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Showing posts from July, 2010
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Now. And then. Dwayne has trained Norah to scratch his back from her earliest days. And, now Norah is helping teach Avril to scratch his back, too. Now and then I like to compare my pictures, to see how quickly my kids have grown. This serves to remind me how quickly time flies, how what seem like insignificant minutes add up to hours, days, years. For what is your life? It is a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. James 4:14
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Norah just finished her first week ever at Vacation Bible School. The theme was Saddle Ridge Ranch . She had the time of her life ! Our church did a magnificent job. I think the rumor was there were somewhere around five hundred kids participating. Norah was given a CD with all the music on it. We are listening to it when we are in the Jeep and she and I are both singing the songs to ourselves throughout the day. Some of the songs are fun like Tumbleweed . Some are tear-jerking such as Like Jesus . I think my particular favorite is God Cares .
Below is a short clip of Norah (as much as I could get before my old camera went dead), standing in between her two of her best friends, actually, at the final assembly for the whole family on Friday evening. She's singing part of the song Who He Says I Am .
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I found some "lost" photos of our camping trip on my cell phone.
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I was working in the kitchen after lunch and turned around to see this . My pride and joy can't even be expressed in words.
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I love our dining room table. It's the center of our home. It's big, solid, useful, simply beautiful. I know some people fret about dents. I used to, but I've come to think that you may actually be able to mark the quality of your life by the authentic marks you manage to put on your furniture, especially your tables. That's why I love this picture. My husband is resting his full weight in the heel of one hand and then slicing through pie dough straight to my table top with a rolling blade in the other hand. I know people will spend extra money to purchase dining room tables that only look like they've been used in this way. When I first got married, I was attracted to the tables that had this "distressed look" about them. The ones I wanted most came new from the store with pre-made scratches and dents and edges already worn. But, we couldn't afford those tables. I had to settle for one with a then flawless top. But, I gave myself a challenge. I
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Since we went berry picking , we have been reading Blueberries for Sal everyday. And we've been baking blueberry everything . Blueberry buckle... Blueberry muffins... More blueberry buckle... And blueberry pies. "It's a nice way to live, Just taking what Nature is willing to give." -From the poem Blueberries by Robert Frost
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Zaner-Bloser, the company that makes Norah's handwriting program, allows you to print practice paper for student levels K through 8th off their website. Just click this link and it will take you to the web page shown in the photo above. Then click "Get started." That will open the window that you see in the photo below. There are options for grade level, cursive or manuscript, color or black and white, etc. on the left. On the right, there are templates for the various kinds of pages one may want, depending on the subject: handwriting, spelling, vocabulary, etc. You can just print out a blank page or type in your own words and then print them out. Or, you can do both and that makes customized copy work and matching practice paper like you see below. This site saves me the trouble of writing out Norah's copy work like I had to do before. Writing it out wasn't a big deal when it was only one or two sentences, but now her copy work is getting longer and longer an
If I find something that I like online, I usually bookmark the page so I can go back to it easily. But, sometimes I forget the bookmark is even there . Weeks or months later, when I open my bookmarks folder, I am always pleasantly surprised. As of today, here's a list of what I have bookmarked. I thought you all may like some of this stuff, too. A free online home school curriculum Free audio downloads of classic books like Alice in Wonderland and Treasure Island, etc. A free online library with other classic titles like Peter Pan and Emma, etc. This website has tons of science experiments to try. I'd like Norah to do this program . It's local and supposed to be top-notch, but I am not sure I want her making friends with "tree-huggers." (I wish you could hear my laughter. I am totally kidding, of course). I'd like to make matching dresses like this for the girls one warm-enough holiday, maybe next Easter or more likely... next July 4th. A great explanati
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"We want to develop inquiring minds and perceptive senses, not just children who are storehouses of information." - Mudpies to Magnets
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I was watering my flowers very early one morning. The spray from my water hose must have disturbed a moth sleeping on the underside of one of the leaves. I saw the moth fly up into the air over the blossoms and then fuss around disorderly for a few moments, like it was angry at me for waking it up. With some difficulty, I tried to kept track of it's flight pattern. My head bobbled for a few moments, until the moth landed on the knuckle of my right hand, the hand I was using to hold the water hose. I probably wouldn't have even felt it there, had it not been for the fact that I was looking for it. Quickly, I switched the water hose to my left hand and lifted my right one toward to the sky, almost by reflex, meaning to direct the moth away from me safely, in the way it wanted to go. But, as I held my hand up, waiting, waiting, the moth didn't take off. Instead, it crawled to the center of my hand and stayed there. I brought my palm closer to my face so that I could look a
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Trumpet Creeper #47 out of 100
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"Too much have we emphasized drawing as an art; it may be an art, to the artist, but if he is not an artist, he still has a right to draw if it pleases him to do so. We might as well declare a child should not speak unless he puts words into poetry, as to declare that he should not draw because his drawings are not artistic." The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock
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When Norah's math book introduced "solving for the unknown," she didn't get it right away. She saw the plus sign and the two numbers, so out of habit, she would just add the numbers together and write the answer in whatever empty spot there was. This meant she was just "going through the motions" and obviously didn't recognize the significance of the equals sign in the problem or what it was supposed to mean. She is gifted in language, so I explained to her that the math sentence now says "Nine plus two equals seven" and I asked her, "Is nine plus two the same as seven?" To this, she said, "Oh. Yeah. Right!" with a giggle and erased the nine. But, she still had to figure out the number she needed to make the two sides equal . She could do this problem and others like it using her blocks all day long, but no matter how many times she got it right with her blocks, the concept never seemed to move from the blocks to he
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We took a "field trip" to Boston's Public Garden last week. Views of the city all around. We got there right at lunch time and we were all starving, so we started our day with a picnic under this perfect tree. The branches grew down and then out, rather than up and out and they reached all the way to the ground. It was a cozy spot for a picnic and the branches in front were trimmed to show the view of the swan boats going by. Avril loved the ham salad. Ham salad on biscuits. Followed by blueberry buckle made with the fresh berries we picked just a few days before . It was the perfect picnic. After lunch, Dwayne read Make Way for Ducklings out loud. Then Norah fed the ducks our leftovers while we sat and enjoyed the shade and the gentle breezes. We visited Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings on their way to the pond. Then we headed back to the swan boats for a ride. Duck island and a different view of the willow tree Norah stood under to feed the ducks. A duck cleans her feathe