More Tulips

Here are a few more tulip pictures. These were an amazing type of tulip! They were definitely the largest blooms I've ever seen. Also, the markings on the leaves were so interesting as well.
Enjoy.

Zoo Day

Our regular Mops Leadership Meeting was canceled today, so another Mom and her three sons invited Pumpkin and I to go to the Denver Zoo with them. I haven't been to a zoo since 1990, so I was excited to go. (Pumpkin's always excited to go anywhere.)

I could tell the moment Pumpkin actually noticed the lion. He barked. Anything with four legs is a dog to him. Woof! This was apparently a dog in need of a haircut and shave. He also saw striped dogs and dogs with really long necks.

After lunch I put a chocolate chip cookie in his snack holder to enjoy as we rolled around. It looks like he really enjoyed it!

Apparently, it was a popular field trip destination today. It was so crowded! The weather was nice, which after snow and rain on Tuesday was a nice break.
We wandered around for a few hours, saw some really neat animals and had a wonderful time. We probably only walked through a third of the zoo, so we'll have to start on the other side on our next visit.

Our friends stayed and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon while Pumpkin and I came home for our naps. I'm looking forward to adding to the Zoo Unit ideas as I think of things based on what we saw today. I think an ABC book or list would be fun...

Spring Reading Challenge Update

I've been busy reading for the Spring Reading Challenge. I've finished several of the books I wanted to read. Here was my original list:

The Secret Garden and The Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett ~DONE!
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte ~3/4 th of the way done!
The Private World of Tasha Tudor and Springs of Joy by Tasha Tudor
Desiring God by John Piper
What Every Mom Needs by Elisa Morgan & Carol Kuykendall
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
Deception by Randy Alcorn ~DONE!
Living Simply: Choosing Less in a World of More by Joanne Heim~DONE!
Taking Care of the Me in Mommy by Lisa Whelchel~3/4 th of the way done!

I've also added a bunch of others along the way and am joining a group blog on the Newberry Awards, so I've been reading through those. I'll have to look in my book basket and list the books I've finished tomorrow. I love reading!

I am starting up a Book Club next week. Any suggestions for books to read? We've got four of us that will get together once a month. I think I'm the only one that reads fiction mostly by Christian authors. So, if you have ideas, both Christian and non, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Something to Do Besides Watch TV

I read Living Simply: Choosing Less in a World of More by Joanne Heim Easter weekend. It's a wonderful book that encourages and instructs us on how to live a simpler life. I know that's been a theme for me in my life lately.
Since staying home and raising Pumpkin is my full-time job, I find that I do have a lot simpler life than I did when I was working all the time outside the home. Now, sometimes I must confess to feeling like I am losing brain cells playing with the stacking cups (again) and that I am bored with board books, but I wouldn't trade this time with Pumpkin for anything. I certainly wouldn't want to go back to teaching and raise other peoples' children while paying someone else to raise mine, but that's just me.
Living Simply quotes many of my favorite books and story characters. She's also incorporates many of these stories and books into her family life. I love Joanne's practical ideas for creating a home life that you can truly love. Ladies, we are the ones that establish the tone of our home both in decorating and in attitude. Our children can only model what they see. Don't we want it to be a life of joy; serving God and serving our families? I do.
The book opens with 1 Thessalonians 4:11&12a "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders". Sometimes it's hard to believe that our quiet, little lives matter. After all, others are out there working and achieving great things while I am home folding laundry and baking bread. I wrote these verses out and have them stuck on the kitchen cabinet by the stove where I spend a lot of time. As I've been memorizing the words I am asking God to soak them into both my heart and my mind.
For me, the idea of ambition and a quiet life seem at odds. I think of ambition as striving for great things and even recognition. How strange then, to strive for a quiet life.
And that minding my own business part, ouch. Am I the only one struggling with that? I want to know what others are up to. But does it really matter? Won't knowing just led to more comparing myself to others instead of Christ?
I do like to work with my hands. I like to create beautiful things, all the better when they are beautiful things to eat. But, don't forget that last part, "so that your life may win the respect of outsiders". God can use my quiet life to win over non-believers. How amazing is that? By living a simple life, I have the time and energy to reach out to people. People aren't just an interruption to a jam-packed schedule. They are there for me to love, encourage, and listen to. Hmm...guess it's time to have a little at-home brunch and invite a few of the ladies in the neighborhood on over. I think there are two ladies on my block who are newly at home during the days.
Anyway, go get this book and read it! It's a quick book to read through. I'm rereading and taking notes in my copy now, gleaning more with each passing through. Plus, you can go visit Joanne's blog over at The Simple Wife. Have a great week!

