Spring Portraits

Zach

As winter has drawn to a close and we are having more and more days of an early spring, the boys are continuing to make great strides in their school work.  Not only are their academics coming right along but this year we participated in an art class every Wednesday afternoon.  I have particularly enjoyed their recent self portraits!  Even Marcus managed to create one with some minor help.

Marcus

Eli

In March this year we also made our annual trip to visit the Nelson's.  This year while we were there, we took a tour of a maple syrup farm and enjoyed sampling their product along with a huge pancake lunch!

A Big Hungry crew!

The Green Mountains of Vermont!

My Favorite People

Life moves along so quickly.  Each day is filled with homeschool, meals, playtime, fighting, sports and more meals.  Each day is blessing.  Sometimes I see it and sometimes I miss it.  But, I love these boys God has given us.  Even though I did not expect to be homeschooling, and even though I did not expect to be spending so much time watching sports/playing sports/going to sports, and even though I did not expect to be surrounded by boy humor; I wouldn't trade it for the world!

A Warm December

Christmas Season

Our Christmas preparations are well underway for this year.  In homeschool, the boys and I are doing a short unit study on Christmas-around-the-world, looking at traditions in Russia, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Israel and Mexico.  Along with learning the geography and flags, we are reading stories and making something sweet from each country!  Along with our cultural studies we had a special field trip last week which 'kept' us closer to home but actually involved a great deal more travel.  The boys, my mom and I went to hear the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra perform "The Polar Express", it was a delightful and perfect introduction to symphony music!

For our family time together we are doing a formal advent (The Truth is in the Tinsel) which involves reading Scripture and making a small ornament that goes with the text.  It has definitely been a challenge having the ornament-craft ready to go for every night...so far I have only missed 2 but we are still early in the month!

And, of course we also have the decorations for the house, which include the wonderful/exasperating tradition of agreeing on a tree, cutting it down and bringing it home--that's all before you add lights and try to encourage dispersing the ornaments uniformly over the entire tree!  While we walked through the tree farm, Marcus exclaimed with great surprise over every tree stump he saw--pointing out that each one had been cut down.

 Merry Christmas!

Good Friends

A friendship that started in college has continued across the years, states and countries and hopefully is being passed on to the next generation!  These friends have been such a blessing to us throughout all of life's changes!


Last weekend we were able to catch up with them again for a lovely weekend in their home with plenty of baseball and football games played out in their backyard.  (I will NOT be mentioning other games that took place at the kitchen table--whose winners are not important....)  The weekend had the added distinction of being Halloween and our collective sons humored us by becoming Yahtzee dice.  (Thank you Krista for letting me use your pictures!)

Tucked in

One night this week, shortly after Steve finished putting the boys to bed, Eli came to the top of the stairs and said, "Mom will you come tuck me in?"  I said that I thought Daddy had already done that.

Eli responded,
"All he did was pat me!"

A sneak peek

We managed to capture a nice family picture last week, which I am claiming as our Christmas card photo! (An unexpected check mark!)  So you will have to wait until you receive one in the mail to see all of us, but I can show you a picture of its cooperative participants, plus 1/3 of its uncooperative ones.

Mystery of Death

This duck moved into my grandmother's yard last week while she lay dying.  In the 40+ years that she and my grandfather have lived there, never has a duck resided on their patio.  We all took great delight in this feathered friend who made himself right at home among my grandmother's plants.  He was a wonderful distraction and we all smiled at the beautiful tribute he was for her final days.  Many of the caregivers read all sorts of signs into the duck's presence but I merely took as one of those funny, little things that the Lord orchestrates sometimes.

Early Friday morning, I was staying over at my grandmother's house and I was awakened to the caregiver calling for me, she sounded very distressed.  I jumped out of bed to help in whatever way I could, only for her to take me towards the front of the house--towards the duck.  She kept saying, "I think he's dead.  I think he's dead."  Sure enough as I stood looking out the large picture window, the duck was indeed dead.  Here I was, expecting death at any minute, only to find it in an unexpected corner.  I wanted to laugh.  In my heart, I had a good chuckle over this poor bird's death, but the caregiver was really shaken by it and I didn't think my twisted humor would be appreciated.

I do not understand why the Lord brought the duck or why it died a few hours before my grandmother, but personally, I enjoyed it being a part of that week.  I enjoyed it being a part of that process.

Time for school

 With warm weather coming to an end, we snuck in a few more days of this:

Look who's riding the waves!!

Followed by picking crabs for my birthday.... (This is why people have those stupid selfie-sticks)

 And it all culminated with starting another year of school!  

