A Christmas Bell for Anya

Every year, when I read this book, I remember that it's my favorite.

This one is hard to explain, because, well, Anya, the little girl, dies. And that doesn't sound like it would make for a very good Christmas story.

But this story has the happiest of all endings. Her father realizes that she lives. That we celebrate Christmas so that she can live again. It's beautiful and touching and heart breaking and I love it. It doesn't just remind us that Christmas is about Jesus. It reminds us what Jesus is about: saving us.

Bad things happen. Tragic things happen. But that's why Christmas brings us so much hope. Because it's all going to be alright in the end. And we will live again.

Merry Christmas!

Why I celebrate Christmas

I learned a lesson yesterday about the atonement, and I'm so grateful I was able to teach it to Laurel.

After reading the news and grieving for the families in Connecticut, I started seeing this picture pop up on Facebook. Most people mentioned how the Savior was probably holding those little ones tight. I'm sure he was.

But then the thought came to me, and I have to believe this: He was holding the shooter just as tight. I cannot understand it all, but I know that the Atonement is real and that our Heavenly Father and our Savior love us. All of us.

That is why I celebrate Christmas. Because I have a Savior, who paid the price for me.

Great Joy!

The scripture for last night was Luke 2:8-20. It's the angel and shepherd part of the story. I chose this book because the little girl plays the role of the angel who brings the "good tidings of great joy" and learns what that sort of joy feels like.

It's a very sweet story, and allowed us to talk about helping others, and being kind, and sharing the gospel.

Why Christmas Trees Aren't Perfect

We began our Christmas reading with this sweet little story. Long ago, evergreens were perfect, especially in a certain kingdom. Small Pine was growing to be the most beautiful of all the evergreens. But Small Pine had a good heart and chose to shelter a rabbit from wild dogs, provide a safe haven from a storm for a mother wren, and feed a starving fawn.

I love this little story. Here are my two favorite quotes:

"For in looking at [Small Pine's] drooping, nibbled branches, they saw the protecting arm of their father or the comforting lap of a mother. And some, like the wise Queen, saw the love of Christ expressed on earth."

"For, as have many of us, the trees have learned that living for the sake of others makes us most beautiful in the eyes of God."


William asked if we could name our tree Small Pine. I have a feeling we will be looking for a tree with a few gaps and drooping branches, just like Small Pine.

Why?

I've neglected this blog. A lot. I have another one that gets more of my attention and the other day, I wondered why. I blog over there 3-4 times a week. It's a sewing blog.

And I realized that I blog over there because it's a way to interact with people. Being a homeschooling mom of five can be pretty isolating. If we're going to get lessons, piano practice, art, exercise, play, chores, meals, laundry and all that done, we have to be on top of things. So I'm home a lot and don't get to socialize much. (Shhh, don't tell anyone, but I'm horrible in social situations anyway!).

But I like having friends. I like having something in common with people. I like my hobbies. I like sharing them.

Don't get me wrong, I like my family even more than sewing. But when I sew something and blog about it, I get comments. I know it's being read.

I'm not asking for validation. But maybe this is why facebook has taken over. People can just come along and "like" your status update or your photo upload and move on. It's a pretty shallow form of communication, really.

So my early resolution is to be a better blogger. For me. And for anyone who reads this. You don't have to comment. I'm going to do it anyway. These little ones are getting so big, and I've got to chronicle it!

So here's the news for the day:

Yesterday, when Henry was getting himself dressed, Laurel told him he was putting his pants on backwards. He told her, "Laurel, don't worry about it!" Made me laugh.

Caroline can drink through a straw.

James had to get five shots today at the doctor. Will got one, Henry got two. Glad we're done with that for a very long time!

Laurel is still my "I Love Lucy" buddy. Will has joined in too. I love that they like to watch these classics. And boy do they giggle!

Doriane has them hooked on learning French, so we're watching DVDs and listening to CDs and doing some lessons. We'll try to impress her at Christmastime!

We're getting our Christmas tree this weekend.

So that's the news from Lake Wobegon . . . okay, Moscow. But the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children are above average.

Dragon Girl

Laurel has never been a truly typical girl (I'm not allowed to call her "little" anymore). She's always been interested in lots of non-girly things: snakes, dinosaurs, and planets, among other things. She has her own rifle and she's a huge fan of Iron Man and Captain America (no, we haven't let her see the movies!). Her favorite TV show is Top Shot.

So it's really no surprise that she's taken a shine to dragons. In a big way. She draws them. She plays with them. And now she reads stories about them.

The trouble with finding books for a girl like Laurel is finding books that have strong female protagonists who like dragons. Girls are supposed to be rescued. But we've succeeded (and I've found more). Here are two of her current favorites:

There are others in both these series, and she will be reviewing them on her blog. Can't wait!

