Farewell 2010

In 2010 I wasn't an avid blogger, mainly because I had other things to keep the kids and myself hopping. Our favorites:

In May I found a new calling in life: teaching violin. I've always loved music and played the violin through college. I was a closet musician for the past 15 years and only dusted it off to play for my kids or teach them how to play themselves. I'm still very shy about playing in public, but I'm delighted to play with my students!


The twins donated 10" of their hair.
Kenna:


Mabry:


Cute:


My little twirler preformed in the children's talent show at church during the fall festival. She twirled to "Surfing USA" and made her own hula skirt from plastic table coverings.



Mabry and Kenna decided not to twirl since they wanted to sing "Sisters" from White Christmas. You would have thought that this song was written just for them.


Micah became our first child to visit the urgent care needed staples after falling from the kitchen table. (Sorry no ER pictures...a little to much blood. But enjoy a cute one from his first time with the preschool choir.)


The girls started harp lessons.


We, along with some great friends, made pillowcase dresses for girls in Botswana.


We've taken our music on the road to play and sing for our church's homebound members. Here are the girls with Mrs. Mary Rogerson, a sweet, sweet lady!


We discovered delicious and flavorful loose leaf Amanzi Tea. Strawberry Magic is my favorite and so is Citrus Splash. (Raspberry Vanilla is good, too, as well as Winter Romance.) This is my favorite pot, but I also like this one too. I've significantly cut my coffee consumption. Haven't quite given up Dr Pepper, though.


Our new favorite handicrat: hand embroidery. Still love and prefer my quilling, but have found embroidery is a great car craft for when I'm waiting on the girls to finish harp lessons. I made this for Matthew for Christmas, featuring the kids' handprints and Psalm 40:5:


Here's what Cayli embroidered for my mom for Christmas:


The girls and I have lots planned for 2011 from pursuing musical abilities to perfecting more crafts to ministering to others with our talents.

Micah's goal is simple: to find out how many licks it take to get to the center of, not just one tootsie pop, but two...


Happy New Year!

Perfect Harmony

to listen to these two practice together:

Mabry and Kenna have only been playing their instruments for a few weeks (thanks to some of our church's most talented musicians), and they are loving playing together.

This was even an unprompted practice session since they took the initiative to play together.

I always knew this day would come. They were born with some musical talent!

Botswana Bound

The dresses--not the girls (though we'd love to go to Botswana!).

Two years ago, Kenna decided that she was destined to live in Botswana after reading an article in a National Geographic. Since she has been very persistent in her Botswana pursuit, I learned as much as I could about the country.

Botswana is the country right above South Africa. Diamonds are actively mined there. If you're into safari photography, Botswana doesn't disappoint. Sadly, the average life expectancy is 35 years as AIDS takes many lives.

So, for our family, Botswana became more a prayer project than a fascinating place filled with exotic cheetahs and expensive stones.

Still we really didn't know what to do. Until 2 months ago, when a lady from our church gave my girls some black yarn and asked if they would like to make hair for rag dolls that are sent all over the world to missionaries working with children.

The coordinator of the doll project called me and humbly asked if they could make 50 pieces of hair for a missionary in Botswana.

Botswana? Seriously? I was totally surprised. Of all the countries she was sending dolls to, Botswana topped the list. I told her how we loved the country, though we have no ties to it.

So my girls have been busy making hair to go on the rag dolls that the ladies sew and clothe.

Then two weeks ago, the coordinator called me and asked if I had ever heard of a pillowcase dress. Honestly I'd known about them for a long time, but only recently did I make one. A group of women from our church had purposed making these dresses for the Botswana children, as the children there only have their ragged school uniforms to wear.

I'm all for sewing for kids, so yesterday I made these for my girls to wear to model for our church as the pastor talked about this new ministry at the church.

We'll be donating the dresses the girls wore and the matching doll dresses that Cayli sewed to the Botswana project.

We feel very blessed to be a part of this project. I'm in awe of how a young girl's fascination for a foreign country has brought about an incredible opportunity for my family!

Busy, busy, busy

Been preparing for the upcoming school year...even though we started 3 weeks ago.

This year:

• Cayli is in 5th grade
• Kenna and Mabry are in 4th grade
• Micah is into making messes

This year, however, we have no textbooks. Not even for math. *gasp*

Our library is filled with math books that teach concepts in such an engaging way. Math will no longer be a subject to "do," it will be a part of life to experience. This summer reading/doing around here:

Sure, we'll have a few worksheets here and there for drill, especially since all the girls can use some extra practice with multiplication and division. But we'll also use other books along the way:

We're 3 weeks into our new school year and every day one of the girls asked when we can do math. That's never happened before since math was a subject to be dreaded. But with a little extra planning and some creativity, my girls have come to love real-life math.

Planning for next year?

Just wanted to share with you...

holdthatthought.com notebooking pages are ideal for letting your kids write about history and Bible topics.

My girls don't mind writing on these pages because they have a set border so they don't feel like they will have to write forever. I like that I can hand them a page and now that the topic will be covered with a little research. It sure beats plain notebook paper any day!

After hearing about them for awhile, I've specifically ordered the Bible ones and I'll let you know how the kids like them.