Spinning, Facebook, and Envelopes October 17, 2008

Noah has started to spin. Especially if there is music playing. He turns his little body around in circles, holds his arms up in the air, and spins. Very cute! He also does cute side steps to the beat. He is very moved by music. It’s like his response bubbles up out of him and he has to dance. BTW, he is also saying “Yight” for light and “hot-hot” for hot. He always points to a light when he says yight, and he whispers hot-hot. Every time. So fun!

Facebook has recently captured my attention. It is fun to reconnect with friends old and new. It is much easier than blogging….it requires less effort to write one sentence than a couple paragraphs of connected thought. I am going to continue to explore Facebook, but keep putting my efforts into this blog. I think it is of more lasting value as it is a little bit of a family history.

Envelopes have become our budgeting system. At the beginning of the month we switched to a cash only system. We had heard that there is a tendency to spend less if one has cash, so we thought we would try it out. So far I would say it is true. It’s very easy to go $5 or $10 over budget if using a card, but difficult to do with cash. We are continuing on with our experiment, but so far I think it is very successful. We will see how our little plan holds up with Christmas shopping.

ps… WordPress has added a new poll feature, and I really wanted to try it out…so here it is! 🙂 Thanks for voting.

N. N. N. N. N. October 9, 2008

Well, my friend Morgie did a fun meme at her blog, Mama Loves Papa. Basically, you are assigned a letter in the alphabet and you tell ten things about yourself that start with that letter. I was given the letter “N”. Hhhmmmm…I wonder why “N”? 😉

1. Neat…sometimes. I have really grown in this area. Organization and tideness don’t come naturally to me (just ask my husband), but I am much improved in this department. I really can relax much better in a neat room. Not perfectly straightened, but neat.

2. Nice. Yes, it’s true. I am a nice person. I don’t just think so myself, but I have had people tell me I am nice, so I think it’s probably true. When I was in high school, I didn’t like this about myself that much. I think I wanted just an edge of naughty. Praise God! He protected me from so many things in high school.

3. Nectarines are one of my favorite fruits. At our first house we had a nectarine tree that would be so laden with fruit we had to prop up the limbs with boards.

4. N is a tricky letter. Not a lot of words come to my mind that start with n. I have always had this problem. Remember those introduction games where you say your name and pair it with an adjective or fruit ? Guess what I always came up with … Nectarine Nancy or Nice Nancy. I felt a bit limited by my initial.

5. My hometown starts with an N.

6. Name… when I was in first grade, our teacher was showing us how to write our name on our papers. She had a sample on the board with “Name” where she wanted us to put our names. I remember a little girl telling me I was doing it all wrong because I had written “Na”.

7. New Languages-I have always enjoyed learning new languages, although I am not very good at it. I took several years of Spanish through high school and college, as well as some Italian in college. Now I am learning Latin along with my kids.

8. No sense of time. This continually perplexes my husband, who thinks I’m generally pretty smart. But ask me to estimate how much time I need to do a certain task (shower and dress), and it always takes longer than I estimate.

9. Number 4-Noah. The Lord has blessed me so abundantly, and our Noah is another demonstration of that blessing. I had hoped for another child after Caitey, and even at one point fervently prayed that the Lord would give me a boy. But my went unanswered. He just had in mind a different spacing pattern than me. What a delight he is to us.

10. New- I love the newness of the Lord. His mercies are NEW every day. He makes me a NEW creation, free from the bondage of sin. He restores my relationship to NEWness with Him, reconciling me to Him through His sacrifice on the cross. He gives me NEW eyes to love and honor my family every day. He makes me NEW! I am so grateful!

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD. Psalm 40:3

If you want to try this…leave a comment and I will assign a letter.

A Few of My Favorites October 6, 2008

My friend Morgan, over at Mama Loves Papa, made a list of a few of her favorite blogs. I thought that was a fun idea… so here are a few of my favorites. 🙂

Kendra at Preschoolers and Peace shares a multitude of great ideas for living with preschoolers, babies, and big kids, homeschooling, and godly life in general. I love her wise advice and encouragement.

The ladies at Girl Talk stimulate my thinking, especially on spiritual topics related to being a wife and mom.

Last, but certainly not least, is Sarah at In the Midst of It. She writes humorously about her life with her three small kids. She inspires me with her creativity. And she regularly makes me laugh.

So there you go… what blogs are some of your favorites?

The Drama! September 26, 2008

Over the past summer, my husband and I have grown very fond of a little show called The Office. Our fondness was sparked by a casual viewing of a little episode called “The Job Fair”, and then fanned into flame by the instant view feature on Netflix that enabled us to watch seasons 1-3 at a lovely 2 episode per night clip for a few weeks. Our desire to watch season four was fostered by the lack of instant gratification…only four episodes every two weeks were available on the internet. We marked the date of the next set available on our calendar and sent each other reminders.

