Sandy and Halloween

Last week, Hurricane Sandy roared through the Northeast. Our part of Maryland was very much spared the brunt of this storm-however, we were prepared for the worst. We spent the 2 days of rain and wind at home  together-Dennis was able to work from home as his office was closed. I put away some fall produce from the garden, and the kids got ready for Halloween.

I had lots of peppers ready for picking. After seeing them everywhere in New Mexico, I decided to try out making a "ristra" with my peppers this year. I looked up several different ways and videos of making them and kind of combined a couple of different ways to come up with what worked. I made 3 medium sized ristras. Two of them are drying in my attic, the third is hanging in a doorway downstairs in the heat of the woodstove.

Dennis set up a mini office at home so he could continue to work despite the rain and wind. Amazingly we did not lose power even once! Although we have a generator for just such an occasion, we were surprised as we almost always lose power-even in a regular rainstorm we might lose it. 

 The kids set up a table in the kitchen (Since Dennis was using the dining table!) to carve their pumpkins. 

 Leah designed and completely carved hers by herself. She did a face on one side and a ghost on the other.

 Eric did an owl on one side and a skull on the other. 

 Bay designed a tombstone with "RIP" written on the front. I helped him with the carving of the letters, but the design was all his!

 Leah proud of the ghost she carved

 Eric's owl

Bay's pumpkin

After swim practice on Halloween, Bay and Leah dressed up and visited a handful of families on our street for some trick-or-treating. We still enjoy doing this on our rural street better than any other event on Halloween. It is fun to stop by our neighbors' houses and use it as an opportunity to visit and say hello to people we only see every once in awhile. I know that our neighbors love it because they say so every year-how glad they are that we come by-they do love to see the kids growing. I think that they may get only 1 or 2 trick-or-treaters. We didn't have any at our house, so I know they don't get many. Even so, Bay and Leah's buckets were completely full to the brim with candy. They gladly divvied up their treats with Eric when he got home from his swim practice. 

First Swim Meet

This past weekend, the boys participated in their first swim meet of the year-round swimming season. This was Bay's first swim meet of this kind, and Eric has not participated in one since he was Bay's age. Even after having about 8 weeks of no swim practice (while we were on our trip) and then just 2 weeks of practice before this meet, they both did REALLY well! Eric might not think so, as he only reached one of his goals for the weekend, but he has plenty of time to keep working on his times. We were very impressed with Bay, as he was the youngest boy competing on our team, and even though his first race was messed up at the start, and his heat had to start the race over again, he was not discouraged and swam well.

It is not possible to get good pictures at the indoor pool where we swam, but I got a few pictures of them on the deck in between races!

Eric swam
50 freestyle
100 freestyle
100 backstroke
100 butterfly
200 IM
100 breastroke

Bay swam
100 freestyle
50 backstroke
50 butterfly
50 breaststroke
50 freestyle

Fall Happenings

It really has been a long time since I posted on this blog. I can say, however, to my credit, that I posted every day for 37 days to our other blog, West Trip 2012, while we traveled across the country in our RV! I have been encouraged to post more often here and am starting today now that I am feeling mostly caught up from returning home.

We came home and jumped right into our school routine. Thankfully, I had spent the 2 weeks before we left getting the house and school-room in order so that we could jump right in without any extra work. School was all ready to go-the kids just opened up their books and we got started! Eric is in the 8th grade this year, Bay in 4th and Leah in 2nd. Bay and Leah do a considerable amount of their schoolwork together-everything except Math, spelling and Bible are done together. That includes grammar, science, vocabulary and writing. They could do Bible together, except that this year I got them a Bible curriculum that focuses on boys (for Bay) and girls (for Leah). Eric does the majority of his work on his own, but comes to me with questions or clarity on assignments. Of course, I check his work weekly to make sure he is not too far off in understanding, but he is very much self-taught. He enjoys the independence and I enjoy being able to give more time to Bay and Leah. It is hard to believe Eric will be in high-school in just one more year, but also good because he is maturing in so many ways and I am glad for him to be able to grow right into where he should be.

