Autumn

I love Autumn! I love the crispness of the air; the awesome leaf display that God graciously creates for us to enjoy; fresh crunchy apples and of course a multitude of pumpkins, squash and gourds. We love to go to the pumpkin patch as a family and enjoy the various activities offered by different farmers. Some have corn mazes, pumpkin chucking contests, apple bobbing....loads of fun fall activities.

We do not, however celebrate halloween in any fashion. No matter how you dress it up, flip it around or churchify it, it is still a satanic holiday and therefore we don't participate. So you may ask yourselves, then why do you go to the pumpkin patch??

That my friend is simple enough....WE LIKE PUMPKIN! The girls and I make pumpkin puree and freeze if for the winter. We make pumpkin bread, muffins, cookies and of course pies. I'm tempted to try pumpkin soup this year, but the husband insists he will not eat it. We'll also make toasted pumkin seeds to snack on, and save a few seeds to plant next year in our own garden.

Since we moved to a new city in July, we ventured to a new "patch" to get our pumpkins this fall. This particular trip was fun (with the exception of Lindsey's screaming at the guy dressed as a scarecrow type thing). She has a thing about costumes...totally "freaks me out" she says. And it does! Even the Chick-fila cow sends her into hysteria.

So...let me back up. The pumpkins, gourds and squash were already picked and boxed individually for each child. The large pumpkins had silly faces drawn on them and the children were supplied with a vast array of paints to use on their pumpkins. Olivia and Lindsey were blissfully painting away, when it happened. Lindsey spotted the guy in the costume and the screaming began. Uncontrollable screaming, shaking from head to toe. I felt bad for the poor guy, I'm pretty sure that he was traumatized. Then his employer sent him packing faster than anything I've seen in a long time. He came back later....less the costume and after the screaming stopped. He made every attempt to befriend Lindsey, but she watched him with a wary eye. Two weeks later, she's still asking why the man had on the costume.

For $15 we came away with 6 pumpkins, 8 squash, 4 sunflower seed heads and a bunch of dried flowers. So we kept some of the sunflower seeds and the dried flower seeds to plant next year. The remaining sunflower heads were put outside the kitchen window so we could watch the squirrels munch on them.

So, here are a couple of photos of the painting process. I'm thinking this was before the freak out incident...I don't see any evidence of puffy red eyes or a runny nose.

Awana

If you don't have a Baptist church background, you're probably thinking I've just sneezed. The truth is, I don't come from a Baptist church background either...but let me just say that Awana is awesome! For those who don't know what it is, I'll give you a brief rundown or you can go to their website www.awana.org and find a location near you.

Awana is a childrens ministry, where the kids wear vests, earn patches for memorizing Bible verses and really learn a lot about the Bible. Olivia already finished the 2 year Cubbies program (for ages 3-4) and is in her first year of Sparks. She's memorizing several scriptures a week (including the scripture reference). Lindsey is in her first year of Cubbies. She has 1 memory verse per week, and she's doing a wonderful job.

The Cubbie verse for this week was "And Jesus increased in wisdom..." Luke 2:52. Even though we're from Virginia, Lindsey sometimes has a Jersey sounding accent (who knows?). This week, she ended up soundling like she was from India (still don't know). So her verse came out sounding like this....

"and Jesuuuus inKreeeeesed in WHHEEEZZdom". Even her teachers had to chuckle when she recited it.

Its so wonderful to see my kids get so excited about church, and Bible verses and learning about God. And even though they are young, they are quick to share about Jesus to others.

Their favorite song right now is "He Reigns"....the chorus goess "all God's children singing glory glory, hallelujah He reigns, He reigns." They both sing it around the house, in the van, at the store....but do either sing it at church??

Lindsey's version..."all Gawd's children singing gory gory, hawweewuyah He wains...He wains".

Sobering Realization

Both of my girls take ballet class. Olivia is biding her time until she's old enough to take tap. Lindsey by all appearances has the grace to be a ballerina. Time will tell.

