting himself until it passes. Poor buddy. :(

-Finally, please pray for our Sophia as we are noticing an increase in her inability to focus and be calm in school and at home. It is affecting her schoolwork and her homelife and we are beginning to worry that this could be leading to ADD, which runs in my family. I'm trying not to prematurely diagnose her, and yet I also want her to get help, and not delay it, if she needs it. It's such a balance and we could really use God's guidance on where to go with this.

Ok, 2 blogs in one night! Look at me! :)
The next one I'll try and get out soon. It's our trip to Hong Kong and we really did have so much fun there!
May God give you all his peace and may you feel his touch in your every day activities (he's there, you just have to be willing to see him :)