Moms In Touch

I have had a total revelation in my life and it started a few weeks ago when I attended my first Moms In Touch meeting. MIT is a prayer group. We meet to pray for our children and the schools they attend. It was a little intimidating to me because I have not had a lot of experience praying outloud in front of people. But, my friend, Becky, borrowed this quote from another friend from church, Debbie. When Debbie was trying to work in this hour of prayer time for her children, someone told her "If you don't pray for your children, who will". How true is that? I cannot even begin to describe what a difference this group has already made in my life and Ryleigh's life. I feel so at peace knowing these 4 other women are praying for Ryleigh and that I can pray for these other kindergartner and first graders. The fact is that we all could use people praying for us and when I send Ry to school everyday, I want God to watch over her and guide her and when we pray together at the beginning of the week I feel God's presence and love. It gets so emotional talking about the things our kids are facing at school, especially on the playground. So, my goal is to spread the word about MIT because it is the single most important thing I can do for my children!!!!!!

Ryleigh has been doing great at school. I am hoping at the start of the second quarter she will be able to go to the enrichment class. I just want her to be challenged. I understand that they have to review and that not everyone is on the same level, but I feel sorry for her that she isn't learning very much at school. I think this has so much to do with her crying and not wanting to be there. I think if she doesn't learn to work through hard work, she will never know what to do when faced with challenging work later. Just a mom's theory!!!!

Reagan is turning into quite the commedian! She makes the funniest comments, like she really knows how to tell a joke! We have become quite addicted to the High School Musical craze and she will say "I love Gabriella, sissy loves Troy" so cute! She wanted to use her own money to buy a HSM notebook with a picture of the cast on it. She was riding in the cart at Wal-Mart and she was pointing to them saying "that's Gabriella, that's Troy" Then she pointed to the Chad character who has big poofy hair and she said "who's that? maybe his name's Hairy!!!!" She just laughed and laughed and of course we were dying it was so funny! I just love her age, where she is in between being a baby and big girl! Her personality is hilarious! What a blessing she is! I am seriously considering campaining to Tim to have Reese's middle name be Gabriella, just because of the cute way she says it!

Speaking of HSM, we are planning Ryleigh's 7th birthday party ( I cannot believe she will be 7) and she wants to have a HSM party, so we are having a blast planning it. She has come up with some great ideas and I found a lot of stuff on the internet, too! I think birthday parties are so much fun!!!! And this one may just be the best one yet!!! More on that later...

So, my new favorite question to ask myself daily is what I said before... If you don't pray for your kids, who will? If you have school age children or grandchildren and aren't in a Moms in Touch group, what are you waiting for? It will change your life and the lives of your children! If I can do it, anyone can!!!!

Blessings to anyone who reads this!!!!

Trying to Get Settled Around Here

Well, it seems I am not the only one having the "first grade blues" as I posted earlier. Ryleigh is struggling to enjoy school this year. She has been crying a lot and after discussing it with her teacher we have tried to work really hard to figure out how to prevent these meltdowns. I think there are two main causes of her not being happy all day at school: #1 She is bored. #2 She is overly sensitive. We all love Mrs. Coffman and she has been wonderful. She has lots of friends in her class. Everything would seem to be just terrific, but that has not been the case. We have added "Being a big girl at school" to her list of jobs on her weekly job chart and that has helped. We have tried to teach her how to manage her feelings better. I know in time she will be fine, but it sure breaks your heart knowing your child isn't happy go luckily like first graders should be. Her beginning of the year test scores show that she is gifted, so hopefully she will be able to go to the enrichment class very soon. I am so proud of her for scoring so high! I am praying that she can stay focused on all the talents God has given her and not worry about anything else!

We had a fun get together Saturday at Incredible Pizza with our Ozarks adoption group. It's always so neat to see all the kids and visit with the parents. What a blessing to have that support in this area. Especially when there are ignorant white trash, psycho people living right here amongst us! We got an email from one such person a couple of weeks ago. Since then we have discovered where she lives and quite a bit about her lifestyle and stupidity. She was berrating us for being "unamerican" because we chose to adopt from China instead of a "homeless" American child. She went on and on and used some language I would never repeat. I could really go off on a tangent here, but I will take the high road and just be thankful for all of the love and support and encouragement we have received from 99% of the people we meet. How can anyone be so stupid? Especially when you see Reagan's adorable face and see what a perfect part of our family she is. UGH, it makes me ill to think that someone is raising three kids in such a horrible, racist home. Enough said.

