Have lots of fun. Smell Maddie's head for me, kiss her soft cheeks and tell her I will meet her soon!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Just For Kaley
Isn't it pretty?! Hope you can see them ok, my camera isn't as good as yours.
Have lots of fun. Smell Maddie's head for me, kiss her soft cheeks and tell her I will meet her soon!
Have lots of fun. Smell Maddie's head for me, kiss her soft cheeks and tell her I will meet her soon!
Long Absence
It has certainly been awhile. Life is busy, babies making blogging very hard, facebook cheapens me in a way. It makes it quick and easy to keep up with others but not putting any thought to it.
I just attended the 6th annual Childlight USA Charlotte Mason Conference. It was so wonderful and encouraging, as usual. It inspired me to plan our best school year ever. We have been homeschooling with the Charlotte Mason method since Kaley was 5 years old. She lived in Victorian England and died before WWII. Her method lives on and is rooted in great truths. This explains it well. http://amblesideonline.org/CM/20Principles.html
Here's a great quote from Charlotte, a huge part of the philosophy of education.
"Education is a life; that life is sustained on ideas. Ideas are of spiritual origin, and God has made us that we get them chiefly as we convey them to one another, whether by word of mouth, written page, Scripture word, musical symphony; but we must sustain a child's inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food."
And this:
"One of our presumptuous sins in this connection is that we venture to offer opinions to children (and to older persons) instead of ideas. We believe that an opinion expresses thought and therefore embodies an idea."
And she quotes John Stuart Mill:
"What the poor, as well as the rich, require is not to be taught other people's opinions, but to be induced and enabled to think for themselves."
Isn't that great?! I have had the joy of seeing my daughter finish her high schools years of education. She is never done learning, she knows how to get at anything she wants and continues to grow and learn so much. It is thrilling for me to watch her, she stands on my shoulders.
One last Charlotte quote:
"All I have said is meant to enforce the fact that much and varied humane reading, as well as human thought expressed in the forms of art is, not a luxury, a tit-bit, to be given to children now and then, but their very bread of life, which they must have in abundant portions and at regular periods."
I am planning quite a feast to set before the children this school year. And a good summer of relaxed reading and nature study. And lots of swimming and blackberry picking!
So these pictures are mainly for my sister in NY who never gets to see my gardens. They are no where near as beautiful as hers, but I am quite excited about my two tone bee balm this year.
Here is my mammoth sunflowers. They just reseed every year now, I have to pull them and I can't stand it. They attract so many goldfinches. You can see how big they are, Curtiss is hiding in there and they just started blooming. I do have a veggie garden in there somewhere :)
My lovely bee balm. This is my fragrant herb garden. Bee balm, lavender, rosemary, lemon balm, peppermint and chamomile. Also thrown in are purple cone flowers and volunteer black eyed susans.
The Lavender.
The bee balm that is two colors??
I'll try to keep up better, posting pictures etc.
Blessings to all!
I just attended the 6th annual Childlight USA Charlotte Mason Conference. It was so wonderful and encouraging, as usual. It inspired me to plan our best school year ever. We have been homeschooling with the Charlotte Mason method since Kaley was 5 years old. She lived in Victorian England and died before WWII. Her method lives on and is rooted in great truths. This explains it well. http://amblesideonline.org/CM/20Principles.html
Here's a great quote from Charlotte, a huge part of the philosophy of education.
"Education is a life; that life is sustained on ideas. Ideas are of spiritual origin, and God has made us that we get them chiefly as we convey them to one another, whether by word of mouth, written page, Scripture word, musical symphony; but we must sustain a child's inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food."
And this:
"One of our presumptuous sins in this connection is that we venture to offer opinions to children (and to older persons) instead of ideas. We believe that an opinion expresses thought and therefore embodies an idea."
And she quotes John Stuart Mill:
"What the poor, as well as the rich, require is not to be taught other people's opinions, but to be induced and enabled to think for themselves."
Isn't that great?! I have had the joy of seeing my daughter finish her high schools years of education. She is never done learning, she knows how to get at anything she wants and continues to grow and learn so much. It is thrilling for me to watch her, she stands on my shoulders.
One last Charlotte quote:
"All I have said is meant to enforce the fact that much and varied humane reading, as well as human thought expressed in the forms of art is, not a luxury, a tit-bit, to be given to children now and then, but their very bread of life, which they must have in abundant portions and at regular periods."
I am planning quite a feast to set before the children this school year. And a good summer of relaxed reading and nature study. And lots of swimming and blackberry picking!
So these pictures are mainly for my sister in NY who never gets to see my gardens. They are no where near as beautiful as hers, but I am quite excited about my two tone bee balm this year.
