SEPTEMBER 22 UPDATE

(Please note: I've been saving the following 3 updates since I didn't know how to add pictures to a post. I decided I wasn't going to post again until I learned how to add pictures. So that's why there are suddenly 3 new posts and a bunch of pictures. The pictures include some from our family vacation to Branson in July.)

Amanda has had 3 game days now. They are undefeated so far. In fact, they (the jr. high A team) just beat our highschool JV team yesterday! Amanda had quite a few serving points in that one.

EARLY SEPTEMBER UPDATE

Thankfully, we have settled in to the "new normal". I think we’re up to 5 gallons of milk a week now. (And that’s with no cold cereal…we eat cooked cereal for breakfast.) I’m trying to get it down to only visiting WalMart once a week but the hard part is WHEN to fit it in without 2 little helpers taking up all the room in the cart. Seems like I’m cooking more often now. Whatever happened to leftovers?? It’s all gone these days. (Not really…I just have to make more to begin with.) But we even had two nights last week with impromptu company and fit everyone in and had enough to eat, so once again we are thankful for how God provides for our growing needs with this house he lead us to 6+ years ago.

Wendy has already cooked for us…Chinese dumplings. We had eaten some when we were in China, so we sort of knew what they should look like and taste like, and she did a great job. She worked so hard on that meal. She seems to be feeling comfortable here and hasn’t appeared to have any homesickness. She has even enjoyed using skype to talk with her folks, once with web cam. It’s still so amazing to be able to talk to someone in China, clearly hear and see them…all for FREE! We even got to visit with them ourselves. They have already invited us to come visit!

Today Wendy helped me make a cake, so that was another first for her. We told her she is already becoming "Americanized" since she now asks for 2 scoops of ice-cream instead of one. (i.e. They don’t eat much "dessert" in China, so most of our sweet stuff is too sweet. For example, when she copied me in licking one of the mixer beaters after making the cake, she said she didn’t like it because it was too sweet! Imagine that!)

Josh has had two more games, and Amanda is still waiting on her first V-ball game of the season. (They have a much shorter V-ball season this year.) Andrew has found a new buddy (who lives "2" minutes away), and Daniel and Jaiden are as busy as ever.
　
　
AUGUST UPDATE

Wendy has arrived!! As you may remember, we are hosting a foreign exchange student this year from China. Wendy (Wen Qin) has been here one week now and seems to be doing great. We have had an extremely busy week getting her school clothes and supplies, shuttling Josh and Amanda back and forth for soccer and volleyball practice, meetings and meet the teacher night, etc. School starts Monday, and life has to slow down (at least from 8 AM to 3 PM)!

Daniel and Jaiden are getting more creative at getting in trouble lately, so they are vying for attention too. They also think they are starting school on Mon., so I better come up with something that will feel like school for them too. (Josh, Amanda, and Wendy will be at Longview Christian School this year, and Andrew (4th grade) will be homeschooled.

Amanda is adjusting to sharing her room, and is anxious for her volleyball games to get going. Josh just had his first highschool soccer game today. The highschool team played against the alumni, and Josh scored one of their two goals.

Andrew has hit it off real well with Wendy and continues to climb trees and practice basketball skills. His latest interest is reading about the basketball greats like "Pistol" Pete Maravich, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson.

I won’t tell you how many miles I put on the van this week, as I’m sure this is an unusual week. But I am so thankful Mike will be able to take the big kids to school this year! (At least that’s the plan for now.)

Summer activities

Hello everyone! This is Amanda! Thought we better update everyone so I am the one that gets to do that!


Our house is officially off the market. We took it off on Monday. Mom will probably keep looking with at least one eye but the market isn't selling so we are probably here to stay for now.


Well we went on a vacation a couple weeks ago to Branson, MO! It was fun! We did some boating with a "hotdog" as a tube, hiking, swimming at a pool near our condo, mini-golf, and just lounged around in our condo! One of my favorite parts was when we went boating and hotdogging!!! We would rent a pontoon boat and hotdog for 4 hours at a time and then have fun for those 4 hours. We did it 2 different days. On the first day we had to quit an hour early because of a really bad storm that had started. It was funny because before the storm I (Amanda) saw some clouds that looked like some storm clouds. I asked Dad if he thought they were storm clouds. He said that they looked like regular clouds, and then later it stormed. So now everytime he predicts something about the weather we always bring it up and say "Oh ya like the clouds in Branson weren't storm clouds." I don't think we will ever let that go! :)


We've been back from vacation a couple of weeks now. This Tuesday we went to Shreveport, LA to a science place called Sci-Port. It was pretty fun! You got to do everything they have there. We went to see an animal movie in their I-MAX theater. It was soooo cute to see Daniel and Jaiden watching it! They were so focused on it!


