Nicolas: Momma, can I please go finish my computer game that I started earlier?
Mom: I don’t know, Nicolas, I think you have played enough computer already today.
Nicolas: Oh please, Momma, I just want to finish my game!
Mom: Honey, it isn’t actually good for your brain and your body to play too much on the computer.
Nicolas: But Mom, it’s helping my brain, really it is! The game is teaching me how to “right-click”!!
Hmmmm.
I am just back from a trip to College Station: several friends and I traveled this weekend to attend a conference where Susan Wise Bauer was the keynote speaker. I went mostly thinking it would be a fun road trip “with the girls” and hoped to leave feeling more inspired as we prepare to embark on this home school journey. And well, in reality, I have returned home feeling so blessed to have been able to sit under this woman’s teaching and instruction for even a few hours. As we said goodbye to each other at the end of our weekend, I gratefully hugged the necks of all my friends who really were the reason I ended up making the trip - had it not been for their enthusiasm I would never have gone. (Had it not been for Jay’s delightful management of the household in my absence, I also would not have gone, so thanks, Honey for all you did to make this trip possible!)
While I won’t take the time now to elaborate on what I learned, suffice to say I would encourage anyone who has an opportunity to hear Susan speak to run, don’t walk!! to get in line for a ticket. The wisdom she brings to the world of Classical Home Schooling is well worth your time and effort to go hear her. Not only did she speak throughout the day on a variety of very pertinent topics, but she spent lots of time in between talks answering our granular questions about this and that curriculum, listening to our inquiries regarding our own particular situations with our children and what we are trying to accomplish this year, and offering thoughtful advice to help us navigate these home schooling waters with our own families.
You can read more about Susan Wise Bauer, as well as visit her blog at her website.
What a great weekend!!
to store his pirate booty in.
Aaarrrrrrr, Matey!!
Our dog Lucy is sick. So sick that she lost the contents of her stomach three times yesterday, in a most violent fashion. Sadly the first episode took place on one of our beautiful new wool rugs. I had just sat down for a minute’s rest in our front room, and of course my faithful doggie, needing to always be as close to me as she can, laid down predictably at my feet. A minute later, there was a sickening sound, and then a sickening scene all over my pretty, pretty rug. Lucy was quickly banished to the backyard to continue getting ill (don’t worry, I am much more nurturing with my human children when they are tossing their cookies!) and I frantically called my “neatnick, knows how to clean anything, and I mean anything” of a sister in law, explained my woe to her and got her advice.
Which was “Act immediately, do not wait for a stain to set! Scoop up anything you can first, and then blot, blot, blot. Then spray a solution of water mixed with vinegar (I used 1 part vinegar to two parts water) over the area, blot, blot, blot. And REPEAT!” Wow, she’s like a professional at this.
And you know what? It worked. Amazing considering the nastiness of the mess - and since the subject matter in this blog entry is already so low, it surely won’t hurt things to clarify that this was by far the messiest and most disgusting dog vomit I’ve encountered, and believe me, I’ve encountered a fair amount! I still cannot believe the rug came through such yuck unscathed. But next time we have an issue (and you know in this house there will be many, many next times!) I will know what to do. Thank you Jamison - you are my hero!
Here are my two littlest guys happily laying on the now-clean rug just to show you how nice it looks.
First, I have to take my hat off to my talented sister in law, Jamison who has already done a bang-up job covering the topic of Cousin Camp. I will not even attempt to top her photo essay of the week. See it here.
But I am happy to jump in with a few photos of my own, and say in my own humble way that we really had a great time last week down in Austin with Nana and Grandpa. Katie was the official weekend photographer with her snazzy new SLR
Though the rest of made noble efforts to keep up with her too.
Here are the youngest campers in the group, or at least most of them:
We visited the lake and park nearby
and learned (sort of) how to skip stones.
We ate
and ate
a LOT!
and then ate some more since we had a couple of birthday parties
for two of the campers
(thanks, Nana for the fine cakes!)
Everyone went to see fireworks, which I think was one of the best parts of the whole week!
There was lots of kissing
and
hugging
(what can I say, we’re an affectionate bunch!)
And more than a little
craziness.
There was even wild dancing
with Uncle Andrew.
and Monkey, oops I mean Unkey Jay!!
But it was mostly great just
being
together.
In fact it was such a great week that Jamison and I were despondent over having to leave.
