A fluttery pink afghan sweater floated at the top of Morgan's grey-green camouflage pants as she ducked and swirled around in battle. Fourteen Star Wars light sabre-wielding guys yelled and battled around her. Two sides fought across our damp green lawn yesterday, as the light snow flurries fell. It was John's 13th birthday, and the snow at the beginning of the morning took us by surprise. Slightly panicked at the idea of 12 male teens and pre-teens coming over and not being able to play outside for those three hours, we hurried to come up with some indoor activities and tournaments. Snow kept coming down. Later, the sun peeked out of the clouds; it warmed up slightly; and by the time the indoor tournaments had wound down, the guys were able to race outside with their light sabres. They battled for an hour! My daughter joined them, swirling and dying dramatically in her pink fluffy shawl.
I sipped decaf coffee indoors much of that last battle time, seeing the tiny flurries of snow fall, and grinning at the dramatic war cries from outside, talking with my mom and dad and sister.
How was your weekend?
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Cheeses and Avocados
What a beautiful sunny day. We have finished our day of schooling and the kids are now racing outside to play. John's got his rollerblades on, Morgan is finishing up some projects in her room while listening to Adventures in Odyssey radio theatre. I love having the windows and decks open for a fresh smelling cross-breeze, wind-chimes dangling on the deck.
Yesterday was my birthday and my family shook their heads at my oddness...
Earlier in the week they had asked me for gift ideas. Knowing that my house was already plenty full of items, I instead suggested special treat foods, like strong European cheeses (Gruyere), or those great Odwalla or Bolthouse healthy juices, or avocados! My kids and my husband were appalled at my suggestions. "Those aren't presents! They won't last." But I laughed and insisted that really those sounded great. "I often walk past the avocados or the special cheeses and juices, thinking, 'Oooh, can I get one of these as a special treat this time?!' --and I do!--or other times, I think 'Well, I'll save that treat for another day.' It's that frugal part of me, or the missionary kid part of me that chooses her treats carefully and then savors them for a long time. (You should have seen how long we could make a European chocolate bar last in Africa, since they were rare!) My family shook their heads at me with smiles and went shopping.
Yesterday though as I got up for breakfast, my family was all waiting for me. They sang Happy Birthday to me as I walked into the kitchen, and Morgan gleefully pointed to the presents on the kitchen table for me. "Look, Mom!" she squealed. Unwrapping each present, I laughed along with them. There was a Brie cheese from France, a Gouda cheese from Holland, a Gruyere!! from Switzerland, and a Feta cheese of Greek descent. Plus, hidden in tiny round bags, was an avocado and a mango. They had also thought of chocolate bars (Almond Joys and Three Musketeers). Mmmmmm. Morgan had written me a very sweet card, saying she loved me and other tender things. It was very nice.
So, this pregnant woman, who is already taking longer to find outfits that fit and look nice, is now adding European cheeses and candy bars to that mix! Uh, oh. :)
How are you guys? What are you enjoying doing this sunny week?
Yesterday was my birthday and my family shook their heads at my oddness...
Earlier in the week they had asked me for gift ideas. Knowing that my house was already plenty full of items, I instead suggested special treat foods, like strong European cheeses (Gruyere), or those great Odwalla or Bolthouse healthy juices, or avocados! My kids and my husband were appalled at my suggestions. "Those aren't presents! They won't last." But I laughed and insisted that really those sounded great. "I often walk past the avocados or the special cheeses and juices, thinking, 'Oooh, can I get one of these as a special treat this time?!' --and I do!--or other times, I think 'Well, I'll save that treat for another day.' It's that frugal part of me, or the missionary kid part of me that chooses her treats carefully and then savors them for a long time. (You should have seen how long we could make a European chocolate bar last in Africa, since they were rare!) My family shook their heads at me with smiles and went shopping.
Yesterday though as I got up for breakfast, my family was all waiting for me. They sang Happy Birthday to me as I walked into the kitchen, and Morgan gleefully pointed to the presents on the kitchen table for me. "Look, Mom!" she squealed. Unwrapping each present, I laughed along with them. There was a Brie cheese from France, a Gouda cheese from Holland, a Gruyere!! from Switzerland, and a Feta cheese of Greek descent. Plus, hidden in tiny round bags, was an avocado and a mango. They had also thought of chocolate bars (Almond Joys and Three Musketeers). Mmmmmm. Morgan had written me a very sweet card, saying she loved me and other tender things. It was very nice.
So, this pregnant woman, who is already taking longer to find outfits that fit and look nice, is now adding European cheeses and candy bars to that mix! Uh, oh. :)
How are you guys? What are you enjoying doing this sunny week?
