Jun. 18, 2008
Lost No More
|
If any of you have been looking for an inspirational, Godly, and extremely funny blogger friend who appeared to fall off the face of the blogging world, search no longer! JenIg is now at www.jeneralities.com Happy reading! P.S. Jen's running a fun contest right now, too. Swing by and check it out. |
May. 22, 2008
Prayer Request
|
Many of you may have heard by now, but the Steven Curtis Chapman family needs our prayers. A tragic accident yesterday took the life of the youngest Chapman. Maria was 5 years old. The fact that her older brother was driving the car that hit her compounds the tragedy. This family is such an inspiration to so many families, and they are champions for adoption around the world. Please lift them up in prayer today and in the future. |
May. 20, 2008
May 20, 2001
 Seven years ago today, a woman in far-off China gave birth to a healthy baby girl. She loved this child enough to place her in a safe spot. This child was soon found and given excellent care while she waited for her forever family to travel around the world and bring her home. Happy Birthday, Rebecca. You are God's gift to us, and I am so happy to be your mommy! |
May. 15, 2008
Camping Fun
Our family enjoyed a fun weekend at Hanna Park in Jacksonville not too long ago. The main draw here is dirt. The secondary draw is the plethora of cool bike trails all over the park. Here you see Sharky Dog and our youngest partaking in my favorite camping activity: roasting marshmallows. Me with the finished product - a perfect s'more. This face says it all... We rode our bike to lots of playgrounds all over the park. This was one of the best spots to stop. Believe it or not, this is our prissy girly girl. See what camping does to a person?  Look Daddy, I dug a super deep hole!  Here the boys are supervising Sharky as he packs up for the journey home. Our next camping adventure will take us to Washington D.C. We can't wait! |
May. 2, 2008
Atlanta in Review
Here are the promised pictures of our trip to Atlanta. These only catch a brief bit of our trip. Most of the time we enjoyed talking to each other while the children entertained themselves in many creative ways! The trip was fantastic, and here are a few snapshots from it: Visiting the American Girl Store - we know it is overpriced and ostentatious, but we did it anyway. And we were rewarded with huge smiles :-) (Just not in this picture...)  Waiting to ride the fantastic carousel upstairs from the AGS.   Happy girls doing their best princess imitations.  One of Booknhome's daughters riding the perfect animal for her - a bobcat with a dead bird in its mouth. This one cracked me up! Perfect for a rough and tumble girl.  This is about all I saw of my #2 son during the visit - a blur doing something outside! This was shot as he whizzed by on the zipline. Note the filthy jeans. Boy heaven.  Proud lumberjacks standing by the raised garden bed they helped construct by chopping down trees off the property they live on. This was an awesome activity for my guy, since we live in a neighborhood with small lots and not many trees at all. Very cool. |
Apr. 17, 2008
A camping we will go...
|
We're excited around here because we leave tomorrow for a fun weekend of camping. We'll be headed for Hanna Abbey Park in Jacksonville. My kids love it there - lots of bike trails for the boys and dirt for the girls. Yes, what good is a camping trip if you can't wallow in the dirt for a good portion of it? The kids and I just got back Friday from a 5 day trip to Atlanta. I hope to post some pictures of that when we get home from this next trip. A good time was had by all while we visited with great friends. Our children all get along so well that we hardly see them while they are together. It is shaping up to be a busy spring! Finally, we are off to pick up #3's new pair of glasses. I was greeted at the Sunday school door last weekend with an apologetic teacher and a chagrined child holding pieces of her glasses. Somehow they were completely destroyed during the lesson. (can you say 'active listener'?) We left first thing Monday for Atlanta, and so she has been squinting and rubbing her eyes for a week and a half. I'm thrilled to get the new pair before we leave for this weekend. Hope you are enjoying beautiful Spring weather wherever you are. Happy weekend! |
Apr. 4, 2008
Art in the Park
My girls recently had the opportunity to participate in a chalk art competition at a local park. My goodness there are some talented chalk artists around here! The theme of this year's contest was "Life Under the Indian River Lagoon" and most of the contestants did a fantastic job keeping with the theme. The winning portrait featured a mermaid, which kind of puzzled me, but it was a beautiful picture. Better keep an eye out for her next time we are out in the boat  The contest morning dawned clear and warm, and my little artists were VERY excited about the contest. They each had a 50 by 50 inch square to fill. That is a very big space when you are only three feet tall! They both did fantastic and their drawings are posted below. Some of the detail was lost when they colored in all of the water, but the morning was a blast and they are already planning what to draw for next year!   The happy artists:  I'll leave you with an image of something that most kittens of little girls have to endure:  |
Mar. 28, 2008
Wow - long time no blog!
