One Little Word

One little word is a project that was inspired and shared a few years ago by Ali Edwards.  Each year she picks a word to focus on during the upcoming year.  A type of New Year's resolution, I guess you could say.  An effort to find something that you might want to change or remember or reflect on during the year.  I've played along for the last few years choosing words such as journey, gratitude and simplify.  I've used simplify for the last couple of years and decided I needed to find a new word this year.

I started thinking about a word a few weeks ago.  I thought I had found a good one.  One that seemed to suit me and could cover a variety of things that I would like to address in 2011.

Problem is, now it's three weeks later and I cannot for the life of me remember the word.

So, maybe it wasn't such a great word after all.

My ever-so-helpful husband has been trying to make some suggestions, none of which I can print here.

Maybe "remember" should be my word, since I seem to have such a difficult time "remembering".

Good thing I still have a couple more days until New Years........

The Big "E"

 

This is my first photo that I've entered at I heart faces.

This past weekend, my daughter and I spent some time decorating a big "E" that we've had for ages.  She picked out a handful of scrapbooking paper that she felt best described her current interest--music, soccer, rocks, water, chocolate chip cookies, etc.  While watching a Harry Potter movie together, we tore, glued and pasted for the rest of the evening.  When the theme was paper, I figured I better hurry up and take a picture of our project.

She's pretty pleased with how her big "E" turned out.  At least that's one craft project off the to-do list!

What Holiday?

This morning, at 6:30 a.m., I sat down and had a nice little breakfast with my son before we headed off to work and school. John, who has crowned himself  the "Hot-breakfast Dad,"  had made a healthy bowl of oatmeal for each of us.

From the kitchen he asked our son, "Guess what holiday we're celebrating today?"

"The sinking of the Titanic?" replied the eighth-grader.

"Close," said the Hot-breakfast Dad. 

"It's your mom's birthday."

Nice. Real nice.

I just love my family.

The Library Roll

In Fredericksburg, there's this little community library.  It is operated completely by volunteers and funded by donations.  I just love the thought that a group of people so valued the idea of a library in their community that they really did what it takes to make something like that happen. 

Six years ago, they started a bicycle ride called the "Library Roll" in order to raise funds to help operate the library.  When John saw the flier for this ride, he immediately said that he'd like to do this.  We enjoy supporting something like this and we've always enjoyed bicycling, so it seemed like a great thing to do as a family.

When we checked in for the ride today, we were reminded by the volunteer that we've participated in nearly every ride for the past six years.  I had almost forgotten that we started doing this ride when I was pulling the little girl in a trailer behind my bike.  Wow, time flies.

The ride is completely on the Holmes County trail.  It's a really nice, paved path that's well kept and travels through some really pretty Holmes county areas.  Being Holmes County, you not only share the path with other cyclist and walkers and runners, but you also share the path with Amish buggies.

Instead of alerting each other to "walker ahead" or "bike behind", the call was actually "poop ahead". 

Yeah, the kids got a really big kick out of that one. 

The shortest distance is 18 miles, with a nice little snack stop at the 9 mile point.  They serve homemade cookies, fruit and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made on homemade bread.  Just the right thing to re-fuel and re-motivate the kids for the 9 mile trek back to the start. 

It's kind of funny, but the conversation during these rides almost always involves books.  What the kids are reading, what have been their favorites and what ones are on the "I really need that book" list.  They usually find themselves trying to recite a favorite Shel Silverstein poem (because so many of those are fun and easy to remember) or Dad's favorite Robert Frost poem (because Dad bribed them with a dollar a few years ago if they would memorize it).  Pretty appropriate for a library ride.

At the end of the ride, there's always fry pies and a new t-shirt to add to the collection.

Oh, and a few sore bums, but also a lot of pride for riding!

3,000 Bouncy Balls

It's not too hard to talk our kids into a trip to the library.  In fact, they get pretty excited about it.  Yes, a trip to the library is sometimes the highlight of their week.  Last night, we offered them a trip to the Medina library, but failed to mention that the purpose of the trip was to watch 3,000 bouncy balls being dropped inside the library from the third floor.

They actually were pretty upset because the library part was closed and they were unable to check out books.

