7 Things

1. I hate to fold and put laundry away, unless I have a good book to listen to while I'm doing it.

2. I spent the night in the Berlin airport, because we couldn't find a hotel in which to stay. (the rest of our team slept comfortably in a hostel, while we went looking for somewhere 'better" to stay. ) Lesson learned.

3. I'm actually shy. Really I am. With people I already know, I have few inhibitions. But when it comes to meeting new people and making conversation, it is a shear act of discipline that my father insisted I learn. (I'm glad he did.)

4. I don't have a favorite color.

5. I have a "sun gland". Really, I read about people who get bummed in the winter and in extended days of no sun. They have a gland in their forehead that actually needs sun or they don't produce enough endorphins (happy hormones). OK , so I'm self diagnosing. You can bet when I start feeling blue, I go sit out in the sun for a few minutes and everything seems less blue. Placebo? Who knows, but it works.

6. I'm almost done..... I didn't read the Chronicles of Narnia until I was out of college. Isn't that terribly sad? A whole childhood void of Narnia. You can bet it won't happen to my kids. :)

7. I once had a Brownswager (sp?) fight with a good friend. The clean up was wretched.

Sorry I have to add #8 because I don't want to be outdone by Jenny.

8. I once sang with the Fullers. In church, just me, David and Francis. I think Kim played, but didn't sing...Just me..

For Mom

This post is dedicated to my dear Mother. She has been missing my updating this blog and called today to tell me so. So just to warn you, this blog will be very grandma-info centered and will probably be pretty boring for most of you. Please don't feel obligated to comment. I have started a draft of a review of D.Q. so I'll try to get that finished and posted as time allows. Tonight though, my supper is not settling well and I can't sleep, so instead of tackling D.Q. late at night and with a queezy tummy, I think I'll just write a newsy blog.
The beautiful quilt you see in these pictures is the one Mom made for Micah while she was here visiting. (I still haven't painted his room to match it.) She also made a pillow sham and curtains to match. Not to mention, place mats and kitchen/dinning room curtains for me. She's amazing. So how many of you would like my mom to come visit? It was so nice to have her, I just hope she'll come back after we worked her so hard.

We just recently started rehearsals at church for the upcoming Christmas Play. I am co-directing it this year with the help of my dear friend Becca. A young lady in our church adapted a play from the book, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It is a funny book with a good message. I know it seems early to be thinking about Christmas Plays, but the play is pretty extensive for the ages of most of the children involved.

Tomorrow ends our 3 week study of Ancient Egypt. I can't say I'm sorry to see the Pharaohs go. We've really enjoyed studying about the Three Kingdoms and the Nile and Mummification, but I was glad to see the plagues coming and I'm ready to cross the Red Sea. We took a week off of working in our Math-U-See book to make lapbooks about Seasons and the Calendar. We learned the Months of the year with hand motions as memory prompts. Ms. Jo taught us a cool song that helped us learn the days of the week too. For Science we have been reading from a Christian Liberty Nature Reader. While I read, Micah listens and Josiah "takes notes" in his note book. He loves to show Daddy his drawings when he gets home and tells him all about the creatures we have studied. Writing is coming along well too. I decided to just go ahead and start Josiah out with cursive. I toyed around for awhile about which way to go, but finally decided to just give cursive a try and if it seemed too tedious we'd try manuscript. So far so good. Reading is exciting, it's so fun to watch Josiah reading on his own. One night I hung "helper words" all over the house. The next day Josiah was so excited he said, "Daddy, I woke up and I saw helper words scattered all over the house!" Micah wants to be right in on everything too, albeit some facts get a bit misconstrued. The other day I was quizzing the boys about Egypt. I said, What is the name of the river that runs through Egypt? Micah replied, "The Nile Delta!"

Matt started building a fort for the boys made from some of the old logs we still had lying in the wood. I must admit, it looks pretty cool so far. We actually did some school out there today.

Well, I think I'm ready to try to head back to bed. Please forgive my late night ramblings.

I guess I have made up for posting twice in one week by not posting for two weeks. Hello my friends, I've missed you. Life is life and so no time to get to blogging. In fact, you will probably find my blogs of late to be more photo albums. It takes less time to post a picture than to come up with something clever and engaging about which to write. So enjoy these photos of our adobe brick making adventure.

We headed out in our woods and down to the creek to collect sand and clay for our adobe mixer. It was quite a job pushing the wagon back up the hill once it had two 5 gallon buckets half full of heavy clay and sand. We used an old inflatable swimming pool as a place to mix our adobe. We added sand and straw to our wet clay mixture and then stomped/mixed it all with our bare feet. This was great fun for the boys. But wow, what a work out for Mommy's legs! We talked about all the work the Descendants of Noah had to do to make enough adobe to build a Ziggurat. BTW, it is believed that the Ancient Egyptians built their homes and Villas of adobe and then just white washed the walls. As we have studied early civilizations the last few weeks. I have been amazed at how advanced they really were. Who knows though, they were not too far removed from Adam and Eve so perhaps they used more of their brains and had better genetics then we do today.

Last week Matt and I celebrated our 7th anniversary. I will spare you all the personal squishies, but I will say I am one blessed woman to have found such a wonderful man. I never dreamed how great a relationship with another person could be. Now don't get me wrong, our relationship did not just magically happen, but all the effort we have put in to making a good relationship has been well worth it. Of course our primary focus and goal is to have a closer relationship with Jesus, as a family and as individuals, and that only serves to draw us closer to each other. I have so enjoyed seeing your wedding photos on your anniversaries, but I don't have a scanner here at home. Perhaps, I can beg a scan off a friend and post wedding photos later.

Well, I've got two boys waiting to make Egyptian style bread, so I should close. Pray for me. :)