Another Pinewood Derby.

March 1, 2015 | Stacy

Tab won a trophy for speed. They both had a lot of fun.

Wild Wings and Bird Song Trail 2015

February 9, 2015 | Stacy

I’m not one for field trips. They interrupt the school day.
I’m especially not one for outdoor field trips in the winter. They are outdoors

But – as this one was one we hadn’t done in four years, and the day was already being interrupted for a WCC for Katriel, I decided I’d take the three older girls to this one. I do like raptors and we’d just read the book, Poppy, by Avi.

I’d wondered if I should take Johanna, but she was super-animated and enjoyed herself tremendously.

Marie and Tab got to dissect owl pellets.

While the girls looked for what the owls had had for lunch, Hanny played with giant plastic bugs…

I wanted nothing more than to leave once we were done. But we’d come with sunflower seeds, and 16 inches of snow was not about to deter my daughters. Even the one whose legs are only a little more than 16 inches!

Before we even had gotten ready to feed the birds they started zooming at us. As Tab simply POINTED to something a bird dove toward her hand. We were all delighted and excited.

It was COLD. While I was never fast enough to grab a great picture of a bird in Marie’s hand, she was very good at standing still and they visited her often.

Sweet Johanna stood as still as she could, but as birds landed on her hand, she often startled and dropped her seed to the ground…
After we’d been out a bit, I asked her if her hand was cold. She gushed, “YES!” so we put her mittens back on.

That seemed to do the trick.

Cardinals joined in the fun.

Tab had her share of birds, as well.

Matthew 6:25-26<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-23308A" data-link="(A)”>“Therefore I tell you, <sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-23308B" data-link="(B)”>do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. <sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-23309D" data-link="(D)”>Are you not of more value than they?

Tab’s phone

Image | February 9, 2015 | Stacy

Friendly competition

December 29, 2014 | Stacy

With no major project slated for the two-week break we took over the holidays (um, the kitchen update left us too broke to take on our pending master bedroom project), we had to come up with other ways to entertain ourselves.
Somewhere along the line we though up Monopoly…
We started our first game ever that first night around 7 PM. Next thing I knew John was excusing himself at 8:15 PM to put Hanny and Katriel to bed. THEN the next thing I knew it was 10:20 PM! For! Real! I decided that we’d have to just end the game at 11 PM, because, well, do I really NEED a because???

Tabby was the first to go out… but she played well against these vultures.

We played multiple times over the course of the second week of vacation. It was mostly fun. Mostly.
How did we manage this with our two too-young-for-Monopoly-girlies?
Well, we tried to do it during Katriel’s naptime. And Johanna would just play dolls near us.

Or… in the case of at least two evening games I know of…

Heh – thanks technology!
But don’t worry. We played LOTS of Princess-friendly games, as well, over our break.
She’s a CandyLand queen!

Disciples’ Construction Company

December 20, 2014 | Stacy

We’ve had different gingerbread-building experiences over the years and have always enjoyed ourselves. This year we went with the at-home-kit plan and had a blast. At $8 a kit (even with Rollback prices) I just purchased 3 sets. I gave resident cheerful-person, Marie, the first box and asked her to pick a partner. All these disciples love one another, but not everyone can work together. Marie lovingly selected the high-spirited 4-year-old, thereby creating just about the best possible building-buddy-sets I could have hoped for…

Stewart and Nigel were a team, and Tabitha and Katriel were a, um, team… (Hard to build from your high chair…)

I lent some hands to Tab, and Daddy lent some hands to Marie. (Hanny proved a rather disinterested builder. She was more into exterior design and taste-testing.)

The boys had a few glitches. (They seemingly do not have the engineer gene.)

What the boys lack in math and science they more than make up for in other areas… like creative design.
They were the first to finish their project.

Marie finished second, sweetly labeling it M & J, although J had very little input.

Tabitha managed to complete hers on her own…and as such, didn’t offer Katriel any frosting credit. 😉

Corning Museum of Glass

November 4, 2014 | Stacy

Almost a two hour drive, including a LooooooG stop for a four-year-old tummy.
Ten people, as Nan and Nene came, too.
A good deal of fun.

Adults were $16, and kids 19 and under are free.
Making glass projects were not free.
Really. Not. Free.
But how could we not?

We learned a lot today. Glass has been around since Nineveh times! Amazing stuff.
And we did a scavenger hunt in the glass history section. It was pretty beautiful, really.
But the demos were our favorite parts.

Nigel was selected from the audience to participate in glass breaking. He said it was fun.
He was given a beautiful glass swan for his participation.

We watched a glass flameworking demo. She made a beautiful fish.

