The promise of stew for supper...

In our new home we're much closer to the road. This is the view out of our sliding door in the dining area. In summer we can watch all the walkers. Even in the winter there are a few hardy souls who jog by each morning. It's an easy walk to the mailbox, too! The south end of our house is pretty close to the hiking and biking trail. We may have to put in some trees for a little more privacy! Yum! The stew looks good, if I do say so myself! This is the first time I've tried McCormick's Beef Stew Seasoning, so I hope we like it! (Note: the stew was delish!)
My daughter Micah and granddaughter, Audrey. She's growing like a weed and she's quite a delightful little person. Another little grand will be appearing in September! Brother or sister? It's going to be a surprise!
And congratulations to you and your family, Pom Pom, on the birth of your new grandson, Atticus Jeffrey! Thanks to our families the world is becoming quite well populated! :)

Shalom, all!

"Would you like to delete all of your photos and videos?"

my camera innocently asked. It had never given me this option previously. At least not that I could recollect. Electronic things usually have some sort of fail-safe device which annoyingly asks, "Are you SURE you want to delete that?" Not this time. I selected what I thought was the NO response, and before my eyes the camera began deleting all of my files without so much as a backwards glance. No warning, no nothing. Suddenly I hold an empty camera. Hundreds of pictures...gone.

Oh well. Actually, it makes me feel kind of...free! I've been deleting pictures a few at a time to make room for a few more for quite some time now. I'm pretty sure I've put most of the important ones on my computer and into Facebook albums. What I haven't saved I probably won't miss. Now I have a whole card to refill! It'll be AGES before I have to delete another picture. Yahoo!

;)

This discovery made my jaw drop!

Here I am, still browsing through homeschool papers. As I came upon my daughter Micah's work I found one of my teacher journals where I kept track of what we did each day. I found a little bit of history that I didn't expect (please excuse my messy handwriting):

The entry from the day before was a little less world shaking, but marked a big moment in Micah's life. Her first day of taekwondo lessons! She went on to dominate in the sport, so this was a big day! (I'll have to show her later!)

Micah recently.
On a humorous note, here's another of Josh's papers from 7th grade. Sloppy though it is, I thought it showed some ingenuity. The assignment must have been a book report on Covert Bailey's book "Fit or Fat". I actually gave him a 90% on this:

Kiddos' artwork and essays...

We had some insurance and income tax documents to mail to Jordan so I'm including some of the homeschool drawings he and Josh did in 1995 when they were 11 and 13 years of age. I think they'll enjoy them.

Meanwhile, I came across some cute essays which I photographed. We'll see how legible they are.
We spent a lot of time on Ancient History and used the Greenleaf Guides. Apparently, I asked the boys to write an essay on whether they would like to be a pharoah and this was Josh's (age 10) response, flaws and all! :)
And here is Josh's essay on Thutmose the III:

A photo of the kids about the time these essays were written. Actually, that's Micah (my daughter) in the middle. Jordan on the left and Josh on the right.
Here are some of Jordan's Egypt essays. He writes in a more serious vein, though he's every bit as humorous as Josh otherwise!




One of many of Jordan's pages of drawings done in 1995 at age 13. We were using a book called The Big Yellow Drawing Book.

Some of Josh's drawings from the same time period:

Anyway, I'm enjoying this trip down memory lane and thought Grandpa and Grandma might like seeing these. I have stacks of essays and drawings from all of those schoolyears. I won't attempt to post them all here, though I can't promise I won't put one up occasionally! :D
Josh, Micah and Jordan at the Headwaters of the Mississippi, which is about 20 miles from our home. About 1994.


Shalom!

Another fun project!

I've been browsing through boxes of my children's homeschool papers from many years ago. I'm especially enjoying their essays and drawings. I keep reading excerpts to my hubby and we're laughing so hard our sides ache! Our boys were (and are) so nutty. They really have brought a lot of sunshine into our lives with their humor. I haven't gotten to much of my daughter Micah's work yet. She was quite a few years behind the guys, but I'll eventually look through everything.

The project I mentioned is my plan to make a scrapbook for each of the kids containing some of their essays, artwork and photos of them. It will sort of be a beginning of their own family history and they can add to it. I think a section will contain old photos of relatives and since both of my boys have written some good stuff recently, I'll also include that. I'm hoping to have these ready for Christmas gifts next year, or, if I'm really organized, I may have them ready for birthdays before that. I know it will be a big project, but I'm feeling the need to get some of these memories organized so that the kids have some tangible family history to keep. Blogs and digital photos are great, but I'd like to have something in an album for each of them since technology becomes obsolete so quickly. Maybe I'll add some photos to this post later, but tonight I have to get to bed so I can get up early for work tomorrow.

Shalom!

Some knick-knacks unearthed...

While unpacking some boxes I found my long lost collection of salt and pepper shakers!



I love this little sugar and creamer...made in Japan! They have a way with painting ceramics!
I also brought out my collection of old piano lesson books. I even played a couple of easy ones. Fun to dabble at, but I don't think I have a future as a pianist. :D On top of the piano you'll see a copy of Fuzzy Dan (right behind the John Deere mug). I got that for my hubby from Paperbackswap after he mentioned that it was the only book he ever read as a child! LOL! That's daughter Micah on the horse and pics of grandson Nathan. The Welcome to our Farm sign is a Christmas gift from step-daughter Missy from Fargo. The group shot is the gymnastics team for which Micah is assistant coach. Oh, and that's Bob's dad posing in front of the schoolbus on the left. I love to have lots of family mementos on top of the piano.
I may have TOO many knick-knacks. I can always cull them later, but for now they bring a little extra homey-ness to the place!

Embarking on a long project...

After reading over some of my old posts I decided I would like to save some of them in paper form. I recall creating a website years ago. I put a lot of sweat and time into creating links to tons of info on homeschooling and enjoyed working on it for years. Then one day somebody decided to do away with the whole site and move it. I tried moving my info to the new site and it was a disaster! So, just in case blogspot decides to do likewise someday, I'm saving the good stuff!

I can't believe how many posts I've written over the years. It's going to take some time and several ink cartridges to complete this project, but I'm liking the idea!

Have a glorious day, all who pass by here!

The Writing Bug revisited...

I did something unusual just now. I actually scrolled way down on my right-hand column and re-read some of my old posts!! It was fun! Kind of like crawling into a time machine and revisiting the past. I guess that's why we blog/journal. I've just been too busy going forward to go back and re-enjoy some old experiences.

One of my first blog posts here on Backwoods Crazy Quilt was called "The Writing Bug" and I find that I still agree with the sentiments I expressed there. Another post about living communally and one about practicing my fiddle and tinwhistle reawoke some old interests. I think I'll do more of this past visitation.

Meanwhile, Happy New Year to anyone drifting by! By looking back we can sometimes get insight into where we want to head in the future. :D

Some new pics...

Jess and Nathan at the Ft. Worth Botanical Gardens. (This time of year?? Yup!)
Jordan with his worship team friends, Maria and Jacob. They lead worship at a church in Joshua, TX.
Nathan and daddy Josh at the Botanical Gardens. I love that little shirt on him! It's "his colors"!
Nathan and his cow friend!
Jordan and some little friends doing a dance to the worship song!
Micah and Adam celebrating his 17th birthday. Okay, so this isn't a new picture, but it was new to me! It was actually three years ago. Such cute little kiddos!
Doin' some worship leadin'.
A little pouty face at the Botanical Gardens...
Jordan, Maria and Jacob clowning at Christmastime.

As my son Jordan said when he posted this...

"Get ready to have a good cry!"