|
I cannot believe I have not posted since September. Do you think our year has been busy? Yikes. Today is no exception to the business factor, but I wanted to take a minute and just say that we are still here. I posted on Sockmonkey's blog, and she actually replied while I was trying to remember how to post, upload pictures, etc.. I'm a bit rusty! There is no way to write about all that has happened, but as Flylady says, I'm not behind. I"ll just start where I am today :-) Here is the newest addition to our home:  Chloe joined our chaos three weeks ago today. She is hilarious and we all love watching her tear through the house. Literally...  The poor dolls didn't know what hit them! Now that I've broken the non-posting spell, I hope to be back more often. I'm off to get the younger ones ready for a sleepover at a friend's house while we take #1 off to a reception hosted by the president of the university he will attend in August. Tomorrow holds Scholar's Day activities, and Sharky, #1 and I are going to spend the night in O-town instead of driving back and forth. Should be fun. I know I'll post more later about my major stress about sending one off to college! We are extremely proud of him, though, as he earned a full scholarship and is a National Merit Scholar! I'll leave you with an image that all of us busy homeschool moms can relate to:  May you sleep this well tonight! |
Sep. 14, 2007
Double Take, Please
A quick peek into the daily life here. Last night as I stood in the kitchen I observed my son helping his little sister put on his goggles. I was so caught up in the fact that he was helping her do something and being sweet that I didn't give it much thought. Fast forward 5 minutes later, I stepped out onto the back porch where SharkyDog and the other kids were. What do I see in the back yard? My precious little girl (WildWoman) holding an airsoft machine gun, crouching behind an easel that had been dragged into the grass for a prior battle between #2 and SD. Across the lawn was, you gussed it, the same young man who had just so kindly helped his sister suit up for battle! And he was armed, as well. Did I mention that Sharky was watching this whole scenario play out and wasn't stopping it????? Enter one hysterical mom and the battle was canceled before the first shot was fired, but it was close. Phew. We told #3 that she may get the opportunity to play airsoft in 6 years or so, but not before then. I'm sure she'll be counting down the days... Wish I had my camera to snap a picture before I burst everyone's bubbles. It was cute, just a little too dangerous for my taste. |
Sep. 2, 2007
Goodbye crazy Summer, hello Fall!
|
Our family had an incredibly busy summer this year. My boys traveled, and then traveled, and then traveled some more! Here is a brief synopsis of our wonderfully hectic "time off": Memorial Day Weekend - 5 of us headed off to the FPEA convention in Orlando and had a wonderful time. We were missing our oldest, though, who was in Michigan winning the Odyssey of the Mind world title with his team (yes, I had to bring that up again ) June 18 - 27 - My three guys took a fabulous journey out west to explore part of our big country. That was one of his realizations when Sharky Dog was planning this trip - out West is BIG! Here in Florida we can say that if something is 60 miles away, it will take one hour to get there. Things are a little different when you have to drive around things like canyons and mountains! Anyway, they had a great trip, saw lots of sights, and took over 1000 pictures.   We hope to go again when the girls are bigger and I don't have to worry about my wild girl going over the edge of the Grand Canyon. June 30 - July 7 - Our great friends, booknhome and family, all came to stay for a week. We all love each other so much and the kids all get along famously. We swam, went to the movies, ate brownies, and just sat and talked for hours. It was a fantastic visit. July 9 - 13 - VBS at church. All of us attended or helped in some way and it was a great and busy week. July 22 - 27 - Sharky Dog and #1 were off for a week of Youth Camp with our church's youth program.  Next year #2 will get to attend as well and he is looking forward to it. The camp went very well and several students gave their lives to Christ for the first time. That's why we do this!!!August 4 - 10 -  The three boys were off again, this time on a mission trip to help the city of New Orleans in its recovery process. 50 men, women, and teens from Georgianna spent a hot, dirty week doing demolition and reconstruction in the Upper 9th Ward, a very hard-hit area of the city. It was a moving week for all who went, and everyone came home with a greater appreciation of the blessed lives we live.We girls stayed busy with swim team activities,  playing with friends, and taking care of all the pets. It was a fun, busy summer but this mama is ready for some structure! We are back in school mode and things are settling down nicely. I hope to blog more regularly now that things are back on track. |
Aug. 13, 2007
Deck the Halls with Back to School?