Angry looks and all, is what we received at first.

Fortunately, watching 3,000 bouncy balls hit the ceramic tile kinda made up for that.

Oh, and the pizza afterwards helped too.

Thanks Medina Library!

A few extra acorns?

A few weeks ago we lost a large limb from our old oak tree.  The limb was overloaded with acorns and simply could not bear the weight of those acorns any longer. 

The Dad that lives at this house started thinking about what could be done with all of those acorns.  I'm not quite sure how he came to pull together a couple of bike tubes that had blow outs earlier this year (or why in the world he still had them hanging around), some bungee cords and some leftover duct tape from this project. But, put them together he did.  In the end, the kids ended up with a pretty cool acorn launcher.

Just another way to reuse, re-purpose and recycle, I guess. 

Back to School

It's hard to believe that I now have a fifth-grader and an eight-grader. The years sure do fly by way too quickly. The school year, so far, is off to a good start. One of the fifth-grader's teacher is having a "silly band" year.

"B"ring materials to class
"A"ttend school regularly
"N"otice the details
"D"o the right thing

The kids can earn a silly band for turning in homework timely each week and the teacher gives them out as incentives or rewards for other various things during the week. What a fun and creative way to use a current "trend" to encourage and reward kids!

The eight grader is loving his classes as well, especially science. His teacher used a bunson burner to create a "geyser" this week--any time you do something like that you're gonna get a 13-year-old boys attention!

Of course, we had to take the annual first day of school pictures. I always make the kids hold up the number of fingers to represent what grade they are going in to. They're probably gonna hate me for this someday. 

Once they were home from school, we  celebrated with a special back to school treat.  A great start to what I'm sure will be a great school year.

4-H Project Time

It's almost Medina County Fair time and this week is project judging for the two 4-Hers that live at our house.  Although it seems that we're always down to the wire when it comes time to wrap up those projects, I'm really glad that the kids are involved in 4-H. 

Growing up a "city girl", as my husband calls it, I had never really been to the fair. Well, at least I don't really remember attending the fair as a kid.  All I really knew about the fair I probably learned from "Charlotte's Web".

I still remember when we had our first little garden at our first little house and John decided to enter one of his green tomatoes into the fair. 

"Um, okay.  But, why?"  I thought.

So, he entered his tomato and won his first blue ribbon. 

"Um, okay.  Congratulations there, honey.  Nice tomato."

I really didn't get this whole fair thing.

Now, my kids are involved in 4-H.  Being involved in 4-H has kind of changed the whole fair experience for both me and the kids.  It's made the focus more on the projects and the animals and not so much the rides and the food.  Yes, they'll still get their bucket of greasy fries and cotton candy, but we'll spend most of our time seeing what types of projects were done by all 4-Hers,  checking out how their friends did and finding out if our kids or their dad won any ribbons. 

As we were wrapping up those projects this past weekend, I could see the pride in their faces and excitement about how they might do at judging.  We've been encouraging and reminding both of the kids to be ready to really tell the judges what they've learned. 

"I remember last year, I talked and talked to my judge, said the 10-year old.  My throat was sore for three days afterwards because I talked so much." 

Hmmm, I think we've would've remembered if she had talked that much.  But, sometimes you just don't argue with a ten-year old girl. 

Make that most of the time.

Although both of the kids have had numerous opportunities to speak in front of people, at both church and at school, project judging gives them a sense of nervousness and excitement.  On our way to judging, the ten-year old asked me about a knot in her stomach.  "Mom, is that what being nervous feels like?  Is it okay to be nervous?"  Both good questions.

The kids have now finished their judging.  They did really well, both receiving "A" marks and blue ribbons for the judging portion.  They came away from the experience excited and pleased with themselves for what they had done.  Now, we just have to wait until fair to see how they placed.

Dad isn't planning on entering any green tomatoes this year, but he is planning on entering some of his maple syrup. 

Now that's something that I can appreciate.

The world needs a little more duct tape

Give a girl some duct tape and you'll never know what she might do with it. Seriously.

The ten-year old is in love with duct tape.  Last Christmas, she asked for duct tape.  Her fun-loving and creative Aunt even found her some cool tye-dyed duct tape.  Awesome.  She's made wallets and other small things like that, but a few weeks ago she decided she wanted to make a duffel bag.

