Will Work For Food

What do you do when you see someone holding that sign?

My daddy, a preacher, always offered to buy them something to eat, sharing the gospel while they ate, if they accepted. I remember standing in a San Antonio square on vacation with my mom and six younger siblings one time while he carried this out. He also picked up hitchhikers when he was alone. To him the captive audience was more than worth the risk.

But what about me, a mom in a minivan?

Usually we have bottled water in the van to offer from the window. We've also gone through a drive-thru to come back with food. It never feels like enough. I always feel unprepared.

Now I know that it could be a racket. That they could be a criminal. But what if they aren't? What if they just have no where to go and no one who loves them? Either way, don't they just need Jesus?

I saw a woman with a sign today. I didn't see her until I was passing her. She was facing the other way. The kids didn't see her, they would have insisted that I help. I wanted to help. But I was supposed to be at choir rehearsal soon and didn't have much to offer. I wished I could really get out of the car and find out what her story was and really help her. Would that be safe? Are we always called to do what's safe?

This idea is at least a step in the right direction. Blessings bags pre-filled with food and toiletries. Kept in the car for such a time as this. And I'm going to be sure to include the gospel as well. Because even if I can't find out everything that they need, I can give them what they need most of all.

^{Matthew 5:42} Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

Bella loves spiders

We frequently hear her renditions of the "Tinky tinky pider going up the wahger 'pout". And this is the perfect season for a love of spiders. So far she's accumulated spider pants, shirt, socks, and purse, as well as a Ty beanie baby spider. She was thrilled today while sitting on the potty beside an open window, to watch a spider glide up it's thread and back out the window. Every book that has a spider in it is all about the spider. When she wants a picture drawn in her sketchbook, it's a spider. When she draws her own picture, it's a spider. Obsessed, do you think?

Of course, I love catering to my children's delights (thus the socks, purse, etc...), so I'm plotting a spider costume for Halloween, we printed these out today and adhered them to popsicle sticks, and I found so many other fabulous links that I thought I'd share them here.

And just for the record, she has a few other favorite songs too. Although she seems to have finally gotten tired of "Zaccheus", "Jesus Loves Me" is always sung with much enthusiasm. And the cutest is hearing her voice down the hall singing, "Walking on sunshine, oh-oh, walking on sunshine, oh-oh, walking on sunshine, oh-oh, and don't it feel good - WOO!"

• I'm thinking this could make a really cute t-shirt.
• I love this crocheted set, but I'm not that talented. I was thinking that maybe a few stuffed felt pieces in addition to her new stuffed spider might work.
• These look more doable. Finger puppets and a felt board set.
  

Want to Remember 9/11?

We'll also be taking cookies to the firehouse. That's our way of remembering each year to thank those who serve us.

How to Make the World a Better Place

After studying whales and watching videos about the challenges they face in a polluted world, I concluded by saying, "So we need to think about what we can do to make the world better."

Anna replied, "The best thing is that we don't need to think about it. We can pray and we can KNOW what we can do, because the Holy Father will tell us what to do."

Photo Shoot and Ethan's (very Late) 10 year pics

What I will do to win a fabulous mattress

Go to We Are That Family to see the object of my hopes and dreams. :) I seriously have very little hope of winning - there are some mattresses in desperate condition out there(actually my girls have one of those too), but I tried anyway for Brian because all of the angles you can adjust that bed to would probably mean that he would always be able to sleep in bed, maybe even comfortably. And maybe actually wake up in less pain. Like we'd hoped this one would. And did I mention that it massages?!

My Sound of Music Moment

Yesterday, out of the blue, I looked at my kids and said, "do, re, mi, fa, sol, and so on are only the tools we use to build the song. Once you have these notes in your head, you can sing a million different tunes, by mixing them up, like this: so, do, la, fa, mi, do, re. Can you do that?" And my kids did!! Then I sang, "sol, do, la, ti, do, re, do." They sang that too. I told them that I had been waiting for this moment my whole life. They thought I was weird. I don't mind.

Genius in Marketing

Not that anyone doesn't already think that Disney has marketing genius, but this trailer really exemplifies it. Someone should have gotten a raise.

Take a Winnie the Pooh movie that will appeal to preschoolers. We already have the original book, the Disney books, and videos on our shelves. And the new movie is just called "Winnie the Pooh". It's not "The Tigger Movie" or some other twist that might pique your interest. Seriously, are we really interested in going to see a Winnie the Pooh movie?

Now, instead of doing a preschool-appeal preview, let's choose an already-familiar, but not too familiar, beautiful, contemplative song by Keane and add it as the soundtrack to the preschool movie. Suddenly, all the adults watching are feeling waves of nostalgia for the silly old bear and it doesn't seem nearly as insane to indulge your favorite preschoolers with overpriced tickets to the theatre. Mmmhmm. Genius.