|
Well, this one takes the cake. I thought it was odd two weeks ago when we saw some Halloween decorations going up in the local Hallmark shop. I was disgusted when, later that same week, we were in the Dollar Tree and they had Christmas baskets and floral arrangements displayed for sale. My brain figured that maybe they had those out so crafters could get a jump on the season. Too early, but that made a little more sense. Today, I received my first Christmas catalog in the mail. August 13. Christmas catalog. There is no way I can make sense of that one. I'm typing this while my little ones swim, the papayas ripen on our tree, and my husband does his best cabana-boy impression. (vacuuming the pool!) I am in no way ready to deck my halls with Christmas anything. I MIGHT be able to twist it a little and say that as Christians we should celebrate Christmas everyday, but I think even that may be a stretch. We can celebrate Christ without ceramic snowmen and plastic trees in August It's nice to be back in the blogging world. My next post will update everyone - all of my faithful relatives, I mean readers, on our busy, busy summer. My three guys had quite the adventurous season and we have lots of pictures to prove it. |
Jun. 8, 2007
I love living in Florida (reason #427)
|
I am so blessed to live here in Florida. Above is just one of many reasons why. (photo by NASA) Today's successful launch of Atlantis was beautiful. Great job launch team! As I was typing this message, #2 called me outside. This is what we saw:  This is the smoke/vapor trail from the shuttle being blown by the wind into a gorgeous pattern. (photo by me) God's artwork in the sky! Happy weekend to all. |
Jun. 3, 2007
Whew!
Boy have we been busy since my last post. My big girl turned 6 a couple of weeks ago. Where has the time gone? We celebrated with a kids' swimming party on Saturday followed by a small family gathering on Sunday. It's hard to get organized for a party right at the end of the school year, but we managed and she enjoyed basking in the spotlight, her favorite place! Here she is enjoying one of her favorite birthday gifts: A fishing pole of her very own! There is actually a small fish on the end of the line in this pic. The following weekend was the FPEA convention which we attended as a family minus one - details to follow. I always love to go and feel like I'm not strange or different - everyone else there homeschools, too! There were several great speakers and of course the vendor hall was fabulous. DH went to several worldview lectures and enjoyed those immensely. I left the deep thinking to him and went to a session on making lapbooks with Tamy Duby from Tobin's Lab. I'm going to try to incorporate this technique in my girls' coming school year. Looks like lots of prep work but fun, too. Every year there seems to be one thing we buy without really planning for it. This year that "thing" was a pair of violins. We are trying to give the kids more opportunities to explore their musical sides and this looks like a good way to do it. I'll let you know how this progresses. Right now things are peachy, as evidenced by this happy face:  Back to where I said we attended as a family minus one. Our oldest was in Michigan with his Odyssey of the Mind team. They were competing in the World Finals of OM. It was painful to put him on the airplane with his coaches and teammates and not one of us! The kids and coaches were staying together on the campus at Michigan State University, so we wouldn't have been together as a family anyway. He was covered by lots of prayer and sent on his way early Wednesday morning. Thursday the rest of us went to the convention, and then on Saturday night we were able to watch the awards ceremony live via the OM website. I'm so thankful for good technology! Another family joined us in our hotel room as we watched our son's team place FIRST in the WORLD! I jumped up and down and screamed with joy, which caused our youngest to dive under the pillows and scream in fear. Poor thing. That set off #3, so we had all kinds of commotion going on. I'm surprised hotel security wasn't called to our room! We were able to watch our son and his team walk across the stage to receive their gold medals and trophy live online. It was an awesome moment. The following day we packed up and left the convention and stopped at the airport to pick #1 son up on our way home. Here is the official greeting committee, which was joined later by other families and well wishers. We spent anxious moments awaiting the arrival of the team. It was time for their flight to arrive but we just hadn't seen any sign of our crew. Finally another waiting dad asked a departing passenger which flight he had been on. He answered, "From Detroit, and yes they are on this plane." Gee, I wonder how he knew who we were talking about? The flight crew even got off before our guys and joked that they left the kids in Michigan. At long last the victorious team arrived and we were able to snap this happy picture: Do you think the funny hats gave them away? Maybe it was the gold medals they were wearing around their necks or the gigantic trophy they stored in the overhead compartment! We love our goofy world champs  So I finally updated my blog and it was a lulu of an entry. I'm off to check out what all of YOU have been doing! |
May. 22, 2007
8 chicks and another tooth...