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Having a science museum membership is nice as a homeschooling family, but sometimes we are gluttons for our own punishment. This week was the last week of the special 6-movie Imax film festival. Having missed them so far this month, we decided to try to see several of them in a few days. So, cramming short trips down to the museum in between Phonics, History, Math, French, and Latin, we raced to see three films. One of them was about Mount Everest in the Tibet area. Another film was on the Alps in Europe, and the last film was on a lion pride in Botswana. They were great! However, we are tired from all the extra driving these last eight or nine days.
My son had his swim team banquet Friday night. He was one of 30 or so teens on the team. Each kid walked up proudly to the front of the room to get their trophy, a heavy marble-like block with a spinning gold metal thing on top. They look cool, and he and his friend Noah blew on their trophies to make them spin around in the bases.
Our family watched the movie about Mr. Bean's Vacation last night. It was funny hearing him say "Gracias" each time he was supposed to be speaking French. Rowan Atkinson is so strange but so funny.
How was your weekend?
Edit: This is a cool tree that I have growing on my kitchen table. It is the burl from a Redwood tree
in California. The green sprouting tree-lings are growing out from a chunk of a redwood tree trunk. Cool, huh? Thanks to Cindy and her mom for getting me one!
My son had his swim team banquet Friday night. He was one of 30 or so teens on the team. Each kid walked up proudly to the front of the room to get their trophy, a heavy marble-like block with a spinning gold metal thing on top. They look cool, and he and his friend Noah blew on their trophies to make them spin around in the bases.
Our family watched the movie about Mr. Bean's Vacation last night. It was funny hearing him say "Gracias" each time he was supposed to be speaking French. Rowan Atkinson is so strange but so funny.
How was your weekend?
Edit: This is a cool tree that I have growing on my kitchen table. It is the burl from a Redwood tree
in California. The green sprouting tree-lings are growing out from a chunk of a redwood tree trunk. Cool, huh? Thanks to Cindy and her mom for getting me one!Wednesday, March 26, 2008
100% + 100% + 100%
Eating a nutrient-packed peanut butter sandwich for breakfast, and feeling the baby kick, I sit here.
Homeschooling is happening around me and I'm just taking a break to check email and xanga stuff. My daughter does math behind me at the kitchen table. She has just felt her baby brother kick her through my tummy for the first time and her excitement tears her away from her math problems. "I just felt the baby, I just felt the baby!" she shrieks excitedly. "We're going to have a baby!" "Yes, yes," I agree, "But let's talk more about that later. Do your school."
My son is downstairs doing his math lesson. We just had a neat discussion about the new baby coming and how that works with "sharing love." "So, with me and my sister, we each have 100% love," he mused. "But with the baby coming..." he wondered, trying to make sense of the equation I had told them earlier that just said that when new kids come, it's not like the parental love for the kids is portioned out in smaller and smaller quantities. (Like 100 divided by three now instead of two.) Nope, I assured them. It's really cool because you get a whole new portion of love for that new one that doesn't delve into the other kids' love portions. It's like they each have their own 100%--both he and his sister have their own 100%. When their brother comes, a whole new 100% is started, not taking any of their own. We stood and looked at the cute picture of his new South Korean nephew. "When Jack came, did that take away any of the love you had for your cousins K or R?" Grinning at the adorable picture of his round little cousin, my son said "No!", and his eyes even glistened slightly with love for his cousins. "It's just like that," I concluded. We stood and stared at Jack's cute chubby tummy and plump arms in the photo. My daughter had come to join us in that discussion in our living room. "Don't you just want to kiss that face?" I asked. We laughed and agreed.
Hugging, we all went back to our work.
Homeschooling is happening around me and I'm just taking a break to check email and xanga stuff. My daughter does math behind me at the kitchen table. She has just felt her baby brother kick her through my tummy for the first time and her excitement tears her away from her math problems. "I just felt the baby, I just felt the baby!" she shrieks excitedly. "We're going to have a baby!" "Yes, yes," I agree, "But let's talk more about that later. Do your school."
