Fun on the Trampoline

Notice how Matthew is "floating"

Food For Thought

Watch the trailer:

http://www.demographicwinter.com/

It's always encouraging to witness when society testifies to the fact that God's Word does speak the truth - in this case that children really are a blessing!

Shower Saturday

One of our dear friends is getting married in March. We are so involved with the wedding that I almost feel like it is one of my own children. Amy and Katie are bridesmaids, with Amy being the maid of honor. Molly and Emily are the flower girls, Scott is the violinist, my mom is the wedding director and Katie is doing the slide show. We hosted a shower on Saturday for the bride to be and had a lovely time of fellowship. There were 27 in attendance and all went very smoothly.

The guest of honor

Long time friends. With the birth of this baby, we will have
had 27 children between the three of us.

After the shower, we switched gears and my family came over to celebrate Amy and Peter's birthday. A long, but very wonderful day!

Field Trip

Friday some of our homeschool group went downtown to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. Then we headed over to The Varsity for some naked dogs, PC's, and bags of rags - Varsity lingo for plain hot dogs, chocolate milk (served over ice) and french fries. Of course we also had chili dogs, onion rings, fried pies and Frosted Oranges! There are plenty of people who don't appreciate the Varsity, but we love it.

Happy Birthday Peter!

We're on a birthday roll here. Peter turned 11 today. Incidentally, Peter was the second most difficult child which I attribute solely to the fact that he was born too close to Amy's birthday! (see yesterday's post).

Peter has become our resident chicken farmer. He went into this duty rather unenthusiastically, but has grown to handle it very well and he evens enjoys the chickens (but most definitely not the guineas). I recently spoke to a real farmer about our chickens and their lack of eggs. She explained to me their cycles of laying and molting and told me that we should get rid of them as they were out of their prime laying season and we just wasting money feeding them. I think she realized in the course of our conversation that she was talking to someone who was most assuredly not a real farmer, as I think she thought it rather odd that we actually were keeping and feeding chickens that had ceased to lay. Eric and I then began discussing the best option to get rid of the chickens. Peter upon hearing this was most emphatic that we could not get rid of the chickens as they were his friends (he is apparently not headed down the road to being a real farmer either!). Miraculously a few days after this, the chickens started laying again! I have decided that either Peter has been down there coaxing them and has succeeded (which may mean he is destined to be a real farmer) or he has found someone to supply him with farm fresh eggs and he is planting them down there. But since we are getting eggs again, Peter gets his wish for now. We did tease him for his birthday that his gift was going to be some more chickens and he was actually ok with that.

Happy Birthday Amy!

There was a little girl,
and she had a little curl,
right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
she was very, very good;
but when she was bad,
she was horrid.

Whenever I hear this poem, I think of Amy! I like to give Amy a hard time now, because as a small child she was BY FAR the most difficult of all the children. She was the most stubborn, defiant, and strong-willed child and I was in tears and prayer over how she would turn out. God was gracious and Amy has turned into a very responsible, mature, lovely young woman. She is a great help in the house and her strong-willed personality as a child has grown into a determined personality as a young lady. She is the person who will get things done and can handle most things thrown her way. We are thankful to the Lord for Amy and her 17 years with us.

Amy shares a birthday with Eric's dad - Happy Birthday Grandpa!

The Circus

Saturday, Papa took Matthew and Dawson to the circus. Amy went along for support! We are thankful for special times with extended family.

Trains

Eric was out of town last week - I didn't sleep much (which is normally the case when he is gone). On one of my usual middle of the night wanderings I noticed a light coming out of Scott's room. Knowing that this child would not get up in the middle of the night to study and also knowing that his room was dark on my last house check, I went to investigate. His computer screen was on illuminating the room. He was sleeping. Somewhat concerned as to why the screen was on (when I know it was off earlier) I tried to rouse Scott to see if he had for some reason gotten up to work in the middle of the night. This proved to be an exercise in uselessness as unintelligible grunts was about as far as I got. (Certain people think I should not worry when Eric is out of town since I have this strong young son around as protection - these people have not tried to wake him in the middle of the night, but that is another story). So I go back to bed conjuring up all types of reasons as to what or who may have turned this computer on. The next morning I again asked Scott about the computer. This time he informed me that sometimes the screen comes on when the train goes by as depending on the type of train, it causes the house to shake. This would have been really nice to know in the middle of the night so I didn't lay there and think about ghosts and all other kinds of things my mind is prone to worry about in the middle of the night when Eric is gone, but at least I had an answer.

When we bought this house I figured that having a train track so close was a negative point. I wondered if that was one of the reasons it hadn't sold quickly and if it would make it difficult for us to sell if we had to. But there were positives that outweighed the negatives and we bought it train track and all. Now I love the train. There is something strangely comforting hearing it come throughout the day and, yes, even in the middle of the night. One of Matthew's favorite things to do is to walk down to the track and watch a train go by or just walk down the track (he likes to collect railroad spikes).

Over the mountains,
Over the plains,
Over the rivers,
Here come the trains.
(from Trains by James S. Tippett)

Girl's Night

Last Friday Amy and Katie celebrated their birthdays by having a slumber party. The girls ate, talked, watched movies etc. and had a wonderful time together. We are thankful for good friends to celebrate with.