We've had a very, very bad month for pets in our family!
In addition to the death of our dear 11-yo dog, we also somehow managed to kill one of the two beta fish (Justin's this time) *and* the refusing-to-change-to-a-frog tadpole that moved with us over a year ago! (Long story...I'll fill you in later!)
SO... last week, Justin had his hermit crab out of the cage. Gave him a "bath" and set up an obstacle course for him, and then let Michaela take him for a ride in her doll stroller (yes, we have interesting things going on in our house!)...and forgot about him! Well, the 3-yo didn't keep her attention on him long, either, and presto--MISSING CRAB!!
This has actually happened to us once before, when Michaela was a baby. That time I was awakened to a really scary scratching sound in the nursery where I had fallen asleep while taking care of Michaela during the night. When my foggy brain finally functioned, I remembered the missing crab and looked in the closet and found the crab had been scratching to signal that he wanted out of there LOL.
I didn't figure we had the luck of that happening again, and we had seen NO sign of "Snatch" the new escapee until today I opened MY closet and found him sitting just behind the door waiting to come out. Whew! Thankfully no dead crab smells to locate, no scary scratching in the middle of the night, and another crab safely in his cage!
So, we are currently a family with one beta fish and one hermit crab. I guess if we have to evacuate for a hurricane, that's better than the one collie, one beta fish, and 4 (or 5?) tadpoles that we moved with last year -- and kept alive for 10 hours in the parking lot at the ER when Justin broke his arm in the middle of our moving day!
Okay, so no one is going to be offering us a pet anytime soon...
Ah... I can't wait for the wild pet days with a little boy :o) Glad you found Snatch. I don't think I would like to be awakened by a scratching noise coming from a closet :oO
We would love to see you all! Phil may try to see you all the week of the 15th when he is in Houston for training. I will talk to Phil about calling you all.
Todd, you get the kudos for throwing the guesses out there...and I really like the one about using the light and shadows. We're homeschooling our kids and are getting stumped at 2nd/3rd grade level--so much for college education!
Well, on the Gulf Coast, that only means hurricanes are roaming about, and realistically we might look forward to a cold snap in a couple of months...
But fall schedules *are* upon us, and even with the flexibility of homeschooling, I have to face the facts, take a deep breath, and jump in!
We are starting our fourth year of homeschooling (not counting the informal preschool activities we did before that) with Justin in 3rd grade. We are continuing our third year with the same curriculum (Ambleside Online), and the second year with our current math program (MEP math).
This year we are adding a science class in a group setting that is taught by the owner of a nearby homeschool bookstore, who has a science degree and is willing to do all the messy experiments with them ;-) I think Justin will love that. She said I am welcome to "shadow" Justin in that class, which I will probably do for the first few weeks, and then if he is doing fine with listening, etc. I may try to use that time to do something with Michaela. (The biggest negative I have found with homeschooling is that the younger one has been robbed of those unstructured, lazy days alone with me since I am busy "doing school" with the older one.)
Other than that, our ladies' Bible class will be starting back up, studying "The Tongue" (perfect for me!) and at home we will be busy just trying to keep up with schoolwork and household chores. Not too exciting unless you consider that we'll be traveling along with Christian in the second half of Pilgrim's Progress, following Marco Polo around Asia, and learning about the pre-United States Americas, plus many other wonderful stories and books!
In September, my oldest sister may be coming for a visit while she is down this way on work stuff, we have several dental appointments scheduled, and then in early October Justin will be visiting his cardiologist to determine if we will be closing the hole between the upper chambers of his heart. Once we know where he stands with that and have the procedure and/or get clearance, we hope to start Justin in MARTIAL ARTS!!! He has quite a few moves of his own already!
Quote from Michaela today as we played 20 questions on the way to a funeral...
I said: "Yes, Mason and Meagan are sad that their grandma died."
Michaela said: "Yeah, I think they're going to be sad all day!"
(Hmmm...When did we start worrying about tomorrow so much??)
Hope you all have a fun and safe Labor Day weekend...
Sharon
******************************************
Here's the solution for Justin's math problem (subsequent post). He is wondering why they gave him this problem when grown-ups cannot figure it out. What can I say?
Good luck with your school year! I am so excited with what we are doing. Have a good labor day. We may be in the area at the end of September. Phil is coming to that area the week of the 15th.
No, I was the daughter who wasn't interested in sewing (there are four of us girls!). My sister who is just ahead of me is *the* seamstress. You know, the one who made her first pant/vest outfit when she was in 2nd grade...the one who was sewing for other people for pay when she was in high school...and the one who won a full scholarship for fashion merchandising in college and had whole college classes on fabrics, etc. (Now she makes professional draperies and has more work than she can do!) Oh, yeah, and she even made her own wedding dress...sigh...
No, I'm not the seamstress, but I have been around sewing my whole life. My mother and her mother always sewed for us. Our dolls had whole wardrobes, and we had many handmade ragdolls. (I appreciate it all so much more now!) My mother sewed clothes for us (I cannot remember having a storebought dress--outside of hand-me-downs--until I was in college!) and made the bridesmaid dresses and flowergirl/ringbearer outfits for my wedding. (Thank you, Mom!)
I have always sewn a little, but crafty type things were much easier for me than actually getting clothes to fit, so I truly have never thought of myself as a seamstress. In college, I tried making a few jumpers using my sister's sewing machine, and once I was out of college I bought a sewing machine of my own. I made a shower curtain and a few curtains and tried a few outfits. When I was expecting Justin, I determined to learn to quilt and I made everything for my nursery, including a quilt for the double bed, curtains, bumper, crib dustruffle, and a baby blanket. But that didn't make me a seamstress!