Kill Your Television

It's the National TV- Turnoff Week! Here's some info from the official site that sponsors this. Go visit them. They have all sorts of suggestions on how to make this week a success for your family. Check out their 101 Screen Free Activities.

Don't skip this because it started yesterday. Jump in now! It may change your life. We're a television-free family and it's made a huge difference in how we spend our time. ~Kimberly

"TV-Turnoff Week 2007 April 23th - 29th.

Why Turn off the TV?

Television cuts into family time, harms our children's ability to read and succeed in school, and contributes to unhealthy lifestyles and obesity. Here are just a few of the facts:

• On average, children in the US will spend more time in front of the television (1,023 hours) than in school this year (900 hours).
• Forty percent of Americans frequently or always watch television during dinner.
• As US Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher said at the Kick Off of TV-Turnoff Week 2001, "We are raising the most overweight generation of youngsters in American history...This week is about saving lives."

Who Participates?
Anyone and everyone. Millions of people all over the world have participated in TV-Turnoff Week since it began in 1995. Children and adults, rich and poor - people from every background and all walks of life - take part through schools, churches, or community groups, as families or individuals.

What's So Great about TV-Turnoff Week?
Turning off the television gives us a chance to think, read, create, and do. To connect with our families and engage in our communities. To turn off TV and turn on life.

Benjamin Loxley, a second-grader, sums it up well, "I had a great time, and my only question is : If this is so great, why don't we turn off the TV for ate other 51 weeks of the year?"

TV-Turnoff Week Works!
According to hundreds of responses to our TV-Turnoff Week follow-up surveys, 90 percent of responding participants reduced their TV-viewing as a result of participating.

Sound like fun? It is! Join thousands of parents, teachers, pediatricians and other families by celebrating TV-Turnoff Week 2007 April 23-29, 2007."

Tulips

I went with my Dad to Pearl Street in Boulder.
They have the most amazing tulips. It's so neat to see.

Thanks, Dad, for being patient while I took pictures.