Finally, we made it through the lovely awkwardness of “The Dinner Party”, cringed at Michael’s unkindess to Toby, and adored the tenderness between Jim and Pam. We were approaching THE SEASON PREMIERE. Our excitement was palpable. We invited friends over to share in our joy. We served jello, we made a mug that said “World’s Best Boss”, and decorated our table with Serenity Candles by Jan. Our guests were excited, too. They played along and took the personality test to see which character they were most like. Together we enjoyed “The Dinner Party”, and reveled in the season four finale, “Goodbye, Toby.”

At last the moment arrived. Our DVR was set to capture every delightful moment of the season 5 premiere. We watched 35 glorious minutes of the show, laughing at every turn (somehow, things are even funnier when there are more people in the room), when suddenly, our screen went pink. Bright pink. My husband fiddled around with the remote, rewinding and fast-forwarding, panicking inwardly. I ran upstairs to see if the picture was the same on the upstairs tv. It was. Our panic grew, although our guests remained gracious. Suddenly the following appeared on the screen:

“We are aware that something is wrong. There is no need to call. We are working to fix the problem as quickly as possible.”

Our disappointment filled the room. We considered crashing another “premiere party.” Our guests gathered up their goodies and started heading home. The TV, still and quiet, suddenly flickered alive to show us THE LAST TEN SECONDS OF THE SHOW! At that point that was torturous. There was Toby, in a hospital room in a halo brace, lamenting his fall from a zipline in Costa Rica. And then it was over. Aaargh!

Update: We were able to view The Office online on Friday night. Hopefully our friends were able to as well. Our local station is re-broadcasting The Office on Sunday night, so we will probably watch it again. It was really good!

Life at Light Speed September 19, 2008

It has been a wild start to the school year. Between the start up of academics in my own home, my own back to work schedule, and the birthday celebrating, I am tired. But I do think relief is in the near future. And I am very glad.

School is settling into a rhythm. The kids are getting the hang of the new expectations for the new grade levels. I am adjusting to having a SEVENTH grade student (not that it’s hard…I used to teach junior high…I just can’t believe she is in SEVENTH grade!). I am happy with our progress so far. I revamped my planning method right before school started and I really like how it is working out. I have a master plan sheet for each week that gives me an overall picture of each child in each subject, and then each child has their own personalized daily assignment sheet. Just typing that makes it sound complicated, but it really is pretty simple. It has to be for me to keep it up…and so far I have done well. Too often the failures of our school have been due to my good intentions but lack of follow through…so I am working diligently at keeping up these little planners. They make the school days so much more productive and smooth.

I am back at work. I had a bumpy start to the beginning of school. I have worked for this school for 5 1/2 years, and I generally work very hard at the end of school to set up the fall so the start is smooth. For some reason, it didn’t work this year. It was a full summer, so I didn’t feel very rested and ready to go (maybe a 1 year old has something to do with that), I got a new boss that made me feel a bit uncertain about myself, and frankly, there were moments I still just wanted to sit and watch my kids play instead of work. However, work I get to do in a time where many teaching jobs have been eliminated, so I will be grateful and jump in. It is smoothing out. I have finished my first round of meeting with my families and will wrap up the paperwork next week.

Birthday celebrating will wrap up tomorrow, at least for a month or so. We head to my grandma’s for The Family Birthday Dinner. Normally this happens every couple of months. We gather and celebrate everyone in our extended family with birthdays in a certain time period. We eat dinner and cake and exchange silly birthday cards. This time we are celebrating a TON of birthdays (like 8) because we missed a party at the beginning of the summer. It will be fun, and we really enjoy spending time with our family.

So that’s where we are. I’m sleepy. I think I might just go to bed. 🙂

Double Digits September 13, 2008

photo by my friend Lauren

It’s official. I am the mom of two kids in the double digits. Just yesterday I had 3 under 4, and now it’s 2 over 10. Wow! So here’s my biggest boy. He is such a delight to me-I love the lego loving boy he is, and I love the kind, God loving man he is becoming.

Right now, Caleb’s grand passion is Star Wars. He may have trouble trapping math facts in his head, but he knows copious amounts of Star Wars trivia. He is forever creating different lego ships and battles with his legos. He only has a few Star Wars lego sets, so many of his ships and characters are those created with a mishmash of creativity, legos, and k’nex. I love seeing all the detail and thoughtfulness he puts into his creations.

My biggest boy revels in his occasional stinkiness, his scruffy hair, and his general grubbiness, but he is starting to attend to grown up details, such as wearing deodorant (he likes the smell!). He is also showing wonderful growth and maturity in his character. He is becoming increasingly dependable, helpful, and thoughtful. He frequently carries Noah’s diaper bag for me without a reminder- he just does it. He is fun and funny and not self-conscious. He loves the Lord and wants to please Him, and it shows.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Double Digits!