The weekend after we got home, we joined some of Dennis' extended family for a cookout and gathering in northern Maryland. His cousin, Alice, and family hosted. This was the first time that Bay and Leah got to meet their cousins of close age (technically I guess they are second cousins, but who's paying attention!) and Eric got to spend some time with Dennis' other cousin, Tony's, kids. We enjoyed hanging out, visiting, and the kids loved playing together-especially taking a walk into the woods and playing at the creek behind their house. The weather was perfect and it was a great way to spend the day.

The boys (Dennis, Eric, Bay and Gramps) also spent a morning splitting firewood outside. It was a beautiful fall morning, and they have quite a pile of logs to split before winter, so they got to work and knocked out a good portion in a morning. Dennis and Gramps worked on getting the logs that were split organized into piles, while Eric and Bay operated the woodsplitter together-Eric on the logs, Bay on the handle. They all make a good team out there and it is nice to have Bay old enough now to get out there and really be a help!

Eric got quite a work-out flipping, lifting and moving those logs!

 Bay and his cousin, Andrew

Leah and her cousin, Julia with Brody in between them

Leah turns 7

Our little girl celebrated her 7th birthday...it doesn't seem quite possible at times, and then other times it seems as if she's been acting 7 for quite a while now. She had quite a special birthday this year, and it all really started when I messed up on last year's birthday cake. 

 Last year, Leah requested a strawberry shortcake for her dessert, so I was happy to make Paula Deen's strawberry shortcake trifle, which our family has had before. However, after all of the singing and blowing out of candles, Leah told me that what she really wanted was a "Strawberry Shortcake" Cake. Oh dear--fast forward to this year...

 With a little help from Leah, this Strawberry Shortcake-Cake turned into a Strawberry Shortcake Party. Leah made the list of who to invite and what activities she wanted to do at her party. 

It must be mentioned that I joined Pinterest because of this party-not sure if that's a good or bad thing yet. But I found so many ideas there that it certainly helped me for the day!

 The decorated table-lots of pink, red and green. It was a combination of Strawberry Shortcake the character, and just lots of strawberries.

 We played strawberry bean bag toss into bushel baskets.

 We played a game of "Catch the Purple Pie Man". Eric volunteered for this job-though he wouldn't admit it at the time, the prospect of a horde of little girls running after him could not be resisted!

 I made each of the girls a simple little apron and we made strawberry freezer jam for them to take home as favors. I learned from this endeavor that it is advisable to only use fresh-picked strawberries for making jam, not the grocery store ones. They took FOREVER to crush!

And we played musical balloons-red balloons to look like strawberries with black seeds drawn on them with a sharpie. The girls loved this game!

Leah, who is quickly growing into herself...

...lover of animals-of the stuffed variety

...loser of only 2 baby teeth so far

...helper in the kitchen, but not so much for setting the table

...not so keen on keeping her room clean

...memory better than any elephant

...sweet card and note-maker

...never afraid to try something new

...adorer of her brother, Bay

...reader extraordinaire

...eater of Ramen noodles everyday for lunch

...beautiful girl

Happy Birthday Leah Rose!

Order out of Chaos

Isn't this how God works too? My heart has been feeling kind of like Leah's closet lately. There are places for things, but they aren't adequate-

 there's a shelf for joy, and a hook on which to hang forgiveness, mercy and grace offered to others, there are baskets somewhere in there for lessons in humility and submission, and even a place somewhere for using my gifts for his glory.