Pray for Those Left Behind

Making a Virtual Friend a Real Friend

Since I started blogging last year, a whole new world has opened up to me. I've "met" a whole circle of friends that live their lives as I do, and wish to do.
We're looking for more out of life than just what is popular. We're living for our Lord and our families. We enjoy making our homes pleasant, welcoming places that are sources of refuge for friends and families. As we share our stories and pictures, we are encouraging one another in our walks through life with Jesus, as well as how our lives with husbands and children, if we have them.
We are each in a different place. As I "visit" my friends' homes I find something unique at each stop. From Anna, a way of life that is full, but beautiful; from Kelli, a way to incorporate teaching and living with children in all things; from the other Kelli, a home filled with joy and children and great craft ideas; from Brenda, living a life of peace amongst difficulties in finances and health issues. Dawn shares her unlimited creativity; Linda reminds us with each post to give all glory to God as she includes a verse with each post. She also shares her beautiful roses and children with us. Jodi takes time to share important truths from the Bible with stirring images; Susan truly enjoys being at home and making it a wonderful place.
There are others of you that visit here and whose sites I visit regularly. Were I to post about each one, I'd never get this done before Pumpkin wakes up. Please don't feel slighted if I've not singled yours out. You're wonderful.
Recently, I had the pleasure of making a new friend on-line. I found Joanne's blog while searching for the author of a quote on reading. What fun! I laughed as I perused her blog at how many things we had in common. I even bought her book, Living Simply: Choosing Less in a World of More. I read it all in two days and am rereading it to take notes in my journal.
Imagine my joy at finding out she actually lives here in the Denver area. We left comments on each others' sites and emailed back and forth a few times.
Today we met for the first time. We live on opposite ends of the city and so we met downtown for lunch. I had so much fun! We discovered how our lives have crossed paths, though we've never met. She goes to church at the same church I used to go to when I lived on the southern end of the city, we even have mutual acquaintances from both here in Denver and from Los Angeles. What are the odds of that?
She is a delightful person. I so hope that we can get together again, and soon! (I think I'll try to drop Pumpkin off at Grandma's first, as he did not enjoy sitting and visiting as much as we did.) We both want to live life with purpose, but also with taking the time to develop relationships with those around us. I could have sat and visited for hours without running out of things to say. Even as I sit here, I am thinking of a thousand other things I would have liked to talk about with her! I think I found a kindred spirit. Of course, how could I not enjoy someone who quotes Anne Shirley in her book?
Gotta go! I hear Pumpkin. Thanks, Joanne, for a lovely afternoon!

Painting by Mary Cassat.

A Lovely Thing

Here is one of my teacup racks. It is up in the dining room. I switch out the cups and ribbons based on the seasons and my mood. Three of these cups were hand-painted. Wouldn't it be lovely to make something like this?
The one under the bow was painted by a lady I met at the tea shop. She is an older lady and she paints all sorts of porcelain. I purchased a beautiful baby's cup from here before Pumpkin was born with forget-me-nots. It really is lovely.

On the Go!

Finally! He is officially crawling. Of course, he favorite time to try and take off seems to be right after I've removed a diaper, but at least he's going! His progress has been amazing.
He'll be walking soon.

Zoo Unit

A few weeks ago I was visiting with a friend. She takes her boys to the zoo a couple of times a month. She is also considering homeschooling as her son approached kindergarten. I am all for homeschooling myself, and can't wait to start with Pumpkin.

As we were talking about the zoo I started sharing ideas for ways to make a trip to the zoo fun and educational. I later made a web of ideas for activities to do for homeschooling that could revolve around trips to the zoo. I don't know how to do a web in Blogger, so I'll just try to do a list by subject. I gave her my original web plan, so I'm just trying to remember the ideas here.

I was talking to a few of the gals at my Mops table about homeschooling and mentioned the web I'd done and they asked me to give them the lists so they could try to do some of the ideas to make a trip to the zoo more meaningful. Since I figured I'd have to recreate it for them, I decided I might as well post it here.
When I used to do curriculum unit planning as a teacher I would first start out with a web based on a topic. From there I would add activities by categories as well as benchmarks and standards to create an entire unit design. My final units would usually be very formal, especially the ones I designed as a part of the Core Knowledge Summer Writing Institutes I did for several years.

(If you are interested in seeing any of the units, visit www.ckcolorado.org. I wrote both Kindergarten and 5th grade units ranging from Johnny Appleseed, to Little Women and from continent studies to the Reformation. I even wrote a unit on the Human Body to teach the students about reproduction (blush). I loved writing literature units the best, though, and did units for The Secret Garden and Sherlock Holmes' The Red-Headed League as well. Although the units were written to be used in a Core Knowledge classroom, many have activities that can be adapted for homeschooling. The entire site is filled with high quality units on a variety of topics for K-6th grade.)

Anyway, back to the zoo. Here are activities grouped by subject:

Language Arts:
*write and illustrate a story about your trip to the zoo
*write and illustrate a story about the zoo from an animal's perspective
*dictate a story to a parent, have them write it out, then illustrate your story
*read fiction and non-fiction stories about zoo animals

Math:
*count animals, body parts, trees,
*graph the number of types of animals you see
*graph the number of legs/arms of the animals
*interview visitors and graph their favorite animals
*make sure to do different types of graphs- bar, line, pie, etc.
*measure out animal parts on the ground (giraffe neck, elephant ears, etc.)

