A Field Trip & Turning Six!

My little girl is six years old.  Just last week she was five years old and now she is six. Six sounds so much more grown up than 5 for some reason. She even looks older now. She wears blue jeans and rolls her eyes every once in a while.She makes her own bed, can take the wet clothes out of the washer and put them into the dryer, and puts her clothes back on their hangers. She climbs trees and moved up to the "big kids class" at church. Yet in some ways, she is still very little and I like to watch for those things. She still has a baby way of saying some words,  still wears her footie jammies, loves to carry around her baby dolls and asks for me to fix her hair up in buns. She still needs to be read aloud to and likes to be carried to her bed when we drive in late from somewhere and it's dark outside. William says that living things grow and that we should rejoice that she is alive and growing, too.(This was in response to my idea that we should freeze her exactly as she is right now. His ideas are always much wiser and doable than mine.) So, it really is a blessing. I think I will change my anouncement of her turning six........I will say: "My little girl is six years old! She is growing and strong! She has a sound mind, a peaceful heart, a born-again spirit and a healthy body! Hooray! She sailed through 5 and got promoted to 6! Her life is a great success! Next year she will be seven and it just keeps getting better!!!!! Yes, that is how it should be- a celebration.
 Here are the ways we celebrated  turning six:

We went to Mt. Vernon, George Washington's home just below DC. We got to tour the house and go through a beautiful museum gallery showing memorabilia surrounding the First President's life. The film on the Revolutionary War was a real highlight! This was our first official field trip and I thought is was a great success. The most fascinating part for me was a key that Washington had on display in his home. It was THE key to the Bastille in Paris that was stormed by angry French Revolutionaries. Apparently, LaFayette presented it to Washington as a gift in honor of him being the "father of freedom". I thought of Jesus who came to set not just a few free but all men everywhere, whether bound with natural chains or the fetters of sin. We serve the Father of ALL freedoms and he holds the keys to death, hell and the grave!
(P.S. Notice Josiah)

We had to wait in line for about an hour to tour the house at Mt. Vernon. Meanwhile, the kids could play "Graces" on the lawn. You pass a wooden hoop back and forth with two wooden sticks. It was called "Graces' because you had to keep perfect posture and let the hoop float up in the air and gracefully catch it. We obviously have to work on keeping our backside tucked in, but- hey.....we caught the hoop!

Thank you, Aunt Hannah for telling us about the wonderful Lego exhibit at the National Building Museum in DC! We took the kids for their first ride on Washington's Metro rail system to see this great exhibit. After seeing the huge Lego replicas of famous skyscrapers(like the Sears Tower), you could stay and build your own. Here's Jon Langley with the start of his creation.

Daddy and Josiah try their hand at it, too.

Shaisy building-- see the exhibit in the background? Since this is the only place I photographed a glimpse of the actual Legos on display, I obviously thought the real feature of the weekend was my children! (:

Keeping Life Colorful

Sometimes things at the last minute work the best...sometimes. This year for Hallelujah Night (our alternative to Halloween) I had not prepared any costumes. Usually, I get really excited and inspired and sew cute things and paint faces and plan my theme, only to snap a quick picture and then the moment we arrive at church my very cute, well-executed Adam, Eve & the apple costumes get stripped off, torn up, and quickly discarded in exchange for bouncing up and down on the huge blow-up games and sliding down the monster slide. A week of planning results in 5 minutes of glory... and I think most of it was for me, anyway. (Kind of like those birthday cakes I make "for the kids"...) Well, this year my lack of ambition turned out just right for everyone on Hallelujah night. When the kids realized mommy had no costumes made they were stricken with grief. So, I dug deep for some creativity, still thinking about functionality and what would survive 3 hours of ecstatic jumping and candy eating. Blue jeans, a turtleneck, a construction cone hat and a crayola wrapper blown up on the copier and....voila! The costumes were still quickly discarded and trampled but I didn't care! Jon Langley actually wore his cone hat for quite a while but that's just him. The next day they wanted to be crayons again- this was  a hit!

