Revolutionary War Party

Whew, the party is over! The chairs are put back, the tables wiped off, the floor vacuumed. It was a lot of fun, but now I'm so tired! We ended up with 13 kids and 11 adults (not counting Anna). First we made our "Sons of Liberty" medals. For those of you who need some "Revolution review", the Sons of Liberty were a radical group of colonists who protested a lot of the British taxes and whatnots, and they wore medals with a liberty tree picture on them to identify themselves to each other. So we wrapped these little wooden disks that I got from Michael's in foil and put a string through 2 holes in top that Bob and the boys had already drilled. Then we put a sticker of a tree on the front.

Now that it was proven that we were all patriots here at the house, we went outside to our own Liberty Tree, where we discussed our plans for the British tea that they were trying to make us pay tax on. We decided we would find that tea and throw it into the harbor! So we had a little tea bag treasure hunt. I had hidden tea bags all around the yard, and when they found some, they went on the deck behind our house (also know as the British ship "Beaver") and tried to throw them into a tub of water on the ground below. Kudos to my dad for coming up with that great Revolutionary War game! The kids had a ball with it.

Then I realized I had forgotten to make the tricorn hats for everyone, so they trooped back inside to get "fitted" for their own custom-stapled construction paper hat. After everyone was wearing the proper headgear, we went back outside, since we had heard that the British were coming. We had a Paul Revere relay race where everyone had to ride around the house on a stick horse shouting, The British are coming!" By the end, it all sort of fell apart. Actually, it fell apart at the beginning, LOL, as we could hardly get everyone to stand still long enough to divide them up into 2 teams! But everyone made it around the house, and I am sure that everyone in the surrounding neighborhood heard that the British are coming, so they could take proper precautions!

We were all hungry by then, so it was back inside for dinner at a cozy local Colonial tavern, LOL. We served stew, cornbread, and cooked apples, with gingersnaps and candied orange peel for dessert. It all turned out quite good, even the stew, which I had never made before. I needed a recipe without flour, and I sort of picked one at random from my crockpot cookbook that fit the bill. The apples were a big hit--almost none left over, and I sliced up 17 of them!

After we cleaned up from dinner, everyone made a construction paper "Betsy Ross" type flag, with the stars in a circle. Then the grownups visited for awhile, and the kids all played in the basement--probably their favorite time, LOL!

Nathan is already asking what next year's theme will be. Not even going there right now, thank you! I tried to post a few pictures, but I couldn't get them to upload into Blogger. (Bob did get the camera software working again, so they are on the computer already, praise the Lord!) I'll try again tomorrow. And now I'm pooped. One more time to feed Anna, and then it's off to bed for me!

We have a winner!

As a special treat, here is the apple recipe that tastes the most like the cinnamon apples from Boston Market except with no flour. I did a bit of tweaking, but it's quite tasty! Hopefully it will turn out just as well Sunday evening.

3 golden delicious apples
1/2 cup water
3 tsp. cornstarch
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 dash salt
1 T butter or margarine

Preheat oven to 350. Peel and core the apples. Cut each apple into 16 slices and place in an 8x8 baking dish.

In a small microwavable bowl, combine water, cornstarch, sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Microwave for a minute or 2, until mixture comes to a boil. And butter and stir until melted. Pour over apple slices. Cover tightly, and bake for 20-30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.

An Invitation

The Unanimous Declaration of the Family of B-----

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one family to celebrate the American Revolution with a party, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they invite their friends to celebrate with them. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. We will be celebrating these truths in such form as shall seem most likely to effect our safety and happiness. Please join our party at 4---- (Street name) on Sunday, the 13th of August, at six o’clock in the evening. Let this invitation be submitted to a candid world.

WNR

First, let me apologize for the departure from the insightful and thoughtful stories that Claire does. Since I'm currently active duty military, and don't want to post anything controversial, here is a stock we bought yesterday (and again today) and why. We may sell it anytime, however. It's a company called Western Refining (WNR).

Here is what I use to evaluate a stock (CANSLIM from Investors Business Daily--IBD--IBD Homepage; however, I invert the order to remember the importance of only trying to buying when the market is favorable):

[ ]M=Markets="Confirmed Rally"; Is Democracy increasing or decreasing today, this week? & "The change in the discount rate is a valuable indicator to watch as a confirmation of market moves" --watch EVERY WEEK, EVEN EVERY DAY for 4 distribution days in a market go to at least 25% cash. Watch for high volume w/o increases, and go more and more and stay more and more in cash as market has more distribution days. Initial market decline may be on light volume. If in doubt, market leading stocks should send signals to rest of the markets.

[ ]I=A/D Grade & Money Flow=Institutional Sponsors=Look for stocks bought and being bought--however, watch for everyone owning, may start selling.

[ ]L=Leader or Laggard= A) Recognized Base or Pattern; & B) usually 70 < RS Grade < 90; & C) Among Top Stocks of a Strong (non-C) Industry Group =Want Leaders that are not overbought--may sell-off big

[ ]S=Supply & Demand ((Big Splash Up best w/ Small Floats (although big caps have more watchers), Usually Smaller Caps))=companies decreasing debt & buying back stock

[ ]N=New: New Highs; (cool or new) Listing (IPO) or PRODUCT, New MANAGEMENT (esp after a bad run)

[ ]C&A=Current & Annual Earnings: EPS Grades, inc 1) PE under 35; and, 2) 99 EPS? EPS generally higher than RS

Market (M):
- in a downtrend
? no comment on democracy increasing or decreasing (not from IBD, instead Forbes)
+ the discount rate has gone from being raised to yesterday not

I:
+ IBD Industry Group: A+
+ IBD Accumulation: A+

L:
+ IBD Cup w/ Handle pattern
? IBD RS almost too high at 96 (max is 99)
+ #1 of 28 in it's industry

S:
+ Today it had 180% of normal volume (incredible volume for the last 3 trading days)

N:
+ It's at a high
+ 2006 IPO
+ Refines crude oil and markets refined products ("hot")

C/A:
+ IBD EPS: 99
+ EPS of 99 higher than RS of 96
? P/E (new)

Keeping Busy

The main focus of this week is preparing for our annual summer party, which is going to be Sunday evening at 6:00. We generally don't do traditional birthday parties for the kids--we eat a special dinner, and I make whatever cake they can think of, which we take to Bible study some night close to their actual birthday. And then we have one big party in the summer where we can invite all their friends, and no one feels obligated to bring presents. The "problem" with homeschooling is that we tend to be friends with whole families, especially ones whose kids' ages all line up with ours. It would be too tricky to have to decide which family members to invite to individual parties, when really everyone is friends with and plays with everyone else, and it seems a bit overkill to me to have 5 separate big parties during the year, so this is our solution. Last year we had a medieval feast, and this year our theme is "Revolutionary War".

Today we went to Michael's and Walmart to buy supplies for the various crafts we will be doing. I made a nice pattern for tricorn hats out of contruction paper, so we'll make those before everyone arrives. Then we are going to make "Sons of Liberty" medals, which had trees on them, and the Sons of Liberty wore to show everyone who they were (and we'll all be dedicated patriots at this party, that's for sure!). I found some round wooden disks at Michaels that Bob and Nathan will drill holes in beforehand for the string. Then we'll cover them in foil and put a tree sticker on them. Voila! I have a few ideas for games, such as a Paul Revere relay race, where the participants have to race around the house on stick horses shouting, "The British are coming!". No prep work needed for that one! Also, we're going to do some game with tea bags--you know, for the Boston Tea Party. I'm not sure exactly what though. Then after dinner we'll make lovely construction paper flags, the kind with the 13 stars in a circle. I need to cut a lot of red strips and blue squares!

For dinner, we're going to have a sort of colonial tavern type meal--stew, barley, cornbread, and sliced baked apples, like you get at Boston Market. I've been searching the internet for a good recipe, and so we've been experimenting at home. We tried recipe #2 today, and it was a lot closer. I'm going to adjust a few things and try it again tomorrow. Hopefully we'll have a winner! We're doing it with no flour so Ed can have it, which is why it's not perfect. For dessert, we'll have ginger snaps and some butter/nut candies, the recipe for which I found in one of the colonial days project books I checked out of the library.

Tomorrow we're hopefully going to trek to the commissary (depending on Anna's whims and schedule vagarities--if it doesn't work tomorrow, then Thursday for sure). We also have a lot of cleaning to do, as well as much cutting of construction paper. If I don't blog anymore, you'll know what i'm doing, LOL! I hope to be able to post pictures after the party, but I can't guarantee I'll be able to. Something is wrong with our computer or something, in that we are no longer able to upload pictures from our camera. We connect the cable, the computer makes it's little "be-bop" sound to show it's connected, and then . . . nothing. Nothing ever happens. Eventually the camera shuts itself off, and if you turn it back on again, the computer gives a message about how the program is already open, so the startup is aborted. What is going on?!! Grrrr. I will take pictures for sure on my RELIABLE regular camera, the one where I take the film to Sams, and I get back real pictures, NOT annoying error messages! Curse this digital age!

Today I am thankful for . . .

. . . friends at church who, having decided their family is complete with 2 daughters, are giving away all their clothes as they outgrow them. And they chose--us! This morning Jen gave me 2 big trashbags and 1 big box full of 3-9 month clothes. Wow. That is a serious lot of clothes. I've started to go through them, and I think that I won't have to wash clothes for Anna again until she is out of the 3-6 month size, since her wardrobe has now at least quadrupled. Jen told me that both her mom and her mother-in-law love to buy clothes for her girls, and I guess she is right! Their younger daughter is almost exactly 1 year older than Anna, so the seasons are right on. Now I am really hoping to have another daughter so we can get some more use out of all these clothes! It was so generous to give the clothes away, instead of consigning them, ebaying them, having a yard sale, whatever. And I'm thankful!!