We should go get Wendy (our exchange student from China) from Dallas on Friday, August 14. We all are getting ready for her and are excited to finally meet her! We have been emailing her and chatting with her online. Mom has been talking to her about what classes she is taking and getting that all settled. Josh and Dad (with some help from Andrew) have been making a bunkbed for her. We are trying to get everything ready for her dresser and everything else you can imagine that you need for another child. It is finally setting in for at least me that in a little over one week she will be here for a whole year!!!


Josh on Tuesday got himself a riding lawn mower from a man that he mows for that he is trying to fix. Josh is also getting ready to start soccer practice this coming Monday, doing some driving, and even drove to Shreveport, LA on Tuesday.


My friend Courtney and I (Amanda) are doing a project to raise some money for babies around the world who cannot be taken care of by their family. These babies are with the organization Feed The Children. We sent out this email:

"HI!
For those of you that don’t know who I am my name is Amanda Hood (daughter of Mike and Amy Hood), and I am going into the 8th grade. I hope your summer has been going well. Mine has been pretty good.

Well, during the school year my friend Courtney and I really felt that God told us to help feed the hungry in other countries. After a lot of praying and thinking we have decided to raise money to give to infants through Feed the Children organization. One way we are going to do this is by walking, jogging, or running laps on August 3. We would really appreciate if you could help us by sponsoring us for every lap we complete. You can give any dollar amount for every lap and then email me so that I will know how much you are committing to. After we finish I will email you to tell you how many laps I did then you can mail me the money.* If you prefer just donating a set amount then feel free to do so. The money we raise will go to these infants all over the world to provide them with care for a certain amount of months! If we raise $96 it will help a baby for 8 months, $48 will help for 4 months, and $24 will help a child for 2 months. Please pray for us in our hope to help the needy. We will need many prayers.

Thank you for all your prayers and support. It will really help us. I pray that God will use our efforts to further His Kingdom.

If you have any questions please call 903-295-0839 and ask for Amanda. If you would like to learn more about Feed the Children go to www.feedthechildren.org.

If the date changes I will send you another email to let you know!

Thank you,
Amanda Hood

* If you are writing a check please make it out to Feed the Children and they will send you a receipt for your tax deductible donation. When you send money please mail it to Amanda Hood at 305 Monterrey Lane White Oak, TX 75693."


We did the walking thing this Monday and did 10 miles!! It was hard because it was so hot outside, but we did it! In the process we have gotten quite a lot of money which we will send in once we have all of it!


Andrew is being the normal active boy! He goes outside almost everyday in this heat. I don't know how he does it. I go outside for a couple minutes and I start sweating!


Daniel and Jaiden are just normal little kids!! They love to play together!! Sometimes one gets made when the other one doesn't want to play with them! They are so cute.


Sorry about no pictures again!!! We'll try to add pictures soon!
Amanda

6th Child Update

Well, my blog administrator (Josh) is out of town this week, so I'll see if I (Amy) can figure this posting stuff out.

You may have seen our recent teaser where we mentioned we were praying about a 6th child. Well, we now have confirmation... We have officially decided and been matched to be a host family for a foreign exchange student program through AFS. We will be hosting Wen (Wendy) Qin from China! She will arrive mid-August and stay through late June. She turns 17 this Sunday, will attend school at Longview Christian school (where Josh and Amanda will be), and will share a room with Amanda. We had room in our hearts and in our home for another child, but not in our car. So we will simply be taking 2 cars to church from now on. :) We are real excited to have this opportunity. We just began communicating with Wendy (via email) this morning. Sounds like she is excited too. Now we need to get to work on another set of bunk beds!

Josh and Amanda are at church camp this week. And Andrew just returned from a week with G. & G. Hood and 3 other boy cousins. They had a great time.

Nothing new with our house situation. We still have it listed, but probably only for another couple weeks. The house we wanted is still under contract and is set to close on July 15th. If nothing falls through with that one, then we'll stay where we're at unless something comes on the market that is worth the hassle. Our primary motivation is location, so we have a fairly small area we are looking in. We'll keep you posted.

