Spring 2013

Bob was teasing me that I only post birthdays so here I am to say otherwise. Except, there is a birthday in there somewhere too.

Here's a little wrap up from Josiah's fifth birthday. He wanted a Dinosaur Birthday. This is how that worked out: several large dinosaurs accompanied him at his birthday dinner (at left) and one large dinosaur sat atop his ice cream cake for dessert. Per Mercy's suggestion, we made dinosaur footprints on the cake by dipping the dino feet into cocoa powder and making it walk on the top of the cake. Easy. Fun.

Mercy might love birthdays more than anyone in our household. This year she made Josiah a watch out of an empty roll of blue tape. She did this in January, I think and saved it until the end of March in her closet so she could give it to him.

More about Mercy: She has learned to ride without training wheels. Or rather, she has realized that she has been able to do so for a long time without really knowing that she could. Daniel took her training wheels off on Saturday. Off she went on her own with the surprising and necessary skill of stopping well. Neither of our earlier bike riders could stop without jumping off or crashing at first. This is definitely an example of the when-you-are-ready-it's-easy-to-learn concept.

We celebrated Easter at our house this year. Nice weather meant that we could color eggs on the back deck in our playclothes after church. 

And hunt for eggs in the front yard.

We didn't get a family picture of Bob and the kids and I but we did get one of my siblings and I.

 

Reuben in the grass

 

After a busy weekend of prepping our house for sale and Easter festivities, we were not quite ready to head to co-op on Monday. We ended our 6 weeks of studying physics by dropping raw eggs from the top of a ladder truck. Firemen came to co-op to assist with this and families and students brought their own specially designed capsules to protect the egg on impact. 

Ours didn't survive this year!

 I visited Josiah's co-op preschool class briefly. He was coloring the letter U today. Next year will be his first year in the K 1 class at our co-op.

So that's what I've got so far for Spring 2013. I'm hopeful that the next few posts will include info about the sale of our current house and the purchase of a new one. Please pray for us!

Five Today

Prohibition

We study history in a four year rotation and this year we are in the middle of the Modern Era, aka 1850 through now. I think it's crazy how much life we speed past as we study such topics like the American Civil War and the World Wars. I'm usually not ready to stop studying a specific time period when it's time to move on but it's a four year history rotation, not a twelve year rotation so, there you go.

We just finished studying the Roaring Twenties and Prohibition. For our Monday homeschool co-op, we study history and science in five 6 week units during the school year, alternating between history and science every other unit. Each student gives an oral report one time per unit. For Michael's grade level, he presents 3-5 facts about a subject we are studying of his choice in a creative manner mostly of his choice. Practicing clear, engaging speech and eye contact are the goals here but dressing up like a character or an actual person from a particular time period is one of his specialties.  Michael chose to do his co-op report on bootlegging. And he chose to dress as a bootlegger for this report. Here it is for everyone to enjoy because some day he won't want to do this anymore. At age 8, I'm pretty sure it's still okay to call him cute? No?

The report:

Sssh! I'm a bootlegger,but I'm not supposed to trust anybody! Can I trust  you? I don't want you to go sneakin' on me to the police.

Raise your hand if I can trust you.         

Well, whether I trust ya or not, I have to tell ya about how life is as a bootlegger. A bootlegger is a transporter of illegal intoxicating alcoholic beverages.  The date's 1926, during this darn ol' Prohibition. Dunno' when it's going to end but all I know about it is that we all miss alcohol.

Anyway, I got here on my rum runnin ship, the Maryanne, bringin' Canadian whiskey from Canada. Rather a stormy voyage, too, I do say.  But that's not what I'm talking about.

Oh and by the way, did you ever hear about the fishermen? They drove speed boats laden with whiskey from the rum running ships to the shore, where it was loaded on trucks driven by bootleggers.  There, the fishermen would be paid extra income for driving the boats.

Then, under cover of night, the trucks would take the alcohol to the speakeasies. Wanna hear some strange names for speakeasies?

They weren't just called speakeasies, they were also called, "blind pigs", "blind tigers", "whoopee parlors" and "gin mills" as well as speakeasies!

If a bootlegger wanted to carry alcohol on his own person, then he would probably hide it in his pockets and then put on a big coat on over it. Maybe a trench coat if they had something that fancy. They carried likker in flasks and also bottles.

And then of course, there's the dangers of bootlegging: you could get caught and arrested or caught in a speakeasy raid or even caught in a gunfight and killed!

Hmmm. Now that I think about it this stuff with rum running just doesn't seem right.

 I wanna go back to obeying the law. I think I`ll be done with rum running! Instead I think I'll ... be a singer! I`m a bootlegger no more! Well,bye! 

A seven year old girl

How Mercy got to seven:

 

We love you, Mercy!

Advent

We're in kind of a quiet lull at home and it's nice. No more four nights a week plus Saturdays of soccer. We eat dinner together. Bob and I loll around in front of a Netflix series that we can't not watch every night.

We've yet to decorate for Christmas but we will soon.

 

 The frog we caught as a tadpole last spring lives on despite our laziness in keeping him fed.

Mercy has a tooth that we just can't coax out. Well, two teeth. Those two front and center fangs are covering the grown up teeth that have come in behind them. Mercy looks funny.

So do Josiah and James...

Michael has been taking daily and nightly trips into the garage to "play drums". He invites us in to hear his songs. Sometimes he sells tickets to his concerts if he has a special song he wants to play for us.

This is his "drum set". (This is not a plea for a real set. I repeat...)

Michael does everything he does with heart.

Don't miss James enjoying Michael's singing/drumming show in this one:

And it's Advent.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving this year in Chelan with my parents, my sister and her fiance and my brother.

Significance abounds in the fact that we were all together, celebrating, eating and watching Bravestar together.

 Bright, crisp fall weather gave us some wiggle time outside. What's not pictured here is the Inaugural Soccer Game on Dad's Grass. Grandad, Bob, Uncle Josh and our boys tore it up after the long ride east on Wednesday.

 Then there were the preparations. Many hands made light work in our attempt to do the jobs Mom normally does at Thanksgiving. We all tried to pitch in while she is recovering from hip surgery. I think all of us would say that it was an education in how much work actually goes into a big family Thanksgiving meal.

 And it was the Year of the Paper Table Turkey:

We lined up to wash our hands

And sat down together to eat! (There you are, Dad!)

 The rest of our weekend was filled with many little moments of togetherness...

And we are thankful for them all.