"I don't think I can help you with that one, honey."

"That's okay.  I know exactly what I need to do" she told me.

And she did.  She worked quietly up in her room, at her little art desk, for over an hour on her project.  She appeared for dinner and then went straight back to her room to continue working. 

"Mom, do you have any spare binder things from one of those three ring binders?"

It just happened that I did.  Don't ask me why, but I salvaged some binder mechanisims when I sorted through my son's barely staying together school binders.  What luck.

By the end of the evening, she had her project finished.  Her very own duct tape duffel bag.

I bet none of the girls at this week's sleepover will have anything like this.  Good thing the little girl likes to be unique.

How-How Campers!

How-How is the traditional greeting at Camp Wanake -- the church camp where our kids spent a wonderful week learning about God, playing outdoors and having a great time.

They were at camp from Sunday - Friday and three days after coming home, they were still talking about their week at camp.  At camp, the kids pick a camp theme and then they are divided into small groups of about 8 or so kids with two counselors.  I love the small group concept. 

The thirteen year-old picked "Best of Both" for his camp.  I'm not sure what "Best of Both" meant, but he spent the week doing all kinds of different things.  They spent a day at Baylor Beach swimming at the water park there.  They did a challenge course,  a rock climbing wall and the rock tower, which he said he actually enjoyed.  He loves mountain boarding -- this involved a snowboard-on-wheels type contraption, helmet, knee pads, and as you can guess, taking the board down the hill.  He loves it.  It frightens me.

The ten-year picked "No Party Poopers Allowed".  During the week, they had a pool party, a pajama party and a Barn Bash/Dance party.  In addition to the parties she had a great time doing all the normal camp activities.  She enjoyed Boji Ball, canoeing, swimming and more swimming. Near as I can understand it, Boji ball is similar to dodge ball, but involves a lot more balls. As in everyone has a ball. If you want to know more about it, you'll have to ask the kids. They've tried countless time to explain it to me, but I'm hopeless.

Each morning, the campers have time set aside for "morning reflection," a quiet devotional time.  They cook out at least one meal a day at their campfire at their "home in the woods," a special spot that is just for their small group that week.  The thirteen year-old went on and on and on about this chicken dish that they made one night for dinner.  "It was just SO good, mom.  You have to get the recipe."  He told me the ingredients, (chicken, onion, apple jelly -- to name a few).  Had I made that at home, I bet I would've gotten the look that said 'I'll try it, but I'm not going to like it".  The ten year-old went on about the bacon and french toast that she made on the buddy burner.  "It was SO good.  My bacon was just perfectly crisp and the french toast was yummy!"  She doesn't like french toast at home.  Guess we'll have to make a buddy burner if we want her to eat french toast.

Each day the also have bible study time during the day and throughout the week they have "Pow Wows" in the evenings.  Pow-wows are small group time, around the campfire.  They might ask questions that each of the campers get to share about.  Questions such as "where is your favorite place in the world" or "if your heart was made of food, what food would it be made of".  The boy answered "butter".  I'm not surprised.  I'm sure that there is a deeper meaning that was shared in the pow-wow.  But, butter doesn't surprise me.

The campers have a Bible verse to memorize for each day.  The verse it set to a familiar tune which makes it so much easier to memorize.  At the Friday parent program, we get to hear the kids sing all of the verses/songs that they learned throughout the week.  The kids so enjoyed these songs that they sang them for the entire way home.  One of their favorites was a song set to the tune of YMCA.  I wonder if the Village People ever thought about how versatile their song would become.  Bet they would've never imagined that it would be used to memorize Bible verses!  Here's the verse:

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.  From now on, you do know him and have seen him." John chapter 14 verses 6 through 7.

The kids also enjoy getting mail while they are at camp.  It's rare that we receive a letter in return.  "We were just so busy" is usually the excuse.  The ten year-old even received a letter from our cat Ike.  Please excuse the poor spelling, but he is a cat, you know.  Some of it might be hard to understand, but if you're a ten-year old living at our house, it all makes sense.

The kids are already looking forward to returning to camp next year. 

 "How-How Campers"!

