They may look like ordinary socks in a laundry basket...

But combined with some toboggan's...
mixed with some 'tude...



add a little imagination...
and you've got yourself an old fashioned indoor snowball fight!

Zoe had her first taste of broccoli this week.

Oh, she makes me melt.

I got to do a photo shoot for a friend this week and discovered the quirky old fashioned goodness of Carpenters Farm Supply (and neighboring railroad tracks). So much fun.  

It's a big weekend for Jeremiah as I am deserting him with all four kids while I go on a women's retreat. Oh, the fun they are going to come up with...


Happy Thursday!

I am learning that in order to keep Ezra out of trouble he needs to be constantly engaged.

Con.stant.ly.

In our operation Keep Ezra Out of Trouble: he now can make his own lunch and take out the trash entirely on his own...

He looks mighty cute while doing it too, eh.

It was a great month of school around here, with just a few interruptions for sickness. Regardless, we pressed through and now we are onto March!

The boys are moving right along with their ABC school and just finished up the letter H last week.

The letter H is kinda a big deal in this house. No offense to the other letters.

They also worked a lot on their cutting skills, patterns, graphing, sorting, and classifying. I think their favorite week was "G" week because I got a gumball machine and we guesstimated, graphed, made patterns, and of course...chewed gum all week.

Our science unit for the month was spent studying the human body. I divided it into 4 weekly subgroups: the five senses, the circulatory system (for Valentine's week, of course), the digestive system (for noro virus week, of course), and the muscular and skeletal system. Yes, I know that leaves out a lot of the human body...but I do have the next 16+ years of their life to cover it, so I'm not too worried.

They had a blast testing out what their senses tell them...and doing some blindfolded taste tests and obstacle courses. It's ok to laugh at this picture. And yes, Ezra is trying to peek. 

We all got fingerprinted and made a complete mess  learned about the uniqueness of their bodies. Which happened to tie in with our Bible verse of the month: 

I will praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:14

For the circulatory system we learned about what is in our blood, how our blood circulates, how much blood we have in our bodies at different stages of our life, and what our heart really looks like. We also visited a lab and the kids got the extreme pleasure of watching my blood get drawn. I believe that was quietest 10 minutes of their life, ha!

For the digestive system we measured out the length of their small intestine and learned how it could fit inside the small space of their tummy, drew out the digestion path on the driveway, studied the different types of teeth we have and their roles, and of course...talked about throw up. 

We looked at anatomy books and talked about what makes our bones grow. We looked at the different types of joints in our bodies. We discussed what they thought our bodies would be like without bones..."floppy like a worm!" We looked at the layers of our muscles and made our own shoulder muscles.

Here they are with their finished bodies. They were sort of proud if you can't tell...

Ella learned about volume this month in math. Rather than just tell her that ___ cups = ____ 1qt., etc., I let her figure it out and prove it to herself. The boys were happy to get in on the action too.

Ella and I also finished reading through Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess, one of my favorite books as a little girl. It was so much fun to see her enjoying it as much as I did!

Next Month...the wonders of weather!
I wonder if I could work in a visit to go see my man crush, Greg Fischel?

here it is, in all its glory.
not in numerical order. and with an extra "romance" picture to even it out.
i love how it forced me to capture things out of my month (my life) that I wouldn't normally think of.
or think worthy of capturing.
but capture it i did.

I've been saving up articles that I've read recently that have impacted me. While I don't necessarily agree with 100% of everything (nor do I expect you to!)...they made me think and challenged the way I do things. And that's always a good thing. 


On motherhood as a mission field:

It is easy to think you have a heart for orphans on the other side of the world, but if you spend your time at home resenting the imposition your children are on you, you do not. You cannot have a heart for the gospel and a fussiness about your life at the same time. You will never make any difference there if you cannot be at peace here. You cannot have a heart for missions, but not for the people around you. A true love of the gospel overflows and overpowers. It will be in everything you do, however drab, however simple, however repetitive.

Go here for the full article.

On not feeling bad if you don't enjoy your kids all the time:
I know that this message is right and good. But as 2011 closes, I have finally allowed myself to admit that it just doesn’t work for me. It bugs me. This CARPE DIEM message makes me paranoid and panicky. Especially during this phase of my life – while I’m raising young kids. Being told, in a million different ways to CARPE DIEM makes me worry that if I’m not in a constant state of intense gratitude and ecstasy, I’m doing something wrong.

Go here for the full article.




On getting rid of the "Is she a good baby? question"
Sometimes a teacher or other adult will praise a child saying, “I hardly knew he was there!”  Is this praise?!  If someone else hardly knew I was there, I’d begin to wonder why I was being such a wall flower.  Does anyone hope their son or daughter will grow up to be a silent, passive watcher of life, or do we want our children to be vibrant, energetic and communicative adults?  If we want the latter in adulthood, it makes sense to accept these qualities in our babies and young children.


Go here for the full article.

And this one, written by a dad, but something this mom needed to remember. On the sanctity of human life. All human life.
We—as humans—feel ill equipped to handle life-altering uncertainty. If we could see the future, we’d do everything we could to keep things safe. Yet it also seems that when we can control the future, we don’t do well. In the case of prenatal diagnosis, when we catch a glimpse of the predicted future, nine out of ten times we choose not to permit the adventure of life with a Down syndrome child! We buy into the utopian lie that we know what’s best for ourselves and for this world. 


Go here for the full article.






On spreading rather than squelching hope to new parents.
“You guys do good work!” I comment. The parents beam with pride, but the weariness in their eyes lets me know that they are all still in the process of getting to know each other. The lady behind the couple glances at the stroller as well, and asks. “Is this your first?” They nod proudly.  ”Just wait…” she snorts, and then follows with a comment about unruly teenagers.


Go here for the full article.

I've felt swallowed up by life this week.
Nobody is sick.
Nothing has gone wrong.
Just getting everything done in the day has been...well, it's been.

Not complaining, just keeping it real.

We are having a fence put in this week. Peace of mind for the backyard is a very exciting thing.

Especially as it is looking like Zoe is going to be walking sooner than later.
This girl will not slow down.
She is attacking her milestones.
Attacking.

She started pulling up on things this week. Saying DaDa. And wants very little to do with anything that resembles a baby food puree. Give her what I'm eating...and she is a happy girl. Who needs teeth? is her motto. Oh, and she has to be right in the middle of the others at mealtime. No feeding off to the side for her!

 She came down with her first case (thankfully a mild one) of the dreaded cheerio disease.

I'm open for ideas of what to feed her as I'm feeling sort of limited in what she can independently eat at the moment, but she just gets frustrated with "baby food."

It's going to be 80 degree's here today.

I have broken out the flip flops and I am refusing to go back.

Can't believe it is March 1st.

Happy Thursday!