The Highlight of My Day

I just got a phone call. It is the highlight of my day- each day. It's what makes me scurry around to get things picked up, run the vacuum, put supper on the table....and be ready for the big moment. I love to hear the phone ring because I know that it will be him, my favorite person, my best friend. My husband is coming home!!

My Big Little Girl

Shea is my hero. She is a big girl. She is responsible. She thinks about others. She brings people cups of water when they're outside working. She unloads the dishwasher because she knows that I don't like to. She likes to take baths with me. Now she is blowdrying her own hair. She is very into stylish things- feather boas, furry pink pocketbooks with rhinestones, multiple patterns and headbands. All of these are at the top of her list. Her most endearing quality, however, is that she loves to be with me. When I was her age I had to fix my own hair because I tormented my mother and pitched a fit until Daddy said that mother wasn't allowed to do it anymore and I would have to learn how to for myself. Shea does it because she's responsible and wants to be a help to her mommy on Sunday mornings. I want to be just like her when I grow up.

Solitude

This is every mother's dream- just an hour or two alone. We go to the bathroom with an entourage, fix supper with one attached to our leg, and have to go through the slight invasion of privacy of having to try on outfits in the handicap TJ Maxx dressing room while 3 pair of eyes are fixed on us and our mommy figure. Time alone is a bit lacking. Daddy can escape "outside" but mommy- well, being mommy is another story. Maybe I'd watch a decorating show, maybe I'd go through my closet, maybe I'd lay in my hammock, pray or play the piano. Solitude- it's more than a luxury. It is a necessity.

Solitude

 Oh Solitude, bleak and grey

If some love has flown away

If another takes your place

If you've wandered far from Grace

Solitude- a lonely word?

One that's rarely ever heard

In a home of padding feet,

screeching voices begging treats

Solitude- the great unknown

Quite extinct in modern homes

Perhaps within but not without

Might one tend to have a bout with

Solitude- neither bleak nor grey

Let one have a sunny day

Day of leisure, day of ease

When there's only one to please

This type repose will surely do

Oh, Solitude- I welcome you!

Pre-School and Personification

My little Josiah loves going to pre-school. It is a small pre-school right here in our county that has not been re-decorated since its inception in the late seventies. I like it because they have not "progressed" in the most negative sense of the word because they still sing Jesus loves Me", have chapel and eat vanilla wafers for snacktime....well, probably. Or the little VBS cookies with holes in the middle of them that make the perfect rings for little fingers. We could not convince our little girl, Shea, to take to this pre-school and there were many mornings that we passed her off to the teacher crying and looking destitute over the teachers' shoulders at her very bad (it felt this way) parents just trying to push her off on the preschool so they could have a little bit of quiet time- just two hours, mind you, of quiet time in their day and reclaim the concept of free time and- oh, where am I? Okay, I'm back, I'm okay. As I was saying, we love our children and we love to be with them. This is why I'm homeschooling, remember?? My point was that, the very same pre-school that made Shea sudder is the same one that Josiah loves. He's the first one up, first one dressed in his little polo shirts, ready to put on his "climbing shoes" and paint something beautiful for mommy at school that day. He's DISSAPOINTED M,W, and F because there is no school to go off to. It is really wonderful. He ran back to me this morning after getting all buckled in and looking very big with his backpack on (thank, you Nonna) because he suddenly exclaimed that he had to give mommy "one more kiss". He came bounding back up the stairs, he braved the rain and his gelled hair (which he's quite protective of) just to throw himself into my arms and kiss me all over. Physical touch is at the top of the list of my Love Languages list, incidently, and so I made the comment that I love boys who like to give out excessive kisses. Always, observant, and quick to take my subtle hint, my husband ran back up the steps (he didn't bound) and gave me another kiss as well. Ahh- I'm glad I live with three men. Someone is always bound to be bounding toward me.