Deep Creek

Way back over Labor Day weekend, we went 'camping' with some friends in Western Maryland.  Our intended camping trip ended up being more like staying in a lovely mountain house, complete with a kitchen, hot showers and real beds!  We did mix up our posh setting with a little hiking and swimming in Deep Creek Lake.  The entire weekend was wonderful but a major highlight among the adults and kids was the atvs that the owners left for our use.  With plenty of fields and forest trails we all really enjoyed taking them out for speed or for exploring.  Zach ended up being a little speed demon and kept trying to go faster--a major shift in his personality!

During the drive home, Marcus made an innocuous request at one point, but I was unable to fulfill it in an appropriate three-year-old timeframe.  He became increasingly agitated and was repeatedly asking for the same thing over.  And over.  And over again.  As you can imagine I was also becoming increasingly agitated in direct proportion to his impatience.  Finally, with plenty of pent up frustration, I said, "Marcus!..."  To which he immediately chimed in, "I know, I know! Chill out!"

My crew.

One day this summer, while I was serving lunch to my guys, I realized that they are leaving me.  Each day is one day closer to their being gone.

While some days this might be cause to rejoice, I was filled with overwhelming sadness as I caught a glimpse of how fleeting this time together is.  It is impossible to imagine a time when they don't need me...for....Everything.  But I know it is coming.  And somehow it seems cruel of each of them to make me dependent on them while they slowly become less dependent on me.  And it is kind of insulting that they would let me get this attached only for them to go off and start their own lives apart from me.  

So I am just going on record, right now, that I don't like it!  And, if it can cause me to cry while we are still 10 years out, I would stay clear of emotional me when the time actually comes!

Quality Time

We have had one of the most relaxing summers ever.  After completing all of our travel during the first 3 weeks of June we have been home.  All summer.  It has been bliss.

It has been a summer of developing friendships and of quality time together.  We have still managed to do a great deal but the pace has been just right!  The boys and I went to the beach at least once a week to meet up with some new co-op friends.  We have had bonfires and swim camp.  We visited my sister and went kayaking.  We celebrated a half birthday, anniversaries and the completion of potty training!!  And we have done it all while eating plenty of delicious fresh fruits and vegetables.  I am learning that there will always be amazing and exciting things to do, and while it is hard to turn down many of these things, the most fulfilling for us is time together without the frenetic pace.

Say It Ain't So...Whiffle Ball Drama

Marcia is typically the author of this blog but I'm taking the liberty to relay a most unfortunate incident in a recent backyard whiffle ball game.  Marcus and I (Orioles) were staging a furious rally in the 9th inning against Zach and Eli (Cubs).  I hit a ball in the gap and made a turn toward 2nd when unbeknownst to me, Zach darted in the base path and I proceeded to flatten him and coast into 2nd for a stand up double.  While Zach writhed on the ground, Eli made a dramatic protest and hurt me in the worst way he possibly could.  "You're A-Rod now," shouted Eli, fighting back a mix of tears and righteous indignation.  "And you did it to your own kid!"

You cut me deep, Eli.  You cut me real deep.  For those wondering, the Cubs won the game in the 10th inning, 7-6.

To Mississippi and Back: Part 4 "Corolla!"

The final destination in our fun adventures, was a week at the beach with my family.  Plenty of swimming, sunshine and sugar to be had-- just in case we hadn't had our fill yet!  I finally gave up on capturing a nice picture of all three boys (as evidenced by the previous posts) and decided to catch them au naturel...or at least in one state of natural!

Throughout the entire week, our section of ocean was shared with many skates which were eating where the waves break.  Since none of my boys venture out that far unless dragged, it really only effected the adults that wanted to cool off--and for the brave of heart, the feeding skates were only a mild deterrent anyway!

For my night of cooking (the only night I cooked dinner during the entire 16 days!) we created a lot of hype over our surprise dessert--which involved everyone fighting over ... uh, er... sharing 2 large servings of warm cookie dough and ice cream.  

Riding high on the success of my dessert, I went on to play Steve in foosball for the tournament bracket that Zach had created.  The final point was captured on video and I will let it tell the rest of the triumphant story:

And thus ended our journey!  We have returned home to face a sugar detox, VBS and another fever for Zach.   (We are awaiting the results of this morning's blood work to make sure it is not a tick borne bacteria from his little LFR tag-a-long, but since this time Marcus has come down with it too, I am hopeful that this is just a regular virus.)  Ah! It is good to be home! :)