 The only problem is, I have been having trouble finding those things when I need or want them, they are buried under a lot of other stuff. Stuff that doesn't belong-pride, anger, selfishness, and even doubt and fear make their way into my closet (heart). So God has been building a nice neat row of shelves in my heart. He started with his Word---lots of it-saturation-immersion--- and it's starting to take form. This is the hard part, cutting, drilling holes, sawdust everywhere. It's messy. He has been showing me the message of his Word-the message from the beginning to now-it's the same message. This combined with more focused prayer-the shelves are being hung-

 And I'm just starting to be able to put some things on these shelves so that I can see them and access them right when they are needed. Forgiveness is sitting right next to mercy, joy actually takes up a whole shelf on it's own and is surrounded by gratefulness. I'm working on throwing out the things that don't belong. I really should just take them to the dump :)

 This order is a work in progress in my heart, but it is so encouraging to know that God promised to bring order out of chaos when he restores all things to himself, the way he designed it to be. First the natural body and then the spiritual. 1 Cor. 15:53-57 ...but thanks be to God! He gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ice Skating Party

Family birthdays around here are always lots of fun! Granni chose for us all to go to a skating rink for hers-

Eric hasn't been in several years, but he picked it up again very easily.

Leah started out VERY timidly-she wouldn't let Dennis let go of her skating walker for a second. She eventually let mom do it with her, and before we knew it, she was flying around the rink in the security of her green walker.

Scowls turned to smiles

The rink was very crowded with kids (it was family skate), so when one of our little ones had to go to the bathroom, an adult was left in charge of guarding the walker. Dennis and Bay are having a race I think.

Uncle Andy started a game of ice rink tag...always fun to sneak up on the unsuspecting.

Afterward we gathered for a nice family dinner, presents, cake and all 3 kids (who are now all taking lessons) gave Granni her own private piano recital.

It's been a crazy winter!

Like most people in the eastern US, our winter has been quite unusual as far as temperatures are concerned.  The wood stove is roaring one day, and then we have to let it die the next, because we are chased out of our 80 degree house! Though I do not like warm temperatures in the winter, and prefer dreary, snowy, gray days, we have tried to make the most of the days as they are given to us.

 An especially warm weekday trip to play frisbee golf...

 Dennis taking advantage of a warm day off work!

 And then just to prove that it is winter, but really only to tease, a smattering of snow just a couple of times. This particular snow, the kids went out and played in it as if there were 2 feet on the ground! 

 I have been able to take advantage of the time indoors to organize parts of the home that have been neglected lately. This hallway in particular houses several small bookshelves. They were literally over-run with books and piles. I added a warm lamp and some linens and the end of the hallway looks so much more inviting now!

And on a completely different note...Bay and Leah participated in our local homeschool science fair in January. Leah did a display about her favorite subject, "Cats". She had a great time and did a fabulous job researching each of the wild cats, taking notes, and organizing/decorating her display poster. 

Bay did a display about the "Life Cycle of a Star". This also was his idea as anything involving space interests him. The concepts that he was trying to display were certainly at times quite complex, and he really only hit on the basics as far as the life of a star goes, but it was a great learning experience for him. I think the thing that he learned most was the importance of knowing your material and practicing beforehand....over and over and over! 

Eric turns 13

 Eric turned 13 in January...officially

but he's been acting like he turned 13 quite some time ago! We have enjoyed seeing the many ways he has matured emotionally, physically and spiritually and academically over the past year.

Since this was a special year/number, Dennis took Eric and a friend snowboarding for a day as his present.

 Eric commented that this was the best present he could ever ask for

 We still had a small family celebration on his actual day...with special dinner (lasagna and red velvet cake for dessert)

 Uncle Andy was here to celebrate too!

And to celebrate and remember how big  our #1 boy is really getting, a few pictures from his past...

One of Eric's earliest and fondest memories from his childhood was when he was 3 and after an extended period of rain, I let him go out and play in the giant mud puddle that was our back yard. 

When he turned 4 we had a really fun pirate party-games of walking the plank, treasure hunt-I had a lot of fun planning elaborate parties back then! 

He started out on skis...here he is at age 7. He switched to snowboard I think when he was 10.

Eric at age 8

Skip a few years to 2011- Eric the 12 year old. What a difference just a year has made-he grew 4 inches over the past year!

 Eric at 13...almost