Guinea Pig Grief September 2, 2008

We had to put our sweet little guinea pig, Baby, down last Friday. She had developed a cancerous tumor that was inoperable (and why would we put her through that difficult treatment, anyway?). Now we are left with an empty cage and sad hearts. She was such a cheerful little guinea… she would chirp when it was feeding time, purr if we scratched her behind her head, and squeal if she thought we weren’t giving her enough attention.

Our Friday was filled with many tears as we buried her, held a little service in her memory, and hugged our sad kids. Although we know in the scope of life, this grief over our Baby is small, we saw it as an opportunity to walk our kids through grieving. So rather than clean up the cage and move it out of the house or squelching the tears, we have embraced our sadness. Hannah even wrote out Baby’s life story (she was a well-loved guinea!).

Today has been better than yesterday. And I imagine that tomorrow will be better than today. We are experiencing the God of all comfort together.

Miss Eight August 29, 2008

Caitey (photo by my friend Lauren)

We are in the throes of birthday celebrations these days. Our littlest miss, Caitey, has turned eight. It’s hard to believe, but she has stepped into the realm of being “one of the big kids.” She has bumped up groups in Awana, changed leotard colors at ballet, and helps out with the tiny kids in Sunday school.

Not only is she one of those big kids, but she is one of those delightful big kids. Yes, she has those moments that are challenges, but we see some great things in her as well. She has the gift of mercy…she is the first to offer help to someone hurting, she wants to give a drink to our guests as they walk in the door, she feels the pain of someone who is suffering. It is going to be fun to see how the Lord will grow this wonderful quality in her over the coming years.

I love you, you sweet little darlin’!

Celebration Part III August 27, 2008

So our littlest man is one. ONE! Time has truly flown by…it seems like yesterday (or at least only last week) that I suspected I was pregnant. Noah has been such a gift to me (to his papa, too, but I’m the one writing this! ;)). It has filled my heart with joy to hold a little body in my arms again, to smell his milky breath, to feel his wee hands pat my arm, to listen to his strong voice add to the din in our home.

A BABY lying on his mother’s breast

Draws life from that sweet fount;

He takes his rest

And heaves deep sighs;

With brooding eyes

Of soft content

She shelters him within that fragrant nest,

And scarce refrains from crushing him

With tender violence,

His rosebud mouth, each rosy limb

Excite such joy intense;

Rocked on that gentle billow,

She sings into his ear

A song that angels stoop to hear.

Blest child and mother doubly blest!

Such his first pillow.

Sweet little man, I am so glad you are a part of our family. Your sweet smiles, silly growls and baby kisses delight us all. Mama loves you!

Three Wonderful Dates Part I August 3, 2008

My traditional gift

We have had an insane action-packed week around here. We celebrated three exciting events…our 15th wedding anniversary, Phil’s 40th birthday, and Noah’s 1st birthday. Each of these fun dates is worthy of it’s own blog post, so I will just tackle them in chronological order. So here is the first special date. 🙂

You may remember that we celebrated our 15th anniversary back in June. I wrote a post about it here. We usually try to go away for a couple of nights for our anniversary, but due to some other commitments, we couldn’t get away until this past weekend. We went to the El Dorado Casino and Resort in Reno. It is definitely more casino than resort, but we got a crazy good deal on our room, as well as some incentives because we listened to a timeshare presentation. For 90 minutes of listening, we gained the cheap room, and about a hundred dollars towards food. There were some wonderful restaurants that we enjoyed together, including a delicious Italian restaurant that is one of the top rated in the country. There are some wonderful places to explore in Reno apart from the casinos, but we were limited in our exploration time because I needed to pump milk in order to be comfortable, which unfortunately took TONS of time. The best part of the trip was really just getting to be together, talking without interruptions, lingering over meals, and gazing into each other’s eyes. Really. That was the best part.

We have a fun tradition of exchanging gifts for our anniversary. This year I got Phil a chainsaw…a tool he had always wanted, but didn’t have. It was very fun to plan and purchase this gift. Because this was such a big gift, it was actually a Father’s Day/Anniversary/Birthday present. The best part was that he really liked it, which of course made me very happy. Phil has always gotten me two gifts for our anniversary-themed by the contemporary and traditional anniversary gifts suggested by the little calendars from Hallmark. 🙂 Every year I am delighted by his creative interpretation of the themes. Some years are much harder than others (last year one of the themes was ivory,) but he said this year was pretty easy. This year the contemporary gift was a watch. Phil got me a running watch, which I am thrilled about. He was nervous to get a gift that could imply a need for improvement, but thought I would really like it. Which I do…I had actually been dreaming about that exact watch for a while, but he didn’t know it. (I love it when that happens!) My other gift, the traditional one, was a crystal pitcher. Phil remembered that we had bought a cheap Mexican pitcher on our honeymoon in Mexico, which had broken shortly after we returned home. So he got me a gorgeous pitcher that is engraved with “Phil Loves Nancy.” So romantic and wonderful! I am so blessed to have such a thoughtful and kind husband.