|
Odd title, I know. That's just the way things are around here! DD#1 lost another tooth yesterday. She is so happy about that. Also, her big day was Sunday and I no longer have two 5-year-olds. She is 6 years old now! Pictures to follow. Our final chick count is 8. Not bad for a first attempt at incubating eggs. The extension agent should be by to pick them up this afternoon or tomorrow morning. I have totally loved this study, but it is time for them to go. Chickens are fantastic, but they are not designed to live in your house! Have I mentioned that they poop a lot? We will miss their fuzzy little faces, and if the opportunity arises to do this again I will.#1 son is off to Michigan tomorrow morning. His team flies out first thing and the activities begin in the evening. They are excited and have done lots of prep work for this competition. I'll let you know how it turns out. That's the Tuesday morning update. Back to life now! |
May. 18, 2007
More pics of the chicks
Here are just a couple more pictures of the baby chicks. We're up to 6 now, by the way. This first picture is the one #2 named Fred. Pretty photogenic little guy: Here are the first four recovering from their big morning: Yes, that bottom one is sleeping in the food dish. Chickens aren't the most intelligent of God's creatures! They come out pecking at each other, too. Sibling rivalry among hatchlings. Go figure. More pictures will follow. You guys are going to be sick of chicks before we're through!On a side note, guess what we had for lunch yesterday? Yep - chicken. I was fine until I thought about it. Kind of weird to be listening to chicks peep, watching them hatch, and then eating them all at the same time. Hamburger, anyone??? |
May. 17, 2007
The New Arrivals
We have been very busy around here! It's time to post another chicken update from down on the farm. We have been having so much fun anticipating the new chicks, and today we saw the rewards of our patient waiting. One egg began rocking back and forth two days ago, so I knew hatching time was drawing near. Yesterday the activity increased, and in the afternoon this is what we saw: Three eggs had cracks like this in them, and by bedtime one of the looked like this: I hated to leave them and go upstairs, but sleep finally drew me to bed. One interesting tidbit: You can hear the chicks peeping while they are still in their shells! I drove my oldest son crazy all day because I kept picking up the eggs, talking to them, and listening to them peep back at me. It was so incredible! Back to the story...This morning we awoke, and what did we see?   Two little guys were looking out at us and were peeping quite insistently to be let out! We were very excited, but the best was yet to come. One egg was almost ready to hatch and we were able to watch it push its way out of the egg. Members of our homeschool group were popping by all day to visit the new chicks, and at one point there were four families here. Incredibly, another chick decided to hatch while everyone was here and we all got to watch the process.  The children were fascinated, and we moms were cheering the little one on. This evening while we were out, another chick hatched out, and there are currently 5 more eggs showing signs of hatching. We have the potential of ending up with 10 chicks from 12 eggs. Pretty good odds for novices like us! As the old saying goes, I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, so I'll say we have 5 chicks. Watch for updates tomorrow, though, as our little flock grows! |
May. 5, 2007
I'm expecting...
