Fair Trade Follow-up

 There was a lot of interest in my past entry, "Everything I am for your kingdom's cause".  If you would like to reference that blog entry just click here.

Here are some pictures of the garmet factory workers living conditions.  Behind each of these doors is a small dark room housing 4 girls.  There is a bed, large enough for 3, so the girls take turns sleeping on the concrete floor.  Besides the bed the girls have a hot plate to cook on and a small plastic shelf for all their possessions.

After observing these conditions first hand and meeting the sweet girls who live here our family decided to start buying as many fair trade items as possible.  There are several online clothing sites that have fair trade clothing like Fair Indigo.  Coffees, teas, oils, etc can all be bought fair trade too.  These things are pretty easy to find if you look just a little.

Nathan in 1st grade

Nathan was the special guest in one of the first grade classes at his school.  The class is reading a book and the main character has only one hand, like Nathan.  The teacher asked Nathan to come to her class so the kids could meet a boy with one hand and see how he plays.  Nathan loved all the attention!  Later in the day, the class passed Nathan in the hall and all the kids were excited to see him.

Service Project Day

1 John 3:18 - let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth.

Twice a year Westminster has a service project day.  Over the past few weeks all the first grade classes at Westminster collected food to take to the Christian ServicebMission.  This morning we took our food to the Mission.  After receiving a tour the girls went to make cards for Thanksgiving baskets and the boys sorted all the food our group brought with us.  The boys loved sorting the food.  

They were then allowed to eat any of the surplus bread...which they all thought was awesome.

The kids also loved the huge room refrigerator and huge room freezer.  All the ice cream they were given pretty much sealed the deal for this to be an incredible service project.  We loved all the staff and the Christian Service Mission is doing incredible work!

Enjoying this awesome weather

We have been taking advantage of this great weather.  

Sports Saturday

If you live in the South most Saturdays in the fall are full of sports.  Owen could not be more pleased.  The morning was filled with Logan's soccer game.

In the afternoon we met some good friends at Samford for the football game. (Now that Preston is teaching there we plan on attending many sports events.)

Owen is very serious about his football watching and did not want me in the way trying to get a picture.

Logan, along with 15+ other children spent the majority of the game sliding down the hill on cardboard (I even gave it a try once).

(Logan has on the red shirt and blue hat)

Let's just say all that fun made him a little dirty.

We came home for Logan to shower before we did anything else.

Nathan has a cold and did not feel well enough to sit in the sun for 3 1/2 hours during the game.  My parents offered to babysit him for the afternoon and he really enjoyed his time with them.

Owen's new computer

On Tuesday Owen received his eye gaze computer.  In August of 2012 we started a 13 month journey of trials, clinics, and speech therapy sessions with the eye gaze system.  Owen did exceptionally well and everyone is so proud of him.  On Wednesday our Tobii rep was in town and brought all of Owen's favorite videos to put on the machine.  It has an incredible capacity for vocabulary, lots of games, books, camera, e-mail capabilities, etc and is capable to take him all the way through college. This device is incredible and when Owen is playing on it his vocabulary just explodes.  I am excited to see where he will be in the next 3 months.

1st Field Trip & 1st Soccer Game

Logan and I really enjoyed his first field trip of the year to Ruffner Mountain.  We had a wonderful time hiking and learning all about animals.  Did you know snakes are not poisonous; they are venomous.  It is always so fun for all the classes to get together because then we get to see friends from Logan's kindergarten class.

Logan played his first soccer game this morning.  It was tons of fun.  The weather was great and the kids did an excellent job.  Logan is on a team with two of his friends from school and the coach is one of their Dad's.  We are all really enjoying it.  Next year all three boys will play soccer.  This organization has soccer teams for kids with special needs for ages 4 and up.

 Check out how high that leg can kick!

 Watching his brother play.

Owen enjoying the view from Oma's lap.