The Farm Market

Last summer, a farm market was started in our little town.  With people in general being more aware of "buying homegrown", it seemed like a good time to try to start a market here.  Each Saturday, we take our little table and whatever vegetables might be ready from the garden and sell at the market.  Both kids, especially the 13 year-old, love to sit behind the table and greet whomever may come by our spot.

"These are spinner gourds," he'll explain "kids would play with them like a top" and then he'll demonstrate how to spin the gourd.

Just a little reading in-between customers

"We have hostas and black cherry tomatoes and chocolate covered pretzel rods".

He's such a salesman.

Actually they love going to the market.  I don't think it's just for the little bit of cash they earn for their efforts.  Honestly, they seem to enjoy going, helping, selling (ok -- and eating).

For me, it's almost like a small town gathering place, a small social event.  It's a time to visit with our "neighbors" and other people from town.  It's a nice opportunity to chat with people that we normally might only see in passing.  Oh, yeah, and a chance to pick up some fresh fruit and vegetables that we don't have in our garden.

                            Sandy makes wonderful cookies and Kris' vegetables are always beautiful

Jane Snow cooks up some stir fry with fresh vegetables from the market

This past Saturday, food writer Jane Snow came a gave a cooking demonstration using foods from the market.  She made some sauteed radishes and some vegetable stir fry.  The little girl had three samples of the stir fry.  Well, one she tried to give to her brother, but then volunteered to eat it when he declined.  Such a nice sister. 

It was a great day at the market and now I have another recipe to try that I know at least one of my kids will eat.

The Shoes

Yes, these are my son's current shoes.  Well, at least as of yesterday.  Pretty sad, I know.  I should be ashamed of myself for letting my child wear these shoes.  In public.  At school.  To dinner.  To the Indian's game.  What a bad mother I am.

Last week, when the boy stepped in a soft, muddy spot, you should've seen the look on his face.  Or, maybe the cringe on mine.  It's not that the child didn't have any other shoes.  He had another pair.  A nice, practically  new pair.  Thing is, he didn't like them.  These were some fancier "Shaq" basketball style shoes that I found on clearance.  Some deal that was.

"But my old shoes are comfortable," he would say.

"There's barely any shoe left," I told him. 

He didn't care.  So, this is what he'd wear most of the time.  Unless a parent would notice and make him wear the "Shaq" shoes.  He leaves for camp on Sunday, so these will be great shoes for camp.  If they last that long.  I had visions of the shoes completely coming apart while he's on a hike in the middle of the woods.  There would be looks of "what kind of mother sends her kid to camp with shoes like that."  So, I finally went out and found another pair of shoes.  On clearance.  Hope this pair works out better than the last ones I found on clearance.

Father's Day

After spending Friday afternoon parking cars and from 6:30 am - 5:00 cooking chicken on Saturday for the annual Seville Yard Sale, Dad requested a quiet day at home.  We helped Dad in the garden, which he seemed to appreciate and fixed a special dinner of grilled salmon, baked potatoes and grilled vegetables.  It was a nice, relaxing day, which I think we all enjoyed.

Even though we didn't celebrate in a big way, we are all so very thankful and consider ourselves so very lucky to have this wonderful person in our lives.  Happy Father's Day!

The last day of school…..

It’s the start of summer break around here.  The last day of school was Tuesday, June 8th.  It’s hard to believe that the school year is over with.  Around here, we’re glad to have a break from homework and school projects, but overall it was a good year for both of the kids.

For the fourth-grader, the last day was filled with awards presentations and the principal’s famous year-end slide show.  John happened to be around for the power point presentation and said that it must’ve contained at least a thousand pictures and took about 40 minutes to present.  The entire school was there and enjoyed the whole presentation.  Seems as though the principal really tries to get as  many pictures of as many kids as he can.  The little girl was thrilled to find herself in seven of the pictures.  The very last slide -- “THE END” – was one similar to this one from this past Halloween when Emily decided to dress up like Principal Falkenberg.

