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Showing posts from March, 2011
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When Norah leaned in for the pic, Avril put her arm around her, closed her eyes and just squeezed. Norah's magic to Avril.
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Photos from Avril's 2nd birthday: 2 years = 2 gifts Chocolate cupcakes, chocolate icing, chocolate and vanilla ice cream "Aren't you going to help me with these??!"
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As I pulled into the library parking lot that morning in a hurry, feeling a little stressed by all I needed to accomplish in the next few hours, I noticed him right away. There was something different about this guy and it struck me immediately, something unnerving about the way he was just... walking... It took me a few seconds to figure him out. I see people strolling through parks all the time. But, I watched this guy and he didn't seem to have any direction at all . It was weird, so weird that it was unnatural. He held himself as if he had absolutely no commitments, none today, none tomorrow, none next week... But the interesting thing was that his lack of direction seemed to lead to a lack of real interest in anything around him. He didn't seem to notice the beautiful robin on the ground near his feet or the sun rays coming out of the clouds warming the chilly earth. His lack of interest even seemed to cause him unrest, because he was literally wandering around the park
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"I hide." -Avril
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I spent another hour typing titles into my Goodreads account and then further organizing my books on my shelves... As painful as this exercise has been (and will continue to be during all my free time in the next day or two, it seems), it comes at the right time (before I buy any more books) and it has been really, really useful. For one thing, I realize that I need to be much more strategic about the books I actually buy (even though I've gotten many of the books I have now at .69 cents a piece with one out of every five free at the thrift store). I'm not sure what my complete book-buying strategy will be, exactly, but I have had time to come to a few conclusions: First, I think I will start focusing on the lists of books or publishers that I admire the most (like Five in a Row or Usborne), become even more familiar with the titles and be able to recognize them when I see them on the shelves at thrift stores or in piles at yard sales. These types of collections are vetted an
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The Magic Tree House books are some of Norah's favorite books to read right now. Many of them have a corresponding research guide. I took Norah to the library one week and she picked out Mummies in the Morning (probably because we had started studying about Ancient Egypt in History.) About a week later, that book's research guide, Mummies and Pyramids , showed up on our list of recommended books for the chapter we were on in The Story of the World , so we ended up checking that out and reading that together, too! I love that her the books she is choosing to read for fun go hand-in-hand with what we are studying in history.
Goodreads. That's the name of the website I am using to keep track of my personal library. The second time I bought a second copy of a book I already owned, I figured it was time to make an official list. You think I'd be able to keep up with what books I have, but it's really not that easy. Goodreads let's me use an application on my phone called My Book Droid to log in and see my library from the thrift store or book store isles. It has already come in handy when I needed to know which Magic School Bus books we actually have, verses the ones I have only seen online, verses the ones Norah has checked out from the library in the past, verses the ones we have checked out right now, etc. I've been typing titles in all day today and I still have at least two hundred more books to add. No kidding. I don't even have what I'd consider a large collection of books. I am what I'd call a picky buyer. I don't own even half the books I want to own right now. An
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We're also reading the pages of Norah's First Animal Encyclopedia that cover the animals we saw in the swamp.
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I was holding Avril when the phone rang. It was my dad. I answered and he asked, "How's my baby girl?" I said, "She's fine. She's right here on my lap..." He laughed and said, "I was talking about you!" Ha! Ha! So, with that in mind, I hope a picture of me (and Dwayne) counts toward keeping my promise to my dad for the day.
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Happy 2nd Birthday, Avril. (She wouldn't take a picture by herself.)
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Here's a picture of the girls eating some lollipops Mrs. Mahaffey, an old friend of mine, gave them while we were in South Carolina. Thanks Mrs. Mahaffey!
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We're reading through One Small Square: Swamp . It's meaningful because of our recent visits to Cypress Gardens while we were in South Carolina. (My sister bought us this book at the Cypress Gardens gift shop with her employee discount, actually. Thanks, Loretta!) I really like this book series . I think I will collect them one by one (or get them from the library) and use them to help me plan field trips and make the trips more educational. The books give you things to look for when you visit these ecosystems, tell a little about the animals that live there, etc. The swamp book we are reading now talks about two different kinds of swamps, not just the cypress swamps like the one we saw in South Carolina, but also mangrove swamps found on warmer coasts. We are going back to South Carolina in a week. We may get a chance to visit Cypress Gardens again while we are there. But, we've already been there twice, so we may try and do something else while we are in South
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I took his grand kids away from him, all the way back to Connecticut. So, now I have to try and post at least one photo of them on the blog every day. Got to keep my promise to my dad. Love you, Dad.
