Getting Ready for Christmas

A pink glow comes from Hope's room.

Since we lost almost all of our Christmas things, at least for the next few years, we have been carefully selecting some new items for the Christmas season.

Last year I told myself that Hope should have a pink tree for her room after seeing one pictured on another blog. I found this little specimen at Target this week. It is vintage (tacky?) cute.

Abby was horrified that I bought it. She mocked my selection as we made our way through the store... I warned her that the headlines tomorrow would read "Teen found beaten with a pink tinsel tree in Target parking lot".

Well, at least Hope likes the tree!

Interview with Brenda

Brenda is married to Brian's older brother Marty and has been my sister-in-law for eighteen years :). We have a few important things in common. First, we were both born in Michigan and our birthdays are just one day apart (different years, though). Brenda has taught me about shopping these past few years- in the past I would rarely try anything on in the store and so I wouldn't always find the best fit or color. Brenda, however, loves to try things on and she showed me how important it is- and how you can end up with things you never realized would fit you well. Now when I take the girls shopping for clothes (just a few times a year) we end up trying on LOTS of things and buying the few that look and fit really well. So, thanks Brenda for teaching me this vital aspect of mothering teenage girls!

Brenda was born in Pontiac, Michigan on March 5. She was born prematurely and had a collapsed lung. She had to stay in an incubator for a month before she could go home with her parents. Brenda is the oldest of five children- four sisters and one brother.

Brenda's parents met at Bob Jones University and her father was a schoolteacher, teaching High School history and current events. Her mother was a homemaker and cared for the family.

Brenda became a Christian in the third grade during Sunday School. Then she went forward again the next Sunday, this time for her younger sister. Her teacher had to explain that her sister would need to make her OWN decision for Christ...

Brenda's favorite Bible verse is John 3 :16-17.

Favorite traditions growing up included visiting her grandparent's house on Christmas Eve. They had an old-fashioned artificial tree with bubble lights. She loved to watch her grandpa decorate the tree and put the icicle ornaments on one-by-one. The next day, her grandparents would come over to their house for Christmas dinner and for opening presents.

After her father retired from teaching, he joined the Air Force and was stationed in Illinois for a few years. Then he was transferred to Texas. During the time her father was in the Air Force, Brenda took care of the house in Michigan and lived there with roommates. Brenda worked at a pre-school after her years at Bible College.

When her parents returned to Michigan, Brenda had just gone through a painful breakup of a relationship. Brenda's father suggested that she might do well with a fresh start and encouraged her to move to Santa Rosa, California, where her sister and brother in law were living. Brenda had visited them earlier in the year and had liked the area, so she took her father's advice.

Brenda quickly found a job at a pre-school and a good living situation with girls from her sister and brother-in-law's church. Within a month of moving to California, Brenda attended a singles conference and was introduced to Marty by one of the roommates. Marty took a few weeks to ask Brenda out, but he finally got up the courage and they had their first date- watching the University of Michigan vs Ohio State football game on TV. (Brenda doesn't remember who won, sorry!). They enjoyed talking about all the things their families had in common, such as flying (both fathers were pilots and Marty's brothers flew, too).

Brenda mentioned a funny aside when she told me about their date! Her sister knew Brian's oldest brother, Harlan and Brian, but didn't know about Marty. When this gentleman called to ask Brenda out and left a message (Brenda was not at home for the phone call), her sister assumed it was BRIAN that was calling since Harlan was married. When Brenda returned, her sister told her that someone had asked her for a date, but she had to warn her that the boy was quite a bit younger than her!! (almost ten years). Imagine her relief when the "boy" turned out not to be Brian, but rather his older brother Marty :).

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Brenda said that her favorite aspect of marriage is the companionship. She enjoys the closeness and compatibility, and the fact that her husband still loves her even when she has had a bad day and is cranky.

Brenda has worked in pre-schools for twenty years and enjoys the teachability of this young age. She loves that they are interested in the little things (like bugs, rocks) and loves it when they greet her excitedly when she walks into the room.

Marty and Brenda love to travel and have particularly enjoyed Hawaii and Niagara Falls. They are also anticipating a special anniversary trip this fall to Boston, a city Brenda has always wanted to visit.

Brenda's hobbies include making porcelain dolls and playing piano, a relatively new skill she is picking up.