We also watched a fiber optic demo. and a glass blowing demo. I don’t know how I failed to take pictures of that last one. It was fascinating. The artist blew a gorgeous bowl in about 15 minutes.
I was that lady with a 20-month old in a glass museum. When Stewart was a baby I would have been horrified my child was so “busy”. At this stage of the game I was like, “Deal with it people.” 😉

After we ate our packed lunch we headed to the I Make Glass building.

Stewart and Tabitha each made an ornament. ($29 each, plus a total cost of shipping of $18.)

I can’t wait to see them when they arrive later this week. I did not get a good look at either of them.

Marie and Nigel did flamework. Nigel made a bead. Marie made a pendant. I think they both just wanted to work with the flame. I don’t blame them.

Johanna applied stickers all over the outside of a small glass. Then a nice lady sandblasted it.

She was a little perplexed that the stickers were removed.

We left around 3:30 P.M. Johanna wanted to be like the big kids…

And we wanted Katriel to use some big muscles before the long car ride home.

We called in a pizza about half-an-hour out from home.
I remember when a sheet pizza used to last two meals!
They are growing so fast.

Flu shot field trip…

October 20, 2014 | Stacy

Some of my bloggy friends might remember when we had H1N1 in 2009. It was horrible.
H.O.R.R.I.B.L.E.
That was the year that H1N1 strain was a separate immunization

I also had influenza A in 2008.
Just. So. Sick.
Praise God the kids did not have that bout. They had had their shots that year. I, somehow, kept missing the clinics at work and didn’t make it a priority.

Now… I walk over glass to get mine.

I hate all the lies that fly around about the “flu shot”.
I want to shake people who just think it is a stomach bug.
Or people who angrily contend they got the flu from the shot. (Not. Even. Possible.)

If you don’t want it, that’s fine. But don’t demonize those of us who know what it is like to hurry your asthmatic son to Urgent Care as his routine meds make no differences. Or how we remember shaking in bed with rigors and a temperature of 103.6 at 10 weeks pregnant and worry about what that fever is doing to your baby. (She’s fine, by God’s great mercy.) Or what it is like to see your 3-year-old soar past 104 and every medication in your arsenal can’t bring it down. Or watching your limp 7 year old fall languish on the sofa and have repeat visits to the pediatrician until she swabs him and confirms we are part of a pandemic.

Immunizations are not the enemy. The Enemy is the enemy. And he loves to see people bicker and argue. And for sure he likes to see them sick.

These disciples will do what they can to avoid the flu.

Even princesses endorse. 😉

Mommy Dates

October 11, 2014 | Stacy

I was blessed this week to have not one, but TWO “Mommy Dates”. What’s a Mommy Date? A special block of time set aside for one of my beautiful children to spend some out-and-alone-time with their very honored Mama.

Mommy Dates are very important to me. I get to spend all day every day with my dear children. However, much (MUCH) of our time together is highly structured and school-focused. We also operate with a pretty detailed chore chart. And, frankly, the kids have a lot of responsibility in keeping the house running smoothly. And Mama… well, she is the pretty anxious sort. I’m always consulting the clock. I feel like I am always racing that clock, trying to get -more math, -more English, -more geography, -more poetry in before –lunch, –dinner, –piano, –nap. The kids and I get to chat all day long. Our home is filled day in and day out with the joyful (and not so joyful) banter of siblings. We get lots of conversations sailing around the house and thoughts and ideas are bounced around from dawn til dusk. Yes, we get lots of chatter and laughter. And I love that about our homeschool-life. But we don’t always get to TALK.

Mommy dates allow me to talk one-on-one with my kids. And I love them. LOVE THEM.

Sunday I got a Mommy Date with my Marie. We needed to go shopping for some fall clothes and then we grabbed dinner at Panera.
Tuesday, Tabitha and I squeezed in a mini-Mommy Date. We just did dessert at Panera after a quick visit to Target.

Next up is Nigel. He’d like to visit Collector’s Paradise at the mall, and I’m hoping he’ll go for some food court food. I love food court Chinese.

But Panera would be fine, too.

Caught up !!

August 13, 2014 | Stacy

Okay – this blog has languished this summer. I’ve had all kinds of computer/photo and phone-talking-to-computer issues. Plus – I hate sitting around the computer when I could be doing something else. But I finally got the photos straightened out. And Apple gave me my third iPhone since February. (They seem to give them away like candy. But I don’t care to rehash all of THAT insanity.) So – hopefully – I will not fall behind again. Although school starts soon (8/25) so the barrel-of-laughs is bound to stop rolling. 😉

Some fun flashback pictures from April 2007.

Tabitha’s first birthday.