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When Norah and I were listening to the audio recording of E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan , I wept after I heard the following passage: "In the spring of the year, nest building is upper-most in a bird's mind: it is the most important thing there is. If she picks a good place, she stands a good chance of hatching her eggs and rearing her young. If she picks a poor place, she may fail to raise a family. The female swan knew this. She knew the decision she was making was extremely important." In the springtime of my life, choosing where I'd build my nest was utmost in my mind as well. And now, after many, many seasons, there isn't a single day that I am not given reason upon reason to thank God for guiding me to build where I did. I love you, Dwayne.
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We're reading on this book, The Young Naturalist , in preparation for nature studies this spring/ summer. It's full, full of good information. We can't wait to try some of the ideas once the weather warms up, especially the different bug traps.
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My sister gave Norah this blank notebook. We're going to use it as a nature journal. We took it to Cypress Gardens on one of our visits and Norah made a quick drawing of one of the butterflies she saw in their Butterfly House. She colored it in when she had some extra time several days later.
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"Never be within doors when you can rightly be without." Charlotte Mason
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"Shouldn't she have been looking around at everything?" This was the question my sister asked me when we were talking about that boat ride in the swamp after we had put the girls to bed for the night. My sister is a perceptive lady and a pretty courageous one to ask me such a pointed question, I might add. But, I respect my sister's thoughtfulness. She wondered, genuinely, how much valuable, textbook-type information Norah took away from that boat ride for real since, as you can see from the background of the photo above (far right), Norah spent most of the trip hanging over the side of the boat with her fingers in the chilly, tea-colored water. I wondered the same thing that my sister did. Throughout the boat ride, I encouraged Norah to look around her at the magnificence of the swamp, scolded her for being so narrowly focused on the sensation of the water on her fingers, even threatened her with punishment if she didn't quit hanging so far over the side. I wa
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While we were in South Carolina, I took the kids on several hikes, boat rides, etc. taking advantage of our free time in that unique place, knowing even though the trip was unexpected and we weren't prepared to study the swamp in advance, we could read about it when we got home. Below are pictures of some the beautiful things we saw. Moss growing on trees. Pink lichen. Ferns unrolling. Wisteria. Camellia. The yellow bellied sap sucker tattoos the trees. Cypress trees and lily pads. Azaleas. More ferns unrolling. Cypress knees. Dogwood just beginning to bloom. A blue heron. Monarch. A green anole on a mossy log. Spider web covered in pollen. My sister and my kids in the boat. An egret's nest high above the swamp. Gator on the bank. Yellow bellied slider with moss on his back. Gator on a log. He was covered in the pollen that was floating on the water.
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This button pigeon was the size of a man's fist and her chicks were as big as the end of my thumb. It was spectacular to see them scurrying around behind their mother everywhere she went. But, the sight of the mother stopping and sheltering them under her wings was almost overwhelming. In this picture, the chicks are being unruly and squirming out of their moms grip. But, when the hen closed her wings very tightly, you could not even tell her chicks were underneath. I thought at once of the passage of Scripture that records the fact that Jesus wept over Jerusalem and said, "How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing..." I also thought of the Psalm that goes, "...Hide me in the shadow of your wings." I had never seen a hen with her chicks under her wings until that day. I had no idea these verses implied such a secure, almost tight, relationship between God and us.
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The girls playing at Wannamaker Park, near Trident Hospital where my dad was being treated.
Things that are different about the south... Things that I have heard and seen while on this visit... There are many. many. many. many more stores and restaurants here than there are in the north... like fifty times more. There are tons of new houses being developed around every corner. It's not uncommon to pass ten churches on the way to somewhere. (I often see two evangelical churches on either side of the same street only to drive another quarter of a mile on that same street to see two more evangelical churches right next to each other... so close their parking lots are almost touching!) People mention God in polite conversation. (Nine out of ten strangers who have found out my dad is in the hospital...because Norah tells everyone... have said they will pray for him. They actually use the word "pray.") Salads are made with iceberg lettuce. Period. Moms hover. (They will follow their children around the tight, indoor play places, coaching them, preventing incident
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Norah's got her own computer now. Dwayne put used and spare parts together to build it. Avril's little brown chair just lives right where you see it, too, since she insists on watching everything Norah does.
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