Annie's Bridal Shower

Last Saturday a very dear young lady (who I have known since she was a wee lass of 11) was showered with blessings at a lovely event in her honor. It was also a big day for us as it was our girls' first time attending a shower. Believe it or not, I think they were nervous. It was a delightful time to be hidden away on the 3rd floor of an historic building in a quaint downtown. We could see the skies open and the rain slash the windows, but the chattering and laughing drowned whatever thunder rolls attempted to intrude on our time. Here are some photos (taken by Lydia!)Annie and her fiance are musical (specifically she's a violinist and he's...hmm lots and lots of other instruments). I thought these were lovely themed figurines!
The shortbread was our contribution. I was taking some pride in them, only to be humbled by my daughter who told me that overnight they had become soft and tasted stale!
Here's a bevy of gifting!
A fun shot which Lydia captured of the decor and beverages. Everything was just lovely.
One very excited and cheerful bride-to-be! We can't wait for the wedding on New Year's Eve!

Catching Up.

So, here we are in the very last week of our first quarter of our school year. I'm ready for a break! It has been a good first quarter, although there are always things I wish we did better. But since it has been brutally hot, we've at least been productive with our indoor time! We did have one week off, during which we attended VBS at another local OP church. The theme was "A Dangerous Journey." The oldest 3 attended and I took Simeon off to a friend's house each morning for him to have some solo time. The oldest 3 greatly enjoyed themselves, although I'm not sure on Philip's level of comprehension! But it was fun, and they looked forward to going each day. We concluded that week with an impromptu trip to the NC Art Museum. My parents were celebrating their wedding anniversary by going there and also staying for dinner. Since we were so close by at VBS we met them there on the Friday afternoon. Abigail and I spent a good deal of time looking at an oil painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder. She has studied the work of his father, Peter, this quarter and so to see a painting by his son was a real treat. Interestingly, Peter Brueghel had 2 sons--both of whom became artists (as did some of their sons), but Peter died when his own sons were 4 and 5.

Here are some random July photos: Tomatoes from the garden (which is almost completely dried to a crisp now)!
Simeon appeared one day saying, "Look at me, I'm PeeDee the Pirate!" A reference to ECU and also attributed to his lack of toys and dress-up clothes that he found a metal clothes hanger to play with. NOT!
The great Pollywog failure. We collected frogspawn from the creek behind the house and vigilantly watered and watched it grow into many, many pollywogs in our garage. Then, I had the bright idea of moving them to a larger space (a green turtle pool) in the backyard. Only a couple of hours of 100+ temps fried the poor things! Abigail, in a magnanimous way said, "Well, we all had a part in the death of those poor pollywogs."
Kids piling on each other. Lydia, 9, Abigail 7.5, Philip 4 and Simeon 2. Birthday season around here is August and September, so we'll soon have changing numbers!
We went to celebrate the 93rd birthday of a church friend at her nursing home. A couple of other church families joined us. In this photo our friends, the Conlons (2 boys, 2 girls) joined us to smile with Mrs. Annaveldt.

4th of July

We spent the majority of today down at my parents' house. We hardly ever get a day to just go and hang out leisurely with them, but today we could. It was really nice. My mom does a nice job of keeping color around their home despite the beastly hot temperatures we have in the summer.She set out a moving truck blanket and a bucket and gave the kids corn to shuck. Keep helping me with their work ethic, Mom! We ate out picnic on their back deck where their thermometer told us it was 102 degrees. Nice.
The children each made an American flag and we had a few recitations of patriotic poems we've been enjoying. Lest you think we overachieve, I did the recitations (not from memory!) while the kids waved their flags.
My mom purchased sparklers and Lydia & Philip were eager to use them. Despite it being 102 degrees, and despite it being daylight. Anyway, we brought a few boxes home to use later. Abigail stayed seated, manning the water bucket--where you drop your used sparklers!

Happy Independence Day!

Shepherd Boy

Simeon still has a binky. And a lambie. And yes, he's still in diapers. All things we need to get changed around here! He often likes to wear his lambie on his head and call himself a shepherd. That's one cute thing I'll miss about this phase, whenever it ends.

More for posterity post

This post is really more for posterity than anything else. We made this flour/salt clay map of the world and later added (in yarn) Magellan's route of circumnavigation. Pretty soon I'll be throwing it away, so if it is memorialized on the blog, I'll feel better. It also makes me feel good to know that now and again, I did something fun as the homeschool mom. The craft afternoons are few and far between in our house!

A couple of random things

I thought it was time to start potty-training Simeon. I also thought it would be a good idea to do it the Monday after we got home from the beach, you know, the same Monday on which we started our new school year. I seem to have all the good ideas in bunches. NOT!!! So he spent a week of sitting on the potty for the morning. He never accomplished anything, not a single drop!! But he did manage to wet several carpets and a living room chair. I put him back in diapers and will wait a little longer. However, he consistently tells me when he's doing something and that he needs to be changed thereafter (so, now I'm using more diapers than less...rrrr). Philip really got into ironing a few days ago. He's using a real iron--but it's not plugged in! We have been over ironing safety rules in the event he ever finds a really hot iron.

Abigail is loving her Saxon math. It is right up her alley and she never complains about doing it. There are other things to complain about (jk).

Here's our little iron-man.

Father's Day

Kevin asked to celebrate Father's Day early by taking us to the Durham Bulls baseball game last Tuesday. We all had a lot of fun--the weather was perfect, we shared several requisite ballpark goodies (nachos, fried dough, cotton candy). Generally, they were all kind of like this: stuck on Kevin--which I guess is appropriate for a Father's Day celebration!