|
baby chicks! We candled the eggs last night, and it looks like there are 11 viable ones. Sharky Dog and I borrowed a very bright light from my dad and set it up so only a small stream of light came out. If you hold the eggs up to the light in just the right manner you can kind of "see" inside them. It is totally cool to a science nerd like me! We were thrilled to see actual movement within several of the eggs. God's design is so awesome - life is developing right inside those eggs! No 'random chance' about those processes. Well, enjoy your weekend everyone. I'll go back to turning those eggs now... |
Apr. 29, 2007
Sunday News Update
|
Big happenings around here this weekend. The fun started on Friday with the arrival of our eggs! We had 18 people here for the big event, and here is the result:  This is the incubator we were loaned by the county (with the lid off). I was assured that we would get an incubator with an automatic turner, but that one failed to materialized. Guess who the new automatic turner is? You've got it - ME! I'm going to become very bonded to these eggs over the next 21 days. I know #2 will be taking his 'turn' with the eggs, too. I hope we get at least a few chicks out of this dozen. I'll let you know. Here is the next big event that happened here this weekend:  Yes, DD#1 lost her first tooth this morning. We have been wiggling this thing for over a week, and this morning it just popped right out while I was drying her off after a bath. The towel caught her mouth just right and out it came. Fortunately there were no tears - it was a very celebrated event! She has been wiggling her tooth for everyone, and I mean everyone, since it began to get loose. The shoppers in Publix, the mailman, all the neighbors, of course grandparents and other family members, and others I've left off will be relieved to hear the news that it is finally out. By the way, the one next to the hole is loose now. Stay tuned... Big news item #3 is actually a very large item:  #2 now holds the record for bass in our pond. He caught this 24 incher this afternoon. It weighed in at a whopping 4 1/2 pounds! He garnered the attention of some young men who happened to be fishing nearby who wanted to know what this kid was fishing with! My large-hearted young man actually gave the guys two of the jelly worms he was using. I'm so proud of his generous heart - no fishing secrets here! That's our busy weekend. Hope all of you had a great weekend, too! |
Apr. 26, 2007
The Chickens are Coming!
|
My inner farmer is singing again as I anxiously await tomorrow's visit from the extension agent . As previously stated, I do not live in the country, only my heart does. We have no chicken coop, no rabbit hutch, and no goat pen. Our livestock experience is limited to the annual pilgrimage to Green Meadows Farm where my children can interact with animals (for a price, of course). Well, tomorrow I will get as close to raising chickens as my current station in life will allow. I learned of a program through our county that allows classrooms to watch the incubation process of chicken eggs. We are calling it our embryology study. Doesn't that sound official? A representative from the county extension service is coming to our house and will be bringing a dozen eggs and an incubator with her! She will do a brief presentation for us and then set up the incubator. In two weeks she'll come back and candle the eggs. My kids are excited about that part - we'll get to kind of peek into the developing eggs to see if there is a viable embryo in each one. Cool stuff. Then, about another week later we should have some tiny chicks hatch! Several of our homeschooling friends are bringing their families over for the demo, and I've promised to call them when we hear any cheeping in the future! (I laughed reading JenIg's post about her eggs cheeping for some time before actually hatching. You never know what's going to happen!) Oh, and for those of you wondering what we are going to do with the chicks after they hatch, the agent will come pick them up and take them to live on a farm somewhere around here. My children are NOT going to like that part. I'm sure I'll post some pictures of tomorrow's activity. I've got a spot all ready for the incubator and am ready to begin! |
Apr. 18, 2007
Look out World!
|
Our oldest came home from church one day last fall and said that he had been invited to participate on an Odyssey of the Mind team with a friend. He was involved with OM 10 years ago, and I knew a little about the program, so Sharky and I said yes. He has great Christian coaches, and is on a team with good kids. They practiced once a week for several months. Last month was the regional competition, and D's team won the right to advance to the state competition. Great for them, we thought, and the team swirled into action for another month of fine-tuning their performance. This Saturday was the big day - state competition in Orlando. We loaded up the family truckster and headed off for the big city. It was an all day affair, with the team competing both in the morning and afternoon. I took a break in the afternoon and drove the girls home to stay with a sitter for the big awards ceremony that night, while the others hung out in O-town with the team. That evening, the team, parents, and coaches all assembled in the arena to await the beginning of the ceremony. I don't know how many thousand people were in there, but they were all yelling and screaming at the same time :-) Boy, was I glad that the girls were safe and sound in their beds at home! It was a little overwhelming, but lots of fun for us oldies. The tension grew as the various awards were given out. Finally they were down to the top two places in my son's division. They didn't place second, which meant they were either out of the competition completely or they had won... The announcer got as far as the first word of the name of our local area and our team exploded with joy! They had won the state competition in first place and will now advance to the World Finals in Michigan! It was a fantastic day of celebrating and being together as a family. Now the team will spend another month tweaking their skit and getting the props in order for the big day in May.  |