We had our first creative writing lesson in school this morning- quite impromptu. We have starting reading through excerpts from The Book of Virtues and the poem we read this morning had the nicest personification so I decided to seize the moment and explain what this literary term meant and how to use it in writing creatively. Well, I gave a fifteen minute challenge and here are the very creative writings that resulted. Fifteen minutes- three creative minds- one literary term:

Personification- attributing human like qualities to an inanimate thing or idea.

Personification

by Shea Deagle, age 5 (her very own words written down by mommy)

The napkin never wanted to get dirty. But everybody used him.They wiped their mouths on him and he got dirty. He was upset. He got angry. He cleaned himself off with a wipe. The everybody went to bed. The next morning, he got out of his bed and everybody used him for breakfast so he hid and never came out again.

Inanimate object? A napkin

Human attribute?  Wanting to stay clean

Personal inspiration? Daddy (aka Mr. Clean)

The Two Books

A Personification Tale by Jon Langley Deagle

The books lay high in the sky on a little bookshelf.

The two of them talked so well one day they fell-

Their coats were ripped and messy.

They got put back up on the shelf and they were pretty messy.

The clock was blue and it struck two.

The two books were shy and they wiped their coats.

A pack of two came to surprise

To see two books talking while time passed by.

The two told them, "Come, don't be shy. We just want something old to read."

The two books were so happy to be pisked.

They went to Peace Hill and went into a cottage.

The next day the books got read, read, and read. They looked so proud in the cottage.

The two books looked at everything around them. They were the only thing the pair of two read.

The Fair Chair

by Jessica Deagle

The little chair was very fair

And wouldn't stand just anywhere.

Her eyes did roam around the home

For one who looked quite debonaire.

She settled on a strong-backed chair-

With rolling arms and room to share-

Who seemed a comfy place to read.

(Besides, he wore a suit of tweed

And tweed would nicely suit her needs)

She hoped that he would see her there

Beside the fire, looking fair

Her legs quite long, her skirt quite short

(This was the style for the Windsor sort)

Perhaps with her he would consort.

To her dismay one day there came

A small setee with a dainty frame.

The mistress of the house did set

The new setee by the one unmet.

(This made our heroine upset)

That was her spot, her place to be!

Beside her handsome one in tweed

And the new setee, if she knew what was good

Would keep her legs right where they stood

And show no more wood than a setee should.

For hours they sat in their places, unaltered

Till the mistress in her thinking faltered

And decided that the tweed, indeed

Would be a lovely place to read

At the fire alongside the Windsor chair

Who, after all, was very fair.

Once the move was made, her card she played

And a nearby window obliged

A breeze flutterd in, swished her skirting and then

She fluttered her pillow fringe eyes.

The Tweed was quite smitten

Now their tale has been written-

A lesson that all should embrace:

If your fireside's dull, your decor's hit a lull

Don't keep your furniture in the same place!

For the Lord gives wisdom...

"For the Lord gives wisdom, and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding,"
Proverbs 2:6

This was our key scripture during the first week of homeschooling--- ahhhhh! I still cannot believe I am a homeschooling mom. The first two weeks have been wonderful and really a blessing to me. My favorite time is our "circle time" in the mornings when we can pray together and learn our memory verse. These are the moments I have been looking for- time to teach and give attention to God's Word in the mornings and not just hurry through a quick devotion time as they rush out the door for school. Mondays are History day and these are my favorite lessons. We are starting in the beginning learning about the ancients, nomads and early Egypt. We love to look on our Adams' timeline and find what we have learned or read about. I am really having fun. Jon Langley is a learner and a wonderful student- he always wants to do more! Shea is learning how to read. We have covered the five vowels and the letter B. I can't wait for the day when the light goes on for her and I hear her read and know that I was her teacher! Jo Jo is in pre-school now on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and so we are hard core students on those days to get lots done. He loves school and yesterday came home with a big green apple he had painted on a huge piece of paper. It was really too big to hang anywhere. Naturally, I hung it right on the bulletin board in my kitchen! I love being with my children....