Happy Birthday JJ!

Today is my baby's birthday. Yes, I know he's seven and technically he is not a baby any more. However, if you are a mother then you understand that he will forever be "my baby". He is learning and growing by leaps and bounds and each day makes me want to hold on to the day before. What happened to my tiny 4lb 14 oz baby? That's about what he weighed when we came home. Well, look at him now!

JJ loves to swim, so he had some friends over today to join him at the pool. It was about 86 degrees, so the weather definately cooperated. After the pool they dined on vegan cupcakes that were absolutely delicious, if I do say so myself. After their sugar fix, they quickly headed back outside for a water balloon fight. Great weather, great friends and an even greater God make for a day to be thankful. I am so greatful for my wonderful little man. Happy Birthday, JJ!

Wild Days in the Animal Kingdom

We have been doing some really interesting things with our unit studies. Science is not my strong point, so I've really been stretched as we've studied animal classification. Thanks to Jessica Hulcy (Konos author) and the other Konos moms for the tips and encouragement. As a side note, Mrs. Jessica was in an awful car accident last week and suffered some very serious injuries, including broken ribs, torn diaphram and punctured lungs. Please be praying for her as the Lord is healing her a little every day. You can visit her Caring Bridge site here.

The character trait we are working on for this unit is orderliness. God has created an orderly universe and it is so evident in all of nature. First let me say that I am not orderly by nature. In fact, keeping entropy (I love this word) at bay is a great challenge for me. God is truly working on me as I work on training my children to tame the clutter that invades our home.

Animal classification has been wild in more ways than one. Oh the stories I can tell. We began our unit with the Tree of Life. I was not at all sure how this would turn out, but have been very happy with the results.

I used a seperate posterboard for each phylum, adding a picture and characteristics (given by the boys) as we studied each one. This worked well because it gave them a quick reference when they went to write about any given phylum. Learning the classification system was fun. I even made up a rap to help them remember Kingdom, Phylum, Class.... Anyone want to hear it? I'll spare you, but they won't ever forget what comes next.

We collected earthworms to observe, and tried to count their segments. The most fun came on a day when we were babysitting my 2 year old god-daughter. She was thrilled beyond belief that she could hold the worms and look at them with the magnifying glass. The following week when she came over she looked at our Tree of Life and pointed to the worms. She wanted to see more!

Things began to get creepy when we tried to combine this unit with lunch. As we were studying mollusks we decided to purchase fresh clams. We observed them, watched them shoot out water when touched, close when they felt threatened, looked at all parts etc... All was fine until I cooked them. They looked great. I prepared them in a garlic and wine sauce and tossed with pasta. Sounds good doesn't it? What we discovered is that you can't eat science projects and that we need our food to be dead before it comes into our home. Just know that we will not be purchasing any more food that has to be killed before eaten. We just couldn't do it. A lot of food went to waste that day.

I would have liked to look at more insects but the boys were not okay with "putting them to sleep". The one thing we have actually mounted on a foam board is a very large crane fly which did not go to sleep without a fight. Seeing this was a bit disturbing, so I put it in another room. We captured several spiders to observe and spray painted a few webs gold so that we could see the intricate designs woven by the spiders.

For the past 4 weeks we have had a painted turtle that the boys named Shelly. They have never had a pet, so we have learned about pet care and turtles at the same time. She is the one critter that is starting to grow on me, although the plan is to return her to the pond from which she came.

Although we were done with this unit, no one bothered to tell the critters. Since this little green guy saw fit to make his way onto our patio I figured the least we could do was take a picture of him. Isn't he cute?

So, now lets see. We've caught toads, frogs, turtles, slugs, worms, spiders, various insects, lizards, birds (shells at least), and clams. I think we've had a well rounded animal kingdom experience. Are we more orderly for our observations? The jury is still out on that one. I'll have to ask J when he gets home.

The perfect way to end this unit was with a trip to the zoo. I'll share the pics from that trip in the next post.

Our Story

Just yesterday I was reading Mama Jenn's blog where she told how she and her hubby met. What a great idea and amazing timing since today is our anniversary.

The story begins on May 2, 1992 on a Big Ten campus somewhere in the Midwest. Saturday night a couple of weeks before finals is not a pretty sight. Most people are in sweat clothes, no one bothers to wear make-up and I have no idea if I had combed my hair that day or not. One of my sorority sisters begged me to go with her to visit this guy she was dating. She didn't want to go alone because he would be with a bunch of his frat brothers. I reluctantly agreed and off we went.

When we walked through the door of the apartment there were quite a few guys, many of whom we knew, but some we did not. The first one to speak was my handsome honey J. He said, "hey I'm one of those Q-dogs" (his fraternity). I said "so, I'm one of those Zetas" (my sorority) and walked away to sit down. He followed me and we ended up talking all night. By all night I mean until nearly 3am! I was pretty much hooked at that point but didn't really know how not to show it. I really liked the guy. The tough part was that he didn't go to the same school. He was just visiting from a school 45 minutes away. Luckily he had a car so he was able to visit often. Phone bills were crazy high, since this was before unlimited long distance.

That summer he went back home to work while I went to summer school. Home was 2 hours away but he still came to visit most weekends. We had lots of mutual friends and things were good. We dated long distance for 2 years. I graduated in December of 1993 and moved back home to begin my job as a youth counselor at a correctional facility. He graduated the next semester in May 1994 and moved to the same city.

By this point I'm thinking it's time to get married, but J is not one to be rushed. We actually broke up for a few weeks late in the year, but got back together in November. J proposed on December 30 and we married the following year, May 27, 1995.

Now, here we are 14 years later. When I think back over those first 3 years of our relationship I know that God was looking out for me when I was too unaware to look out for myself. He had plans for me when I couldn't see past the moment at hand. He has given me a good man to spend my life with and I am so thankful for him.
Happy Anniversary Honey!

He's a Winner!

My handsome honey is a winner and I'm a witness. Last Saturday we drove 2 1/2 hours so he could participate in the USA Track & Field Masters SE Regional Meet. He ran 800M in an impressive 2:12. Here he is before the race.


To the right is him just before the finish. IJ took this great picture.
Would you believe that I have no pictures of him with his medal? Not sure how that happened, but here he is after the race with the boys. We are so proud of his accomplishment.

Garden Update

A couple of weeks ago I shared the beginnings of our patio garden. My mom, the green thumb of the family, has made this a project for the boys. Because we live in an apartment, everything is planted in pots and an upside down patio garden. This is just a quick update to show how things are going.

The organic salad greens are beautiful. I love these because they grow quickly and require nothing more than water and sunshine. It has been 3 weeks since the seeds were planted and I'm expecting 1-2 more until we have our first homegrown salad of the season.
The tomato plants are growing nicely. Aside from the slugs who keep eating the leaves, the plants seem to be quite healthy and strong.
I missed getting a picture of the basil and rosemary, but they are growing well also. I used the basil in my roasted vegetable pasta salad a few days ago. The leaves were large, beautiful and full of flavor. The slugs seem to agree, as they are dining on this plant as well. As for the squash, well it's not going to happen this year. One of the boys (I won't say who) thought it was dead, so he pulled the plant out. We will have to try that one again next year.

To the right are the green bean plants. The picture does not capture it, but I love how the vines are wrapping themselves around the stands. Seems they know how to stabilize themselves without any help from us. The lemon balm is growing like a weed. I need to pick some for a nice cup of tea. So far it has not attracted the bees like I expected and I am so glad for that. I'll share more when we pick the salad greens.