Since then, I have made a number of baby quilts for gifts, and a couple for each of my own kids. I also made quite a few "Heart of a Child" quilts to raise money for our foundation to help support families with a child with congenital heart defects. Here and there I have made myself a simple skirt or tried an outfit...I've gotten really good at how to use a seamripper!
However, I am determined that the next generation that I am responsible for will not lose the skill of sewing just because of me! This past year, I have determined to learn to make clothes better, and I've tackled making Michaela's dolls some clothes to help improve my skills in getting things to fit, etc. I've had a little more time (since I've lost a portion of my editing work since moving), and when I started looking back over the past year at my sewing projects, I was shocked at what all I had accomplished!
I actually have a bigger thought behind all this than to just show off all my sewing projects, but bear with me as I display a few of the things I have made in the past year...
This first one was actually finished a little more than a year ago, but it is the last heart quilt I made before we closed down our foundation. I created the design for these, and one is mounted on the wall at Texas Children's Hospital, and that is very special to me!
This is a baby gift that I made for a bilingual family. One side says "Baby" in English and the other side says "Bebe'" in Spanish...
For Michaela's birthday, I made an apron to go with her new toy kitchen. Later this year, I finally finished one to match for myself...
I made Michaela's Easter dress this year. You can see Michaela modeling it with the hat in my avatar photo (upper left)...
Just recently I finally finished a matching dress for "Baby," Michaela's favorite babydoll, which was one of my dolls when I was a girl!
For Christmas, "Baby" also received wardrobe basics, including diapers, jumpsuits, sleepers, and a nice dress...
The Cabbage Patch newborn that she gave Michaela a couple of years ago also "needed more clothes"...so here are a few outfits for "Baby Jazmyn"...
I also took the time to make a couple of things for myself! Here is a bag I made to hold my clothespins...
...and the new Bible cover that I made using an old one for a pattern. There's a pocket on the outside for papers, and one inside for pens, etc.
I also made a couple of aprons for gifts. This one was a housewarming gift for Tia, but I couldn't find a picture of the other one I made.
Finally, I just finished a couple of additional outfits for Michaela. Hopefully they will still fit her for some use next summer, since I didn't get them finished until August this year!
I'll probably have her put a t-shirt under this one and if I use that pattern again, I'll practice adjusting neckline and armholes to cover a little better than this one does...
...but this one turned out nice and modest, so I'll post one of her modeling it!
So, since I'm a perfectionist, and there is always someone in the world who is a better seamstress than I am (and, yes, even in my own family!), does that mean I'm not a seamstress? I think for the first time, I'm having to admit to myself that, while I have a lot to learn yet, since I am actually sewing things--I am a seamstress (of sorts anyway)!
So, now for those deeper thoughts...
I've had a wonderful week of having a focus on John 14. Back when we were at Benchley, she gave Justin's Bible class John 14:15 as a memory verse. We keep a review book of all the verses Justin has learned, so it has repeatedly been a verse that we review. This past Sunday, Justin's class that I am teaching studied John 14, and ironically both sermons on Sunday were focused on love and tied in John 14 as showing *how* we love God. Finally, she had some wonderful thoughts on the CharlotteMason pleo group this week that touched on these thoughts as well. Obviously, this was a lesson I needed to focus on this week--and it was!
I have truly struggled (with my perfectionistic tendencies) with how to know that I am doing enough to really have confidence that I might have a home in heaven. Death still scares me because I do not feel "good enough"--I never will! I have been a Christian since I was 14 years old, and I am not nearly as far along as I should be! There are so many others who are more spiritually minded and more loving to brethren, more knowledgeable in the Bible, teaching others, *doing the work*--so much better than I am...
But suddenly it all clicked--"If you love Me, keep My commandments."
I do not have to *feel* a level of love, *feel* that I've reached some goal of being "good enough" to have achieved hope of heaven (I understand we never will and we all need His grace, but I've searched for how to really "feel" that I'm doing enough right to be considered a true child of His...).
I show that I am a follower of Him by keeping His commandments. I AM a Christian, even when I stumble and fall--as long as I keep picking myself back up and putting my own will back in submission to His. There's not some line that is a level of "perfectness" that makes me a true Christian or not...it is daily walking the walk of keeping His commandments. I will continue to learn things that I should be doing better and to train my thoughts to be in line with His, but that doesn't make me more of a Christian today than I was at 14!
There will always be someone ahead of me in the walk, and others behind me, who I can lend a helping hand to, but we are all "Christians"...just like I am a "seamstress" because I am spending the time to sew things...at my own skill level...and just because my sister will *always* be way ahead of me in sewing doesn't mean that I'm not a seamstress, too!
So, let's all study His word to learn His commandments, and then show our love to Him by DOING them!
Thanks for the thoughts! I am impressed with your sewing! Phil bought me a new machine when I was pregnant with Kalli. I have not had a moment to sew though! Maybe one day soon!
Hi there! I believe I met you when you first placed membership at Humble, I am Amy Hunter the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Osteen. I am sure your daughter loves that her doll has a matching dress. My mom did the same thing for me when I was little but it was matching nightgowns. Also, you made a good point above, it is a good reminder :)
I'm glad you like them. I wasn't sure what size she wears, but figured if they are larger that is okay. I had an apron pattern as well that I think is SO cute. I'll bring that one on Sunday. I must have bought two of them or something because this pkg was never used and it's the same one I made for each of my neices. Oh.. and 2 of them I'm sure you notice were already cut. If anything is missing I know I have it here in my "mystery pattern piece" package.
Ok, I'll do that :) She must attend Stallings Drive. I went there for a little while, but I don't believe I ever met her. However, I also attended West Austin Street church of Christ where Vernon McLemore and his wife and mother attended. I miss them so much, they are such wonderful people!