Science:
*learn about habitats
*learn about what different animals eat (herbivore, carnivores, omnivores)
*study the different teeth animals have and why they have them type they do
*learn about endangered species

Art:
*make dioramas of an animal's habitat (adjust for age- use animal toys for little ones, magazine cut-outs, or drawing of the animals for older children)
*draw animals
*do crayon rubbings of interesting things at the zoo
*make a collage about the zoo
*decorate a special shirt to wear to the zoo
*make posters for the zoo

Social Studies:
*learn geography as you study where the animals came from
*learn to read a map of the zoo
*create your own map of the zoo
*draw a map of the world and trace the animal's journey to the zoo
*learn how animals and people interact in the wild

Music:
*learn songs from various countries/continents that the animals come from
*write a song yourself about an animal
*make a musical instrument from an animal's home
*make a dance that illustrates a type of animal's movements

Misc.:
*cook food from other countries/continents that the animals are from
*make a special zoo hat that represents an animal
*watch a movie about your favorite animal
*make a web page about your trip to the zoo
*do a web search/web quest about your favorite zoo animal
*create a zoo scrapbook

This is all I could think of off the top of my head. If I can borrow the web back, I may add more ideas. Feel free to leave your ideas in the Comments section!


(The pictures are from a trip I made with my mom and sister to the Phoenix Zoo back in 1975 . See where Pumpkin gets the red hair? I'm in my favorite Little House on the Prairie sunbonnet. I still have that bonnet!)

Monday Funny

This was in our Mops newsletter last month. I love the Give a Mouse/Moose a Cookie/Muffin books, so this made me laugh. Just a little something to brighten your Monday!

If You Give a Mom a Muffin

If you give a mom a muffin,
She'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
So she'll pour herself some.
The coffee will get spilled by her three year old.
She'll wipe it up.

Wiping the floor, she will find some dirty socks.
She'll remember she has to do some laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer,
She'll trip over some snow boots and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper for tonight.

She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She'll look for her cookbook. (101 Things To Make With a Pound of
Hamburger.)
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill which is due tomorrow.
She will look for the checkbook.

The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two year old.
She'll smell something funny.
She'll change the two year old.
While she is changing the two year old the phone will ring. (Of course!)
Her five year old will answer it and hang up.

She remembers that she wants to phone a friend to come over for coffee on
Friday.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
She will pour herself some.
And chances are,
If she has a cup of coffee,
Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

Written by Kathy Fictorie

Based on If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff

Happy Easter!

I want to wish each one of you a very Happy Easter.
As we gather to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, be sure to share His love with one another. Let your days be filled with joy in the knowledge that Jesus Christ loves you, no matter what. He has overcome death so that we might truly live, both here on earth and one day with Him in heaven.

Jesus said...I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me will live,
even though he dies;
and whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
John 11:25

Easter

I received an email from Focus on the Family that had some wonderful ideas to teach your children about the true meaning of Easter, while still enjoying eggs and Easter baskets. The article, entitled "Finding Easter in Bunnies and Baskets", has some great ideas for teaching the true meaning of Easter while decorating eggs and had ways to compare a real bunny with some of the messages of Easter. It also highlighted the importance of making sure your children understand some of the words we associate with Easter, words we as adults know, but might confuse kids.
Like the author says, "Bunnies, eggs, baskets and more can become tools that parents use to bring a greater understanding of the message of Easter. With just a little creativity, all these symbols that often replace the real significance of Easter can be the very things that make the holiday full and rich with spiritual meaning."
I personally like this idea as I know that Pumpkin will be surrounded with all these symbols as he gets older. Now I have some ideas on how to teach him about Christ through the symbols, instead of just trying to ignore them.
Back when I first started teaching I was a fifth grade teacher at a Christian school. As a class we made Easter cookies that symbolized Christ's suffering, crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection by reading Scriptures that went along with the ingredients and recipe. If I can find the directions, I will post them.
I love doing things with kids more than just talking to them about things. The object lessons from cooking and crafting can mean so much more, and the lessons often stick with a child longer.