The Curse of Genetics

I am struggling to come to grips with the fact that Luke and I may quite possibly be the only 2 members of our family who can drink regular milk with no problems! Bob is lactose intolerant, and Caleb has a bona-fide milk allergy with hives and the like. Anna is definitely sensitive to milk proteins in my milk now--she gets an eczema spot on her neck, a yeast diaper rash, and she spits up a ton. When Nathan was about 5 years old, he started having a little bit of blood on his bum when he would poop, and he was itchy down there. I took him in to the doctor, and he had a complete workup. Countless stool samples and exams later, the doctor said he couldn't see any reason for the blood. Nathan had a lot of diarrhea, so I decided to stop giving him regular milk with his breakfast cereal and to drink, and start him on soy milk. I figured maybe he was lactose intolerant like his dad. And by a few weeks later, the blood stopped, and he has had no problems since. Cheese never bothered him, and he can also drink regular milk if we are traveling or whatever for a few days without a problem. Now this summer Jonathan has started bleeding when he poops . Just a little bit of blood, right at the end of the stool or on the tissue when I wipe him. He doesn't complain of itching so much as his bottom hurting. I resisted the idea of it being milk--he never has diarrhea. He isn't constipated at all either, but there is definitely a little fissure or 2 down there. I can see it. Diaper rash cream hasn't worked, and there is no way I am going to bother taking him to this clinic when the very competent pediatrician at the huge Wright-Pat hospital couldn't find anything wrong with Nathan. But starting today, I have stopped giving him regular milk too. I guess we'll see in a few weeks if it has made a difference. Sigh. I might as well have soy milk piped directly into the house! So it's just Luke with the regular milk right now--I might have to start getting half gallons, LOL!

But unfortunately Luke has inheirited my propensity to get canker sores, poor boy. He has 2 of them now on his gums, just like I get them. Isn't genetics amazing?! I think his are a testament to the fact that we haven't been eating really well lately--quick meals that don't require the oven, and I haven't gone to get fresh fruit and vegetables for at least a week or so (but don't worry--I went yesterday!). And somehow the boys stopped taking their vitamin every morning too. Hopefully his will go away soon, now that I have gotten us back on track. I mixed up my concoction of milk of magnesia and liquid benedryl for him to swish around in his mouth last night. Let's just say he wasn't impressed with that taste, and he didn't ask for that again today, LOL!

I am also dealing with cankersores again. I started getting them again right after I stopped dairy in my diet, so it certainly could be that. I am taking Viactiv calcium supplements, as well as my prenatal vitamins. It was also the time when I battled strep throat for two weeks. I remember from biology classes that canker sores are latent viruses that pop up when triggered, and I am sure that my strep battle could have triggered them in me. This informative site lists some possible triggers for canker sores, including bacterial infections. I have 4 in my mouth now, and have had for a few weeks now. When one goes away, a new one starts. I have had almost none since I switched toothpastes a few years ago, and when the odd one would start, I would just swish my benedryl mixture, and it would go away a day or 2 later, having never really ripened into the huge ulcer that it potentially could have been. But the benedryl isn't working now either, so it is becoming pretty frustrating! This is what Luke has to look forward too. At least he will be able to soothe his canker sores with ice cream, as he certainly won't be nursing anyone!

*Update* Well, Luke woke up this morning (Saturday) with a fever of 102, so obviously he is fighting off some kind of bug as well. Maybe we're NOT all just incredibly malnourished!

My Dreams

No, not my goals and ambitions. The vivid ones I have just about every night. Ree, over at Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, had a post the other day about her common dreams. Some people don't dream much, or at least don't remember their dreams. That is not me. I dream often, and in bright color. I usually remember at least some part of my dreams when I wake up. I also talk in my sleep. Amy has some pretty funny stories about when we roomed together in college. I slept on the top bunk, and one night she woke up feeling like someone was watching her. It was me, hanging over the edge of my bed with my hair dangling down. SHe asked me what was wrong, and I said, "My bear is fuzzier than yours." To prove my point, I hauled my stuffed polar bear over the edge to show her. She readily agreed with my crazy self, and, satisfied, I went back to bed.

I would also sleepwalk in college. Several times I would wake up to find myself standing by my desk, in the process of putting my robe on to go take a shower . . . at 4:00 in the morning, or whenever. Once Amy woke up too, and she asked me where I was going. Since I was now awake and realized that in fact, it was not time to wake up, I loftily said, "DON'T WORRY. I know what I'm doing." Then I went off to go potty, coming back to take my robe back off and put my pajamas back on. Yep, I had a plan and I KNEW what I was doing. LOL!

But back to dreams. One dream from college that I remember very vividly, and so does Amy, is one I had after a botany field trip where we walked around the campus identifying all the tree species. There was a big weeping willow in front of one of the buildings, and in my dream, I was trapped underneath it, and I couldn't get out, although I was wildly scratching at the branches and struggling with it. What I found out later was that I was actually scratching at the walls of our room, muttering things like, "Help! I can't get out!" Amy thought someone was up there raping me!

The most common dream that I dream is one where I have to fill in for someone on a cheerleading squad at a competition. They grab me out of the stands and try to teach me the routine in about a minute, and then we go on stage. Of course, I can remember nothing, and it seems like my arms and legs are in quicksand. I wake up very embarrassed and very relieved that I am no longer a cheerleader. I don't recall ever having this dream when I actually WAS a cheerleader, however!

I also frequently dream that it is exam day, and although I have known about the exam, I never attended any classes, and I never even opened the book. I wonder how I could have been so stupid and what was I doing all that time? I try to think of a good and valid excuse, but my brain is in a fog. You would think that having been out of college now for 11 years, that those dreams would die away, but no. My dad says that he still has dreams where he is at the Academy, out on the terazzo, in the wrong uniform or whatever, and he graduated in 1965, so I guess I am doomed to continue dreaming these college dreams!

I also have a lot of dreams where my depth perception is really off, but I have to go up or down stairs or be in some other high place. One time I remeber that I had to sit down on the stairs and scoot the whole way down. Of course, in my dream there never really was a bottom to the stairs, so I kept on scooting and being very scared. No wonder I wake up tired sometimes!

Two nights ago, I had a new dream, and it affected my mood the entire day! I dreamed I was back at college (I think I spend more time there in my dreams than when I actually attended, LOL!), and I had to find a campus job. Like it was some kind of requirement or something. So everyone lined up in the big gym-like building to see what the different jobs descriptions were. I read them all and realized that I wasn't qualified for ANY of them, not even the housekeeping ones. I kept trying to think what else I could put on my resume, but I just drew a blank. Some of the jobs seemed interesting, like being in charge of these different groups of girls, but it was obvious that a million people were more qualified than me, and there was no job for me. I woke up feeling so discouraged! Obviously there is some connection to my deep-seated feelings of inadequacy about being a stay-at-home-mom, LOL! Or maybe about the sad state of my housekeeping here, to think that I wasn't even qualified for those jobs! Well, we all cleaned bathrooms today, so maybe that dream will never return! Anyone else have any interesting or recurring dreams?

Haircuts R Us

So last night, I kept noticing the front of Luke's hair just looked . . . different. Like the light played on it differently or something. I thought maybe he was trying to part his hair in the middle. Finally I actually took the time to peer closely at the area on question, and it was short. Really short. Evidently, he took a pair of scissors and cut short hair even shorter, in a line. One full snip of the scissors. I guess tonight I will break out the clippers and shorten ALL the hair on the top of his head. Apparently he didn't think it was short enough already! Luke--my cautious and steady, non-impulsive second born child. What is the world coming to?!

4 Month Post-Partum Update

I am pleased to announce that this morning the scale read my pre-pregnancy weight. Yay! Of course, my clothes do not actually FIT as if I were at my prepregnancy weight! Sigh. I still have that attractive doughy mass of stretched out tummy skin. Shall I put a tummy tuck on the ol' Amazon wishlist for Christmas? LOL! I remember telling Bob after I had Caleb that I would have to do situps for at least 9 months to even start getting rid of it at all. I faithfully did sit-ups and exercised, and by August (he was born in November), I was feeling really great about myself, and I thought I HAD finally lost some of those pesky inches. But then my clothes started feeling tight, no matter how many situps I did, or how far I walked or ran. I distinctly remember one whiny conversation I had with Amy where I was so discouraged about this weight gain, and how I was really going to have to cut back on my portion sizes, etc. And then I got smart and took a pregnancy test, so those inches were actually Jonathan. Hmm--was the weight loss at all related to the pregnancy? LOL!!

After I had Jonathan, I never really got back into a consistent exercise program, however. We moved when he was one, and I quit nursing when he was 14 months. Then I all of a sudden put on 10 pounds over the course of 3 or 4 months! Ack! My non-pregnancy, non-nursing metabolism had somehow slowed while we were in Ohio, but since I was NEVER not pregnant or nursing those 3 years, I completely missed that! I was able to stop the weight gain at those 20 pounds, but I never lost them. Then I was sick for several months (well, I had pneumonia for a few weeks, but I think I broke a rib because it hart so badly so long after), and then we were traveling for a month, and then last July, what do you know, I turned up pregnant again. So those 10 pounds are finally in my sights again as well. Of course, who wants to bet that I will work really hard, lose the weight AND some inches, and then end up pregnant once again?! And all my efforts will be for naught! LOL! Break out the chocolate! Oh wait--I'm not eating dairy. I guess that's a good enough reason to keep on losing weight!

Anna is 4 months old!

Well, she was actually 4 months old Friday, and this picture was taken Sunday, while she was wearing a cute dress from her Aunt Amy, but you get the idea. I can't keep her hands out of her mouth! Must be teethin'.

