Siblings and Streamers

Yesterday Drew and Baylee got one of the family albums out and looked through it.  Drew used that time with his sister to tease, of course.  I snapped this just as he was saying, "Oh, here's another picture of all the fun we used to have before you were born."

Baylee definitely holds her own in the teasing department, though.  Not too long after they looked at the album Baylee and I were getting ready to go to the church to help set up for that deaconess birthday party.  Drew asked if he could go, too, and Baylee responded with, "Oh, right.  It'll be a bunch of ladies and you."  Then she did her best knuckle-dragging caveman (with a lisp, apparently) impression. "Thoooo...how can I help you guyth???  You want me to go thet thom tablth?!"  It  was so funny that Drew couldn't even be mad.  He just laughed.

Speaking of that, here's what we did at the church.  I think it looks pretty darn good!

This was taken by a deaconess named Terry...

And I took this one...

See the balloons and streamers?  Being the youngest woman there, I got to climb a high ladder and hang all those.

Monday

I picked up Zach and Drew from youth group last night, and I also took one of their friends home.  About a mile away from the church this friend of theirs told me very politely that I might want to drive faster, because he'd eaten a lot of raw broccoli and wasn't doing well intestinally.  lol  At least he warned us.

It reminded me of something that happened when I lived in Michigan and was part of a bell choir at the church we were going to at the time.  I went with this bell choir (bell band? bell...ers?  Now I can't remember the proper terminology.  Basically, we rang bells and made songs.) to a weekend bell competition of some sort.  All that is sort of beside the point, though, because the actual story I want to tell is about a Tupperware container of raw broccoli that one of the women brought for us all to munch on.  She had dip, too, I think.  We ate a lot of those raw vegetables on the way to the competition, but she cut up more than we could possibly get down, so some of it just stayed in that sealed Tupperware all weekend.  Finally it was time to go back home.  We packed up and were sort of milling around outside our rooms, waiting to exit the hotel, when my friend decided to open the container.  I don't know why she did that, except maybe to see if the broccoli was still any good.  Guess what:  It REALLY REALLY wasn't.  The smell that came out of there was pure, unadulterated evil.  Think open sewer.  Times ten.  You never saw a bunch of church ladies move so fast after that.  We didn't want anybody thinking that odor was coming from us!

The other day I asked Baylee to narrate her Bible reading to me after she finished.  I always do that with two things:  Her daily Bible reading and the Aesop's fable she has to read a couple times a week.  That way I know if she really understood them or not.  So she was telling me about her reading of Nehemiah 4, and she said that Nehemiah and the rest of the men who were trying to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem were having a lot of trouble with their enemies.  It got so bad that Nehemiah started having half the men stand guard while the other half worked.  Then Baylee said, "But then it got weird.  For some reason at the end of the chapter they all decided to take off their clothes and go swimming."

"Wait, what?" I asked.  "I don't think that happened."

"Yeah, it's right in there."

So I got a Bible and looked it up.  It actually said, "Neither I nor my brothers nor my men nor the guards with me took off our clothes; each had his weapon, even when he went for water."

Somebody was skimming.

And speaking of Baylee, during our lunch break from school today she and I are going to church to help set up for a birthday luncheon for the deaconesses who are over...I think 75?  Usually the deaconesses handle it in-house, but so many of them are over 75 (and shouldn't have to help set up for their own party, of course) that they had to call in reinforcements.  

Sunday

While I'm waiting to use the hairdryer to get ready for church, I'll blog my random thoughts and drink coffee.

Yesterday was chilly and overcast, so Baylee and Rachel made a fort under Baylee's bed and then played in there all afternoon.

Awkward grocery store cashiers make me cringe.  I'm like a magnet for them, or maybe it's the other way around, since I seem to always go to their lines.  Yesterday I had one who would periodically look up at me and sort of stare and smile.  She didn't say anything; she just smiled.  Like she KNEW something.

Sometimes Gibbs likes to stand outside the French doors and look in.  He doesn't want to actually come in; he just wants to look in.  I think it's a best-of-both-worlds situation.

(Doesn't he look like a wax figure in this picture?  Or like he died and we had him stuffed?)

   

PS:  I just found an unintentional grammar mistake in this post.  I probably make them all the time, but just for fun this time I'm offering a prize to the person who finds it.  HINT:  It isn't the sentence fragments.  Those are intentional.

PPS:  I told Mike I'm sure nobody will find the mistake, so I'm not concerned with what to offer as a prize.  I won't have to worry about it.  Consider the gauntlet thrown.  *grin*

Isaiah 40:31

Drew got fired from his accompany-Baylee-at-the-nursing-home gig.  He irritated the crud out of me the other day when they were practicing, so I said, "Okay, that's it!  You're fired!"

And he was like, "Good!"

And then we both stalked off and Baylee was left standing there.

Yay, family life!

Anyway, so Baylee is moving forward with a different song.  I really like this one.  In fact, it kinda almost brings tears to my eyes.

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Speaking of Drew, something kinda interesting happened yesterday.  Mike took him out to spend some of his birthday money, and they found themselves in a neat guitar shop down by Green Lake.  Of course, like he does every time he's in a place like that, Drew zeroed in on the most expensive guitars in the place and played them.  The man running the store watched him for a bit, then said to Mike, "Does he happen to be a student at the School of Rock?"  Mike said yes, and the man continued with, "I thought so.  All the kids that come in here from there are always really respectful of the instruments."  That was a nice thing to say about the SofR.  I'll have to make sure to tell Zeke, Drew's teacher.

Quick

A couple nights ago I had another pet-we-can't-take-care-of dream.  This time I came into possession of a jaguar, which I decided to keep in the basement.  It kept getting out every time someone opened the basement door, and then I'd have to try to catch it ("Here, jaguar!  Here, boy!") before it ate someone.

Baylee is on her last day of math!  Woo hoo!  I think that, despite a couple despairing moments, she really learned a ton this year in that subject.  We'll see, though.  I ordered her standardized test for 6th grade, and she'll take it sometime in the next few days.

Edited to Add:  One thing I will say about Baylee and math is that even though teaching her has made me want to cry (or laugh. or both.) a few times this year, in some ways she surprises me.  Like just now she added up 65 and 18 in her mind in about .2 seconds, by thinking of it as 65+20-2.  She does that kind of thing all the time with all the different operations, and I never taught her to think that way.  It's neat.

Wednesday

The father/daughter night at PG was a lot of fun!  Mike held his own in a cutthroat game of musical chairs, coming in 3rd.  My little Bible talk worked out fine, too.

On a completely different note, awhile back Drew begged us all to watch this video, I guess because he felt it was so idiotic that everyone should share in it.


 
Every since then it's come up in random conversation.  One time Baylee walked over to me and, with a perfectly straight face, said, "Mom, would you scratch my back?  It itches like a son of a twitch."  (I warned her not to say that again.)

Then out of the blue at dinner yesterday Drew asked us all what we would do if we moved into a house and saw that the previous owners had a Bear Scratch put up on one of their walls.

Baylee responded with something like, "I'd take it down.  That's disgusting!  It would have their back germs all over it!"

I was more reflective.  "Yeah, but it's got that protective coating, so you could wipe it down with sanitizer."

Zach just said that sometimes he feels like he was probably adopted.

Father/Daughter

Tomorrow is father/daughter day at Pioneer Girls, and I agreed to give a little Bible talk.  Actually, I was asked ages ago, so when I said "yes" I still had tons of time and didn't feel any pressure.  Then the date got closer and closer, and I slowly realized that maybe this isn't going to be quite as easy as I first thought.

For one thing, some of the girls won't have a dad to bring.  I started getting concerned over how to handle that.  Should I just do any ol' devo and not try to make it fit the occasion?  I was sweating it, I tell you.

For another, I don't know why, but googling "kids' devotion father" or "kids' devotion God our father" (because I thought maybe I should focus on God our heavenly father) didn't really bring up the wealth of ideas I was hoping for.  Weird, huh?

Anyway, I finally settled on something that I think will be good.  It requires lots of audience participation, so hopefully this won't be the one week the girls decide to be shy.

I'm nervous. 

Curriculum Recommendation

I've been meaning to do a quick little recommendation for a book series I discovered awhile back.  In fact, we've had a couple of these books on our shelves for years, but for some reason they just collected dust.  A few months ago, though, Baylee finished the book of poetry she was reading for school and I wanted to fill that space with something equally...arty?  artish?...so I grabbed these:

They're actually very beautiful, big, hardcover books with large pictures of famous pieces of art.  One side of a two-page spread is the art, and the other side asks the child questions about it (which forces her to really look) and then tells the story of the piece and the artist who created it.  It's wonderful!  There's an entire series of these, but like I said we only own these two.  The first is about landscapes and the second deals with play.  Baylee and I are taking it slowly, only doing two paintings a week.  I don't want to rush it.

This is the piece of art we discussed today.  It's called "Crack the Whip," and it was painted by Winslow Homer.

I love this one.  Baylee and I ended up having a meandering discussion on games kids play, seasons, one-room schoolhouses, and being outside with bare feet.  *smile*  I'm gonna miss our little art study when we're finished with it.

Weekend

This has been a low key weekend, which I love.  Not being busy and having all kinds of stuff going on is the best thing ever for this homebody.

Zach got home from work late Friday afternoon and he told me that he had volunteered to do "receiving" that day at the bike shop.  I have no idea what that means, but when I asked how it went he said, "Great!  I completely knocked it all out!" 

On Friday night I took the kids swimming.  Drew and his friend Jack got into a little bit of trouble at the pool.  Both of them are lanky 15-year-old boys, and they each decided to go play in the shallow end with all the really little kids.  Drew was being a doofus on the baby slide, vaulting to the top and then hurdling down, and Jack was trying to make baskets in the water basketball hoop...from the other side of the pool.  Dummies.  lol  The lifeguard got after them.  When we got home Rachel spent the night.

On Saturday morning the kids holed up in our TV room with their pajamas on and played a video game together.  I thought they looked kinda cute.

And on Saturday afternoon I took Baylee shopping, since she badly needed new tennis shoes and new church shoes.  When she asked if she was finally old enough for a pair of wedges (we've always said no to high heels or wedges of any kind, regardless of what some of her friends were allowed to wear), she just looked so hopeful that I said yes.  She was really excited and so thankful afterward that I'm glad I okayed it.  Seeing her in them, though, makes me realize she's growing up.  (She painted her toenails white for the occasion.)

"I Lift Up My Eyes" (Psalm 121)

Baylee has that nursing home visit with Pioneer Girls coming up in about a week and a half, so she decided to get serious about it and ask Drew if he'd accompany her on a song.*  He kindly agreed.  She chose to do one of the Psalms that she learned for school, which I love, but it made it a little difficult for Drew.  This particular song is hard, and the music (which I had to buy online)  wasn't really written with the guitar in mind, I don't think.  Anyway, the kids have been working on it together for a couple days now.  It has some kinks to iron out, but I think it's beautiful.

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*Baylee and Rachel decided to scrap Kumbaya and each do their own thing.

Random

Periodically I have a pets-I-can't-take-care-of dream.  Like once I dreamed we were given kittens and for some reason I decided to keep them in a habitrail hamster cage.  Last night I had another one of those dreams, but this time I acquired a bunch of baby chicks.  Of course, I had no...I want to say incubator, but I don't think that's right.  Light box?...so I tried to keep them warm with little blankets.  LOL  I wonder what these dreams mean.

I think I'm coming down with a cold.  Sneezing, sore throat.  Blah.  

You know you're a homeschooling mom when you look at your new bath mat and you think, "Hey, that looks just like villi lining a small intestine!"

Edited to Add:

You know you're a homeschooling family when you walk up to your son who's studying digestion in Biology right now, holding the bath mat against yourself, and you say, "What am I?"

And without missing a beat he says, "An intestine?"

Yes!!!!!!  [fist pump]

Thursday

Wednesdays have devolved into complete craziness.  I don't like it.  I won't bore you with the details, but I'm busy and/or gone all day, and I figured out yesterday that I can't logistically do it all.  Something had to give.  This is going to sound weird, but when I realized that the something was cleaning the house, I felt anxious.  (OCD much?)  I actually had to talk myself through the fact that I don't have enough hours (unless I want to clean at night, which is crazy even for me), and the world's not going to come to a screeching halt if my dishes don't get done.*

*If, however, on some Wednesday the world does fly off its axis, you'll know why.

A couple days ago Baylee and Rachel played in the hot tub during a huge storm.  You can't tell, but it's pouring rain and hailing.  They had a great time being out in that.  (That porch area is covered with a roof.)

 Zach has to write a short story (600 words) for his English course.  He's doing a really good job, but you'd be surprised the lengths he's going to get his word count up.  The last I read, he had a random maid come in and straighten up a room, then offer the main character some tea.  Haha!  What???

Last night Drew and Baylee made a bet with each other to see who could come up with the most fun, interesting board game.  They each spent a long time inventing their games...

Drew's has something to do with spinning a quarter and trying to make it knock things down.  I also heard him mention castles and "health points."

Baylee's is a Truth or Dare game.  Some of the spaces are truth and some are dare.  I think it's a good game, although things went downhill a little bit when Baylee landed on a dare space and Drew said, "Okay, I dare you to skip this turn and let me go instead."

I'm not sure if they've decided who made the better game yet.  They're still too busy having fun with them.

Wednesday

Okay I (probably) promise that I'm done showing old pictures for awhile.  I'm moving on!  Before that, though, I just have to show you these two.  I love them so much that yesterday I decided to have them printed out so I can frame them and put them up in the house somewhere.

brothers

Well, as long as I'm showing old pictures, I also decided to have these printed out.  I have a wall of my best Seattle pics in our room.  I'm gonna add these to it.  Both were taken at Gas Works Park.

Yesterday I figured out exactly what it's going to take to get through the rest of the school year, and now I'm excited!  There isn't much left to go!  Because of the time I got strep throat and because of a couple "okay, we need a break before somebody gets hurt" days here and there, we're not on the exact schedule of the boys' high school anymore.  If we were we'd finish on the last day of May.  However, we're not that far off it.  We're exactly one week behind, which means we'll finish one week into June.  Not bad!  The school understands homeschoolers and is very tolerant of stuff like that.  Because we're behind, the boys aren't eligible for the honor or merit roll this marking period, but there's no penalty for finishing the work in what they call the "summer quarter," as long as it's all sent in by August 3rd.

This has been a really good school year.  The kids learned a ton and I only had a few episodes of wanting to hide in the bathroom with chocolate.  Success!

Baylee

Old Pic Alert...

smiling half-moon eyes

I have a story about her.  Yesterday there was a homeless man begging on the corner as Baylee and I drove into the parking lot of the grocery store.  This guy was different than some, in that he actually looked homeless.  He was dirty and scraggly and just very down-and-out.  This was the second time we saw him there.  Last time I used a debit card in the store and didn't happen to have any cash in my purse, so this time I pointed him out to Baylee and said, "Hey, look!  There's that guy again and I have a little bit of money this time.  Should we give him a dollar?"

"Yes!  I'll give it to him," she immediately replied.  I gave her a dollar and she went over and put in in his container.  When she came back she said, "Mom, that dollar I gave him was the only money in his can.  That's not going to be enough for him."

"Well, we can't give him anymore.  I only have a five.  We can't give him a five."

"Yes, we can."

"No, we can't.  It's too much."

"No, it isn't.  He needs that."

"Won't you be embarrassed to go back to him?"

"No."

So I gave her the five.  I'm not sure if I should've, but I did.  She ran back over to him and said, "I saw that you didn't have any other money in there, so I want you to have this, too."

After we shopped and were on our way home her voice piped up from the backseat.  "I feel good," she said.  lol  I decided not to point out that she felt good giving away my money.

Monday

Here's another blast from the past.  (Don't worry.  I'll get sick of showing you these at some point.)  I don't even remember which kid did it, but several years ago someone made this "restaurant" out of blocks and Playmobil figures.  Isn't it cute?  All the kids used to make stuff like this all the time.  I miss those days.  We don't even own those blocks or the Playmobil stuff anymore.  Once our kids got too big to play with them, we gave them, along with our Lego collection and the doll house, to other families.  (Don't tell anyone, but Drew still mourns the loss of the Legos.  I think giving those away might've been a mistake.)

Something weird:  Mike wakes up in the evening, when the rest of us are winding down, and he talks about his upcoming "day."  Also, he told me that when he arrives at work in the middle of the night everyone says "Good Morning!" to each other.

Yesterday afternoon Baylee and Rachel decided to work on what they might do when the pioneer girls visit the nursing home.  They put this together on their own:

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I love that they're willing, but ack!  That needs work, or those poor old people are gonna want Jesus to "come by here" sooner rather than later.

Sunday

Another pic from 2 or 3 years ago...

Comfort comes in many forms.

So I took a bunch of kids to the pool for that safety shindig and free swim I mentioned yesterday.  They had a great time.  There was CPR training, a session on hypothermia, canoe instruction, raft rides, a snorkeling lesson, and more.  And then at the end of the free swim they had a cannonball contest, and they gave away prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.  Rachel won 2nd!  (She was robbed.)  She got a t-shirt and gift cards to Dick's Restaurant.

learning how to snorkel

CPR

lined up for the cannonball contest

I've got a pet peeve.  Actually, it's more than a pet peeve.  It's a...umm...livestock peeve.  Or, like, a service animal peeve.  A seeing eye peeve!  Anyway, it's this:  double dippers.  We had someone come to our house recently who blatantly double dipped.  Several times!  In fact, they took really small bites of each of their chips, so in all actuality they were more like a quadruple dipper.  Who wants to eat that chip dip now?  Nobody!  I'm still irritated about it.  I never even got any.

Saturday

***Shout out to Danny!***  Danny, thanks for that wonderful birthday card (that you sent awhile back)!  What you said in there honestly made my day.

We're having a busy, but fun weekend so far.  After he finished work yesterday Mike spent pretty much all day fixing the brakes on the staish.  I'm so glad to be married to a guy who can do that!  Baylee spent last night at her friend Katie's house and, I hear, learned to do the twist.

I did our grocery shopping this morning, made a library run, and then swung by and picked Baylee and Katie up and brought them both home with me.  In a little while I'm going to take them, along with Drew and Rachel, to the pool for "April Pool's Day."  They're doing a water safety seminar and a free swim time.  The kids are excited.  Meanwhile, Zach is working at the bike shop all day today. 

Gratuitous throwback picture:

Homeschooling is always a joy! 

  

Pic Post

I have pictures from the last few days that have been building up.

This past weekend Drew and Mike got the hot tub up and running again.  Happily, there were no slugs hiding in there, waiting for someone to wrap their hand around them by accident.  #I'mstillemotionallyscarred

Baylee was tested to see if she was ready to go on to level 6 of swim lessons.

She didn't pass.  That means she'll have to do level 5 for a 3rd time.  Just like before, none of the kids in her class passed.  This time I did go up to the front desk to talk to someone about it.  I didn't complain or anything; I just wanted to understand what's normal.  The girl told me that they've had kids stay in one level for a year, so...wow.  That gives me some perspective.  She said they won't move a child up to the next level until she has mastery of what's expected, and at this point Baylee is expected to do all four strokes well.  That's not easy.  I encouraged Baylee to think of it this way:  In karate a person can spend months and months trying to achieve the next belt.  For instance, Zach has been working toward a red belt for ages now.  This is like that.*

*On the other hand, maybe the people at the pool are totally soaking all of us for the money. [I said to myself, under my breath] 

Thoughts

I don't know what this means...if it means I'm weird or very used to blogging every day or just someone who needs an outlet...but I've been trying to get some housework done this morning, and today's post has been writing itself in my head as I work.  lol  So I guess I'd better sit down and get it out.

Mostly, I've been thinking about Pioneer Girls.  I've been kinda burned out lately.  In fact, awhile back I took a bubble bath, and while I was in there I constructed a getaway plan in my mind.  (Pioneer Girls, like many ministry opportunities, is like the Hotel California.  You can get in, but you can't get back out.)  So I decided to say that I needed a break, and that I was going to take a year off.  That's the truth, but maybe not the whole truth.  Actually, what I'm feeling is kinda selfish.  I want more time to myself.  I'm tired of being the "go-to guy."  Whenever something hard needs to be done in PG, I'm often the one who gets asked.  Why?  Because I can.  Because I'm good at it.  That sounds conceited maybe, but if it is, it's balanced by the fact that I don't always want or like the ability.  Often I want to be left alone.  Sometimes I wish other people would step up more.  Anyway, I've been feeling a little bit sorry for myself and sick of it.