Here is my mammoth sunflowers. They just reseed every year now, I have to pull them and I can't stand it. They attract so many goldfinches. You can see how big they are, Curtiss is hiding in there and they just started blooming. I do have a veggie garden in there somewhere :)
My lovely bee balm. This is my fragrant herb garden. Bee balm, lavender, rosemary, lemon balm, peppermint and chamomile. Also thrown in are purple cone flowers and volunteer black eyed susans.
The Lavender.
The bee balm that is two colors??
I'll try to keep up better, posting pictures etc.
Blessings to all!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Snow Day/A Gracie Post
Snow again! Five to six inches this time. Grace wanted a project to do. She decided a quilt for her baby, Sarah. So she dug into our scraps and designed one all on her own. I helped with the cutting, we decided on 2.5in blocks and she started playing with them and laying them out.
I realized afterwards, she had made nine patch blocks.
Grace did all the sewing and piecing. She also decided to put in sashing.
I did the free motion quilting.
This was the back.
And here it is, binding all done! We made it in two days. Way to go team!!
blessings
blessings
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Holidays
This is a LONG post of pics, since it's been so long since I've been able to update my blog. Life has been very busy, as usual, and time flies. It's so cold here right now, I am not enjoying winter, I never do. So looking back on pictures is cheering. Now I am looking forward to spring, my favorite time of year.
The beginning of December found us kicking off our holiday season in our annual reenactment at the Backcountry Farm in the Scheile Museum. It was a very cold day, so Max and I didn't stay dressed out for long. But here is the cabin looking festive.
Maura, staying warm in her cape.
The beautiful food the ladies there made, all the reenactors ate them after the public left.
Curtiss, Ben, Grace, David and Maura, singing Christmas hymns.
Kaley and Josiah, helping to hand out candles for the candlelight service.
Josiah was entranced with the lanterns.
Max, trying to stay warm.
This is Max and I on some random day before Christmas. He is so happy and getting so big. He weighs 18lbs already! He is one of our happiest babies. Always a smile and it doesn't take much to cheer him up if he is unhappy. We all adore him. Josiah love him so much, never a day of jealousy.
Christmas cookies were awkward and difficult this year. We never did get it together. I always had guilt at the sugar and carbs that were laying around. Maura can't have wheat so here she is trying her hand at gluten free cookies. Unfortunately, they aren't sugar free and are high on the glycemic index. So they wreaked havoc on her blood sugars. I am not sure what we will do next year.
She sure had fun. Maybe next year we will do the cinnamon cut outs for decorations-you don't eat those but still have the cutout fun.
We got snow!! Lots for us, the kids loved it. Actually, writing this 4 weeks later, we still have patches of snow on the ground. Unusual for this area of NC.
Kaley, still being a kid-yea!
Curtiss and the dirty snow man he and the kids built.
Our next excitement was a visit from my sister Melody and family. We don't get to each others houses but maybe once or twice a year so it was a treat! We all had a great time. My mom also was here so it was a real houseful. Melody is my birth sister so it is especially special that we know one another and get on so well. We have all been in touch for 12 1/2 years now and it's cool to look back and see how we have all grown.
Melody holding Max, sweet.
COUSINS!
Max
Four generations of women in our family. My grandmother, Lauretta; my Mom, Audrey, Melody and I and Kaley.
These are all my moms grandchildren in one place, wow! Left to right, back to front: Jon Paul 9, Grace 9, Charlie 12, Max 3m, Kaley 17, Joseph 6, Maura 5, Benjamin 7, Josiah 2, David 7, Robert 9, Curtiss 11, Sarah 7. You can see 2000 and 2002 were big years for grandkids for my mom and pop!
We sped on from there to Christmas day. Mark and I beat the kids up! (not literally)
My beautiful girls, I think this is Christmas eve.
Our tradition is stockings first and everyone gets a Christmas mug.
David
Me getting my surprise gift, an ipod!
Curtiss and Grace playing with their new camera.
The spread at mom and dads.
The outlaw Josie Wales.
A fairy that stopped by.
Snow on the ground still.
After Christmas my sister April and brother Randy came down. Here is my gorgeous nephew Jaden with Kaley
Oh, he is so cute. We had fun sitting around talking and nursing our babies.
I have more pics of family to follow, some of my other nephew Jack and the kids. I'll have to get them downloaded soon. For now, it's back to the sounds going on behind me near the wood stove as I type in the cold office. Back to dinner and a cup of coffee.
blessings
The beginning of December found us kicking off our holiday season in our annual reenactment at the Backcountry Farm in the Scheile Museum. It was a very cold day, so Max and I didn't stay dressed out for long. But here is the cabin looking festive.
Maura, staying warm in her cape.
The beautiful food the ladies there made, all the reenactors ate them after the public left.