Today she had her 4 month well-baby appointment, and for those interested, she is 15 pounds (even), and 26 inches long. This puts her in the 75th percentile for height and the 50th percentile for weight. Those are big numbers for a child of ours. I do hope she doesn't turn out to inheirit the "big" genes of the family, while all the boys are skinny and short!

Ths doctor pronounced her healthy. He also gave me a nice lecture on starting solid foods. The whole spiel--"start with rice cereal, then 2 weeks later, add vegetables--orange ones first . . . then 2 more weeks, and start fruit . . .blah, blah, blah" I mean, it was pretty detailed! I kept nodding my head, saying, "Yes, that's what I've always done", etc., but there was no stopping him! When he finally wrapped it all up and left, Nathan said, "Why did he tell you all that about solid food? Didn't he see that you have 4 other kids here, so you must know what to do?" LOL!

Introducing Nathan, Camper Extraordinaire

We picked up Nathan yesterday morning. Here are some of his thoughts on his Camp Caleb experience.

It was the most fun I have ever had in my life. It was like White Sulphur Springs, but better. We did a lot more stuff. Erich and Zach were the counselors for the boys. There were 2 girl couselors too, Anna and someone else. I liked them all. I didn't want to leave.

Monday: Every morning, we stayed in our beds and read our Bibles. Then after breakfast we had a little play that 2 leaders did about some spiritual thing. We went to the picnic pond, and we fished and then canoed and kayaked. Then we went to the playground, and then back to the cabins for "toes-up" time. This is like rest time, when we listened to "Adventures in Odyssey". We also listened to that before we went to sleep at nighttime. After "toes-up" time, we went to the big hill by the horse pasture, and we went down a huge big water slide. They put a big strip of plastic down, with a baby pool at the bottom of it. I slid down so fast that I slid way out of the pool and got burn marks on my tummy. It was fun! Then we went back and ate dinner. After dinner we had "walk and talk", where we walk somehwere and talk about a Bible story with our counselor. Then we would come back and have a campfire, where the leaders would ask a question about the story we talked about in "walk and talk" or maybe about the skit we had in the morning. This night, after I went to bed, I started not feeling good. I threw up in the port-a-potty. Then I felt better. My couselor, Erich, helped me.

Tuesday: We did the "Mohawk Walk". This is a course of logs and wires that we had to cross without falling off. It was very hard, but half of us made it, including me. We had to work together, and one staff person helped us. After that, we did the rock climbing wall. After "toes-up" time, we went to Promise Pond for a swim. After dinner, we did our "walk and talk", and after that was done, we did a treasure hunt. We got our first clue, which said, "An old man with a giant bear once told me that he promised you that if you got wet, you would find treasure." We went to Promise Pond, and we found our next clue. It said, "The same old man with a giant bear grows corn, and he said that you would find a paper bag in the cornfield next to Camp Caleb Kingdom." So we went there and found a WalMart bag with the next clue. It said, "An Indian shot the old man with the bear. He invites you to his tee-pee." So we went to the tee-pee behind the pavilion in Camp Caleb Kingdom, and there were rocks in it. We found the next clue under a rock. The clue said, "The Indian sends you off with best wishes. He asks you to find his brother's walk, a place of ropes and wires and walls. There you will quench your thirst." So we went to the Mohawk Walk, and first we had popsicles, but then we found the next clue. This one was spelled backwards. It told us to go to the rock climbing wall. There we heard the voice of one of the "gofers" (a staff person who wasn't with us all the time). He told us to look for the blue boulder, where the next clue was. We had to climb up to get it. The clue said, "Go to the place where you fished, there is a playground, and you canoed." So we went to the other pond. (But before we did htis one of the campers had to go back to the cabin because he was having a bad attitude and not obeying. He missed out on the rest of it.) There we found our cooks, dressed up as aliens! They used their senses to find the "X" (since they were the ones that buried it!), and we dug up the treasure box. It was a green plastic tub, and it had dessert in it! It was a big flat pan cookie, covered with chocolate sprinkled with coconut. Then they put M&Ms, chocolate chips, golbs of peanut butter, and peanuts on top. We also had fruit punch and grape juice. It was really good!

Wednesday: We called this "quad day", because we did 4 things. The first thing was crafts. I painted a small treasure chest and burnt designs on it. Then we went horseback riding. I liked my horse, except when he galloped away and gave me a big scratch on my side when he ran right through the pine tree! After horseback riding, we had "toes-up" time, and then we did archery and riflery. I got to shoot a rifle 4 times and reload it 3 times. I hit the target once! We had to be really careful and follow all the rules.

Thursday: We did stuff by the "Mohawk Walk", like a "Tarzan Swing". We had to swing from one platform to another platform, and the leaders couldn't help us. Everyone was able to do it, even the 2 people who got blindfolded because they fell off the platform before they even could swing (not me though!). Before we started, the rope was up really high, so we had to throw our shoes at it to try to get it down. This knocked it down, but then it was hanging between the 2 platforms, so we took off our shirts and made a rope of them to hit the big rope over to us. Next we had to get to 3 different platforms, from one middle-sized platform, to a really small one, to a bigger one, using 2 boards that we had to put between the platforms. No one made it the whole way without losing the boards because the boards kept falling when we tried to put them down. The girls did a lot better than us. They all made it to the middle platform. After that, we did a teeter-totter thing, where we had to get it totally balanced, and then we all had to get off without it touching the ground. We did it after a lot of tries and some clues from our leaders! Then we had a picnic lunch with all the people at WSS this week at the pond. After "toes-up" time, we packed up our stuff and put our backpacks and suitcases into a truck. Then we hiked with our sleeping bag to Camp Caleb Kingdom, where we slept in the pavilion. There was a rainstorm that night, but we just got a little bit wet. It was mulchy ground with rocks in it, though, so it wasn't very comfortable. Before we went to bed, we looked for crawfish in this little stream that runs through. We found maybe 16 of them, and then we roasted them. We didn't eat them though! This was one of the funnest things we did! The girls didn't do it though.

Friday: When we woke up, we had pop-tarts for breakfast. Then we had a hay ride to the to of the zip-line. They harnessed us in, and we all did the zipline once. I didn't let go, but it was scary, and I might have let go if I wasn't harnessed in! It was so much fun, though. Then Mom came and got me. I was the last person to be picked up.

Tomorrow's the Day!

Tomorrow morning we drive up to White Sulphur Springs to pick up Nathan! We are all pretty excited. Last night a friend of ours, Sheila D., who lives down south a bit, called to say one of her daughters is also there this week, and she offered to pick Nathan up too. I was really tempted, but in the end I decided that we would go ahead and get him. For one thing, he doesn't know these friends all that well, but for another, I am anxious to hear all about his week, and I am afraid he'll tell it all to Sheila, and then that would be that--he'd be out of words!

We've had a good week, but I can really tell someone is missing. It's been so odd to just have the 3 boys running around, and the dynamic is a little different too. There was a lot of bickering the first day between Luke and Caleb, although some of that was probably just tiredness, since it was a big weekend. But since then they've settled down fairly well, and the last 2 days especially have played so well together. We've also done some fun things, like paint and play with play-doh, that we just don't always get around to doing. Last night we went to Chuck E. Cheese. We didn't eat there, but we had a coupon for half-price tokens, so we just went to play. The boys had a great time, but what made it all the better was that our good friends, the McCs, with their 4 boys were also there just to play! They were celebrating their Daniel finishing his kindergarten workbook.

Since we're not doing school this week, I've gotten some stuff done too. I got together all the stuff to send in with our notice of intent to homeschool, and Bob sent that off. I filed all these school papers that were lying around, and I also organized their notebooks for this coming year. I'm just calling it a new year when we start back next week! While I was in Ohio, Bob put up some new shelves in our laundry room (which I use as an auxiliary pantry), so I reorganized the whole pantry to maximize the new shelves. Right now I'm working on my lesson plans for my co-op unit, which is Ancient Greece. To be honest, I kind of felt like it was a vacation for me too. I even exercised every morning AFTER sleeping in! Next week it will be back to the old routine.

One More Parenting Article . . .

. . . although this one would definitely fall under the category of "what not to do". I would entitle it "The World's Most Selfish Woman Discusses Motherhood" . Is it a joke? At first I thought it must be, since the picture of the author and her two boys shows kids who are clearly about 3 and 5, while the article talks about them being 10 and 12. But maybe that's the last time she bothered to sit down and have a picture taken with them. I guess that would be boring to her. Go ahead--read it. I'll wait . . .


Am I a lazy, superficial person because I don't enjoy packing up their sports kit, or making their lunch, or sitting through coffee mornings with other mothers discussing how Mr Science (I can't remember most of the teachers' names) said such and such to Little Johnny and should we all complain to the headmaster.

Well, in a nutshell, yes. She really is. But not because she doesn't want to play with her children all the time or center her entire life around them. I have often said that we consider our children to be welcome additions to our family, but not the center. Although I do play with them, I also teach them how to entertain themselves, and I expect them to do so, so that I can get done all the other things that I have to do, like cook, clean, blog, etc. LOL! I would certainly say that we include our children in our life and our activities, which makes the activities even richer for us, as we experience them also through our childrens' eyes. I simply can't imagine not being there to experience their joys and sorrows, and I would never willingly pass those moments off to a stranger becuase I thought they were boring, since they happened at a soccer game or whatever.

This woman seems to feel that nothing having to do with the raising of children is rewarding. ("And yet many women have spent years studying and then working so that we would not have to do a job as menial as full-time motherhood.") She thinks her kids are boring!! Wow. My children are many things, including exasperating at times, but they are not boring. It is never boring to see them grow and learn. We were playing with Anna a few nights ago. Bob was holding her and every so often he would tap one of her hips. You could practically see the signal traveling along the nerves up to her brain--"Hmm . . . something touched me . . . I should look and see what it is" and her head would slowly turn in that direction. We were cracking up, which made her laugh. No, that is not rocket science, but it sure is fun! This woman seems to feel that only she is interesting. Maybe her colleagues are secretly wishing they didn't have to go out to lunch with her and listen to her talk about her shoe purchases and her hair highlights!