Thank you Brenda, for sharing a bit of your life with me! I look forward to learning more shopping skills from you in the years to come!

Coming Soon to a Mailbox Near You!

Hannah has been making our Christmas cards in her spare time.

Each one is unique.

Who knew that the cardmaking kit Abby received last Christmas would have turned into so many craft projects for Hannah this year?

We've been busy with schoolwork, trying to keep Jacob fed, and with life in general.

I have a new interview to put up, hopefully by tomorrow.

In the meantime, I leave you with Jacob's observation from last night: "I think my shirt shrunk in the wash. It feels a lot tighter."

No Jacob, your clothes are not shrinking. I sure hope his friend Eric has some more clothes to pass down *soon*.

An old post, since it's that time of year again...

A Favorite Book

When Hannah was little and we were thinking about homeschooling kindergarten, several catalogs recommended this book for reading around Thanksgiving. So, trusting those recommendations, I bought "Stories of the Pilgrims" by Margaret B. Pumphrey and read it to Hannah (and Abby) that November. They loved it and I was amazed at what I didn't know about the Pilgrims! By the end of the book, I felt I had a much fuller understanding of what the Pilgrims went through not only in through their time in England, Holland and in the New World, but also in those early days after the first Thanksgiving. I had no idea that the winter after the first Thanksgiving they didn't have enough food (since more settlers from England came to join the colony). I marveled at the courage of these people in facing all that they did! After reading this book for the first time, I knew that homeschooling was for me. It showed me what "living books" could bring to an education and how much I had missed in my schooling by being given only textbooks to read. This was the book that "lit the fire" for me and I look forward to re-reading it to my children every year (even though Hannah claims she has memorized every word by now).

Even though this is a children's book, I learned so much from it. It was fun last year to do additional research into what exactly the Pilgrims didn't like about the English church. I hope to purchase a book or two on original writings of the Pilgrims to deepen our understanding, especially now that my little kindergartner from way back when is now in high school!


Other books we have enjoyed reading in the weeks before Thanksgiving:


This book is a great read aloud for the younger years or as a reader for around 2nd through 4th grade (depending upon reading ability).


I would place this book for third/fourth grade through sixth grade. Beautiful pictures, written from the point of view of the Pilgrims.


This is a fun book that should answer any questions one might have- such as "What would you eat and drink on the Mayflower?" "What could the Pilgrims take with them?" "Were the people on the ship friends?" "How did the Pilgrims spend their first Christmas?" and so on.


Nice book to read after books on the Pilgrims to show what early Colonial life was like for the children.


Another book to read about early Colonial life with lots of photos of re-enactors from Williamsburg.

We've been making Christmas ornaments out of cards received in years past. I thought we might make ten or so, but the kiddos have made more than twenty so far. We don't have many cards left now, so we'll turn our attention to ribbon ornaments next.

Reading

A neat history of cooking in America complete with various recipes and pictures.

I know several people with Lyme disease and this book was an interesting read. Since I talked to one lady with Lyme last year, we have changed our salt to Himalyan salt and have done tick checks at night during the summer.

The current "buzz" in Chronic Fatigue/Multiple Chemical Sensitivity circles is that this condition could be the result of a brain injury (from a virus, toxic exposure, etc) and that by re-wiring the brain to work around that injury, people might feel better/tolerate more chemical exposures. In this book, it is talking about retraining the brain in instances of stroke, disability, etc.

Halloween on the Windswept Plains

Brian was the only one who dressed up.

He was "Paint Man". He got ready for this role by spraying "Kilz" primer (25 gallons of it) on the basement ceiling all day long.

We mentioned that he could go out right then and nobody would think him strange.

He thought better of it, however, and proceeded upstairs to try and soak the paint off in a nice hot bath.

Cute Boys

My Fingertips Are So Sore!

The really hot glue gun worked for the pinecone wreath! Of course it looks a little off center in the picture, but that's ok. My fingers are sore from handling so many poke-y pine cones and I went through almost *80* gluesticks for this project. Each cone took at least one gluestick! Seriously, they don't make hot glue guns like they did when I did such crafts before.

The wreath was supposed to go on Percy The Shed, but I don't have any confidence that this wreath will hold up to wind, rain and snow. So it's hanging outside the kitchen door where is scares us when we walk by, thinking it's a burglar outside. This wreath COULD be used as a weapon- it is so heavy and sharp!