Curtiss, Ben, Grace, David and Maura, singing Christmas hymns.
Kaley and Josiah, helping to hand out candles for the candlelight service.
Josiah was entranced with the lanterns.
Max, trying to stay warm.
This is Max and I on some random day before Christmas. He is so happy and getting so big. He weighs 18lbs already! He is one of our happiest babies. Always a smile and it doesn't take much to cheer him up if he is unhappy. We all adore him. Josiah love him so much, never a day of jealousy.
Christmas cookies were awkward and difficult this year. We never did get it together. I always had guilt at the sugar and carbs that were laying around. Maura can't have wheat so here she is trying her hand at gluten free cookies. Unfortunately, they aren't sugar free and are high on the glycemic index. So they wreaked havoc on her blood sugars. I am not sure what we will do next year.
She sure had fun. Maybe next year we will do the cinnamon cut outs for decorations-you don't eat those but still have the cutout fun.
We got snow!! Lots for us, the kids loved it. Actually, writing this 4 weeks later, we still have patches of snow on the ground. Unusual for this area of NC.
Kaley, still being a kid-yea!
Curtiss and the dirty snow man he and the kids built.
Our next excitement was a visit from my sister Melody and family. We don't get to each others houses but maybe once or twice a year so it was a treat! We all had a great time. My mom also was here so it was a real houseful. Melody is my birth sister so it is especially special that we know one another and get on so well. We have all been in touch for 12 1/2 years now and it's cool to look back and see how we have all grown.
Melody holding Max, sweet.
COUSINS!
Max
Four generations of women in our family. My grandmother, Lauretta; my Mom, Audrey, Melody and I and Kaley.
These are all my moms grandchildren in one place, wow! Left to right, back to front: Jon Paul 9, Grace 9, Charlie 12, Max 3m, Kaley 17, Joseph 6, Maura 5, Benjamin 7, Josiah 2, David 7, Robert 9, Curtiss 11, Sarah 7. You can see 2000 and 2002 were big years for grandkids for my mom and pop!
We sped on from there to Christmas day. Mark and I beat the kids up! (not literally)
My beautiful girls, I think this is Christmas eve.
Our tradition is stockings first and everyone gets a Christmas mug.
David
Me getting my surprise gift, an ipod!
Curtiss and Grace playing with their new camera.
The spread at mom and dads.
The outlaw Josie Wales.
A fairy that stopped by.
Snow on the ground still.
After Christmas my sister April and brother Randy came down. Here is my gorgeous nephew Jaden with Kaley
Oh, he is so cute. We had fun sitting around talking and nursing our babies.
I have more pics of family to follow, some of my other nephew Jack and the kids. I'll have to get them downloaded soon. For now, it's back to the sounds going on behind me near the wood stove as I type in the cold office. Back to dinner and a cup of coffee.
blessings
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Giving Thanks
Finally caught that smile!
Making carmel cranberry cups, a traditional dessert started by my great-grandmother McElwain.
Max, our resident joy giver.
The spread before we sat down.
Max and Oma, his great-grandmother. We had a visit thursday afternoon and he was happy the whole time she held him.
blessings
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Fall At Our House
We had a great visit with my cousin Courtney and her little boy Charlie, well sort of. Poor Courtney walked into a house full of the flu just waiting to explode! I was the first victim, then Kaley and Curtiss. Then Courtney! Isn't Charlie absolutely adorable?!!! We sooo enjoyed having them here, I just wish we hadn't been sick. We didn't leave the house the whole time!
Courtney and Kaley took the boys for a walk.
They had fun. That's Max that Josiah is holding, very important to him. He'll find him after leaving him somewhere for awhile and exclaim, "Hey Max! I miss you!" I was so excited to find a stuffed Max, from the book Where the Wild Things Are. It's his favorite book, I didn't realize there was a movie out, no wonder I found it.
Sweet boys!
Sweet baby!! He is smiling so much, hopefully we can catch it with the camera soon.
Kaley was out with me checking on some ladies, and we caught this sky. Around here we call this Carolina Blue, you can't find a sky like this in any other state ;)
Our new fire pit in the back yard. Our first fire was actually a bomb, it was too wet. The second one was better, some marshmallows even got roasted.
Max and I in some weird green light.
My elusive photographer! She is always taking pictures and never in them.
Well, now that we are better we are actually enjoying the fall a little. We went on a nature walk yesterday and did a nature lesson. We are doing school everyday and that is going great! We are baking up a storm. Cranberry bread, date nut bread and Grace made a gluten free cranberry bar recipe for Maura. We are decorating with natures beauty, collecting pine cones and different berries. The girls are good at it.
Better run, baby is getting fussy for daddy.
blessings
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