You know, there is absolutely nothing that says a couple has to produce children. There are women who have decided that they enjoy their career too much and so have chosen not to have children, and again, there's nothing wrong with that. But to have not just one child, but two, and then to conclude, IN A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE for heaven's sake, that they are too boring to be bothered with, is so incredibly pathetic as to be beyond words. Maybe her children would have been more interesting if she herself has been more interesting. There's a thought I bet she never had!

This article, if it is in fact not a joke, made me so sad. If her children grow up and have normal family lives with children, I can imagine them telling their own children, "Yes, you do have a grandma. She's in a nursing home because it was boring take care of her. Now we don't ever visit her because it is much too boring to listen to her go on and on about herself and her problems. Without us there, we are simply forcing her to think of more creative ways to entertain herself." What a selfish, shallow woman, and I'm sure she will reap what she has sown.

So, where is Nathan again?

I forgot to come back and blog about Nathan's camp! He is at Camp Caleb, which is at White Sulphur Springs, the Officers' Christian Fellowship conference center for the East. My family has gone up to WSS during the summer when I was young. It is a hotel with weeks with different speakers, childcare and classes for all ages, and lots of other fun family-oriented activities to round out the week like skit night, a square dance, picnic at the pond, etc. When I was in high school, I worked at WSS on their junior support staff each summer, and those were some of the best times of my life! It was so much fun, but more importantly, I really grew a lot spiritually during those summers. There I started having a daily quiet time and was challenged to read the Bible through for the first time. The high school teachers were always fun young couples who really challenged us spiritually, and were great mentors. I made a lot of really good friends, some of which I still keep in contact with today. Bob also spent some time at WSS working before we started dating. We have not been there during the summer as a family, but we have gone several times for the weekend, especially when the Wright-Pat OCF group has their annual retreat. So Nathan is familiar with the place and loves it too. I really want him to love it as much as I do, so that he will want to go there during his summers, and hopefully grow as much as I did!

Several years ago (at least 10?) they started a new kids' program during the summer. They called it Camp Caleb, and they break it down into 2 different age groups--3rd and 4th grade are Caleb Jr., and 5th-8th are Camp Caleb. The groups go during different weeks of the summer, and they offer each one 3 times. The idea is that the parents and rest of the family can stay at WSS for their vacation, listening to the speakers and doing all the stuff, and their Camp Caleb-aged child would go off to Camp Caleb and do his own thing. But parents don't have to stay, and obviously we didn't! I would love to go some year as a family, but I don't think it would be the most relaxing with a nursing baby. And I've had one of those (or been moving) over quite a few of the past summers!

So Nathan is supposed to be doing typical camp-y type stuff: archery, canoing, rock climbing, horseback riding, swimming, a day at a lake nearby, a hike and an overnight camp outside under the stars, games, etc. From what I heard from Jessica L., who went last week, cleanliness was not a big priority! So it might be a long ride home for all of us clean people Friday! I can't wait to see him and hear all about his adventures. Everyone else is missing him too. Luke said on Sunday, as soon as we got home, "It's going to be a LONG week without Nathan here." Jonathan is very excited to tell him about what a big boy he is now! He is doing so well without his binky at night--no crying at all! Yay! Thank you, Lord! I'll try to get Nathan to guest-blog here when he gets back to fill you in on the highlights.

"What I Wish I Knew . . ."

Yesterday I was directed by someone on the Well Trained Mind board to a parenting article entitled Solving the Crisis in Homeschooling. I thought the title was a bit melodramatic, since I don't personally know any families who have had real crises with their adult homeschooled children, but whenever someone who has grown children looks back and talks about mistakes they have made, I listen! The author, a man named Reb Bradley, is a pastor and has written several parenting books. He has several kids, the oldest 3 of whom are married and out on their own. Apparently, those 3 had some instances of rebellion that really surprised him because he basically thought he had done everything exactly right. As it turned out, the Lord showed him some blind spots that he says are common to homeschooling families. Some of these are more likely to be committed by homeschooling parents, especially ones who are really into sheltering, but others could be problem areas for any family. The article is long, so I am going to summarize his 6 points here by pasting some of his comments under each point. I printed out the whole article (17 pages!) so Bob could read it, and we could discuss it.

Contributing Factors to Rebellion in Young Adults

1. Self-centered dreams

One of the reasons parents homeschool is because they want to accomplish something good in their children. Success in homeschooling requires that academic, moral, and spiritual goals be set. It is only natural for parents to have high hopes and dreams for their children. However, when we begin to see our children as a reflection or validation of us, we become the center of our dreams, and the children become our source of significance. When that happens in our home it affects the way we relate with our children, and subtly breaks down relationship.

2. Family as an idol

We know we have made our family an idol when we put our hope and trust in it more than in God – we look to it rather than God for our identity and significance. And we know we look to our family for our significance when it has the most power to lift us up or to demoralize us. It is most obvious in a public setting when we either glory in our children or become enraged when they embarrass us. Our children are either the source of our pride or our disappointment, depending on whether or not they help us achieve our image of a strong family. A great problem with idolatry is that idols require sacrifice, and we end up sacrificing relationship with our children for the idol of the family. When we elevate the image of the family, we effectively trade our children’s hearts for our reputation.

3. Emphasis on outward form

Preoccupation with results often leads to emphasis on outward form. When we are preoccupied with achieving results it is natural to admire the results others seem to have achieved with their children. We like the way the pastor’s kids sit reverently in the front pew and take notes of their father’s sermon, so we go home and begin to teach our children to sit reverently and to take notes. What we don’t know is that the pastor’s kids conduct themselves with reverence and attentiveness not because he “cleaned the outside of the cup” and simply drilled them to do so -- he lived a genuine love for Jesus that was contagious, and watched as the fruit was born (Matt 23:26). Parents are destined for disappointment when they admire fruit in others and seek to emulate merely that expression of fruit in their own children. Fruit is born from the inside -- not applied to the outside.

4. Tendency to judge

One of the side effects of focusing on keeping the outside of the cup clean is that it becomes easy to judge others by our personal standards. You see, in setting standards for our family, each of us must work through a process of evaluation and analysis to decide what is safe, wise, or permissible. Once we become convinced of our personal standards, not uncommonly, it follows that we believe they should apply to others as well.
One of the things that characterized the Pharisees was that they created their own standards of holiness related to outward appearance, and then belittled others who didn’t hold to their standards. Jesus spent a lot of time exposing the Pharisees for their shallowness and their self-righteousness judgments, yet, many of us homeschoolers have inadvertently followed the Pharisees’ path -- we have overly elevated outward form and we have condescended to those who appear less enlightened . . . Pride is so deceptive that we won’t know our judgments are even judgments. We will think we are just making observations and feeling pity, when in fact, we are looking down on others from our lofty place of confident enlightenment. It is a high view of ourselves that allows us to condescend to and belittle others in our mind. And if you already knew all this, be careful – pride will even cause us to be amazed that others didn’t see what was so obvious to us.

5. Over-dependence on authority and control

When we are preoccupied with outward form our focus tends to become shallow and behavior oriented. We look upon our children as if they are roses that can be trained to grow a certain direction by constant pruning and binding. Subsequently, we rely heavily upon our authority in an attempt to bring our children under our total control. We assume if we give them the Word of God, shelter them from harmful influences, discipline them consistently, and maintain high standards for their outside, that their inside will inevitably be shaped. . . No amount of parental control or restriction will guarantee that a child will turn out exactly as directed. Obviously, our training increases the likelihood our children will cling to the faith when they reach maturity, or turn back to Christ if they do enter a season of rebellion, but our training does not guarantee the desired outcome. . . . I wish Bev and I had understood this when our oldest three were young. We saw them as wet clay that would succumb to our persistent shaping, so we not only taught them, but dominated and controlled them well into their teens. We were chiefly authoritarian in our approach, and rarely saw our children respond to us with disrespect. We weren’t ogres – our home was full of affection – but we relied upon fear of our authority as the main source of motivation for our children. What we didn’t realize was that there is a great difference between intimidating children into subjection and winning their hearts into submission. Intimidating children into subjection merely gains outward compliance. Winning their hearts means gaining greater opportunity to influence their values.

6. Over-reliance on sheltering

[Let me just insert here that this man was, to my way of thinking, an extreme shelterer--very few "approved" videos, no playing with neighbors, no secular publications and very few Christian ones that didn't completely agree with everything this family promoted, no youth group, no harvest parties, etc. He goes more into all that he controlled in the article, and tellingly, he spends most of his time--almost half the article--on this point, so it was obviously a real biggie for him!]

Sheltering our families from bad influences is critical for their safety, but it is possible to become imbalanced and rely too heavily upon sheltering. We do this in a couple of ways.