She received recognition for artwork that will hang in the school next year (it’s the cupcake picture from the Art Expo), perfect attendance, honor roll, spelling bee participation and for earning her “multi colored belt” in recorder.  She was pretty excited about that one!  -- To explain that a little, the fourth-graders started learning to play the recorder in January.  Over the last few months, they’ve been assigned songs to learn.  As they complete and perform a song, they are given a yarn “belt” to attach to the bottom of their recorder and then they move on to the next level of songs.  The fourth-grader earned every level and even had the teacher pull out more songs so she could learn those as well.  Too bad they don’t have recorder in marching band!

The seventh grader’s last day was a little less exciting, but he did earn an invite to the team’s donut party for his efforts in turning in all of his homework on time this past grading period.  Some food is all this boy needs to make his little day!

Absent for awhile…..

I’ve been absent from the blogosphere for awhile.  I’m going to try to write down some of the things that have been going on around here for the last few months (before I completely forget) and may just do this in random order.  

Hope everyone is enjoying the start of their summer!

The Sorting Hat Cake

I'm not much of a cake baker/decorator.  I've tried a few and some have turned out, some not.  There was the year that the little boy wanted a lego cake.  According to my husband, the "legos" looked like something else entirely.  Figures a man would think that.  The bowling pin cake and the tie-dyed t-shirt turned out but some others ended up looking like blobs of cake and frosting.  So, when the little girl decided she wanted a Harry Potter theme for her birthday, I wasn't quite sure what kind of cake would work with that.  She found a sorting hat cake on the internet. 

Great, just great. 

I decided I'd better give this one a trial run.  I made my own marshmallow fondant and used a variety of bowls as templates to cut the cake into different sizes.  I was pretty pleased with how this turned out.  Hope the "real" one turns out just as well.  Otherwise, I might be making a last minute trip to Dairy Queen.

Been a busy few weeks…….

It's been a busy few weeks.  We've have the usual piano, trumpet and violin lessons and J.C. Kids choir practice.  Throw in several indoor soccer games and three different school choir concerts.  There was the School Art Expo and several church meetings.  Guess it's just that time of the year.  Sometimes, it's a little bit tiring, but it's all good.

One Sunday, we took a day for a “family day”.  We headed out to Milan to see Thomas Edison’s birthplace and museum.  Along the way, we stopped for brunch at a little restaurant in downtown Norwalk.  We love finding local places to eat at when we’re out.



We had a little time before the museum opened and stopped at a local antique store.  The kids love to check out antique stores.  Not.



We enjoy checking out the homes of yesterday and hearing interesting facts of the people that have had such an impact on how we live today.



The fourth-grader has been enjoying indoor soccer.  Indoor soccer is very different from outdoor.  Besides being obviously, indoors, the ball bounces around.  A lot.  It’s almost as if the players are in a live pinball game.  There are walls, and getting the ball out from the wall can be a challenge.  All in all, she’s enjoyed playing.  There have been no practices.  The intent is to just get the girls some playing time and be ready for the outdoor season.  Practice for outdoor starts this week and I think  she’ll be ready and anxious to play outside.

 







March was “Music in our Schools Month”.  We’ve had three different evening concerts in the last three weeks.  Although one of them was really, really long (about two hours) they all were enjoyable.  The kids do a great job.



Last weekend was the district’s annual Art Expo.  The fourth-grader had a couple pieces of her artwork on display.





I’m not sure what these kids were up to.  Probably no good.



On Sunday, Grandma and Aunt Pam were here for a visit.  We had a rousing game of “Sorry” to end the visit.



So, there ended March.  Happy April, everyone!

Fun, Food, Friends and 4-H

My kids love a pot-luck. They know that there will be plenty of good food and a table overflowing with wonderful desserts. They especially like the dessert part.

Yesterday was the annual 4-H pot luck dinner. I think that it is one of their favorite meetings of the year. It was a nice evening to hang out with friends and enjoy a good meal.

Today, in the fourth-grader's language arts class, they studied limericks -- in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

Here is her limerick:

There was a raccoon named Fred

One night he had to stay in bed

It was quite a task

When the doctor said "take off your mask"

And once again poor Fred is in bed

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

In the Woods

This past Monday, the kids had a day off of school. They cheerfully (or maybe not so cheerfully) tagged along with Dad and helped as he collected sap from our friend's woods. Twenty-six or twenty-seven trees were tapped this year. The sap is poured into larger buckets, carried through the woods, dumped into a tank in the back of our truck and then brought home to cook on the evaporator.  When the two or so gallon buckets on the trees or overflowing, like they were on Monday, that's a lot of trips through the woods.  The seventh-grader complained that his shoulder's hurt for the next two days -- but I think Dad did most of the sap hauling. 