“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and the strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.” – George Washington Carver

HT: thatmom.com

History Lesson Gone Wrong

Question from Hope's book "Mystery of History": What are the names of Adam and Eve's children?

Hope's answer: Slim

We have work to do.

And today, Winter Days, apparently

What happened to Fall?

Baby, it's cold outside.

Fall Days

Balloon Boy Tweets

SpunkyHomeSchool linked to tweets about "Balloon Boy" this morning. I clicked over and posted a few of the good ones:

#Balloonboy just received the Nobel Prize for Physics! He didn't go up in Balloon, but was THINKING about doing it.

Breaking News: If this story couldn't get more bizarre, it's just been announced that Obama was awarded a prize for rescuing balloon boy.

And my personal favorite:

Beyonce to #balloonboy family: "If you liked him then you should have put a string on it."

Job Update

After months and months (and years) of a less than ideal job situation, Brian met with his boss today to ask to be transferred to a different department within the company. This would mean that he would not be working for the manager who has caused so much strife and hopefully put him around people who are more appreciative of his skills and efforts.

The downside would be that he wouldn't be working closely with his good friend anymore, but they could still meet each other for lunch sometimes.

The tech job market is still bad here, so changing departments could be the best solution for Brian right now. We are mindful every day that there are those without employment and we are grateful for this job.

Fall Projects

While at Hobby Lobby the other day, I found a few "fall picks" that looked like they went together. So I made a wreath to replace the rather anemic one that hung there before. The anemic one looks better on the china cabinet anyway so she is not offended by the demotion.

The wonderful geraniums that graced the urns this summer have been replaced by pumpkins and leaves from the maple tree (courtesy of Hope). The front door wreath has also benefited from Hobby Lobby's bounty in the form of faux berries.

The kiddos and I are trying to make a pine cone wreath but the pine cones won't stay glued on. I tried googling "pine cones won't stay on wreath" but just found tutorials on glue-gunning on pine cones, which as I said, wasn't working for us. Sigh. I sure don't want to wire on a hundred pine cones!

And Hope is greatly enjoying all the silver and gold glitter we bought to decorate Christmas ornaments. The *whole house* now glitters, especially the kitchen table.

*Photo taken on the last day of summer*

It's a foggy day outside my window. Yesterday I sat in the sun for awhile and I loved soaking up the warmth, knowing that winter is on the way. It's getting near the time for the peak fall colors, so I hope we'll be able to take a drive to the mountains soon. We don't have many trees close by, so our neighborhood color is limited to the sagebrush which turns red, yellow and orange.

In our classroom, we finished our study of the Middle Ages and are now moving into the Renaissance period. After the Renaissance, my history lesson plans stop, so I should probably figure out what happens next.

Jacob's new science textbook is slated to arrive this week. He's in sixth grade but the book is the 8th grade text. You can guess what his favorite subject is. If he only liked writing half as much as science, we'd be in good shape.

Hannah got her ACT test results back and they were high enough for her to meet her graduation goals. They were not high enough for her to qualify for the "big" financial aid awards at the colleges we checked, so she wants to retake the test and see if she can do better. She plans on re-taking geometry with the "Math-U-See" curriculum (her original geometry was taught by a local tutor using a different method) not for school credit, but to help her on her college entrance tests.

Looking at colleges takes me back to the time when I was Hannah's age. Today there are so many more options for higher education that it can make the prospect more daunting at times. I would like Hannah to take some Bible and English/Writing classes and she is anxious to investigate Art classes. We are praying for wisdom for this next year as Hannah weighs where (and how) she would like to further her education.

Abby is thinking about writing an essay for an online publication. She is a good writer and thankfully, she has a sister who can help her with her spelling (that dyslexia, again!). I am excited to see her motivation for stretching herself academically. She has recovered from her flu and thankfully the rest of us didn't get it.

Hope is in third grade and loves all her subjects. She has been the easiest to teach so far and she reminds me of Hannah in her independent way of studying (plus a little of Abby's drama thrown in for good measure). I don't know what we would do without this little firecracker of a girl in our family!

Looking forward to a quiet week of schoolwork and fall walks in the neighborhood and the nearby park...

With Grandpa and Grandma

Camby, Grandpa and Grandma's newest service dog- in-training looked a lot like the display dog at the restaurant!

Unusual flowers...

With Cousin Doug

Grandpa and Grandma