1. We are imbalanced when sheltering from harm is the predominant expression of our parenting. Are we more concerned with protecting our kids from that which is bad or with putting into them that which is good? I want to ask that again: Are we more concerned with protecting our kids from that which is bad or with putting into them that which is good? Consider that rearing children is like creating a family menu. If we keep them away from all junk food and feed them only prunes, their bodies will respond negatively. Protection from too much junk food is obviously a good idea, but their bodies need balanced nutrition. Physical health is achieved by both avoiding what is harmful and taking in a balance of what is good. To raise spiritually and morally healthy children we need to do the same. We must certainly protect them from harmful influences, but more than that, we must give them that which strengthens them spiritually and morally.
In my case I protected my oldest children from harm more than I invested into them health. I certainly taught my children a great deal about God and Kingdom living – we saturated them with the Word and Kingdom stories. Their lives were full of outreach and ministry, but comparatively, I was most intense about sheltering. I was continually analyzing the effects of every aspect of life, and my children never knew what thing Dad would declare off-limits next. Those parents who aren’t analyzers like me just wait for their favorite teacher to expose for them the next unseen danger to their family. In imbalanced homes parents are most passionate about protecting children from harmful influences, and the children see that passion, then come to view Christianity as mostly about “avoiding bad stuff.” When protection from the world becomes the defining characteristic of Christianity, we shouldn’t be surprised if our kids grow up and forsake the lifeless “religion of avoidance” they learned from us.

2. Sheltering is a critical part of parenting, but if parents keep it their primary focus, the children will grow up ill equipped to handle the temptations in the world.

If we isolate our kids from the world until they are adults they may appear to us to be spiritually minded and strong in character. However, it is how they ultimately engage the world that proves their spiritual resilience. This is because sheltering does not transform the human heart – it merely preserves it, temporarily. Sheltering is nothing more than keeping something flammable away from a fire.


I think for me personally, the biggest problem area for me would be treating the family as an idol. It is so easy to feel validated and measure my success as a parent by the nice comments I get while out with the kids, and it likewise is easy to be very angry when they don't hold to my standards--not because I am so worried about their heart attitudes, but because it is embarrassing to me! So I guess this sin flows right into #4, an emphasis on outward form instead of inward fruit. It is easier to just focus on outward expressions of obedience, but that is not what helps a child really internalize your values.

My high school boyfriend, Craig, was from a family with a real authoritarian father, one who emphasised the outward form of obedience but not the heart attitude. His dad was nice, and there was certainly love in the family, but the dad was so arbitrarily authoritative. He made big decisions as to what the kids could do on the spur of the moment, with no exceptions and no appeals, no trying to make things work or whatever. It was very frustrating to the kids (3 boys and one girl). Also, they were the kind of family that were at church every time the doors were open, but there was not so much an emphasis on the actual relationship with Christ--just the outward appearance of good. All of the children rebelled at some point, Craig starting our senior year of high school (after we broke up--I kept him on the straight and narrow, LOL!!). Interestingly, the end of our sophomore year or beginning of our junior year, Craig was not nominated to the National Honor Society, which was a big surprise, since his grades were just fine. But our math teacher, Mrs. Bragg, told him that she could see a spirit of rebellion in him and that she didn't consider him to be a good leader, so she didn't let him in. (In a nutshell that's what she said, LOL! Not those exact words!) We were so shocked, and I didn't believe her, but as he starting showing outward signs of rebellion a year later, I was pretty amazed by her insight because she was exactly right. And now, seeing how the rebellion of the rest of his family, I would have to say that his father shares in the blame for it, although of course, each child is responsible for their own decisions ultimately.

So anyhow, an interesting article, one that I encourage you to read in its entirety. It's always good to hear from those who have gone before and can tell us pitfalls to avoid!

More excitement . . .

. . . this time involving a toilet, so you know it was not the GOOD kind of excitement! We have a water damage spot on our ceiling over our island from a small leak that was in the toilet in Nathan and Luke's bathroom. Bob fixed it awhile back, and the spot has never changed. Until this morning, that is. When Bob went downstairs to leave for work, he noticed that the paint was sort of bubbling on the spot, so he headed up to look at the bathroom. The floor around the toilet was wet, so he hollered at me to put a towel down, and he would look at it after work (he had training today). I put the towel down and didn't think much more about it until lunchtime, when all of a sudden there was a cascading stream of water from out of the recessed light above the island. YUK! I grabbed a dirty cereal bowl from the counter, then a can from under the sink to catch the water, which was splattering all over the kitchen. I ran out and hunted up a bucket in the garage, and then I ran back upstairs to see what had happened. The towel was sopping wet, but no one had flushed or anything. I couldn't even call Bob to get his advice, since he was gone in training all day! Fortunately he called not long after that to see how my day was going--"not so good anymore"--and he told me to turn off the toilet (why didn't I think of that right away?!) and flush to get the water out of the tank. I did, and the deluge petered down to a dribble, then a drip, and then finally away to nothing at all. The leak is at the place where the metal tube thing (I don't want to get all technical on you, LOL) comes into the tank. Hopefully he can just replace that, but the ceiling will have to be addressed as well. So! How exciting! Another plumbing project! Maybe the Lord is pushing Bob to consider becoming a plumber after retirement, LOL! In the meantime, the toilet is just off. That is one of the benefits of having 3 bathrooms upstairs--there is no lack of toilets, even with one down!

Relative-ly Speaking

Today was an interesting day. But before we talk about today, we have to back up and talk about yesterday! Yesterday we got up early and drove to Pennsylvania, for the annual reunion of Bob's family. We started going to these about 3 years ago, and we have had a lot of fun getting to know these distantly-related cousins, once, twice, or how-ever many times removed. Bob's dad is one of 6 siblings, the only one still alive, and all of his siblings had prolific families, so there are a lot of people at these things. Each year there are people there that we have never met, and I can never keep their relationship to Bob straight. I need someone to make a huge family tree with everyone on it, but that seems unlikely to happen, unfortunately. This year it was at Bob's "Aunt" Peggy's house (really a cousin, but a lot older). She has a lovely in-ground pool,a nd the fact that it was raining off and on during the day did not keep the kids from enjoying the swimming! The water was heated to about 95 degress, so it was definitely warmer in there than outside, which was a cool mid-70's!.

It was the first time for most of Bob's immediate family to see Anna, not to mention all these other distant relatives, and she was her usual happy self, charming everyone with her big smiles. I hardly had to hold her except for nursing! I brought the bouncer seat, but, silly me, I needed it not a bit.

Today we went to Bob's parents' house for a few minutes before heading over to a big state park for the 16th birthday party of Bob's niece Sara. The party started at 1:00, and we knew things could get tricky because we needed to leave around 2:00. Nathan was going to Camp Caleb at White Sulphur Springs (more on that later), and we had to drop him off by 4:00 (the letter we got gave stern instructions about there being no late arrivals, and this IS a camp for Christian military kids, so . . .). Fun was had at the playground, on a hiking trail down to a lake, and on a big slide, and then we grabbed a quick bite to eat. So far so good. Two o'clock came quickly, and I started to get everyone ready to go. Bob's brother Dennis, who we don't get to see that often, was there, and right around 2:00, his sister Jane came in also. Since his sisters Ann and Rose were already there, as was his brother Paul (Sara's father), this meant that this was one of the very few occasions that all the siblings were at the same place (I can think of only one other time in our 13 years of marriage). I pushed for some pictures to be taken, which did happen, although at a snail's pace! It was a historic time though! Then I started hustling everyone out to the car so we could leave. But unfortunately it wouldn't be a visit without some sort of hysteria to end things up with, and this time Jane decided that she had to give presents to Nathan and Jonathan for their birthdays. We had seen her all day yesterday as well, so there were other opportunities. By this time it was close to 2:30, and we knew we had to leave or we would not have a chance at making the time for Nathan. That's when things got really ugly so quickly I'm not even sure exactly how it happened. Jane started saying that we DID have time for these presents and dragging the boys off to her car, Bob told them to get into our car, she started cussing, well, let's just say it was a very awkward situation amde worse by the fact that we really did need to go, and even if we had had all day, we would not have been able to fit the presents in the van. Sigh. They were 3 really big boxes, but of course, we are toting around all Nathan's camp stuff, plus our suitcase, pack-n-play, bouncer seat, etc. We had no extra room! Augggh! I hate confrontation! As we drove off, leaving a mass of people milling around, I told Bob my ears were burning since I knew we were being roundly cursed. The thing was, we had told everyone several times about how we had to leave around 2:00. We didn't just spring that on them! Big sigh. We'll have to see how it all sorts out. And so another good visit ends with a bang. Exciting.

Just to wrap things up, we were only 5 minutes late to drop off Nathan, praise the Lord, and it wasn't a big deal. The whole dropping-off thing was kind of hectic and chaotic, since Anna was hollering to be fed, everyone needed to go potty, and Jonathan had just had an accident (the reason we were 5 minutes late, LOL). I never even really got to say goodbye! But I put pictures in his Bible of all of us, and I put little notes in his pocket (if he finds them, or even changes clothes, LOL), so that makes me feel better. He has been so incredibly excited about going, so off he went without even a backwards glance! I'll blog more tomorrow on exactly what he'll be doing, etc. But for now, I am pooped, and I still need to nurse Anna once more. We're pretty much all fried, so hopefully we'll all sleep well. Well, maybe not Jonathan. You see, I picked this week to give up his binky, since Caleb could sleep in Nathan's bed with Luke, and there would be no one else in Jonathan's room to be disturbed by him if he has a hard time of it! And he has hard a bit of a hard time going off to sleep. I'm hoping that he will just be SO tired however, that he will be able to do it with no problems. I'll report on our night tomorrow too!

Can you hear anything?!

Neither can I. Ahhh. Bob has taken the boys swimming, Anna is napping, and I am eating a salad for dinner in complete silence. The things you take for granted before you have kids, LOL. I love to eat a meal with just my own thoughts for company, but that very rarely happens around here . Not that I don't love my children and appreciate their curious little minds, but sometimes silence is just so nice. Ahhh.

