Blah blah blah

Hello world! I don’t know why I haven’t blogged. Been busy with just living everyday life, I guess. And I’m out of candy at my desk. Helps me to focus. Just kidding. Last night I took a deep, hot bath at 8:30pm and went to bed at 9pm. After just a couple tuck-ins of Carolyn, we got up for the day at 8:15am. I think I am still running a little slow. Brian and Anna are at church but I’m in my pajamas putting Carolyn’s cape and dressup on while my tummy grumbles for breakfast.

Ok, I just uploaded some pictures and videos from the camera to the computer and are my kids ever cute! I’ll share in just a minute. The most absorbing excitement for me these days is anticipating my parents’ visit…. just a couple weeks away now! They get to be in the states for some weeks and I’m really looking forward to being on the same side of the planet for awhile. Yes, we talk on skype and chatting, but there’s something intangible and disagreeable about the looooooong distance between us. They’ll arrive on my Dad’s 57th birthday! Think I should let them rest from jet lag a little before making the carrot cake? Maybe I won’t… then more of the cake will be for ME. 😉

Most of the pictures and videos were taken by Anna as she wandered around getting pictures for our “Field Guide” that shows plants and animals on our property. Our septic clogged (oh no!) and they went out and took lots of pictures of the septic man who unclogged the drain pipe. Peee-yew, it was stinky.

Anna was taking pictures of birds to add pages to our [homeschool] Family Field Guide

Anna is getting close to 8 years old!

Carolyn is so cute in the size 5 coat. (She is 2)

Carolyn “digging”

Our poor, cute, fallen-apart mailbox, looking up the hill at the neighbors and a beautiful sky.

Somebody confused the weather and the grass is growing, the frogs croaking and trees budding!

Our loaner vacuum. SO HAPPY to have my vacuum back from the shop!

Everybody knows that Carolyn is cute. Anna even takes pictures mostly of her.

Blurry adorableness.

Carolyn isn’t interested in having her own pillow. Brian was trying to sleep in here…

Anna found bird tracks.

I think she called these deer tracks, but I’m not so sure.

Brian has been developing a tabletop RPG that the kids can play too. I’ve never played any kind of tabletop rpg, so it was fun to watch.

The papers show the “rooms” and they were one room away from the big boss, the Giant Slime! (They are fighting snakes here)

Legos rule! These are our characters. Sorry, I don’t remember the names just now, but I know there’s a Kung Fu Panda, a Phoenix, a Nameless Warrior and two others.

This is what Carolyn does when the big girls go to AWANA.

More morning snuggles.

See! I took this just now – Carolyn getting into dressup while I type the blog post.

So I’m still taking medication for depression, which is good, though I wish we managed to get the perfect medication on first try. I still have occasional counselor appointments and I find them very helpful. We’re still homeschooling and it’s going well. Anna wrote a short story about Unicorn Land (“Unacon Land”) that was pretty great. I find I wish I had more second-graders to compare her to so that I’d know how we’re doing. But I try not to worry about it too much. She is learning to read, write, and do math. She is learning to be more competent in home chores and is learning lots of interpersonal skills within the family as well as with friends. I think she is learning “how” to learn…. how to research, how to take notes, how to “try” something (experiment), how to dance and she is learning to type and play computer games too. Ha.

Brian and I sat down and wrote down a family goal. You know, the thing that’s even more important than all the extra stuff we do. It tried to give substance and encouragement to the unspoken mission/purpose of our family.
Family Goal: To learn and practice agape love with grace.
Agape love is a Greek word that is used in the Bible. It describes a love that focuses on doing what is best for the other person. Everybody in our family needs to learn and practice doing that. And we added the grace bit at the end. Grace is a hard word for me to define, because it can be applied in so many ways. A gracious gift is a gift that is given freely, without being earned and without strings attached. We want to offer agape love to each other with grace. Also, we want to accept agape love with grace… grace for ourselves in particular. Sometimes it is hard to accept love that is offered, but with a little grace… well, I hope you get the idea.

Let’s see. There is a mess of Valentine cards and candy hearts that I was suckered into buying sitting on my desk. There is an email in my inbox about an older Golden Retriever that we are considering adopting. We’ve considered a great many dogs, so my hopes aren’t up too high, but I do love a furry companion who adores me. Who wouldn’t? Aw – just ate one of the candy hearts and discovered I bought the tart kind. Rats. The girls are still hoping for snow this winter. So far it’s rain and frogs. It’s been in the low 50’s every day lately. So strange. I have a tiny spot of winter toes on my right foot. Guess I should have worn socks. Oh! I need to get some meat out of the freezer, because I am cooking today. I read an old “letter” from my dad last night about the trinity or not the trinity. It was interesting. Sorry there’s not much representation of Jordan in this post. He’s getting big and liking school and continuing to grown and develop. We love him. 🙂

Obviously wrapping up here. I’ll post videos below when they’re uploaded:

Cute kids playing outside being video-taped by… themselves 3:30: