Spring Background

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Prince of Peace


We are reading a book about a child who, during surgery, visited heaven. He later rejected picture after picture of Jesus, but when he saw this one, painted by a little girl who had visions of heaven starting at age 4, he said, that's the one! (The artist is Akiane.)

I am so stricken by the strength and manliness in this image. This looks like a Jesus who can get things done! And very loyal and humble. The Prince of Peace.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Thanksgiving Wishes


I am thankful for my family, even when they drive me crazy!




We Are Thankful Fall Greeting
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View the entire collection of cards.

Watermelon Harvest





We really enjoyed the watermelons that we grew!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Osh, Osh!

Samantha has started to call for Josh. She doesn't pronounce the "J," so she says Osh. It's really funny. She loves to do what he does and play with him. They like to play chase/hide and seek. Of course, Josh always hides and Samantha runs after him.


Josh is building a castle and siege tower from cardboard. He also has made smaller weapons, bow and shields, to go with it.

We've been enjoying the cooler weather and going for walks. It's especially nice at the park near the zoo, but just in the neighborhood is fine, too. The monarch butterflies migrate through Abilene. It's pretty neat to see them. I took this picture at the zoo.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Fall

Well, we had a cool night and this morning the huge morning glory patch was sad and bedraggled. On the plus side, we did harvest our last 2 watermelons today. Samantha and Josh really wanted to open them up, but had to wait...poor things! They both love watermelon and enjoyed growing them. Luke and I learned the watermelon takes over your yard, kind of like morning glories! It was satisfying to finally succeed in growing something edible in hot and windy Abilene!
Josh is doing well in his learning. It's been such a joy to see him learn to read. He doesn't find it joyful, unfortunately, but he was very proud of himself when he read Green Eggs and Ham to me. He prefers math over reading, but his favorite by far is literature, which at his age means listening to great books. Currently we're reading Ginger Pye and The Edge on the Sword. He also really enjoys listening to the Bible.
After reading a book called Gut and Psychology Syndrome, we decided to change our diet a bit. Samantha has really blossomed, and we're not even doing the full program. We've just taken out starch and sugar, and added in more honey and nuts and homemade meat and bone broth.
Anyway, after just a few days she snuggled into me and cuddled. She has not done this since she could hold her head up! Suddenly she's verbalizing alot more and being more engaged and connected with what's happening. And, lastly, my second favorite change (after snuggling) is the lack of the constant "mom, mom, mom, mom" for absolutely no reason. She used to do this for HOURS. Now when she says, "Mom," she actually has a reason for saying it. It's such a relief.
Oh, she's also gaining weight, which is great when you are almost 2 and size 12-month pants fall off you.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

tiny eggs

Our chickens have started to lay. We've collected 4 little eggs so far. They are just the perfect size for Samantha's breakfast!

Monday, June 7, 2010

Our first workbox day


Oooh, concentration! Don't you love that face!







Ring Toss Victory!!




Recently Josh has been aimless and bored. So, although I had thought to wait for the start of our next school year, we are giving the workbox system a try. Last night I was laminating, sticking velcro dots and planning. Today it was all worth it! Josh had 6 workboxes to go through and special times to have lessons in cooking and piano, as well as bike riding time. He loved it! And I loved being able to see him going and starting the next thing without me harping on it and reminding him over and over again! It was awesome. He was the most excited about a paper craft globe I download from Cannon's website. I put that last, so he kept up a nice pace trying to get to it!

The rings and cones were in one of his boxes. His first few tries he couldn't get the ring anywhere near the cone, but soon he was a pro. It was great, and Samantha enjoyed the supplies, too!

Diving Ring Fun


I picked up these diving rings in the pool section at Walmart, and the cones in the dollar section at Target. We had a lot of fun with them today. Samantha was really absorbed in them. She came up with the "hang the rings on the pony" idea all by herself.

My baby boy is really BIG!


Josh is almost 7!

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Jump for Joy

favorite new cuddly friend


We rescued this poor panda from Josh's closet. Samantha loves him! She likes a furry cuddle when she's falling asleep.

It's HOT again...


Josh and his friends Noah and Caleb got wet in the sprinkler. You can see a little head peeking out behind the slide. They were making a perpetual motion machine and running around to slide down the wet slide. They had fun, but Josh was disappointed because he wanted to ride bikes. He loves his new bike.

Helpers



Josh is getting some help with his chores. I bet he wishes she could take over for him!

bathing beauty


Samantha has been enjoying feeding herself. She loves smearing egg yolk all over her face and hair. She's also fond of spilling smoothies on the table and seeing how large an area she can cover with smoothie. She really prefers drinking out of regular cups. It's really cute to see such a tiny person drinking from a cup! I should take a picture...
Whoops, I forgot that I was going to share that many meals end up with a bath!

Thursday, April 29, 2010

cleaning


Samantha has started to enjoy pretenting to wipe tables, dust and polish. It's so cute!

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Josh's Homemade Chicken House





Josh created a shelter for the chickens with some bits and pieces he found as well as the mud bricks he made last summer. They like to hide from the sun in there.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Sittin' Pretty

Playing with chickens


If they would only stay still! Samantha is pretty interested in the chickens. They are growing fast and we need to set up a place for them outside. Luke thinks we have 7 hens. We'll see...

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Getting ready for Easter





This is our lamb... He's checking out the bitter herbs (horseradish). We've been reading the book of Exodus and had a homemade Passover celebration. Of course, since our lamb is made of cardboard, paper, cotton balls and glue, we did not roast him!



He's still on the table waiting for Easter. But I think Josh is much more excited than the lamb. We decided to buy Josh a gift rather than candy this year and he is impatiently waiting. He loves presents.


This is how Samantha felt about being stuck at the table for the celebration!





Monday, March 22, 2010

chicks

First hatched...this was taken on Friday night. You can see how wet they were, not fluffly and cute yet.





This is the inside of the incubator on Saturday morning. It was a great surprise to get up and see all the new chicks that hatched overnight.


Here they are on Sunday. It was hard to get a good picture because they were all moving around very quickly. Josh's favorite is the brown one. I'll have to take a picture of him holding the chick today.







Monday, March 15, 2010

Milk







polishing


We worked really hard on polishing the coffee table. I thought it would be nice to leave it uncluttered, but within 20 minutes it was covered with books, computer, more books...

sleep


Sometimes putting the baby to sleep is a really hard job!

Working out!

We have the unfortunate decoration of a treadmill in our living room. The house just keeps on getting smaller somehow!

love, true love...


She's not heavy, she's my sister.


Saturday, March 6, 2010

no new pictures?

I didn't take any pictures this week, so Luke is trying to get one of Josh. He's listening to Treasure Island and walking on the treadmill. Samantha is trying to get Luke to pay attention to her instead. Samantha has been in lots of pain with the teething this week. I've had to give her medicine through the night and on wednesday morning I saw that she had given herself tiny little wounds by digging into her skin in pain. We are more than ready for the teething to stop. Of course it won't for another year. When Josh got his last teeth I made a tooth party for him, with cake and decorations, because I was so happy to be done with the pain. Well, Luke is gone and now Samantha is complaining at me for attention, so it's time to end this post!

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Growing Girl


Samantha, showing off two and a half of her new teeth. I think she's cut 7 so far.

Moses on his way to see the burning bush...


Josh says this picture is embarrassing because he "looks like a girl." I don't know about you, but I've never mistaken him for a girl. He's ALL boy!

Josh is READING!!!


I was so excited when I saw that he was reading for fun. He is reading his first reader from Christian Light Education. It's a story about a family out for a picnic and what happens when the cat, Fat Tam, knocks over the boy's plate.

Friday, February 19, 2010

"Josh's" Body



This is a work in progress. We are learning all about the human body by reading The Amazing Human Body, making the body you see above using the book My Body and doing some easy experiments from the book Play and Find Out About the Human Body. Today we looked at our fingerprints - it was a big surprize to Josh to learn that we even have them!

Peekaboo!


Sweet little peekaboo Panther!


Sunday, February 14, 2010

Samantha's First Birthday Party

Samantha had a great time at her birthday party, especially after she had some cake!





Josh reading to Samantha




It's so cute to see them enjoying a book together. Josh helps take care of Samantha

on most days.