Bob should get some kind of award. He's been taking the boys swimming all by himself quite a few times lately. I'm not sure what to do with Anna, so I haven't gone (well, that, and there's also my post-pregnancy tummy that is shunning swim suits, LOL). But back to Anna--it's 100 degrees here, so I can't really just leave her in her stroller while we swim (which is what we did back in June when the pool first opened). She'll melt! Or at the very least be uncomfortable and unhappy. They don't make swim diapers small enough for her (at least I haven't seen any), so I can't even just sit in the baby pool with her in my lap. And I would be terrified to just hold her in my arms in the big pool, which would in any case still have the diaper issue to resolve. Of course, swimming is not really my thing (but sitting at home in silence is, LOL!), so frankly I don't feel like I'm missing out, but Bob did remind me that we did pay for my pass, so I should be using it. Any creative solutions?

There we were!

This is obviously our wedding day. I was 20, and although Bob looks like he was the same age, he was actually all of 28. He still looks young! My bouquet was huge and just as heavy as it looks. But someone made it for me for just the price of the silk flowers, so I am grateful. My wedding tip for brides is, however: go with a light bouquet. Nothing magnifies shaking hands more than a huge, heavy bouquet.

I must say here that I scanned this picture in all by myself! It's not my favorite one of the 2 of us, but it was close at hand, so I grabbed it to experiment with. And it worked! Wow! I'm so proud!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today marks 13 years since Bob and I were married at Chapel 2, back at Wright-Patterson AFB. When I read about the average wedding today costing $28,000, I have to laugh--ours was certainly nowhere near that! We did things on a shoestring, but it all turned out well. Many, many people helped, such as Aunt Claire , who flew out a few weeks ahead of time. Other people were our friends Tim and Amy, who we are again stationed with here in Northern Virginia. A friend of ours at church was astonished to find out that Amy knew us before we had been married! I told her that the military Christian world was a small one! Tim was a saber-bearer, and Amy helped make food for the reception. Ed L. videotaped the whole thing, and his son Anthony was the ring-bearer. Now he's at the Air Force Academy. Where does the time go?!

When I look back at pictures from that day, I remember how much I felt that I was in a play--I was all dressed up, playing a role. It felt so unreal! And when I look at Bob, I think, "I hardly even knew the man! How could I make these vows?!!" And while it's true that now I know him much better, I did know back then the essential parts of his character--he is an honorable, faithful man of integrity who loves the Lord and me and is committed to both. So although we've had rough patches, our marriage has survived and grown. This past year was hard, as we are facing the transition of retiring from the Air Force, and we aren't completely sure what the Lord has for us. I can say right now, however, that I feel we are once again at least facing in the same direction, on the same page! We will see what next year holds, glad that we're holding each other through it!

Convention

Today I went to the Northern Virginia Home Educators Conference . It's not anywhere near as big as the HEAV one, but it's close! Things started out a bit stressfully, as I had planned to be there at 8:30 or so for the start of the used book sale, but yesterday afternoon Bob got involved in some real estate stuff with our next door neighbors (don't get too excited--nothing panned out, although it did waste a lot of time!), so he had to go into the office this morning. So 9:00 found me calling my friend Christine M., who has herself 4 boys, to see if she wouldn't mind watching my 4 while I shopped for a few hours. Even though she is also taking care of 2 other kids for 10 days (which I had forgotten about), she immediately said that it would be no problem. What a friend!! Nine boys, 9 and under, and one girl of about 11. That's a houseful!

I was so excited to find at the used book sale the core book for Classical Writing: Aesop for $10. It's such a little-known program outside of classical circles that I never dreamed I would see it at a small used book sale! So now all I need to order are the student book and instructor's guide. I also bought several books for Nathan to read. I found several good biographies, such as that of Hudson Taylor and Eric Liddell. I've been thinking that the boys would enjoy watching Chariots of Fire (in fact, I put it on our Amazon list not too long ago), so maybe we can do that after reading the book. I was pleased to find Saxon 6/5 pretty cheaply. I might skip Saxon 5/4 (which I do also have) and just start Nathan next year in 6/5. I paged through it, and I think he would be just fine with that. I found some other miscellaneous stuff, like a teacher's idea guide for ancient Greece. I already have one, but this one was different, so I picked it up too. Our group of teachers (for the Greece co-op unit) has a meeting on Monday, so maybe someone else will be able to borrow one if needed. We renewed our Home School Legal Defense Association membership at the convention too. This time, we bit the bullet and bought a lifetime membership--normally $1,000, but only $900 today! Each year costs about $100, so all we need to do is homeschool 9 more years to make that work in our favor. Since we keep producing more littles, I don't think that will be a problem!

I was very pleased to see more vendors there this year. One of the new ones was Memoria Press , from whom we buy our Latin materials. I bought Andrew Campbell's new book entitled The Latin-Centered Curriculum. I belong to a yahoo group that he co-moderates, and I have been looking forward to reading this book for awhile now. I've already started it, and it does an excellent job of arguing for why we are choosing to school in the manner that we are. I'm sure I'll blog more on that later.

Another vendor was Classical Academic Press, which publishes another very popular Latin Curriculum, Latin For Children. It is much talked about on the Well Trained Mind boards, and so I have often wondered if I was doing the right thing in sticking with Latin Christiana. However, after examining Latin For Children, I came away convinced that we are doing the right thing for our family with LC. Latin For Children has more "fun" things, like games, puzzles, Latin readers, etc., that I am sure would go over well here, but it also moves at a much quicker pace and seems to get harder a lot quicker. I think Luke would have a hard time keeping up, whereas he is doing just fine with the pace of LC. It's always nice to be reinforced on one's curriculum decisions!

I did have one rather stressful thing happen. I bought 2 more "Miller" books, which are character-building stories involving a Mennonite family. When I got home and emptied out my big rolling backpack, the books were nowhere to be found. I could hardly believe it, but it looked like I had paid by check, and then left without the books, or else I didn't immediately put them in my backpack, and then laid them down at my next stop. Oh no! I was already feeling very frazzled by the day, but I remembered that my friend Kim U. was there, so I called her cell phone and asked her to go back to the booth to see if I had left the books there after I paid. They weren't there, which didn't surprise me, so she even went around to a few more booths to see if the books were there. What a great friend! Thank you so much, Kim!! They weren't, and so I resolved to just forget about it. But my mind just wouldn't let it go, I think because I just couldn't understand how it would have happened! I'm not usually so careless! So my afternoon was pretty much wasted as I tried to remember exactly what had transpired after I paid, to see what might have distracted me or whatever. All for exactly $12.60. Anyhow, when Bob got home from the real estate office at 6:30 (he had gone back in almost as soon as we had gotten home, and he had taken the van), I decided to just check the stroller in the back of the van to see if maybe, just maybe, I had put them in the basket under the stroller, although I had absolutely no recollection of ever bending down there. Well, as soon as I lifted the stroller up to take it out, I saw the white plastic bag underneath it. And then I remembered that I thought the books wouldn't FIT into my backpack, so I just looped the bag over my wrist and held it that way until I got to my car. Evidently I put the stroller down on top of the bag and promptly forgot all about that. Good grief! What a nitwit! I guess it is reassuring to know that I haven't started acting crazy and out-of-character in public places yet--just at home, where my memory is like a sieve! LOL! I need more sleep. And I'm off to get some! Goodnight! : )

Such a sweet brother

Luke: It's so nice to have a baby in the house again."

Isn't that the sweetest thing to say?! He said it as he was carrying Anna from her room. He had picked her up out of her crib because she was fussing around as I was trying to get everyone ready for bed. Of course, he is all of 7, and he has 3 younger siblings, so you could argue that there really has been very little time that we HAVEN'T had a baby in the house since he was born! But it's so nice to know that he is happy about this fact! I told him that having such helpful big brothers made it very nice and easy to have another baby in the house. Nathan has begun wiping Jonathan's bottom if I am otherwise occupied when he goes. Wow. At 9, I certainly had no thought about taking care of anyone else's bottom! I'm telling you, they're going to make great dads. That's my hope and prayer, anyway.

Nathan's Birthday Party

Here is the birthday boy himself, a big nine year old boy! It amazes me that he is halfway done with his time at home with us. How did it go so fast?!

This is his cake--"dueling lightsabers". I thought it turned out pretty well, all things considering. I must give credit here to Amy for supplying me with a toy lightsaber for my model!

A Rainy Fourth of July

Here we are at the Fairborn 4th of July parade. It was a rainy day, but we were sporting our stylish umbrellas. Both Melinda and I had in our cars our umbrellas from college, which were pulled into action here. You can't tell, but the boys all had on their patriotic t-shirts and were very cute.

Anna wore a cute Winnie-the-Pooh dress from Amy's next door neighbor for her first 4th of July. It's the only item of clothing that fits right now that isn't pink or purple! She enjoyed chewing on it, as you can see in the first picture. The bouncer seat she is in is one that we got at a yard sale in Colorado before I had Nathan. It has been well used since then! We got a new bouncer seat at a shower, so I am leaving this one at Mom's house. But I have pictures of all the boys in there, so I figured Anna shouldn't be left out!

Aunt Amy and Anna

Here is my best friend Amy with Anna. I can not believe that this is the ONLY picture I took of them! Arrrgg! Anna's not even awake! I guess I was just having too much fun actually visiting the other times we were together to take pictures. : (

Family Picture

Here's a picture to get things started. Again, I can't seem to upload more than one at a time! Oh well. Curse this slow dial-up! This is right before we left to drive back home.

Homeschool Progress Report

Well, I still haven't gotten around to posting pictures, I just remembered. Maybe later this afternoon. But in the mean time, I thought I'd give a report of where we are right now with our homeschooling. We received the boys' test scores right after we got back home, and they both did really well, despite all my worries to the contrary. Yay! What a relief! We're still finishing up some things from last year, and for some things we're just kind of in the middle of them (like Luke is in the middle of a third grade math book), so we're just keeping on keeping on. I like to keep everyone on a routine, even in the summer, and we take a lot of breaks during the year, so it's not like I'm a slave master!

