Category Archive

We wanted to give our nephew, Wesley, a good taste of Missouri. But when you’re entertaining guests from Florida, Missouri sort of pales in comparison. Not that I would trade it for Florida, but Floridians are at least as proud of their state as Missourians are of Missouri. So we tried to think of activities that would be a good representation of things that you can’t really do in Florida.

For one thing, you wouldn’t go wading in a stream like this, in Florida. Unless you like being gator bait.

For the same reason, you wouldn’t stand in the river and fish, so that is exactly what we did.

Which brings us to the part where Kinsley catches her first fish. And falls in love.

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That look on her face cracks me up every time I see this photo. She was so infatuated with that fish! Just after I took that last photo, the fish squirmed out of her hands and swam to safety. I imagine he told his fishy buddies “You’re never going to believe what just happened to me!”

My brother Zion is into this sport called football. I don’t really understand the concept, but it’s something like this.

See that ball? Apparently everybody on that field, wants that ball. And while they’re playing, it has to be that ball, not any one of the hundreds of others they could easily lay their hands on at Walmart.

There are a lot of tense moments during the game. Stand-offs, where no one actually moves, they all squat and stare at a ball which is remaining perfectly still. Then someone throws it, and all heck breaks loose.

Usually, someone eventually catches the oddly shaped ball and then runs with it for a second or two, but apparently deciding that they really don’t know what to do with it after all, the person throws it to a nearby team-mate, who does pretty much the same thing, all while dodging various people who are determined to get their hands and that ball.

There’s some other terminology involved, words like Hike, and Hut, and Quarter Backer and Line Backer, but I’m not really sure how these terms fit into the game. Zion has tried to impress these terms on me, and even demonstrated them numerous times in my kitchen, but I’m afraid it’s all a little beyond me. Sophie seems to be picking it up, though.

Apparently, Zion is showing some real aptitude for this sport (due, in no small part, to all the tussles we all had as children over various objects, including the occasional ball). He has been participating in a summer camp to help prepare for some official games over the fall.

The team is a community team, comprised of homeschoolers, private schoolers, and public schoolers. The dream is that someday it will consist of home and private school kids.

Dad has been acting as an assistant coach during the camp.

Until they get their official uniforms, all their jerseys say “11″ on the back. Which makes cheering really easy and fool proof. “Go number 11! You’re the best player out there! Woo-Hoo!!!”

I love this PlayFoam stuff. Papa and Mama gave me some for my birthday last year, and I love it. I’ve kept it hidden away from children, not wanting to share my toys, so their first experience with the stuff was at Silver Dollar City.

It all started because of The Little Engine That Could. Kinsley fell in love with that book, and sat steadying every minute detail of each illustration on every single page. She could sit for an hour, looking at that book, thinking, dreaming, looking off into space and imagining.

Then one day, she spotted it. There, on nearly the last page, was a little boy riding a shiny red tricycle. The sheer romance of the illustration captured Kinsley’s imagination at once. She began to notice bikes every where we went, pointing them out and suggesting that she could probably ride them.

Then, her cousins were over one weekend, and brought their bikes to ride on our trail, and the dreamy idea became even more realistic in her mind. She began to ask for a tricycle. “Not a purple tricycle” she clarified, “a red tricycle.”

So, we suggested to her that we begin to save up for one, and watch for them at yard sales and thrift shops. This was the first think that Kinsley has ever really, really wanted, and we wanted to use the opportunity to teach her about saving and waiting. So she saved. I donated all of my laundry funds, and she added every penny she found. We had nearly filled a half gallon jar, when Grandma and Grandpa called one day to say that they had something for Kinsley.

The excitement was nearly too much for her. “It is not purple!” She squealed happily. “Mama, would you like to walk with me on the pathway?” “Look, there’s a spot for my juice!”

Once again, Grandma and Grandpa saved the day!

We attended a bluegrass jam session in honor of our niece, Natalie’s birthday.

Over the past year, Nathan and Natalie have picked up bluegrass in an incredible way.

They have recently (with a few other local people and their mother (Aunt Paula), formed a new bluegrass band, called The Lonesome Hill Gang.

The girls danced through the jam, entertaining the old ladies.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why Kinsley is in her panties, it’s cause of the fountain…

But, to get back to the subject of this post. Nathan and Natalie wrote the following song (which, by the way, is one of my favorite bluegrass pieces!)

Nathan says:

My sister and I had been writing this song about a week before we named it. A couple day’s later we had a very big thunderstorm,our creek was a roaring torrent,the water was easily 3′over the bridge.I had just finished working out the bugs on our song, but we still didn’t have a name for it. We played the song a couple times and thought it sounded a lot like a creek that was swollen from heavy rains. Our creek’s name is “Clear Creek”, so we thought that “Clear Creek Run” would be an appropriate name for it.

Genius, no?

Cheerfulness is a Beauty which every body admires. A cheerful spirit is a continual feast. It smiles its way through life. It wins crowns for its possessor. It makes and gives happiness. All sunshine and flowers is a cheerful heart. It shines in perpetual spring. Its birds are ever singing, and its joys ever new.

From a text entitled Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women, written in 1856 by George Sumner Weaver

In music study the same principles apply as do in picture study, nature study, and nature notebooks. That is the principle of attentiveness and good observation. The goal is not to have children who can give a lecture on music theory. It is to have children learn to enjoy classical music and tell one piece from another just as naturally as they learn the difference between, say, The Farmer in the Dell and When the Saints Go Marching In - because they are both familiar with and fond of what they are hearing. The more they are exposed to good literature, the better they get at reading the themes and language of literature. In art and music, the more they are simply exposed to pictures and music, the more they learn to ‘read’ the themes of the world’s classic compositions. ~Ambleside Online

Kinsley spent some time sitting quietly and listening to Vivaldi’s Spring today. I had prefaced the “lesson” by telling her that this music was written by a man named Vivaldi, and he wrote this particular song to express what Spring made him imagine.

We had already been discussing the different seasons, and she has become fascinated with the thought that spring is the time for birds, and bugs, rain, and bees, so that is what she was listening for in the music.

…Spring, with a profusion of birds, the breath of gentle breezes, a murmuring stream, swaying plants, a goatherd lulled to sleep and shepherds holding a celebratory bagpipe dance. ~Classical Notes

She was pretty sure she heard rain in the music, and then some bees, which she told me she doesn’t like “’cause they can sting your bommom” (bottom).

I found that her attention span for this sort of thing is roughly 60 seconds long, but she was able to stretch herself and sat to listen for about five minutes. All in all, I thought it wasn’t a bad first lesson in classical music.