Growing Everyday

Beka, Jared, and I planted some tulips last fall and some other flower I can not remember the name of. This week I have seen little buds sprouting. I am so excited. This means spring is here, right?!

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The whole family has been working on some simple no-sew fleece blankets for Project Linus. I would love to say we were being altruistic, generous, and charitable. In actuality, we are doing the project for the Give a day, Get a Day that Disney is promoting. Project Linus is a wonderful cause and making the blankets has been a lot of fun. Also, many great conversations about charity and helping others have happened because of this project.

Beka and Jared went with me to pick out the fabrics. That took much longer than I thought it would. Beka was very particular about what she wanted on her blanket. I prepared the blankets for cutting. Both kids tried to cut the fringe, but decided they didn’t like that job, so Andrew and I finished it.

Beka and Jared did a wonderful job tying the fringe for us though. They both worked diligently at it and managed to tie their own blankets plus some. The blankets turned out a lot better than I thought they would.

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A few months ago, our church asked for donations of books. That donation process got me thinking about what our bookshelf and books say about us and what we enjoy reading. Our bookshelf is eclectic to say the least. The top picture is of our bookshelf and if you really look at it you see anything from Dr. Seuss to Harry Potter to Radioisotopes to Chronicles of Narnia. I have a whole shelf full of my comfort reads (the books I go to when I just need a break from real life.) Those comfort read include romance, urban fantasy, and historical. We donated 60 children’s books to the church and I still have three shelves full of books for the kids and that doesn’t include the box of books from my childhood that is hiding in the closet.

You might say my bookshelf shows that I have a tiny addiction to books. I read almost anything I can get my hands on. And gradually, I am passing this addiction onto my children. Beka has discovered Bunnicula by James Howe and Jared loves Captain Underpants. For the most part, I don’t care what the kids are reading as long as it is kid-appropriate. I don’t really care for some of the humor in Captain Underpants, but that is the main reason why Jared likes it. And he is reading and enjoying it! I never want Beka and Jared to feel like reading is something to be suffered through. I want them to anticipate getting to read something.

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Beka and Jared are both in clubs this semester at school. Jared is doing Math Explorers Club. He goes about 45 minutes early to school and they play logic and math games. Jared seems to really enjoy it. He doesn’t talk about it much but he always wants to go.

Beka is in a club called Globetrotters. One day a week after school, she stays late and the club talks about a different country. Beka has really enjoyed it. She comes home full of information about these different countries.

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Jared has been involved in basketball this winter. One of the local churches has an Upward basketball league. The league has special rules such as prayer before the games and a short bible study during practice. Jared seems to have really enjoyed himself. He has a little trouble focusing on the game the whole time. And his shooting skills need a little work. But he has learn a lot of the basic of basketball like pivoting, dribbling, and defense. Jared seems to be pretty good at defense. The best part….he is exhausted after a game. It is a great outlet for his energy when there isn’t much else to do. I think Jared’s favorite part is the beginning of the game. They play Jock Jams music and all the players get to run in. The kids look so excited. Now if I could only learn how not to be anxious during the games all would be well.

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Beka received a microscope for Christmas and she also received some prepared slides. Beka has really njoyed looking at things under the microscope. But she got bored with the prepared slides. Now, the last time I had to prepare a microscope slide was sometime in high school. But when Beka asked if we could make some slides, I said sure and set out to re-learn how to make our own slides. We now have slides of toothpaste and a mouth swab. If anyone has any suggestions for slides, let me know. Beka is always looking for more specimens to examine.

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I, by nature, am not a hoarder. I hate clutter and most knick knack type things just seem like dust collectors to me. I throw away things that I haven’t used in 6 months. I just don’t keep a lot of stuff around "just because".

Because I don’t keep a lot of things, I am sometimes mystified by my children. Beka has a collection of feathers, coins, rocks, and miscellaneous other things. Jared collects rocks, pokemon cards, bakugan cards, and I am sure some other things. The point is the kids like to keep things around them all the time. They are neat about it so it doesn’t really bother me, but I also don’t understand it. I just don’t get.

Recently, though I had to draw a line at the collections. We were eating fried chicken at supper and at the exact same time both children asked if they could keep their chicken bones. No reason, they didn’t want to DO anything with them. They just wanted to keep them. My answer was "EWWWWW and NO".

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I am prefacing this post with: I got a "D" in geometry. It was not nor will it ever be my favorite subject

Andrew and I were having a discussion (not an argument but a discussion) about whether a square was by definition a rectangle. I, of course, being stupid choose to disagree with Andrew. He is a math minor, by the way, I know better than to disagree with him on issues in math. But I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that a square was a rectangle but a rectangle was not a square. The kids joined in the discussion which lead to a full out diagram of the differing types of quadrilaterals and how they relate to one another.

The kids and I now know that yes a square is a rectangle. And I am sure they will both argue with their teachers about the fact. Are we the only family that gives our kids enough information to actually argue with the teachers?

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The trees in our yard are very small and very young, so there are not enough leaves in our yard to even bother to rake. Believe I am not complaining, but the kids miss jumping and playing in the leaves. Luckily, around the pond in our neighborhood there are numerous huge trees that drop tons of leaves. And the best part is you can rake the leaves up to play in them but you don’t have to bag them up or anything!! Anyway, Beka and Jared had a great time rolling in the leaves, throwing the leaves, and burying each in the leaves.

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Our Alien pumpkin

We had a great Halloween. Andrew’s parents came over and ate supper with us so they could see the kids in costume. Beka and Jared had been excited about trick or treating all day. They were determined to walk the whole neighborhood this year. They ended up walking about half of it, but I think they came home with more candy than what I gave out and they had an amazing time.

Beka was a clown and she painted her shirt herself. She could not find a costume she liked, so we invented one.

Jared wanted to be something scary this year. He picked Frankenstein mostly because whenever he talked or walked the chest lit up and his heart glowed. He thought it was the best thing ever.

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