One subject that the boys really need to keep up on is Latin. I make up Latin review sheets for Latin Christiana ever Friday, so I printed off a bunch of old ones and took them to Ohio for the boys to do some of the mornings. We're only a little more than halfway through Latin Christiana, but we're moving slowly and reviewing lots because Luke especially is pretty young for it. A 2 year plan works fine for me.

I am planning on starting a new writing program this year called Classical Writing. It will incorporate a lot of grammar in it, but we're still going to do a regular grammar program--Shurley grammar for Luke (mainly because I already have it), and Easy Grammar 4/5 for Nathan. I guess I should actually get around to ordering Classical Writing then, LOL!

I went to a meeting of the homeschool support group Monday night. The theme was "Things to do during summer", which I wasn't that excited about. But it turned out to be a wonderufl meeting, very convicting, and exactly what I needed. My friend Christine led it, and she talked about how by April every year, everyone is just sort of tired and she's gotten pretty blase about discipline standards--not that the kids are "bad", but they could be doing better. So she's using the summers to reset the bar, so to speak. This summer they are working on the ever-popular and always-needed "first-time obedience with a happy heart", as well as speaking to one another in God-honoring ways, treating each other kindly, table manners, learning to take initiative and do things without being told or reminded--everything she mentioned were things that I had been seeing as lacking around here lately too. The funny thing was that she started out by talking about the story of Eli, who was punished by God for failing to restrain his sons, and so in effect, honoring his sons more than God. I had blogged about that very story a few months ago here. So yesterday we didn't do regular schoolwork, but I read the story of Eli in I Samuel 2 and 3, and we went through many Bible verses with the boys about speech and actions in particular, talking about how we should be treating each other. I'm having them memorize Eph. 4:32 for a start "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." Yesterday was a really good day--we'll see if we can keep to the newly raised standards without much fuss! It's always easy the first few days . . . I am motivated though--as Christine told us, and I told the boys, "I don't want to be an Eli!"

Well, it's lunchtime, but as I think over last year's progress and decide on next year's plan for other subjects, I'll update more. Spelling, in particular, is still an unresolved problem.

Trip Wrap-up

Well, we made it home safely Friday night. I've just been busy and haven't been able to get to the computer! Bob left the house pretty clean, but there is something about when the boys step into the house that just makes it disintegrate into chaos and confusion. So yesterday and today were spent trying to get it into some semblance of order. Tomorrow will be laundry. Hre's a wrap-up of the last few days of the trip:

Tuesday (Fourth of July): We went with Dan and Melinda to a little 4th of July parade in Fairborn. It was raining, but the boys liked that lots of parade participnats threw candy for them to collect. We had an international-flavored dinner that night with Chinese friends of Mom and Dad's, as well as friends from Jordan joining us. The best part of the day was that Bob was able to catch a hop from Andrews, so he flew in around 10:30 PM. The "excuse" the Air Force used was that some AFMC general needed to be at a meeting at the Pentagon Wednesday morning, but we knew God really just called him out there so the plane would be there to fly Bob back to Ohio! : )

Wednesday: We all, along with Dan and Melinda as well as Amy and her 2 boys, went to the Columbus Zoo. It was a free day for active duty military and their immediate family! Woohoo! The weather turned cooler, so we had a very pleasant day. Everyone was pretty pooped at the end though. We went straight to Youngs where we met Mom and Dad. No trip to Ohio is complete without a trip to Youngs Dairy! You may be asking what happened to my no dairy diet? Well, again I fudged quite a bit on vacation, and Anna started spitting up a lot more. In fact, the chocolate peanut butter ice cream I consumed at Youngs in particular seemed to disagree. Oh well.

Thursday: One last play date at Amy's. The boys have really been playing well together. After dinner we walked to the park that was by our old house. Again, the weather was just beautiful--Anna actually got a little chilly and I had to put a blanket over her. The city has added a lot of nice equipment to that playground! The boys are already asking when we can go back. LOL!

Friday: We didn't leave until 11:45, so we had a nice leisurely morning. Anna did well in the car again, praise the Lord. We were also very thankful that we were able to avoid what looked like it would have been a several hour stop on I-70 just west of the W. VA border. We came to a complete stop and could see 2 ambulances and a police car on the other side of the highway come over to our side and drive a little ways up, where presumably an accident had just happened. No one moved for awhile, but we were in the left lane, and not too far ahead of us was that emergency vehicle turnaround in the median. The cars in front of us started turning around there, and finally so did we. We backtracked to the previous exit and took Rt. 40 for less than a mile before getting back onto the now empty highway. Whew! We made it home about 10:00.

We listened to By the Shores of Silver Lake on the way home. It's another book by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and it's the book I remember least from when I was a child out of the whole series. I was glad we listened to it in the car--I think we might have gotten kind of bogged down just reading it aloud. The neat part about hearing it was there were many instances in the story where Pa was playing the fiddle and people were singing. The lyrics are in the book, but on tape they actually had someone playing the fiddle and singing the songs! Much better than just reading the lyrics out loud.

So all in all it was a great trip. We so enjoyed seeing my brother and his wife. Melinda has the cutest little "first baby" pooch! We're all excited about having another baby in the family (and I am particularily excited about not having to carry it, LOL!). I hope to post some pictures later this week, but for right now, I am off to bed. Goodnight!

A Funny Conversation

In line at Barnes and Noble with all the kids . . .

Caleb (pointing at my tummy): "Mommy, do you have another baby in there?"

Me (rather shortly) "No."

Luke: "Well, when is another baby going to get in there? ARE we going to get another baby?"

Me (somewhat embarressed, due to the avid attention other shoppers are paying our conversation): "Umm, I'm not sure . . . I don't really know."

Caleb (happily): "Well, when we get our next baby, I hope it's another girl! Then we can name her 'Anakin'!"

Other shoppers in line: *snicker, snicker, snicker*

Too Much Fun!

We've been having too much fun here at Grandma and Grandpa's house to blog! Here's a quick update:

Wednesday: We had a little birthday party for Nathan with some of his friends here. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. There were 8 boys altogether, and everyone had a great time playing together. For Nathan's cake I made "dueling lightsabers" at his request. It turned out pretty well, but I'll have to wait until I get home to post the picture.

Thursday: We spent the whole day over at Amy's house. The boys got to play in the sprinkler, as well as play with all of Zachary's Playmobil stuff. Much fun was had by all, and it was wonderful to be able to visit with Amy. Afer dinner we took a walk around the neighborhood and toured the houses that are under construction. I love looking at floor plans and going through houses. I should have been an architect!

Friday: We went to the teacher supply store to get some ideas for my co-op unit next year. I'm teaching ancient Greece, which should be a lot of fun. After lunch I got a haircut (nothing dramatic--don't be alarmed. I'm growing it out again!), and then at 6:00, Amy and I met at her mom's house to have a moms' night out. We ordered pizza and snacked on unhealthy things like almond M&Ms and those little bite-size Peppermint Patties (I prefer the bigger ones myself, but they were okay). I did the 4 new scrapbook pages for Jonathan's little scrapbook. For each boy around their birthday I do some pages of leftover pictures that summarize the previous year. Jonathan was particularily interested in having his done since he has so few pages in his book!

Amy and I also watched the new "Pride and Prejudice" movie that just came out not too long ago. Of course, the 6 hour BBC version is the definitive one, but this was pretty good, especially if you already know the story and only have about 2 hours! I must say though that the guy who played Mr. Darcy reminded me several times of Bill Murray in "What About Bob". Colin Firth has much more screen presence! Jane is much prettier in the new one. Best friend, chocolate, a nice, romantic movie, no kids--what a great evening!

Tomorrow: My brother Dan and his wife Melinda should be getting here from Texas. We can't wait to see them!

We're Here!

We made it safely to Ohio Friday night with no problems. Caravanning with the L's made it a lot of fun. Although I drove the whole way, Elizabeth rode with me several times, and Nathan, Luke, and Caleb were thrilled to be able to ride in the L's van and watch some videos. When they were in my van, we listened to Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. I was a little afraid that maybe they wouldn't like the book so much, since the main character is a girl, but it is such a good story that they were quite enthralled. The main character, Elizabeth Ann, lives with 3 aunts who completely dote on her with a smothering sort of love, coddling her and doing everything for her. As a result, she is incredibly timid and afraid, and she can do nothing. When her oldest aunt gets sick, Elizabeth Ann has to go to Vermont to live with "the horrid Putney cousins", who live on a farm. There is a great-aunt and uncle, and their daughter, and they expect Elizabeth Ann to fit into the family and pull her share of the load. It is neat to listen as she gradually becomes competent and self-sufficient. The boys really picked up on the bad parenting in the beginning, even though it was done out of love. It was interesting to hear their comments ("Aunt Frances is MAKING her scared!" and so on).

Also, when Elizabeth Ann starts going to school in Vermont, it is in a one-room school house. The book talks about how she always hated reading lessons in school (NOT reading itself, because she was an excellent reader)because people read one sentence at a time, with the teacher stopping and correcting all the time, so no sentences made sense, and sometimes it wouldn't even get to you . . . sound familiar? But this teacher just let the kids read on, whole pages at a time, and when she realized Betsy was not challenged by the third grade readers, she put her in with the seventh grade readers. Betsy was so alarmed at this because she knew she wasn't in the seventh grade as far as writing and arithmetic. The teacher said she hadn't mentioned anything about those subjects, but it was silly for Betsy to be bored stiff with thrid grade readers when she could do higher level work. And then Betsy didn't understand math concepts at all, so she was in second grade math, but she was in thrid grade spelling. She told the teacher how confused she was--"What grade AM I?" And the teacher said, "You're not any grade at all! You're just you!" It reminded me so much of homeschooling, and the flexibility that we have to just let each child be who they are, learning at their own pace. Anyhow, a good book. By the Shores of Silver Lake, another Laura Ingalls Wilder book, is slated for the trip home. I guess this is just a trip for female main characters!

