Moira and Allen went on the second season hunt last week. We just got the pics uploaded and she was too funny to pass up blogging about. Here she is in the Colorado wilderness first thing in the morning…
And here she is a bit later in the day…
She outlasted the adults though and hiked like a trooper with no complaints. Her Daddy was very proud of her! There were no elk in sight this time but, as expected, she had a very good time just being outside in mountains.
There was an interesting study about the effects of divorce on children spotlighted in our local paper today. I found the author’s link here. The study contradicts commonly held contemporary assumptions about "good" divorces. It also challenges people in "low conflict" relationships to work harder at maintaining and improving them vs moving on with the idea that children will not be impacted negatively.
There is an excellent post at Three Plus Two about traditions – Thanksgiving and in general. I have been thinking similar thoughts for weeks now. I was blessed to have extended family very involved in my life growing up. However my mother and grandmother both worked outside the home and while there was lots of love, there was rarely an abundance of time.
My grandmother was truly a expert seamstress, knitter, and cook. She could knit intricate photographic images into sweaters, lovely cables, and mittens that fit perfectly. She sewed my prom dress and our family christening gown. She made meals that kept our table full of guests – though she eagerly employed all those new mixes and boxes. She was also a child of the depression – the era and the disease. Her father died when she was very young and her own mother was less than stable. She grew up with an appreciation for "new" "modern" and "convenience". She saw no need for passing on the valuable skills she possessed. They were unnecessary in the new dept. store world she embraced. So I watched. I deeply desired her skills. But, in the end, I left home with just fleeting bits and pieces of information and have spent the past two decades attempting to assemble them into a functional whole.
Like Angel, I am so grateful that our children are with us all day every day. Though my skills come nowhere close to Gram’s I do try to be sure that what I know, they know. Hopefully they will leave home a little further down this road and will continue to travel until we recover the skills lost to more than a generation now.
What can you do? Do you bake, sew, crochet, cut hair, grow gardens, paint, stitch quilts, write books, make music, take pictures? As the host of an HGTV show said earlier this week, "Everyone is an artist!" That means you too. and someone would dearly love to know how you do it.
Slowly but surely. The cpu is reformatted and I am starting to reload favorites and finding new ones. Guess that is one perk. ; ) Thought I would share some new discoveries:
Tie One On If you liked the apron links you will enjoy this blog. Consider it Apron of the Month club.
Hop Skip Jump is a both blog and shop. I think these soft toys (pic’d at left) are adorable! Gave the girls and I lots of ideas for projects. Like we needed that lol!
Why did we not need more ideas this week? Because we picked up a copy of Martha Stewarts Handmade Gifts at the checkout. SO many ideas we would love to try – felt slippers, paper ornaments, scarf stockings, sock toys…. Take a look while you are waiting in line next. It isnt difficult to find craft project ideas. It IS difficult to find ideas for classy projects.
I hope Thanksgiving treated you all well. We have my mother-in-law and niece here this week. We spent the day quietly – ok, as quiet as a day with 8 children and 3 adults can be! The meal came off with just a few hitches. All is well. And tomorrow? Tomorrow we hit the ninth month of this pregnancy. Yep. 36 weeks! It’s hard to believe we got this far already. Now to just finally shake this head cold. BLECK! I swear one’s immune system just quits during pg.
What else is tomorrow? We are renting a buck. He will be visiting our does for a couple weeks. Ahh the adventures never end! <g>
Hopefully in the next day or two I can upload Alannah’s tiny creations. Last sewing class they made little sock people – she has an angel and snowman thus far. They are adorable!
Just wanted to send a quick note explaining our absence. The computer hard drive glitched last week and we are in the process of reformatting – minus a LOT of data files and bookmarks. Sigh. We have my mother in law and niece here for Thanksgiving as well. We hope to be back up and running in a few days.
Meantime, check out Louise’s adaptations to the template downloads for her children’s notebooks! She added a thematic watermark to the background before printing the template. Very nice!
And dear friends, PLEASE begin to send me your favorite bookmarked sites! Losing all my favorites is the worst part of a cpu crash for me.
Notebook pages! Journaling pages! Pretty stuff. : ) We are trying to do more notebooking this year and it is taking various forms. Obviously the Home Journal took precedence for mom but I am also trying to make more regular entries in my nature notebook. I was way inspired by some illustrated journal sites online. I doubt mine will ever look that good but it freed me to make pages that weren’t perfect – neither perfectly planned nor perfectly executed. Only perfectly pleasurable.
After a phone call this morning I took several pics of pages made with the templates from the Home Mgt Journal posts. Hopefully these will help you think outside the box(es) on the templates when helping your kids make their journal pages.
First of all, the templates work for any type of notebook page – history, religion, science, lit, etc. Printing on cardstock makes for a sturdier page. Don’t get into a color rut. Printing paper comes in lots of colors besides white and they make for considerably punchier pages. Those are notebooking "upgrades" that don’t cost time or money.
When planning a page consider whether it will contain mostly text or mostly images or a mix and then pick a template that works best. Narrations can be typed into the text boxes before printing or you can type in gray lines before printing as writing guides for handwritten narrations. Likewise net images can be imported before printing or cut and pasted afterwards. The text boxes also work great for bible verses, poetry exerpts or copywork. Bullet headers are acceptable at our house. Not everything needs a lengthy narration. We are just shooting for pegs to hang the information on to aid retention.
Anything can find its way onto a page. Coloring pages are trimmed and saved, leaf samples, charts, diagrams, you name it. The boxes serve as ‘containers’ to house these treasures neatly and bind them into easily stored books. (vs stuffing them into hidden corner of the house ; ))
I will try to upload more pages as we go. Please shoot me a note if you have pages to share!
Our Aidan became a boy scout in October. We were blessed to join a large homeschool troop locally. My dear friend and neighbor Mary has been able to carpool to mtgs on the nights Allen has been gone so it has been working out well. He is absolutely beside himself with pleasure. He memorized his Bobcat badge requirements and got his first award already. And did you catch that white bead on his necklace? That would be for ‘best behavior’. Yep – my kid! ; D
On Saturday they went on their first field trip. Here he is with some of the other boys and the firemen from the station they visited. (A is third from right) Kieran went along for the ride but was less impressed. I asked him if he had fun and he said frankly, "Um not so really". Apparently there was no demo of the uniform or sliding down ladders involved. Darn.
Rebecca at Babylove is collecting images of baby feet. Here is our first contribution. This is from Brendan as a newborn. If you have any pictures to share send them her way!
Lisa just sent me a link to her newly finished notebook. She says she has never done anything remotely ‘scrapbook-y’ so take heart all! This can be done very well even if you don’t have any previous experience. Thanks for the link Lisa!
Tracy just uploaded pics of her newly completed Home Mgt Journal. check it out – its beautiful!