Sorry no new pix. That's asking a little too much of me for now. Just posting text is a new step!
Amy

IT"S BEEN A LONG TIME

Sorry every one, I guess I just hadn't thought much about blogging until Dad called me this morning to say that someone was wondering if we were still alive :).

Anyway, we are still alive.

FOR SALE *Wonderful Curb Appeal
*Beautifully Landscaped
*4/2/2
*In A Perfect White Oak Neighborhood
















Yep, we are once again trying to move. Except this time it will just be locally. Mom and Dad found a really nice house with a pool in Pine Tree ISD (which is in longview)but a day after we put our house on the market the one in Pine Tree got a contract. That might be the answer to our prayers. We will probably keep our house on the market until the other one closes or sells.(We'll keep you posted)















Another prayer request is, that God will give Mom and Dad wisdom for a decision they're considering about a sixth kid??? We'll update you in a few weeks.

I have been working on small engines and other exciting stuff like Drivers Ed. Amanda and Andrew went to VBS this week and are enjoying it. Andrew and I got to fly and ride in an airplane with Mr Ash who works with MAF, that was pretty fun. Daniel and Jaiden are still really cute, and can be really loud some times :). Mom was really busy for a couple of days trying to get our house ready to sell , and Dad is always doing something.

Thank you for reminding me to post.

JOSH

by josh

So how do we attempt an update on so many months of life in a very busy household? It was July of 2008 that we last made an entry on our old web site. So that’s 8 months of silence. Sorry for the long pause. We hope to try this again. This new site will be more of a family site, so let us start with a basic update on each of the kids.







JOSH, who will turn 15 on May 31st, is homeschooled and finishing 8th grade. His summer lawn mowing business is already well underway. He had several "strangers" in the neighborhood seek out his services this year, so that was encouraging to him. He even had to start turning them down. His other big goal for this summer is learning to drive. He also loves to garden and jumps at any chance to do some landscaping. Next fall he will return to Longview Christian School for highschool and is looking forward to playing highschool soccer and basketball.







AMANDA, who turns 13 on May 19th, is finishing 7th grade at Longview Christian School. Amanda has risen to the challenge of a busy schedule this year. Many normal weeks include piano practicing, flute practicing, homework and studying (to maintain her straight A record), youth group, and many loads of laundry. Yes, she has the responsibility of doing all the laundry for our family! This is a huge, huge help to her mom! She also does some babysitting for her own younger siblings, but is about ready to try branching out also.







ANDREW, who turned 9 this past December, is finishing 3rd grade as a homeschooler and will continue to be homeschooled next fall. Andrew is a very active, very athletic, very ambitious boy. He climbs trees, shoots hoops on the trampoline, shoots hoops on the driveway, and cup stacks…all in one day, many times a day. Somehow, he gets his schoolwork done in spite of his yearning to be active. Cup stacking is one of his latest ambitions. He’s won 7 trophies this spring at the church where he is participating in this. For more info. on what this is, take a look at the videos at www.speedstacks.com Andrew is also quite up to date on all college and professional sports. He amazes us with his attention to and retention of details regarding players, scores, rankings, etc. etc.







DANIEL, who turned 4 in January, is following in Andrew’s footsteps in how active he is. We’ve had Daniel in our family for a little over a year now, and it has been a year full of blessing. He has transitioned so amazingly well. He is probably the most affectionate of all our children (at the age of 4), and still loves to be held. He appears to be secure in his attachment to us and us to him. He’s a sharp little guy too and is in the early stages of learning to read. He can sound out simple words and read short sentences. He and Jaiden have really turned into good buddies. They play together most of the time on their own initiative. We are so thankful for their budding friendship and pray that it lasts a lifetime.







BABY JAIDEN just turned 3 on March 17. She is Daniel’s little shadow. She tends to do more of the following, and Daniel does more of the leading. I think she knows all of her letters and sounds, and she "thinks" she can read like Daniel. We’ve had Jaiden just over 2 years now and are so thankful for how well she has adjusted to Daniel.

Our 3 oldest kids have truly been mature and gracious in dealing with the dynamics of a growing family. Not only do they pitch in and help out more, but they sincerely love their new siblings with an unconditional love. We have been so blessed.

andrew's cup stacking

Famous Andrew Hood.