Technical difficulties

Wow! I can publish again. For a while there I couldn't and I thought it was a somewhat permanent result of the mess by blog is in. Brian changed out plan with our ftp and all of my photos before the move to blogger disappeared. They are on a disc, but completely separate from the posts. Even if I wanted to engage in the days of work to unite them, I can't because less than half of them filled up my Blogger photo limit.

One reason I really like blogging is being able to click and see my kids on past birthdays, etc. But I do live in fear of losing all of my work and basically my life journal. So tell me, what are the best and most inexpensive ways to have space for lots of photos on your blog? Is a different blog platform better?

We tried moving the saved photos to a cloud and reconnecting them to blogger, but Blogger would only acknowledge photos with the same ftp name or something like that so it didn't work.

Do you somehow print and archive years of your blog? Is there a company out there that makes a year of your blog into a photobook? I get $50 each year for Christmas from Brian's dad and would gladly pay that to archive each year in print, but don't know if that's possible or in the price range.

Help me out. I've been on Facebook, which I love, but it's virtually impossible to revisit what you did in the less than recent past. I want a record, but I really don't have time for scrapbooking, digital or tangible. Blogging really was my speed. I'm about to start a traditional journal, so at least I've saved something. I feel like I've already missed recording so much just in the past few months...

Bella fingerpaints

Her first time!

Rosie's Kindergarten Graduation

reading her favorite Elephant and Piggie book

Gramma and Pap got to be here this time.

Sonnet 22

When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curvèd point,---what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Belovèd,---where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Royal Wedding: Because it's not every day that a girl becomes a princess

Isn't this commemorative painting by Cath Kidston lovely? I found Cath's new US website, and you can find the design on various items.

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This is our last day of school this year and the girls want me to wake them at 5AM to watch the wedding live. I'm putting up some decorations and thought I'd share. :^)

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The Prince of Wales' website has a downloadable official program and route map. This is really an amazing resource. It includes full file portraits of the couple and an explanation of each of their coat of arms, as well as historical information about Wesminster Abbey.

Sparklebox has pictures of the famous spots along the wedding route to download.

Take a commercial break and check out National Geographic Kids' United Kingdom page.

Activity Village has a wonderful page for kids, including Kate and William royal wedding paper dolls, royal frame handwriting pages, and coloring pages.

Instant Display also has a very nice kids page with educational resources, including bookmarks, coloring pages, vocabulary cards, and Royal Wedding newspaper templates.

The Woodland Trust's Nature Detective's site has this free Royal wedding party kit, woodland picnic style.

Favorite items? A Union Jack pinwheel ( a drawing pin is a thumbtack) and Cupcake Crowns to fit around your cupcakes

Disney's Family Fun has gotten in on the party with a "Happily Ever After" royal wedding page. Don't miss the Princess Kate paper doll with Disney princess and wedding dresses.

Bride.com's Royal Sleepover party is so cute. Don't miss the excuse note, bunting (printing as I type), cupcake toppers, and drink flags.

Isn't this HappyLand Royal Wedding Set adorable? I think if I'd have found it a little sooner I might not have been able to help myself.

Design Editor has a great set Royal Wedding party printables including a banner and cup wraps.

And Boden USA has wedding bingo and for the littles (and those of us less familiar with British celebrities, wedding spotters.

Maundy Thursday Links For Kids

• U is for Unleavened Bread handwriting page
• "Do this in remembrance of me" cards to print and give away
• Last Supper puzzle
• Garden of Gethsemane lesson from the Church of the Lutheran Confession. Includes story characters to color and make popsicle puppets.
• The Last Supper and The Master Becomes Servant and The Way, the Truth, and the Life, and The True Vine and The Garden of Gethsemane and Judas Betrays Jesus and Peter's Denial, and moving toward Good Friday, The Sanhedrin, Herod, and Pilate - all from Calvary Chapel Children's Ministry. These pdfs each contain a lesson and worksheets geared toward grades 1-2 and grades 3-6.
• Last Supper craft based on Leonardo da Vinci's painting by the clever lady at Catholic Icing.
• Tips on remembering Maundy Thurday with children from Worshipping with Children.
• Coloring pages here, here, and here.

Holy Week Links

Sorry. This wouldn't publish Sunday night, then I forgot that it didn't publish. :^)

• Catholic Icing's Holy Week File Folder game is fabulous for remembering what happened each day this week. You can change or delete any questions that are not applicable to Protestants. We really enjoyed it last year and I'm planning to pull it out again this week.
• Also from Catholic Icing is this wonderful Resurrection set that you can print and make with cardboard tubes and an empty tissue box. You could work on this all week.
• And just one more from Catholic Icing (that lady is full of ideas!) - this Last Supper craft. Amazing.
• Calvary Chapel's curriculum is full of great lessons, coloring sheets, and puzzles. Start at about Lesson 220 and you'll find lots of good stuff for this week through about Lesson 240.
• This one's for the moms:Today's Fabulous Finds has Easter subway art. Print, frame, done. Makes a nice hostess gift too.
• Homeschool Goodies has this chocolate crown of thorns. Seems like a strange thing to make,but it might work.
• How to Make an Easter Garden from A Holy Experience. The way that they use it is even more beautiful than the project itself. I really want to do this, but I may have to save it for next year since I still haven't come up with the right basket.
• There are some cute printable cards and bookmarks in this free Take Me Home - He has Risen! set at Currclick.
• The Easter Holiday Helper from Living Books Curriculum is a pdf of Charlotte Mason style resources. Poetry, fine art studies, stories, and copywork suggestions - and the price is right!
• And the Old Schoolhouse Magazine has three free downloads: Go check them out, I'm too tired to explain, but you'll like them.