Grateful Sunday: Fall!

I love fall. I love it even more with these amazing kids of mine.

We went for a walk today at the arboretum. I can't help but think that a year ago, I was in the hospital with Caroline. I'm grateful that this year, I'm enjoying the fall with all five of my children. And Aaron.

James continues to be my most photogenic child. Those blue eyes? Dimples? Clear skin? Love this fiery little man.

 

My little Superman

Aaron let her eat dirt.

I see her all the time, but through the camera, something changes. I recognize how absolutely beautiful she is. What's great about Laurel is that she is beautiful on the inside too.

  
This was not posed at all. Earlier on our walk, Henry had found a gorgeous orange and black feather. He thought he lost it.

 Love this picture of Aaron with James and Henry. This is how they are together. James is always saying how Aaron is his best friend, at it's true.

Have a lovely week. I'm going to try to go back during the week and take some nicer group pictures of all the kids. We'll see how I do!

October Photo Challenge Day Three: Vintage

I confess to being a bit of a history nerd. I love history. But I don't like broad history. I like personal history. I especially like it when that history is MY history. Well, my family's anyway.

When I saw "vintage" I panicked a bit at first. I don't have anything vintage! I wish I did, but I don't.

And then I remembered the treasure box that I'm working my way through. A pile of three ring binders that my Gran, who passed away over a year ago, lovingly put together, filled with the letters my Grandad wrote to her while he was away. And he was away a lot.

I'm in the process of scanning them all and creating a big digital folder of all this history that is my heritage. It's wonderful to read his letters, to see the world through his eyes.

Where world history meets personal history is right here.

This letter is dated July 1, 1946. The letter was sent from Bikini Atoll. Grandad was in charge of the #1 Tower camera on Bikini, the most important camera of the group of towers. The pictures of the atomic bomb test that we are so familiar with? Grandad's. At least some of them anyway.

In the foreground is some sort of currency from Bikini, which was fun to see. Then the envelope with the postal stamp "Atomic Bomb Test Bikini Atoll." And the his letter, addressed to his "Darling wife and boys."

Still playing around with aperture priority setting. I tried f4.5, but you couldn't read what he wrote in the letter very clearly. Then I doubled it to f9. This is that picture, and I like how it's not perfectly in focus (the f18 one was pretty sharp), but not so blurry you can't read his writing.

Happy snapping!

October Photo Challenge Day Two: Sunflare

On to day two. I was up early anyway (exercising) and I thought I'd go get these sunflare pictures with the sunrise.

I wanted to make this my fall post because I LOVE the fall. I loved being out early. I've always been a morning person. It was so quiet and peaceful, standing out in the fields taking pictures. The air was brisk, making me glad I put on my corduroy pants. Yes, I have corduroy pants. And I love them.

I read over this tutorial and tried to do my best to figure out how to get the best sunflare I could without damaging my camera. it is possible to damage your camera, and eyes, shooting directly into the sun. There is less risk at sunrise and sunset, and I was careful.

Here are my favorite shots:

My bestest one - I love how the sunlight is shining off the, well, I think they are weeds in the foreground.

On my way back to my car, I thought I'd take one through the weeds. Just for fun.

Different spot, with the sun higher in the sky. You really have to be fast at sunrise!

What I learned:

• Be up and out early.
• Scout out locations ahead of time - I actually did know where I wanted to go this morning because we've driven out this road before. What I didn't take into account were things like power lines, roads in the distance, trailers on the property, things like that. Stuff that can ruin a picture.
• Know how to adjust aperture and shutter speed, which means learning more about full manual. These were taken just in the aperture mode. Still, I'm happy.

Tomorrow: Vintage, and I've got some ideas already for this one.

Edited to add some pictures from this afternoon at the park.

These are fun to take.

October Photo Challenge Day One: Fall

Rebecca, my awesome sister-in-law, and I decided to do a photo challenge together for October to get to know our cameras a bit better and hopefully improve our skills. Doing it together means we'll be accountable. Can't let Rebecca down!

The theme for day one was fall. Yes, I realize that today is the second. Be kind. Mondays are my craziest days right now.

So instead I was up early and out the door, determined to do the first two days this morning. And I'm pretty happy with the results.

Fall for me means pumpkins in big piles outside the grocery stores. These pumpkins gave me a chance to play around with aperture settings. I'm trying to avoid the automatic modes on the camera because, well, that's not learning anything.

 I've fallen in love with the Palouse. Wish I had been taking pictures of these hills long before now. They are beautiful all the time - with fresh, spring dirt and newly planted crops; with the rich green of summertime; with the gold of harvest; with the white of winter.