Image from: http://www.antiqueclipart.com

Today

It's a rainy day here in Denver. It's falling so lightly right now that it's more of a mist, gentle and cool. The sky is gray, but somehow the green of the grass is more vibrant, the rain-soaked earth drinking in the moisture. It is peaceful.
I am taking my mother to the airport this morning. She will spend Easter with my sister and her family. I wish we all lived closer. How fun it would be to celebrate Easter together! I'd love for Pumpkin to see his cousins more. He is so much like his oldest cousin. They could pass for the same person in their pictures. Gotta love that red hair!
After the trip to the airport we'll come home for a nap and early lunch before my midwife's appointment. I'm twenty weeks along. I feel the baby dance all the time. What a joy. After that, we'll come home and spend the afternoon here, probably napping. Then we'll work on Pumpkin's exercises. He has made so much progress!

*** When he broke his leg we'd asked about physical therapy, but were told he wouldn't need it. A month after the cast was removed, he was back to sitting up, but that was all and still sort of wobbly. We were told not to worry about it and that he'd start crawling any day. Move ahead three months to his next checkup. He was still not crawling, nor showing any interest in moving around at all. This time I was told that he was now far enough behind as to warrant physical therapy. Sigh.
Not good news since our insurance deductible is so high. We'd met the deductible with the break/surgery/hospital stay for 2006. (One 24 hour trip to the hospital=$17,500+.) I was still wrestling with the insurance company to pay everything they owed off, now almost six months later.)
Thank you, Lord, for having already set a plan in motion for us! I was having lunch over at another mom's house from Mops just a few days before the doctor visit. Not knowing her well, I asked what she had done before having her three sons. She said she's been a physical therapist. She said she missed it and loved watching people and seeing how they moved. We both looked at Pumpkin who was sitting there quietly playing with a toy. She asked if she could try something with him. She moved him into a crawling position. He screamed his head off. She offered to put together some exercises for him. I jumped at the idea.
Since that visit to the doctor's we've gotten together several times and she's given me lots of ideas and exercises to do with him. She won't accept any payment for her help, so I'm trying to keep her supplied with breads and baked goods! She's enjoying it and considering it to be serving God by helping us. Amazing. (I'm still looking for a way to show our gratitude and am open to ideas!)
It's been just a month now, but he is already crawling short distances, pulling himself up to a sitting position from laying on his back, and standing and taking small steps with help. There's also a lot less screaming now as we move his muscles and exercise with him.
What a blessing! I am amazed at his progress in such a short time. So is she! Now, whenever he's awake he's on the move. Challenging, but it's so wonderful for this mommy to see!
On another note, a check arrived a few days ago from the insurance company to pay all but $100 of the final hospital bills. Thank you, Jesus. March certainly ended on a better note than it started for us. Hallelujah!

A Flicker of Hope

For Christmas this year my sister gave me a "Flicker of Hope" candle. One of her friends started making and selling candles to benefit "Acres of Hope", an organization in Liberia, she found through adopting her son from Liberia. Acres of Hope Liberia, Inc. is a Liberian based, non-profit, charitable and humanitarian organization dedicated to meeting the needs of orphaned children in West Africa. ALL the profits from the candles and other products goes to "Acres of Hope".

Here's a link to their site for more information about the candles and here's the link for "Acres of Hope".

My sister asked me to help get the word out, as I am the only person she knows who has a blog and all their advertising is word of mouth. Neither of us has anything to gain by mentioning this. She'd just like to help her friends help more orphans.

Home

"Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest;

Home-keeping hearts are happiest..."

~Henry Longfellow