And then the last two weeks happened.  Last week in Pioneer Girls had all the makings of a disaster: Lots of leaders weren't there for various reasons.  The original plan for the evening fell through.  Another leader and I ended up having to come up with a new plan on the fly literally 5 minutes before club started.  Oh, and the icing on the cake was that we had a new little girl come, and along with her came her mom.  They were going to check out Pioneer Girls to see if it was something they were interested in.  Ack!  Of all nights for that to happen!  But you know what?  It all went well.  It was a great night. 

And last night we did the "Questions Kids Ask about God" thing that I talked about yesterday.  I didn't know if the girls would be interested.  I didn't know how difficult their questions would be.  I didn't know if I could fill the whole time slot I was given.  As it turns out, I didn't need to worry about any of that.   It was a wonderful night!  The girls asked tons of good questions and had no problem being open and curious and willing to participate.  I even had a spontaneous, natural chance to share the gospel with the group.  Seriously, God had His hand on that whole evening.

So I'm left feeling...a little sheepish, I guess?  Maybe a little chastised?  I'm not sure.  Ministry is tough, isn't it?  When is it okay to be genuinely tired?  What if there's a real need and you're able to fill it...and you're good at it?  And you've gone to college for 4 years in order to be able to do it?  And you love the people you minister to and with?  Is it ever okay to say, "I need a break!"

I just don't know.

Oh Dear

I was asked to do a talk on "Questions Kids Ask about God" tonight at Pioneer Girls.  I'm supposed to come up with several questions that I think kids might have and then answer them, and I'm supposed to open it up for our girls to ask anything they might be wondering.  When I was first approached about this several weeks ago I was like, "Oh, sure, no problem."  Then last night it hit me:  These kids are going to end up hating me.  "Miss Sue, did my dog go to heaven?"  "Miss Sue, since Jesus is real, does that mean Santa is real, too?"  "Miss Sue, am I going to turn into an angel and have wings when I die?"  "Miss Sue, what about my guinea pig?  She's really smart!  She has a soul, right?"

This is not going to be good.

Yesterday Drew had a one-page paper to write on poetry.  He was thrilled, as you can imagine.  Actually, he was desperate enough to ask Baylee if she had any ideas that he could use.  I snapped this just as she was saying, "I don't really know, but I think you should talk about the song 'Kumbaya' in there somewhere."

Bingo

Okay, I have a story from college...

One weekday morning between classes my friend Jayne Ann and I went to McDonald's for breakfast.  We'd never done that before, which is why we didn't realize that Mondays at McDonald's were set aside for bingo.  Seriously.  The entire main seating area of the restaurant was filled with old people playing bingo, and there we were sitting smack dab in the middle of it.  The problem was we sat down before we understood what was going on, and then we were sort of stuck.  Do we get up?  Do we stay seated?  It was awkward.  We tried to finish quickly so we could get the heck out of there, but you can only eat an egg mcmuffin just so fast, you know?  So we sat there, trying to make the best of a very strange situation, when it happened:  Out of nowhere, Jayne Ann, who wasn't the type to do something like this AT ALL, called out, "Bingo!"

The whole restaurant got quiet.  I glanced at Jayne and saw that she was playing it totally cool.  She was Miss Innocent, looking around politely for all the world like she was just curious about who the lucky winner might be.  To my credit I didn't start laughing,  either, although I was shocked.  Soon there was an annoyed buzz in the room.  "Who called bingo?" people started to ask.  "Did someone say bingo?!"  "Now come on.  If you said bingo, you need to come up here and claim your prize!"

Jayne Ann and I quickly finished our breakfasts, being very careful not to look each other in the eye. When we left awhile later those poor old folks were still trying to figure it out.

Ain't Gonna Happen

You know how at Starbucks they ask you what your name is and then write it on your cup?  Before we went in there today Baylee dared me to tell them that I'm Sue and she's Sue Jr.

Happy Birthday, Drew!

Weekend Stream-of-Consciousness

Yesterday I was grumpy about making supper.  I'm starting to hate that chore.  I need to do something to get out this can't-we-just-have-bowls-of-cereal rut, but I'm not sure what.  Get a new cookbook, maybe?  So I went to the grocery store, hoping for a flash of inspiration...or a bag of frozen burritoes...and I smelled something delicious.  It was the store's deli, selling chicken dinners for about $8.  Woo hoo!  I spent a little more than that and came home with fried chicken, potato wedges, rolls, pasta salad, and Coke.  It wasn't healthy, but everyone was happy and we had a great, conversation-filled family dinner.

A couple hours after dinner I took Baylee, Rachel, Rachel's cousin Chutierre (I don't know how to spell that, but it's pronounced Choo-tee-air.  She's a nice kid about the same age as Baylee and Rachel.), Zach, Drew, and Kian to the pool.  We had a fully-loaded station wagon.  We met my friend Beth and two of her kids there, and fun was had by all.  Then Kian stayed with us and spent the night. 

And tomorrow is Drew's birthday!  He turns 15.  We'll do the cake and the song, and probably just give him money for a present.  He said he's saving up to buy a classical guitar.  I'm not exactly sure what that is, except I know the strings are made of nylon, and the style of music you play with it is different...I guess?  Anyway, he wants to buy himself one.

More Music and a Hamster

Zach and Drew have been into anime lately.  You know about anime, right?  It's those Japanese cartoons where the characters have big eyes and weird, high voiceovers.  What's not to like?  Anyway, Drew watched one called Mushishi recently, and it had a beautiful guitar song in it. 

 Pretty, huh?  So yesterday he spent his free time teaching himself how to play it.

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Yesterday was also his School of Rock day.  He told me that during their down time some of the kids (including him) would go off into a different room to play a game they made up.  One person would name a music style, and someone else would have to try to play it.  The more obscure the style, the better.  Drew had to attempt "gypsy jazz."  lol  I think he's found his people.

Last night Zach came up to Baylee and me and said, "I think Baylee's hamster is dead."

"What?!  Why do you think that?" I asked.

"Because it looks like it.  It died while it was taking a drink.  You should see it.  It's just kind of hanging off the end of the nozzle of the water bottle, all stiff and weird."

"I was just over there and I didn't see a thing!"

"Yeah, I don't know what happened, but it's dead," Zach replied, then he left the room.

At this point Baylee, who had been quietly listening up until now, burst into loud tears.  "My hamster!"

"Stop crying!" I told her.  "I mean...you can cry.  Wait a second, though, I'm trying to think."  (About how gross it's going to be to pry a hamster's cold, stiff jaws from a water bottle, and about whether or not I can just leave it there until Mike gets home in the morning.)

"I killed it!" Baylee wailed.  "I just gave it fresh water a couple hours ago!  I must've done something wrong!"

"What?  You didn't kill it.  Hamsters die all the time on their own.  That's what they do."

"No, it must've been me!"

Then Zach popped his head back into the room.  "Umm...hey...false alarm.  I just went back in there.  It's fine now."

Song School Lately

I've talked about this a million times, I know, but I want to say again how happy I am with Baylee's Bible class for school this year, especially the memorization part.  It uses songs.  Through singing Baylee has learned a ton of single verses, but she's also learned several longer passages, including 3 entire Psalms!  She learned everything faster than the curriculum called for, so for a couple months now (and until the end of the school year) she's been reviewing one song every day.  These babies are gonna be stuck in her mind forever.

Here are two of the Psalms...

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And here are the books of the Old Testament...

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11th Grade at Our House

I almost forgot to come back and do the last one of these!  Zach's in 11th grade this year and he's got a pretty full plate.  The thing that makes it a little bit challenging overall is that he only does a 4-day school week.  Every Friday he spends the entire day working at the bike shop.  I love that he has that opportunity, but it makes getting everything done a bit difficult.  Anyway, here's today (edited to add:  actually yesterday.  I wrote part of this, then ran out of time.), which is a typical day of 11th grade at our house.