This morning, even though the harvest is in, they still are amazing in the early morning light. I love the play of the shadows.

I love those stripes there on the left too. I need to ask a farmer how they do that.

And one more. Leaves. Yellow leaves, blue skies.

Teaching Tuesdays: Fractions and Grammar

We're trying new things around here. The benefit of homeschooling is you can try new methods until you find what works for you and your children.

Laurel has inherited her father's learning disabilities (ADHD and dyslexia at least), but we're not a "let's drug 'em" family, at least not at this age. So I have to get creative. There are very few resources out there for homeschooling a child like Laurel. Lots of stuff for parents who want to wade through the public school system with a learning disabled child, but not much for those of us who want to do it ourselves.

Yeah, super fun. So how do  you get a girl to do a sheet of math when she gets distracted halfway through the problem? Seriously. We have "Look! A chicken!" moments all the time.

When she's interested in what she's doing, she can concentrate like nobodies business. So the trick is to get her interested.

Today, we learned fractions, with some grammar and punctuation thrown in. And all we did was make chocolate chip cookies.

Lessons in timing, following instructions, texture, color. All in a bowl of chocolate chip cookies.

We doubled the recipe, so there was some math involved, including adding fractions. She wants to do MORE!

And the most important part? Tasting the cookie dough of course. This girl is like her mama - LOVES the raw dough.

Neither one of us realized we'd forgotten the vanilla. Oh well. With as many chocolate chips and walnuts we added, we didn't miss the vanilla all that much.

I'm thinking we'll do some research on the history of the chocolate chip cookie, maybe the world's record holder for biggest cookie. Fun stuff. And there will be art. You know there will be art. In fact, when she wrote the recipe down in her notebook, she had to draw an elaborate bakery picture.

Next: molasses cookies. And we're going to read a book on the great molasses flood. Pretty exciting stuff around here.

Grateful Sunday

The late evening edition, it would seem.

But I've got lots to be grateful for.

This little girl is feeling better (she was sick earlier in the week).

And the flash caught her by surprise!

And this little man. He's not feeling better just yet, but I'm grateful for the snuggles. I'm grateful that he still needs his Mommy when he doesn't feel well. I left him home with Aaron while I went to church (had to teach my class). Aaron said that he kept asking for me.

Sweet boy. He's got Vick's Baby Rub on his feet right now. Hope we get through the night. Hope he can eat tomorrow! I'm grateful for my big kids, for helping out. I'm grateful for the few minutes I got to write down some novel thoughts tonight. I'm grateful for all the quilts I've made - they are getting used. I'm also grateful for blue skies and fresh air - two things we haven't had much of lately with the fires in western Idaho and eastern Oregon. I'm very grateful for the cooler weather this week. Time to break out some fall recipes. And I'm grateful for fall. My favorite season! Spring is a close second, but in fall, I have pumpkins, apples, Halloween and Thanksgiving. And four birthdays!

Friday Faces: Morning Faces

Keeping it real, grumpy faces and all. Hope you have a great weekend. I've got some sewing to do. Laurel needs some new dresses (already cut out and started) and hopefully the backing for Will's R2D2 quilt arrives.

Friday Faces

In an attempt to be a more regular blog poster, I've devised a little routine for me. Three regular features: Grateful Sundays (need to bring those back anyway), Teaching Tuesdays (where I'll share a bit of what we're learning about around here), and Friday Faces. Fridays might feature all the kids, or just the kids I've been able to snap pictures of.

Today's feature is Miss Caroline, because yesterday she hit the eleventh month mark. Eleven months? How did this happen?

She's a sweet little girl. Loves her big brothers, especially James, and adores her big sister.

Typical of all my babies, she LOVES books. Especially books with dog pictures in them.

A friend gave us this twisty toy (the official name for it around here). It's her current favorite.

She likes to play on the floor with me - we play peek-a-boo, hide and seek. She likes to lay down on a pillow and pretend to sleep. That lasts about five seconds.

And she LOVES the swings. Can you tell?

Her other favorites? Apple juice, pineapple popsicles, spaghetti, cheese, country music, and chocolate cake.

Big girl has shoes!

Don't let that adorable smile fool you. This girl does not like her shoes. She gets so mad at me when I put them on her. While cold weather hasn't hit the daylight hours, it's definitely on its way. And little missy needs to learn how to walk in shoes! See what happens when you have fall babies? All my babies have learned to walk in the summertime, so shoes come later.

Still, she is pretty darn cute, isn't she?

Playing around

New camera. Fun photos. It's a pretty steep learning curve. I'm just playing around. Figured I might practice and maybe, someday, do pictures for friends. That's a ways off.

In the meantime, I'm just getting the hang of it so I can do some family pics this fall.