With this crazy, warm weather, the sap is no longer flowing and could bring an end to a very short maple syrup season.  So glad that our livelihood doesn't depend on this.  Whatever happens, we will enjoy the syrup that we have and look forward to next year.

Student of the Month

Today, it was the seventh-grader sprinting down the driveway when he got off the bus.  He was so, so excited.

Middle school has had it's challenges this year.  Lots of changes and lots of adjustments.  That's part of middle school.  But, he is having a really good quarter and is just so excited.  A candy bar, a couple of kitchy little things from the prize box, an invitation for a root beer float next week and a certificate to hang on the refrigerator. 

Good job, buddy!

No batteries required

She must've wanted to communicate to her brother, but how?

Cell phone -- nope, don't have one.

Walkie talkie --batteries are dead.

Walk over to his room -- too much effort.

Just holler across the hall --  nah. Been there, done that.

Having discarded most of the normal ways to communicate, the girl opted for this instead. 

A little bit of yarn tied together and strategically looped in just the right places and voila, a perfect message delivery system.  She wouldn't even need to leave her room. They entertained themselves for hours sending messages back and forth.  I kept hearing exclamations of how "awesome" this was. They could've been playing with all the computer, electronic and video games that they have, but no -- some yarn and a piece of paper.

No batteries required.

It was a Monday...

Yesterday was just one of those days when you wish you could crawl back in bed and start all over. I was in a crabby mood for most of the day, but can't really explain why. Not a good way to start off the day. Work has been crazy. I had something that I absolutely had to get done, and nothing was going smoothly. Computer issues, program issues, things not balancing. Grrr.....

That evening, while at the girl's violin lesson, I decided to write in my gratitude journal. The journal was a gift, back in December, from a sweet friend of mine. The intent is to find something (or somethings) each day to be thankful for and write it down.  I have to admit that I haven't really written in this journal much since she gave it to me, but decided that I have been in need of an attitude adjustment lately.  I actually was feeling a bit better as we made our way home.

Once home, I decided to make something for my co-worker's birthday on Tuesday.  I really should've know better than to try to bake something at the end of a long day. But, try I did.  I didn't get very far before I messed up the recipe.  Threw it out and was going to try again and then realized I didn't have enough of the ingredients I needed. Grrr.......

I gave up and went to bed.

I left early for work Tuesday morning, intending to stop and pick up something for the birthday and to get a jump on my work day.  Of course, the first store wasn't open.  Don't they have 24 hour groceries anymore?  This day was not starting out well. The second store wasn't really open, but they let me come in anyway.  And were really nice about it.

Within the first half hour of working on my reports, I figured out what was wrong.

At that point, I already knew what I'd be writing in my gratitude journal that night.

"I'm thankful for Tuesdays."

Some Random Birthday Pictures

It was a low-key kinda birthday for the thirteen year-old.

It's a family tradition that the birthday person chooses the menu on their birthday. His choice? Our friend Tammey's "famous" Lil' Cheddar Meatloaves, mashed potatoes and green beans. He jumps for joy whenever I make these meatloaves. Thanks to Dad, he even will take a cold, meatloaf sandwich in his lunch, which he did the day after his birthday.

He is still thrilled with new legos and nerf guns and with a mini air hockey game thrown in, he was a pretty happy camper with his birthday gifts.  The sister played "happy birthday" on her violin and a birthday phone call seranade from his aunt and cousins rounded out the day.

He had been anxiously awaiting the opening of the new movie "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief".  Over the weekend, we took him and his two best friends to see the new movie. The afternoon was spent outside in the snow and then inside playing nerf guns and Wii.  "Make your own pizzas" was on the menu along with Mom's homemade chocolate chip cake -- birthday style. 

These three boys are just awesome -- they get along together so well and were so happy to just hang out together. 

What a Happy, Happy Birthday!