Yesterday was Nathan's 9th birthday. We had his special dinner and opened presents (lots of books, so he was quite happy). We had ice cream after dinner, but we're going to have cake on Wednesday with some of our old friends. Nathan has requested for his cake "red and blue light sabers crossing". Hmmm. We'll see what we can do.

Today we went with Grandma and Grandpa to the base chapel for church. I told the boys that this was where Daddy and I got married, and when we got inside, Jonathan asked if I was going to get married today! LOL! We got there early, so the boys and I were paging through the hymnals before the service started. We were looking at the Catholic ones too, and we were pretty excited that we could tell what some of the Latin songs were saying. Always a good thing to reinforce Latin outside of schooltime!

Anna's napping, and I think I might too. It's so nice to be on vacation so you can feel like you can nap when others are sleeping, since there really isn't anything else you have to take care of! And for those who are curious, Bob is holding his own back at home, although he is quite lonely. : ( He says the house is really quiet. I guess I just can't imagine what that's like, LOL.

Almost packed . . .

The kids and I are leaving tomorrow to drive to Ohio for 2 weeks. Bob is going to hold down the fort here at home while we're gone, although he is thinking he might try to catch a space-A hop from Andrews after July 4. There are alot of logistical details that would have to come together for that to work, but I'm sure hoping and praying they will!!! My brother, the idle blogger over at Hotel California --oh wait--he's posted something new!--umm, where was I? Oh yes, my brother and his wife are driving up from Texas, and we are all so incredibly excited to see them again.

This was going to be my first time to drive all the way by myself (about 9 hours), but as it turns out, the L's are on their way to Colorado to take Anthony to the Academy, so we're going to caravan out until I drop off in Ohio! What fun! Just like the good old days back in Colorado when we used to caravan all over the place together!

Bob has taken the boys swimming, so I've been able to get a fair amount of things done. All I need to do is take books back to the library and actually load the van. I love traveling in summer, when all I need to pack are shorts and shirts! This will be our first big trip since we had Anna and switched to the 3-in-the-back-seat configuration in the van. We'll see how that goes.

Talk to you later from Ohio!

A new base sticker

Last week I noticed (when it was pointed out to me by the friendly gate guard!) that our base car sticker had expired. We thought Bob would have to go to Bolling to take care of this, but when we were talking about it on Friday at Bible study, Tim P. mentioned he thought Bob could take care of it in the building without ever going to a base. Well! That would be nice! It would sure save him time, although, as I loudly said to people at Bible study, I still wouldn't be able to drive for a day, since he would have to take in the car registeration, proof of insurance, etc., and I don't like to drive without those things!

So Bob called around yesterday to figure out what he had to do, and then I got out the registration and proof of insurance for him to take in today. As it turns out, the registration in the van expired Feb. 28, and the proof of insurance on Jan. 1! So you can be assured to know that while I am STRONGLY against driving around with NO registration or proof of insurance, I evidently have NO qualms about driving around with expired ones! Well, one must keep to one's own high standards.

Of course, we did reregister the car, and we do have current insurance, so the whole thing neccessitated a frantic search of all the dark paper holes of the house to try to find the current papers. Praise the Lord, I was able to find them both, showing that He is indeed merciful AND concerned with the small details of our lives. And Bob was able to get a new sticker for the van first thing this morning--no more exciting car searches at gates! And I ended up driving anyways. Anna has a big diaper rash that I knew was yeast-caused, so I took her in this morning. I did make a copy of the (current) registration and proof of insurance to take with me, although driving was uneventful--as it has been for these past 6 months! Another instance of the Lord taking care of me when I didn't even know it!

Happy Father's Day!

I happened to marry someone who is a great dad. Even before we started dating, Bob asked me to help him teach the junior high Sunday School class at the Wright-Pat Chapel, so I got to see him with kids right away. I later returned the favor by asking him to help me with Children's Church, so there I got to see him with even younger kids. All the kids absolutely loved him, and I knew he would be an excellent father someday. Of course, I didn't know then that I would be the vehicle to help him achieve that status, LOL.

Bob fills in a lot of the "holes" in my parenting. For example, he loves to play games. He even makes up games for things that wouldn't normally be game-material. The boys love this. I, on the other hand, am not so much for games, and I am definitely not so creative as to actually make them up! Well, that's just an example off the top of my head, but overall, I think we're a pretty good team, parenting-wise!

Earth to Claire . . .

Today I tried to do too many things, which of course resulted in many things not getting done well. And I still didn't accomplish everything. For example, most of the groceries we brought home yesterday are still in their brown paper bags, lined up in the garage. Hey, they're not (totally) in the way, so what's the rush?

I cooked and cut up a whole bunch of chicken to freeze, I made muffins, and I made lasagna. The muffins were "blueberry oatmeal muffins", a new recipe for me. The batter seemed a little thin, but they cooked up nicely and were quite tender and tasty. I was quite surprised at that because the recipe didn't call for soaking the oats beforehand, and that usually makes for a drier, chewier muffin. It was then that I realized I never put the oats in. But they really are quite good, so I'm thinking surely they would have been too heavy with the oats? I'll have to play around with the recipe.

The lasagna might not seem like a big deal to you out there in reader-land, but I would just like to say that I have never made lasagna before. No, never. But something inspired me, so I called Amy Wednesday to get her recipe so I could buy everything at the commissary. Amy uses sausage instead of ground beef, and it really gives it a nice flavor. This lasagna was as healthy as it gets around here--I used half whole wheat noodles, and I added frozen chopped spinach to the sauce part. A lady from church did this in the baked ziti she brought, and you can't taste the spinach at all! The boys just thought it was parsley. I knew then that this would be a good way to get more spinach in our diet. I'm not a fan at all of cooked spinach, although I love it in salads or on a sandwich. But it tasted just fine in the lasagna too, and the boys didn't say a word about it. They were probably too thrilled that we were actually having lasagna IN OUR OWN HOUSE to be critical. My brain was really going this afternoon, so I screwed up the order of the layers (can I not read anymore?!), and I totally miscalculated the time it would take me to make it. And--this is how you can really tell something was wrong--I miscalculated it to be done WAY early! I can't think of the last time that happened! So it was totally done by (ahem) 4:50. Amy told me to let it sit for 10 minutes to firm up. Well, it sat for 45 minutes in the turned-off oven. Good grief. It was firm though! Not watery a bit. But it tasted great, so that's all that counts.

Then we headed off to Bible study where we discovered that we (specifically Nathan) were signed up to bring dessert tonight. Whoops! That didn't make the calendar! And it obviously never crossed his mind again either. Anthony saved the day by running out and buying apple pies and ice cream.

So tomorrow is another day. I'm going to try to make the library book sale. I'm not planning on doing any cooking, LOL. I don't think I'm forgetting anything else . . .

Happy, happy baby

Today we went to the commissary. It was my first time to take all the kids, and I was quite unsure of how Anna would do, since I knew it would take at least 3 hours. The trip started inauspiciously enough when the gate guard told me my car sticker had expired. We had to pull off and do the whole "car search" thing--open the hood, all the doors, etc. At least I didn't have to take out all the books and toys. We'd have been there all day, LOL! So anyhow, we passed the inspection. I guess a harried mom of 5 kids, several of whom are asking, "Are we there? Can we get out now, Mom?" just doesn't pose that big of a threat, bomb-wise. Whew. Now poor Bob has to figure out when he can take the van to Bolling AFB.

At the commissary, I decided to have Nathan push Anna in her stroller while I took the two carts, and if I might be permitted to brag just a bit, she did so well! The whole time we were in there! I had more trouble with Jonathan, LOL! She is such a happy baby, thank the Lord. She didn't start getting annoyed until we were in the car heading home and traffic was very slow and heavy on I-66. Was it an accident? A police car at the very least? No--2 men were fixing a highway sign on the side of the road. Grrr. I was annoyed too. The trip clocked in at 3 1/2 hours, all together, so she showed remarkable patience! I'm glad I won't have to do that again for another 6 weeks or so.

And just for you, Aunt Claire, one woman specifically asked if we were done, now that we had our girl, and at least 3 others intimated that I should be so relieved that I finally got a girl. Ahh, the rudeness of complete strangers in front of 4 boys! We did get several nice comments, however, which always make me feel so good.

I was pretty pooped out when we got home. The boys helped me unload and starting putting stuff away while I nursed, but I never got around to finishing. Instead, I ate a vast quantity of Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips and took a nap. Hmm, wasn't I supposed to be going dairy-free? Oh well, desperate times and all that. I ate some M&Ms that I found open in the pantry too. Might as well really enjoy myself, LOL! Nothing like chocolate to help me recover from a tiring day!

Where's Waldo?

In the Billiard Room with the candlestick, wearing a dress, apparently.

The boys love the "Where's Waldo" books, where you search for that little red/white/blue guy in all the pictures. They also love to play Clue. Last November when they were playing, Jonathan happened by, saw Miss Scarlet, and cried out delightedly "WALDO!" We all had a good laugh about that, and that was that, as the game sort of lost favor and wasn't played anymore for awhile.

While I was gone, Clue again became popular, and the boys have been playing off and on since I came back from Utah.

Caleb (while picking who he was going to be): "There's only one person I really like in Clue."

Luke: "Oh? Who?"

Caleb (waving Miss Scarlet around): "Waldo."

Luke: "Oh, okay, you can be Waldo."

I tell you, it really gives Miss Scarlet a whole new persona to think of her as Waldo! Who knew the mild-mannered, bespectacled world traveler had a secret life as a cross-dressing floozy possibly involved in the murder of the very shady Mr. Boddy?!