Our Christmas program practices are going awesome! I am so excited for the kids to put on this program. They are so talented and sweet! I love working with them! It's amazing how they can be so young, yet have all this love for Jesus just overflowing from them! I feel like we are off to a great start this fall!

Basketball has also started and of course, I am just thrilled that Ryleigh is so eager to play! I am working with 2 other moms and we had our first practice last Thursday! The girls did great and I think we will have so much fun! We bought Ryleigh her first pair of basketball shoes- yellow and black Air Jordan's!!!!! They are very cool and perfect for a Little Lady Jacket! Our games will start at the end of October and we are going to practice a couple of times a week until then.

Reagan is loving gymnastics! She is such a good listener and does so well! She is so cute in her leotard with the little grin of hers! She loves to balance on one foot and hang on the bars like a little monkey! She is getting to be such a big girl- no accidents lately and she even got moved up to the big class at Sunday school!!! Yikes, no more nursery! It's a little bit sad! I am so proud of her though! She is such a good girl!

How did I get so lucky? We waited so long for our second child and I just always felt like I wasn't good enough or something, so I wasn't being given the gift of another baby. Now I just feel like, golly- what did I do to deserve such a perfect life? God certainly has a way of turning our darkest days into something unimaginably wonderful!!! My girls and my husband are the best!

As usual, no news about Reese. The only small ray of hope we have heard is that indeed more orphanages are opening up for international adoption. We found that out because the orphanage where Reagan was abandoned (at 10 days old she moved to Jianxin, where she was until she joined our family) has just started getting babies "paper ready" so they can be adopted. We got to see some referral photos of Poyang SWI and my heart skipped a beat seeing the buildings in the background, just knowing that Reagan's birth family left her there. I never thought we would be able to see it because it is so remote. It was nice to finally have another piece of her past to show her later. There are some adorable babies being referred from there!

Hopefully this week will be a good one for the Tuckers!

Girls Night Out

A new tradition with my good friends Jill, Stacy, and Erin is to have G.N.O. once a month. It's awesome!!!! Every part about it makes me smile- I feel so blessed to have these wonderful women in my life- they know me and still love me despite all my faults and we can get together and talk and laugh and laugh and laugh some more! It's so fun to share kid stories and husband stories (only good ones, of course) with people who have the same values, priorities, and feelings! I am also blessed because when I got home everyone was sound asleep and there were no major catastrophies while I was out. Perfect!

We spent the holiday weekend at my parents' house, mainly to swim one more time and visit with my grandparents who are here from Wisconsin. We had a nice time and did some shopping in Springfield on our way home. Reagan did manage to pee her pants at the restaurant we ate at, but I handled it without making too much of a scene! She is doing so much better going on the potty, but she still has her moments where she is not a big girl. Even though she says in the cutest voice- I not baby, I big girl! Ryleigh was just way to easy to potty- train. Oh well, it's all part of being a mommy!

Our calendar is slowly filling up with piano lessons, gymnastics, church, and basketball. I hope we can keep organized and not run ourselves ragged. I am very excited for basketball to start. I am coaching with 2 other moms and we have enough girls to have a team now. We also have a sponsor- hooray! We will start practice next week!

Referrals came out today. GW only got 22 for the Nov. 25 log-ins. Will they ever finish Nov?????????? Yikes, those people have been waiting since we left for China to get Reagan. We know 2 families in China now and it's so exciting to read their daily updates. It makes me want to be there getting Reese so bad. I can't wait to be back in China touring, shopping, and taking in all I can about the culture and history. We are going to celebrate with the Wilson's tonight for Klaire's one year Gotcha Day anniversary. Time goes so fast! It will be fun to see all the little China girls together again!

Quote of the day- Every child is a gift from God, the journey home just takes a little longer for some. Amen to that!