Departing from the Holy Week theme just slightly -

• Got kids you love in another city? Apparently Plastic Eggs are 13 Ounces or Less, and according to Giverslog, you can mail them.
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• And don't get rid of those old Easter eggs. How cute are these Easter egg tea cups from Creativity In Progress??
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That's all for now. Teach your children. Show them the story. We borrowed The Visual Bible:Matthew to enjoy in the spaces this week. And have a wonderful Easter!

Helen Keller

Helen Keller Biography

My kids have been very excited about all things Helen Keller lately. It started when I handed Anna Kate an easy reader about Helen Keller. She thoroughly enjoyed the story and had her typical ecstatic response upon discovering that it was a true story - that really is the icing on the cake to her. Another easy reader, and then I pulled out an old favorite that had been my mother's and then mine, Helen Keller's Teacher. Seriously one of my favorite biographies ever. I started to have Anna read it to me, then read it with her, but before long, I was reading it and everyone was listening. I found The Miracle Worker at the library and later we also watched the Nest version of Helen Keller on Anna Kate's birthday. It kind of paled in comparison to the the first one. Apparently many prefer older versions of this movie, but I thought that the little girl that played Helen in The Miracle Worker should have won an Oscar - doesn't seem like that would have been an easy role. So today we actually finished the last two chapters of the book and it occurred to me that there surely must be live footage of Helen, and a search gave is this little video. Enjoy.

Nature Journalling: Trees

We finally made it to the park today, despite Bella being up with a stomach ache half the night. She did well and we had a marvelous time. First we fed the ducks and geese a bit. Rice chex. Bella wanted to feed the cereal directly to them. She chased a mallard around in circles trying to get him to take the food from her hand, and finally, before I could stop her, offered it to a Canadian goose, who wasn't very careful about how he snatched it. She was unruffled.

Next we set to work finding examples of the three types of conifer leaves: needle-like, scale-like, and awl-like. The conifers were far outnumbered by deciduous trees, but we, amazingly found the three different varieties all in the same spot. Ethan and Anna Kate drew the different needles, also observing the pollen cones and seed cones and drawing those. Our tree identification book left much to be desired, so they were also drawing the trees' shapes, needles in actual size, and as many other details as possible in hopes that a ranger at the ranger station might be able to identify them for us. As they were finishing, a ranger came in with a school group to the picnic area behind us, and I ventured over to ask him. He identified the trees for us and also gave me a mini history lesson on the tragedy of the American chestnut tree. Fascinating stuff.

Rose was being Rose this whole time, living in her world of daisies and rainbows and drawing in her nature journal. I'm pretty sure she drew a goose - as for the rest, I'm sure it will be a surprise. She also found another tent caterpillar. There's always a good supply of those, which is probably a good thing, since she has a tendency to love them to death.

We then began to try to identify some angiosperm trees. Once again the guide was not a great deal of help. We managed to identify oaks,maples, and sweetgums, and learn about the flowers on dogwoods. We hiked around the lake, and found lovely pink flowers that looked like honeysuckle - and later at home discovered, they were indeed wild pink honeysuckle - pink?! who knew?

Bella enjoyed picking up random rocks, continuing to make friend with any ducks she met and feeding them with the "one for Bella, one for the duck" method. The children had great fun sliding out over the lake on a fallen log until their feet touched the water. They decided that they were lucky to be homeschooled because school kids would not have been allowed to do this. Some days you win...

Thunderstorms

We had the most wonderful thunderstorm here last night. It was big and bright and windy and noisy. I don't remember ever being afraid of thunderstorms. By the time I was a teenager, I found them utterly irresistable. They drew me out to the porch swing and sometimes I even danced in them - yeah, that would be my one of my few forages into adolescent foolishness - dancing in thunderstorms.

I don't do that anymore, even though I still want to. I did, however, grab a fleece blanket, and sit on my front porch wrapped in it, breathing deeply of the wonderful wet spring smells, and feeling the cool wind whipping spray on my face, and watching the jagged streaks, counting seconds and miles between them.

Today I lost my power due to some large trees weakened by the storm taking some power poles with them as they fell.

I couldn't do the laundry or run the dishwasher. And I had to reschedule our book club's garden tea party.

And that storm was so worth it.

Just discovered these party supplies

Strawberry Shortcake. Fabulous!

First Braids

Daddy's happy.