You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2007.
I finally finished a project that’s been hanging around here for many weeks. A woman in our church asked me to make her a wall hanging based on a piece of fabric that she had (the blue floral print). I picked the coordinating fabrics and got to design it. It was a bit of a challenge for me because the fabric wasn’t something I would necessarily pick for myself, but I think it turned out better than I thought it would.
Ivy goes to a ballet class with a friend today. She is so excited! It is “bring-a-friend-day” at this ballet class, and they get to dress up as a fairy-tale character. We don’t really have anything like that, so she’ll dress up as a fairy using one of Aunt Gail’s dress-up skirts that she made for them (thanks Aunt Gail!).
The girls were sitting out back, discussing between themselves the intricate details of caring for a baby doll. They were being very sweet to their babies, holding them just the right way and advising each other on what needed to be done.
Here’s Big A-man, smiling at mommy. Excuse the flashy picture, but we’ve had a lack of sunshine due to wonderful rain for the past three days! We were so glad to see it.
…even though it doesn’t feel a BIT like it when you step outside. But we all know the weeks are ticking by. Need to get that shopping list updated pretty soon, but it’s a little difficult to get motivated when it feels like the middle of August.
It’s State Fair week here, and we got a chance to go with some friends last night! It was everything the fair always is: noise, foods (the specialties this year were fried peanut butter sandwiches and fried oreos…welcome to the South), great opportunities for people-watching, rides, smells, animals, and tired children. It was really hot yesterday, and it doesn’t really seem like the State Fair unless you bring a sweatshirt to wear, but we had fun all the same.
We ride the biggest ferris wheel in the park every year, and the babes have loved it every time. Charlotte was very brave sitting between her two friends Caroline and Emily. Asher wasn’t quite sure what was going on for awhile, and Ivy was so excited to be up so high!
Two (very talented) guitar players whipped up a version of “Old MacDonald” for all of the kids, and it gathered quite a crowd.
Okay…naptime’s almost done, up next is a busy weekend! Hope everyone has a good one!
We’ve had SUCH a nice week. Really. Just about everything we could want in a beach vacation: lovely, comfortable home; rest; evenings on the sand, dipping toes in the water; time with family.
But alas, all good things must come to an end. Thank you, John and Emily (we missed you), and thank you also to Rob and Deborah for so kindly allowing us to stay here.
This man caught a shark while we were at the beach yesterday evening, and put it right next to the one he had just caught a few minutes before that (you can see it in the background). Apparently he eats them.
We got pizza takeout and ate it on the beach last night. I tried to get them to look at the camera, but they were watching Daddy send up the kite again.
I think all the feet got in here.
We visited the sound today. At high tide there is very little sand and the waves are moderate, arriving like clockwork. At low tide the water goes out a bit, the waves lap very gently, and there is a broad stretch of very shallow water. We found a hole dug in the sand under the water and it looked like there was a crab lurking in it.
The girls were talking about something on the dock while I was taking pictures of them. You can see Charlotte pointing, then explaining or describing something, and then sitting back and contemplating.
– Scott
And a great quote I got from a friend this week.
“What to do with your preschoolers? Cuddle them. Talk to them. Answer their questions. Play games. Read picture books. Let them help bake bread, sort socks, and plant the garden. Make play dough. Sing silly songs. Feed the birds. Scribble with crayons and sidewalk chalks. Experiment with finger paint. And just watch: Amazingly, as they grow from infants to toddlers…they will acquire an ever-expanding vocabulary and amass an astonishing fund of knowledge. In comfortable everyday fashion, they’ll learn to count to ten, absorb the names of shapes and colors, memorize nursery rhymes, and the words to “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and the alphabet…Chances are they’ll learn more in an afternoon spent making mud in the sandbox than they will from even the best-designed curriculum…Kids grow up fast. Cherish these early years while you’ve got them. Henry David Thoreau could have been speaking to the parents of small children when he touted the beauties of daily living and the importance of taking time to pay heed to the marvel taking place about you. ’It is a great art,’ Thoreau once wrote, ‘to saunter.’ Such is my advice for the preschool curriculum: Saunter. Hold hands and giggle while you’re doing it, and bring some bread along to feed the ducks.”
– Rebecca Rupp, Home Learning Year by Year
We’re on vacation this week. Parents of good friends of ours so kindly offered their beach home to us for a week. Our friends are arriving later in the week with their two girls; we are looking forward to spending time with them!
So I won’t be writing a lot this week, but I’ll try to post a picture each day.
Here are a couple to start off with. After dinner we spent some time on the dock out front of the house. The house is on the sound side of Emerald Isle, and the beach is directly across the street.
Some of you have asked to see a picture of me with the children (hi mom! 
). I am not camera shy, just usually the one who is taking the pictures.
Scott made a swing for the girls in our back yard and boy, is it popular! We are having to deal with some sharing issues over this swing, and this is happening constantly but it’s good practice.
It’s been one of “those” weeks so far. Why does it seem like the spilled milk glasses, owies, meltdowns, new teeth, shopping trips that try the patience of anyone, and exhaustion all come in the same week? Typical of my life: I hollered “Good morning!!!!” (loudly) out the back door to our neighbor… and it was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Sigh. I have bumped my head almost every day, dropped nearly everything I’ve touched, forgotten important things at the store, and can’t seem to get caught up on anything this week.
We got the new Caedmon’s Call album from a friend, and one of the songs is great. It’s titled “Sacred” and I’ll take a few lines from it and put them here: “this house is a good mess / it’s the proof of life / no way would I trade jobs / but it don’t pay overtime / could it be that everything is sacred? / teach me to run to You like they run to me for every little thing / Lord make me like a stream / to feed the garden…”
I need to think about this for awhile: “Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” — Jerry Bridges
God’s grace is evident to me in many, many ways. I am grateful for chubby hugs, sleeping babies, drooly kisses, quiet afternoons, a successful trip to the store (complete with compliments on obedience from kind elderly ladies), and a vacation coming up in a couple days. God’s grace also looks like it might be in the form of a spontaneous accountability meeting tonight with a good friend, over cheesecake (mmm) and coffee. Just don’t tell these people about the cheesecake.
I had a great blog post all thought up in my head, but it took me so long to upload some pictures off of the camera that now I can’t remember what I was going to write about.
So I’ll just post some pictures.
Asher is accumulating a little collection of wooden toys, so I thought I’d add to it with this little helicopter I found today. It’s actually a little puzzle. It came disassembled in a bag, and it took me a few minutes to put it together. Ahem.
This picture is several months old but I have been meaning to post it.
This is a blanket that I made for my good friend Melanie, who is due with their first baby any minute now.
And this blanket is for a little boy who is due in November. Our pastor and his wife are expecting their sixth baby and we are so excited to meet him!
I have been reading this book and it is very good. A little thick and wordy, but I am very interested in Charlotte Mason’s teaching ideas. So far it seems like we aren’t too far off base from what she had in mind for home education, at least for now.
We definitely love reading around here, and we have invested much time, effort, and money into good books for the children. Charlotte Mason talks a lot about “living books”, books that may be above the child’s intellectual level but teach the child a great deal. I love this quote about Charlotte Mason, it seems to sum up this book in a couple of sentences: “She believed that education had to include the proper use of books. …she made side and varied use of literary books covering every field. That is what she meant by a liberal education. She expected quite a lot from ordinary children. And they loved it.”
I have heard mixed reviews on Charlotte Mason. Anyone care to share their opinion?
