Eight-year-old Meg!

Good morning birthday girl!

Great gifts for our sweet Marguerite, who does

indeed make quite a lot of books.

Ready for a Fairy Tea- and Slumber-Party


Woodland fairy cake with meringue mushrooms and a waterfall. It was unanimously voted the favorite cake I've made so far, but it looked better in real life than in pictures.



Kirigami craft made by the girls; glow sticks
for the sleepover; Meg's birthday photo album.



Friends


Our Girl!

The next morning: a little zip line fun.

Not Pictured: Some of the girls (and consequently me) staying
awake until midnight and rising at 5:22 am!!! I would expect
that at a pre-teen slumber party, but I had higher hopes for
the 7-8 year old crowd. Oh well; a good time was had by all.

Happy Birthday Meg! We love you!

4th generation hostess

For some reason the other day Meg had all the kids out back raking a few leaves that have already fallen. Often when she gets in a straightening up mood, it evolves into some kind of table setting and food and drink preparation. In this case, she ran back and forth from china cabinet to refrigerator to rag bin to deck. Presently she invited Erik and me to come out and have a mid-morning snack.


For her birthday party she made place cards and this pretty bouquet. She loves beautiful things, has a strong sense of what is beautiful to her, and loves to share it with others. I hope this is the beginning of a life-long gift of welcoming people into her home to share the beauty and love of Christ.

All By Myself

Over Labor Day weekend I had the pleasure of travelling--alone--to visit Mandy and family in San Diego. Thanks to my and Erik's parents who had each invited a pair of grand kids come visit for the long weekend (Meg and Nate actually flew from Connecticut back to Atl by themselves!) and to Erik who arranged all the schedules and flights, I spent a lovely weekend visiting my dear friend and seeing her brand new baby and home and everyday life.

I didn't take pictures of half the things I would like to have, but these three are surprisingly representative as all together they cover: beautiful weather, picnic, Mandy wearing the sling and tending to Greta, Mike and the kids hiking, Olivia's splashy wardrobe choices, Joseph happily tagging along, and a chilly trip to the beach. The highlights were lots of completed conversations (much easier with 3 kids in the house as opposed to the usual 6 when we're together), yummy food, visits to two of the Harbor sites, laundry (I'm such a nerd I even like checking things off other people's lists), Yogurt Land, and the nurturing exposure to good friends who are learning to daily live out the gospel. The best thing is now being able to picture many of the people and places they talk about and feeling more connected to their new home, life, and ministry. That and over 10 hours of reading time throughout the weekend--sans interruptions. So nice.

Meg and Mommy, Meg and Daddy

Recently it was Meg's turn for one-on-one time with Erik and me. She and I spent a Saturday afternoon together, going out to lunch and then to the theater. Last year, her school performed the Sound of Music so Meg was familiar with the story, and when I saw that it was coming to the Fox I couldn't resist surprising her with tickets. She loves to put together fancy outfits and borrowed some of my jewelry and lipstick for the occasion. We went to Panera for lunch because she likes their soup in a bread bowl. We enjoyed watching the musical (mostly through binoculars) and, of course, the Fox is so beautifully and unusually decorated that it is an experience in and of itself. A sweet afternoon together!

A few days later, Erik took her on a one-night camp out at Stone Mountain (which I'm sure she chose because that's what Nate had done.) Since the school year had started, some of their favorite activities were already closed for the fall, but they still had a good time.

School Activities

Here are a few of the "hands on" things we've done since school started:

In ancient history we read about how the first farmers used shadufs to water their crops. On a whim, I sent the kids out to try to make their own. They spent 30 seconds piling up bricks and choosing a (short) stick to lay across the top, and the next hour "weaving" the basket and rope to collect the water. Thankfully we have a sprinkler system and do not rely on their workmanship to water the yard (though our grass looks so dead you'd never know). For any skeptics out there: I did not count the weaving hour as class time, but I certainly could have; I guarantee they will remember what a shaduf is.

Nature Study: examining and sketching a cicada. We have also enjoyed viewing butterfly and dragonfly wings under the microscope. Fascinating.

After reading about Egyptian hieroglyphs and papyrus we thought it would be fun to make paper. Of course, we did it the 21st century American way: ripping up perfectly good paper, mixing it with water, adding glitter, and turning it into new, less usable paper. I think it turned out great considering it was our first try and we used makeshift equipment. A few family members even received birthday greetings on custom-made paper.

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No pictures for this one, but last week we (meaning me and all four children) visited a REAL grown-up museum (dim lighting, spot lights on archaeological treasures behind glass, etc.). I think the employees' blood pressure shot up when they saw us coming. (At least I had the foresight to strap Caleb in the stroller.) As we paid for our tickets, the cashier asked, "And do you children know the number one rule about museums?" Thankfully, I had just gone over the out-in-public manners on the way from the parking garage, so Nate piped up, "Do not touch a single thing!" which probably gave the poor woman some hope that we wouldn't shatter all the priceless artifacts.

The kids actually did pretty well and there were a lot of fascinating things on display that correlated so well with what we've been studying--including several Egyptian mummies in wooden coffins covered with hieroglyphs, one of which depicted the king's heart being weighed on the balance against the feather of truth (we read about this the first week of school--a lovely opportunity to talk about how thankful we are that our record and eternal "fate" is actually secured by Christ's righteousness and we don't have to wait until death to find out whether the scale will tip against us and a part-lion, part-crocodile, part-hippopotamus will devour our internal organs.)

By the time we got to the concert (yes, I thought we might just try attending a concert at the museum; and, yes, we were the only ones there under 50) we had used up most of our public behavior. Plus it started at noon--aka lunchtime! Plus it was Chopin (well, not him, but his music)--about whom I know nothing, but let's just say his tunes are not that melodious in my book. So I decided we would sit by the door and do our best, which was good enough considering. We stayed through the first piece, which was about 15 minutes long. Then we made our escape as the latecomers were being seated, picked up Chik-fil-A on the way home and the kids ran around the back yard the rest of the afternoon. I think we all felt like we had been let out of prison--albeit, an interesting, educational prison. An easier field trip on the docket for this Friday: Charlotte's Web at the Center for Puppetry Arts. Whew!

First Day of School

My parents took a first day of school picture of Philip and me ever year as we grew up. I started the practice with Meg on her first day of Kindergarten and hope to keep it up through all the years with all the kids. Even though we weren't "going" anywhere except down to the basement this year it just seems like a first day of school photo needs to be taken on the front step. Someday it will be fun to line up all the shots and see how each kid grew, and how fashions and hairstyles (and probably front steps) changed.

Second Grader!

First Grader!

Classmates
(disclaimer: although I'm infamous at our house for making everyone wear coordinating outfits for special picture occasions this orange theme was purely coincidental)



The first day (first week?) was a little rockier than our faces suggest.
(My friend Dianne was right: the hardest thing about homeschooling is the parenting!) But I think we're moving in the right direction and settling into a better rhythm. So farm the best thing about teaching the kids is watching them do something well that I didn't know they could do (and wouldn't get to see if I weren't the teacher). And reading great books together on the couch is pretty fun, too.



New Supplies


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I took these pictures the night before, figuring our
little classroom would never be this neat and tidy again.

Our composer (Bach) and artist (Monet) of the year, and our memory work, Psalm 84. I decided less was more in terms of posted rules. If we understand and live out these two ideas more at the end of the year than we did at the beginning I will be pleased.

So many interesting things to learn!

Guess Who

was playing with the rocking horse today...