My son is downstairs doing his math lesson. We just had a neat discussion about the new baby coming and how that works with "sharing love." "So, with me and my sister, we each have 100% love," he mused. "But with the baby coming..." he wondered, trying to make sense of the equation I had told them earlier that just said that when new kids come, it's not like the parental love for the kids is portioned out in smaller and smaller quantities. (Like 100 divided by three now instead of two.) Nope, I assured them. It's really cool because you get a whole new portion of love for that new one that doesn't delve into the other kids' love portions. It's like they each have their own 100%--both he and his sister have their own 100%. When their brother comes, a whole new 100% is started, not taking any of their own. We stood and looked at the cute picture of his new South Korean nephew. "When Jack came, did that take away any of the love you had for your cousins K or R?" Grinning at the adorable picture of his round little cousin, my son said "No!", and his eyes even glistened slightly with love for his cousins. "It's just like that," I concluded. We stood and stared at Jack's cute chubby tummy and plump arms in the photo. My daughter had come to join us in that discussion in our living room. "Don't you just want to kiss that face?" I asked. We laughed and agreed.
Hugging, we all went back to our work.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Spring Blitz and Ethiopian Doro Wat
It is quiet in my house now, and we are recovering from a busy but fun weekend. Fresh cookies are on the stove, and the kids and I just grabbed two each. Mmm, warm chocolate chip cookies. (They are from a pre-made mix, but still wonderful when hot from the oven.)
This weekend was Spring Blitz, the senior high retreat in a northern city. It was such a great weekend. We had 28 of us there, and had great times of worship, good messages, fun hotel room Hot Seat bonding times, and awesome Holy Spirit movings in people's lives! It was so moving to see and experience it. Peggy and Terry, thanks for watching J & M! Sorry about the delay.
Today I worked, enjoying glimpses of the big soft flakes of snow whenever I passed a doorway or window. It's beautiful! Then Mark and I took a nap this afternoon, catching up on Blitz sleep. This evening I made an easy Ethiopian dish from a recipe I found and used last week. It's a new form of the Doro Wat, a common Ethiopian chicken "stew" or sauce that they eat with injera bread. Here's the recipe, if you are interested.
Brown 1 large onion, getting it quite brown.
Add:
3 oz oil
1/2 teas. Bere Bere powder
1/2 teas. black pepper
1 tbs fresh minced ginger
Blend them into the onions, Add 1 cup water. Stir.
Earlier, while the onions were browning, put raw cut up pieces of chicken (3 lbs) into a bowl of 1/4 cup lemon juice and 2 cups water to marinate for at least 10 mins.
Later, drain the water from each handful of chicken pieces, dropping the chicken into the simmering onion sauce. Stir through, then cover and simmer over low heat until the chicken is cooked and tender.
Add more water if necessary to bring to stew texture or add flour to thicken. (I usually had to thicken slightly.)
Optional: add 8 hard boiled peeled eggs. I didn't actually have eggs in the house each time, so I did without the eggs. Today, I added about 1 cup of cooked, almost mashed red dal lentils into it to thicken it. Delicious! It serves our family of 4, with some leftover for my lunch tomorrow at work! :)
The kids flew outside just now to build Calvin and Hobbes'-inspired snowmen--probably some of the last snow of the season! I dissuaded them from having the snowmen block our cars into the driveway. They settled for having the snowmen march up our front steps. They play happily in the darkening twilight.
Mark is at a VBS meeting tonight and then he'll have a Men's Bible study here tonight at 8:30.I will hide away in the bedroom then to give them privacy and try to clean my room.
How are you? What is new in your life?
This weekend was Spring Blitz, the senior high retreat in a northern city. It was such a great weekend. We had 28 of us there, and had great times of worship, good messages, fun hotel room Hot Seat bonding times, and awesome Holy Spirit movings in people's lives! It was so moving to see and experience it. Peggy and Terry, thanks for watching J & M! Sorry about the delay.
Today I worked, enjoying glimpses of the big soft flakes of snow whenever I passed a doorway or window. It's beautiful! Then Mark and I took a nap this afternoon, catching up on Blitz sleep. This evening I made an easy Ethiopian dish from a recipe I found and used last week. It's a new form of the Doro Wat, a common Ethiopian chicken "stew" or sauce that they eat with injera bread. Here's the recipe, if you are interested.
Brown 1 large onion, getting it quite brown.
Add:
3 oz oil
1/2 teas. Bere Bere powder
1/2 teas. black pepper
1 tbs fresh minced ginger
Blend them into the onions, Add 1 cup water. Stir.
Earlier, while the onions were browning, put raw cut up pieces of chicken (3 lbs) into a bowl of 1/4 cup lemon juice and 2 cups water to marinate for at least 10 mins.
Later, drain the water from each handful of chicken pieces, dropping the chicken into the simmering onion sauce. Stir through, then cover and simmer over low heat until the chicken is cooked and tender.
Add more water if necessary to bring to stew texture or add flour to thicken. (I usually had to thicken slightly.)
