We are very fortunate to be able to start Micah in violin lessons with our neighbor, Jennifer Johnson. She and I are neighbors and have been friends for several years. I actually met her when we were having garage sales to raise money for our adoption, gosh, maybe 4 or 5 years ago now! About a year after we met, Micah started voicing an interest in learning the violin and I recalled that Jen had said she was a violin teacher. So I knocked on her door which, at the time, didn't result in violin lessons for Micah, but rather a friendship that is dear to me. She and I are aspiring walking buddies-surely it will happen soon! :)
Benjamin is following along in Andrew's footsteps and is our aspiring piano player. Here he is "practicing" his songs. Speaking of Andrew and piano, he is coming right along, picking things up fairly easily. I had a feeling he would be a natural with the piano-he is very creative, very artsy, and also, interestingly enough, very good at math. The two seem to collide in someways in piano. I'm so excited to see this through! We are fortunate to have a teacher that comes here to the house, so I always sit in on the lessons so that I can help Andrew in his practice. Watching stirred up in me my childhood flame with the piano. I'm am a self-taught pianist-probably at a lower intermediate level-but only learned to play songs in C position. I never knew there was more than one position! I've joined in the lessons now, just every other week, and am thrilled to be able to play old songs that were so difficult to play from C position, with my hands in the write place on the keyboard. I never knew what those little numbers were underneath the notes-now I know-and those finger numbers are quite helpful! I'm having to relearn what notes are underneath what fingers, and that can be confusing, but in the end, it will make playing a whole lot easier!
I love how Samuel loves his big brothers. I love all the love that is multiplied in a big family! I love each of my boys so much! My heart has been welling up with gratitude lately-to be God's child! To be forgiven! To be living my dream come true-a wife, a mother, a mother to five sons! To have a home, for my daily occupation to be taking care of my home and family....it's all so good. I LOVE my job. :)
Sunny has settled in quite nicely. She is definitely Micah's dog! She loves all the kids, well the older three boys. Benjamin strikes her from time to time and she certainly doesn't appreciate that, and Samuel is too unpredictable, although she is becoming fond of him more so because he feeds her from his high chair. :)
Saturday night the boys began begging me for a "party". At 8 oclock at night, I was caught a little off gaurd and felt rather unprepared. The best I could do was tell them that they could go make cookies and then we would watch something on Netflix. Well, due to the fact that we only had 1/2 a stick of butter-cookies weren't an option. The only thing we could really find ingredients for was pumpkin pie. Isaac was fine with that and lead the whole operation. I cleaned up the downstairs while they cooked. It dawned on me at some point while they were cooking that it was the first day of Autumn! We all pinched each other in delight because it was so fitting to be making a pumpkin pie on the first day of Autumn! Okay, not really, I got excited about it though and surely they felt my enthusiasm! :)
Micah and I went out for "special time" this afternoon. It was so much fun! I've taken all the older boys, one at a time, to the Ivy Creek Greenway to ride bikes in the last few months. It's so nice that it is only about 10 minutes from the house. The paved greenway follows along the creek, which has several beautiful falls. The path becomes a suspended boardwalk that overlooks the creek from quite a high distance. Than there is some wooded bike paths that are super fun, with lots of little hills, and then one long paved road that is no fun going up-but tons of fun going down. I'm starting to really appreciate all the beautiful parks that are literally, all around us. Georgia really is a beautiful state. All of God's creation is beautiful!
I brought along this book to read a short hero story out of. Last night I felt impressed after reading "When God Writes Your Life Story", that I needed to put before my children more stories of heroes. I want them to be inspired to rescue those in distress, embark on adventures in rugged terrain to reach the lost, or give up their own happiness for the sake of others.
We found a hiking trail at the top of the really long hill and decided to embark on a little exploration.
We collected lots of these little "boats", as well as acorns and acorn tops. I think these will make a wonderful sorting activity for Benjamin. It was fun to hunt for them as well.
Micah and I made it back to the van just in time to meet Steve with the other boys. We were trading off so he could go do something. I took the boys to Moe's, much to their delight, and then left them in the car watching an educational video (Isaac was with them-he is 14-otherwise I wouldn't leave them in the car alone!)-while I went in Wal-Mart and then Ingles. On the way home Isaac rolled down all the windows, put the sunroof back, and we blasted Passion's new CD "White Flag". I love that song...."Bless the Lord Oh my Soul, Ohhhhh....Worship his Holy Name!" Anyway-got home a little after 7, let the boys play in the back yard while I unloaded groceries, than I bathed the babies, and put Samuel down. Then I read a story
to the boys. It's such a cute and sweet story! After that we read the Bible, prayed together, and I put Benjamin to bed. Steve got home and since he has a wicked sinus infection, I boiled him some water, added peppermint oil, and he did the best he could to hang over that steam and breath it in. It was quite uncomfortable, but he says it cleared his sinus's and one of his ears! So yeah! Somewhere in this evening I also made Steve and Isaac's lunch for tomorrow and rolled and soaked oats for breakfast. And I wrote out what I would be preparing for our meals tomorrow-and for Steve's meals tomorrow-he is going on an elimination diet to see if some of his allergy symptoms are food related. Last but not least was home school planning-Each Sunday I fill in a spreadsheet, just using a table in Microsoft Word, that has what we do for each subject each week, so that on our school days I can just use that as my guide-and it also fills good to check things off as we get them accomplished each day.
Now that I've blogged instead of slept, it's to bed with me.
Peace be with you!
No comments:
Post a Comment