Thanks again to Nana and Grandpa for their gracious hostessing and hard work to make it a great week for all of us! We can’t wait to come back soon!
…beautiful music: my 9 year old playing the piano, my 6 year old accompanying her with the guitar, and the both of them plus my two year old all singing “Nothing But the Blood”. Priceless!
This is a picture of Josiah giving moral support to big brother Jonathan as he takes his placement exam for Singapore Math.
Nicolas tried to give moral support too, by way of looking over Jonathan’s shoulders and correcting his errors, much to Jonathan’s frustration. So even though it’s completely unnecessary, we gave Nicolas “his own test too” just for fun. (Because hey, math is fun, right Susanne? Well, Nicolas thinks so, too!)
The kids have used Saxon for the past several years at school, but Covenant is excited about introducing Singapore for the first time this fall, and we are making the switch too. After much work we got through the placement stuff
and have figured out where to start our own little pupils this year. Abigail loves the word problems and says she is looking forward to doing this new kind of math! Josiah is not so sure:
“Yeesh Mom! This math stuff sure is hard for a two year old to grasp!”
Two years ago today we were on the way home from the kids’ week of summer swim lessons and as was our practice at the time, I detoured to take a peek at the neighborhood we checked on regularly during our search for a new house. And to my surprise came upon a FSBO sign in front of this:
It had been vacant for a few months and was in need of lots of TLC but the bones were great, and the price was right. And despite all sorts of trouble and craziness during the purchasing process, we moved in (albeit only partially, and with scarcely any furniture) just a little over three months later.
Two years later the little house has indeed received lots of TLC from the Hornes (though of course we are still working on it!) and I think it shows. We are grateful for this blessing, this haven with a red door where we watch our family grow, experience the richness that is our life, welcome family and friends, live together, laugh together and love each other. We are thankful for this, our own home, sweet home.
Tonight after I’d tucked Jonathan and Nicolas into bed (they share a room) I went back in to quickly drop off a toy or something and came upon a most interesting scene.
The room was dark as it should be, but Jonathan was sitting up in bed talking; actually as I was soon to learn, he was telling a story, which his little brother (also sitting up in his bed) was listening to with rapt attention. Arranged in front of Jonathan were various Webkins and stuffed animals who normally occupy his bed and he was moving one of the stuffed things while having it say, “I am a Hebrew. And I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.”
This made me stop my hasty exit from the room long enough to ask what in the world he was talking about. Surely this was no ordinary “stuffed animal bedtime story”.
“Oh, he’s telling me the story of Jonah, Mom.” Nicolas offered. Telling the story indeed; it sounded to me like my son was narrating the account verbatim from the text which I knew he had read to himself just the day before while we sat in church during the sermon. Very intrigued by this point I grabbed the nearest Bible I could find and stealthily planted myself just outside the room to listen. Jonathan was only in the first chapter of the Book of Jonah, so I figured this could take a while, and I certainly didn’t want to miss it.
For the next several minutes I skimmed over the story while listening to my little boy go over each part of all four chapters in amazingly accurate detail. Ok, so he left out most of Jonah’s prayer from inside the belly of the fish, as well as the three verse decree to the people of Ninevah in the third chapter, but he did all of the first and fourth chapters in a verse by verse paraphrase, using much of the original Biblical language. Near the end of the book he did get mixed up, and knowing I was listening nearby called out, “Hey Mom - what is it again God said to Jonah there?”
I read verse 8 of the fourth chapter and he answered, “No, that’s not quite right. Are you reading from the New King James Version? You should be on page 624 in that Bible.”
At which point I almost dropped my teeth out of my mouth. He even knew the page number that verse was on. Oh how very,very freaky. But I calmly opened his red NKJV Bible and turned obediently to page 624 and read verse 8 again. This time with the proper wording apparently, because he thanked me and happily went on and finished his bedtime story for Nicolas.
Which begs the question: how many little boys have a seven year old brother who at bedtime will narrate an entire book of the Bible to them like that after reading it the day before in church? I am overwhelmingly astounded at this. I don’t even have a proper, tidy ending for this blog entry because I am just too astounded. All I can say is “Wow!”
It is a brave man who allows four wild children to jump all over him. Despite evidence to the contrary, no Grandpas were injured during the taking of this photo. But what is it with our daughter’s obsession with the bunny ears in every single picture lately?