Optional: add 8 hard boiled peeled eggs. I didn't actually have eggs in the house each time, so I did without the eggs. Today, I added about 1 cup of cooked, almost mashed red dal lentils into it to thicken it. Delicious! It serves our family of 4, with some leftover for my lunch tomorrow at work! :)
The kids flew outside just now to build Calvin and Hobbes'-inspired snowmen--probably some of the last snow of the season! I dissuaded them from having the snowmen block our cars into the driveway. They settled for having the snowmen march up our front steps. They play happily in the darkening twilight.
Mark is at a VBS meeting tonight and then he'll have a Men's Bible study here tonight at 8:30.I will hide away in the bedroom then to give them privacy and try to clean my room.
How are you? What is new in your life?
Monday, March 10, 2008
K, UK, T-TAP
K,
UK,
T-TAP.
My 9 year old daughter rattles these letters off triumphantly. My family and I have been working to memorize various country locations and names in order. Can you figure out where these are and what they mean? There is a map of them in my bathroom right now, replacing the Civil War battles map that was there for a few months earlier. We love maps, languages and cultures.
One fun game we like to do during meal times is to stare at the world map under our plates on the kitchen table and quiz each other on countries. "Who can find Yemen?" "Good job... okay, who can find Indonesia?" "Yep, good, now, find Brazil!" We take turns and have fun choosing countries. Some of them are harder to find. At times the ones who can read faster will help the others by hinting, "It's a green country on the map."
I spent some time on the internet this evening looking up boy names' meanings. Some of these were names you gave us! :) Elijah means "My God is the Lord." Judah/Jude means "praise, thanks." Nora called from Montana to tell me the name Hosea. That means "to deliver." Daniel means "God is my judge." Micah means "who is similar?" Katelyn, what does Jayden mean again? I couldn't find its meaning online. Levi is a nice name, but I couldn't find its meaning very well. Anyone know? Luke is nice. We like Elijah at this moment but are still pondering names.
Do you know something that baffles me and amazes me? The baby grew four inches last week! That is incredible and the only time in life when a person grows that much in one week, probably. Last week he went from 6.5 inches to 10.5 inches. Isn't that wild?! It's odd to picture a 10 inch long baby inside me right now. Knowing he can hear us, we say good night to him, and try out new names aloud.
So, have you figured out where K, UK, TTAP is? 100 points for those who do! :) I'll give the answer soon.
UK,
T-TAP.
My 9 year old daughter rattles these letters off triumphantly. My family and I have been working to memorize various country locations and names in order. Can you figure out where these are and what they mean? There is a map of them in my bathroom right now, replacing the Civil War battles map that was there for a few months earlier. We love maps, languages and cultures.
One fun game we like to do during meal times is to stare at the world map under our plates on the kitchen table and quiz each other on countries. "Who can find Yemen?" "Good job... okay, who can find Indonesia?" "Yep, good, now, find Brazil!" We take turns and have fun choosing countries. Some of them are harder to find. At times the ones who can read faster will help the others by hinting, "It's a green country on the map."
I spent some time on the internet this evening looking up boy names' meanings. Some of these were names you gave us! :) Elijah means "My God is the Lord." Judah/Jude means "praise, thanks." Nora called from Montana to tell me the name Hosea. That means "to deliver." Daniel means "God is my judge." Micah means "who is similar?" Katelyn, what does Jayden mean again? I couldn't find its meaning online. Levi is a nice name, but I couldn't find its meaning very well. Anyone know? Luke is nice. We like Elijah at this moment but are still pondering names.
Do you know something that baffles me and amazes me? The baby grew four inches last week! That is incredible and the only time in life when a person grows that much in one week, probably. Last week he went from 6.5 inches to 10.5 inches. Isn't that wild?! It's odd to picture a 10 inch long baby inside me right now. Knowing he can hear us, we say good night to him, and try out new names aloud.
So, have you figured out where K, UK, TTAP is? 100 points for those who do! :) I'll give the answer soon.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Drum Roll please...
Well, the guesses came in from you all (and from xanga and facebook).
8 people said girl.
10 people said boy.
The ultrasound happened this afternoon. We all went in as a family. It was so neat to see the baby moving, trying to suck its thumb or fist, kicking its little feet, and waving. The tiny mouth opened and shut, the face turned. It was so cute!
After lots of measurements and stuff, the nurse said, "It's a boy!" and pointed to the appropriate appendage in the black and white photo.
Hurray, both a boy or a girl would have been great! We are thrilled with either. Although, now what do I do with my cool girl names of Olivia, Ivy, and Sahar? (Sahar was actually Mark's idea!) Know any unique boys names?!
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