Health:  I'm adding this, even though it's not something he does anymore.  It was a one semester course and he finished it before Christmas.  Health was, I think, his favorite class of anything he's ever done, and he still uses the stuff he learned probably every day.  He eats healthier, he puts more focused effort into his karate classes, and he exercises 4 or 5 days a week.

Chemistry:  Zach is always the last one up, but ever since I stopped getting on his case about it (and just letting the consequences of his late-ish start be on his shoulders, instead of mine) he's been cheerful in the mornings.  After he showers and gets ready, he grabs a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal and sits at the computer to watch his Chemistry class.  This class is HARD, and definitely not his favorite.  There's tons of math and just a lot of eye-crossing information.  He always starts with it just to get it out of the way.  After he watches the class he has about 45 minutes to an hour worth of work in the textbook.

American History:  This one is enjoyable!  Right now Zach's getting ready to take a test on the "Age of Reform."  The chapter deals with life after the Civil War, new laws, and the beginning of unions.

American Literature:  I really love how American history and American literature go hand-in-hand.  Zach will learn something in history, and then it will come up in the literature of that period and he'll be able to say, "Oh, okay.  I get it."  Right now Zach is studying American novels of the modern age, and he's reviewing verbals.  (They always have to throw some sort of grammar in there, just to keep it fresh, I guess.)  The grammar part of today dealt with split infinitives and dangling participles.

Consumer Math:  This subject, I won't lie, is tedious.  Right now Zach is working through the concept of insurance.  He studied life and homeowner, and now he's on health and medical.

Art:   Zach and Drew do the same art course.  I wouldn't tell them this (and they don't read the blog...I don't think), but of the two of them Zach has been the standout artist.  It has to do with their personalities.  Drew is content to turn in something that's not necessary his best effort, but gets the job done.  Zach will only turn in his best, and he kinda beats himself up over anything that's not acceptable in his eyes.  He's a perfectionist.  Both have their downsides.

This is something Zach is working on for his latest art test.  He either had to draw several buildings in a landscape or a building interior.

Phy. Ed:  Zach takes karate twice a week for a total of about 3 hours.  He's in a class for all levels on Monday, then on Wednesday he goes to a class for higher belts.  He's thiiiiis close to getting his red belt, which in this school is one down from black!   

Wednesday

I had so many thing to talk about today, but it's 11pm and time's up.  I GOTTA get in bed.  Until tomorrow, there's this:

Zach told Baylee that if she plugs an extension cord into itself, it'll create a black hole.  She completely believed him.

Happy Birthday...

...to me!  It's my birthday today.  Drew said that his present is that he's going to get all his schoolwork done during the day and not save any of it for homework.  That way I won't have to do any kind of teaching in the evening, giving me the night off.  LOL  I'll take it!

And Mike got me a chocolate-raspberry-cappuccino birthday cake from the bakery.  Doesn't that sound delicious?   I secretly want to steal all the chocolate-covered coffee beans from the top and eat them.  I'm holding myself back, though. 

The weather here is delightful!  It's sunny and warm(ish), the sky is blue, and everything is blooming.

Love it.

Old Pics

This is a lame-o post that's more about me putting off a bit of housework than anything else.  #honesty

Mike made the screen saver on my computer show all the pictures that we have in iPhoto, one right after the other.  It's kinda fun, because it's dredging up the really old ones that I haven't seen in years.  Here are a few of those. 

8 year old Drew at my mom and dad's house.

5 year old Baylee in our old house in MI.  Those were packing boxes in the background, ready to carry our lives to the other side of the country.

 11 year old Zach and his friend, Ben, in MI.

At our house in Shoreline, WA.   Drew was reading a  Captain Underpants book (he read that entire series and was bummed there were no more) and Zach was reading to his little sis. 

 
And this one has nothing to do with anything.  I have no idea when it was taken, who took it (I'm guessing Mike, because it looks like it was taken from the driver's seat of the car), or why it's yellow, but here you go.

Conversation with Mike after I posted the last picture:

me:  Do I look okay in that?
him:  Yeah!
me:  My teeth don't look like big, giant chompers?
him:  [laughing] No!

(Isn't there always something to not like about every picture of yourself?)