So anyway, while I was waiting for Lindsey's class to end, I listened to a conversation between two of the other mothers. They were discussing their childrens preschool costs, and their options for kindergarten next year. They were lamenting about the poor city school system here (they were right on that one). They were comparing which district each lived in, so out of courtesy (I guess) they asked me which district we live in. So I told them which district, but added "but we homeschool" at the end.

Both mothers sat looking at me with their mouths and eyes wide open. Then, Mom #1 says "My God, I couldn't stand to spend that much time with my kids." Mom #2 responded with "Me neither. I couldn't function without getting my 8 hour break from them everyday. It must take a special type of person to be able to be with their kids all the time"

So now it was my turn to sit there looking blankly at them. Special kind of person? I thought it was called "Motherhood"? I half-heartedly listened to the rest of their conversation. Mom #1 is considering a private Christian school in town to, and I quote "weed out the riff-raff my kids would be around." Mom #2 didn't realize she live in the worst district in town...but "What was the name of that churchy school again?"

I watched as the children came in. Lindsey ran to me, gave me a big kiss and hugged her sister; then excitedly starting telling us both all about class. Child of Mom #1 came in, got her shoes and walked out, nothing spoken to her mother. Child of Mom #2 didn't even come into the room...stood in the hall waiting, alone.

As we left, Olivia and Lindsey walked ahead of me up the street, holding hands...because they like to be with each other. I listened to them chatter about ballet, and the leaves blowing by and I smiled to myself.

Why would I want to miss any of this?

Meet the Girls, and Stella

Here are my gorgeous children. Olivia is 5 and Lindsey is 3. The short gal in the middle is Stella, technically she's a newborn. We read the book "Flat Stanley" at the beginning of our school year. I suggested that we could make our own flat someone. Soooooo....several prototypes later and we had our nameless flat someone.

After MUCH deliberation between the girls and I (ok, I was the moderator); we settled on the name "Flat Stella". We've worked hard to make her comfortable on her travels. She has a lovely felt coat/boots/hat set for the colder climates. We created a black/white evening gown for a formal tea she was invited to. She has several outfits, her own passport and accessories.

So far, Stella has traveled to Disney in Florida, Michigan, Vermont and Maine. When she returns from this portion of her trip, she'll be heading out to tour the southern states. She'll have stops in Kentucky, Georgia, Louisianna and Texas. We currently have scheduled her to visit Alaska, Colorado, Washington, Colorado, Ontario and South Africa!

Oh to be thin and mailable!

"New Math?"

We're about midway through our second year of homeschooling. Its gone well, overall. Then it happened. Math. Now don't get me wrong, we've been doing math all along; counting, telling time, handling money all with grins and giggles. We ventured into the world of addition facts, more grins, more giggles. Olivia my oldest (she's 5 currently) has a memory like an elephant. She committed all of those blessed little facts to memory in no time...and as long as we go in order (1+1=2, 2+1=3, 3+1=4) we still have grins and giggles.

However, IF by chance, out of the blue I ask for 7+1= I'm met with a blank look, and numbers start flying around like fruit flies on a feeding frenzy. So I decided that this week we'd work strictly on getting the understanding to go with the math facts. Yeah, good plan there pal. Yesterday we spent our entire math time reviewing, going in sequence....going out of sequence...back to in sequence. At the end of the day 7+1=3. Who knew?

Today, my lightening quick mind said "we need to use manipulatives". So we gathered up our little plastic counting circles. I explained what we were going to do, why we were going to do it and then we started. Olivia looked at me like I'd suddenly sprouted a new head. We spent the entire math time working on our addition facts, in sequence, out of sequence (bang head on table here)...back to in sequence.

At the end of the day, I'm not really sure what 7+1= anymore. I'm pretty certain, if I used the manipulatives correctly that 7+1 does NOT =3. Olivia is not as convinced of this as I am. Maybe my 3 year old can explain it to us both tomorrow.