Friday, August 24, 2012
Big kid smile
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Ellysa
Faith has a wonderful friend named Ellysa. Ellysa is a sweet little girl. She visited us at the beginning of summer and then the girls have not played together since then. However, upon getting back together today, they were back up to their old selves. What I enjoy most about Ellysa is that she includes Champ. Ellysa willing volunteered to unbuckle Champ from his carseat and buckle him in. She willingly played store with him and capture the lion. Faith finds Champ annoying however Ellysa will find Champ fun. In turn, Faith realizes that her brother can be fun if she plays what he wants to play. Today when Ellysa came over we took a nature walk and discovered "treasure." Although it was actually bee bees from a BB gun they were fun to collect. We spent two hours in the woods and everyone was quiet and enjoying themselves. I think that days when we have friends over are the best days we have. The children don't fight and it gives me a break. Ellysa is welcomed here anytime. She is so kind and polite and just makes for a good example to follow for both of the children.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Puppy love
I wonder how it feels to be a little girl who is in love with her puppy. She has this love/hate relationship with him. She loves it when he lays on her back while she relaxes on the couch but hates it when he bites her from rough play. Although he doesn't mean to hurt her Faith whacks her puppy Tucker on the head. One would think that would work however he continues to think that she is playing and ultimately ends up in his cage. So sad. Faith can't go to sleep without kissing him goodnight and giving him a hug. He waits for her to drop her breakfast each morning and is ecstatic when he gets to gobble up a piece of cereal. If she doesn't watch it though he eats the whole lot of her food. He lets her know he is there waiting by gently giving her a puppy pat with his paw. They really will become best friends.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Visit with Grace
Last weekend Grace visited from Texas with Uncle Carl and Aunt Forte. It was a great weekend filled with lots of room time. First Grace showed Faith how to sculpt with modeling clay. Grace's favorite thing to sculpt is a face so we were taught how to mix up the clay to make the color of a face, pinch out the nose, poke holes for the eyes and mouth and curl clay for hair. It was so cool. I must continue to practice this art form as it is really relaxing and rewarding. Grace sculpts back home and I guess she is quite good at. She is self taught and pretty good at it. Faith and Grace enjoyed an afternoon at Imagination Station in Toledo, OH. It was here that they rode a race car simulator, played an imaginary guitar, examined an inclined room, built with blocks, discovered what liquid nitrogen can do to a trash can of plastic balls, and stepped into hurricane force winds of 95 mph. This museum is so much fun. Faith really loved building with the blocks. She made circle houses and a rectangle house. I made a huge tower which turned into a wishing well. With the museum closing at 5pm, we stayed until the very last minute and then headed off the dinner. What better place than Cracker Barrell. Faith loves their biscuits and who could blame her. They are wonderful. Even I can order only biscuits with gravy and get filled up. Who could forget the ever famous Andes mint for dessert. We have been having these mints for five years. Bud was awesome, he purchased four extra just for me. I love him. After dinner we decided to go to the beach for a little bit. What was originally planned as a shore excursion, quickly turned out to be swimming and splashing. A little voice inside my head told me this was going to happen so when it did I wasn't surprised. However I was a little upset with Faith for leading her brother too far out and causing him to not touch. Had Grace not been right there with him he could have went under. I was scared. I screamed for her to grab him. Faith has been taught this lesson before that her brother does everything that she does and that she should be cautious. Despite the wetness and disobedience, we had fun. I wish Aunt Forte had left some pictures for us because I have none. Uncle Carl made a good pirate while he was here. We all dressed up as pirates and used our swords for fighting. Faith played sorta rough and ended up getting into trouble but it was fun. She loves Grace. Grace is such a great cousin. She is so polite, caring and overall a good cousin.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Summer 2012
How can I find the time to blog each day when each day is filled with so many things to do. Summer has found me quite busy and unable to blog. We go so many places and see so many things plus just the opportunity to have both of my children home is unbelievable. This summer seems like it has come and gone. I didn't realize that I last blogged the end of June. That was only the first day of summer. With my camera having bit the dust I am left with only my bad memory. However I'll do my best to capture the summer of 2012.
Faith has actively been pursuing gymnastics this summer by attending twice a week for a total of 8 hours. She would like to be a level come Fall competition season however she still has lots of work to do. With a little under a month to go before her hours get dropped back down to 6 or so she still needs to work on her cartwheel on beam, round off backhandspring on floor and front hip circle on bars. All of these she can do however they definitely need some fine tuning on form. She has learned the lesson on what a hard conditioning class can do for your body. Each day 30 minutes is devoted to strengthening the body. Friday's class, which was supposed to be Fun Friday conditioning, turned out to be one of the toughest ones she's encountered. With a stop watch in the coach's hand the gymnasts were instructed to do whatever the coach called out for one minute. Anyone who stopped would cause the group to start over again. She cried during this conditioning. Did she make it through? She did and she didn't stop once. She is a tough little one and we've had lots of discussions about the importance of being strong in this sport. I could sit and watch her every day do this sport. It is after this summer that I have realized that I need to pursue my dream of opening up my own gymnastics center. I am off to school again this Fall to major in Business Management and Enteurpenurship.
With a strong encouragement from Faith's first grade teacher Mrs. Davis to continue summer learning Faith and I agreed that each day M-F we would devote 5-10 minutes a day to keeping up with our math skills. She has a 2nd grade workbook that we have worked through and now she has discovered a math web site that allows her to do 3rd and higher math. This week she has found that she enjoys identifying the worth of an underlined place value. Hey, I don't mind that computer time. She would like to have Bud purchase the program so she can have unlimited access. Right now she gets 20 problems a day. Her reading is strong. She enjoyed some Junie B Jones books this summer along with She earned her yard sign to place in our yard saying that a wonderful summer reader lives here and also she earned her t-shirt. She has discovered the joy of reading this year. Although she has enjoyed reading fiction another love has emerged. I am excited to see her digging into non fiction books. She has picked up books about Mars, Pluto, black holes, snakes, nature, gardening, and more. She can tell you just about anything you want to know about snakes. I think that she enjoys these creatures because her daddy and Andma dislike them. Non fiction books are a wonder. I never realized that they were organized so nicely in the library.
This fourth of July we visited our friend Melody and enjoyed some time with friends. Faith experienced her first time with being up close and personal with fireworks. They are all legal where we live. I don't think that even I have experienced it. It was indeed sort of scarey. At one point in time a firey ash fell from the sky and landed about a foot away from us. One sister brought chocolate chip cookies the size of two of my hands. Can you guess who ate that? Yep, Faith devoured the entire thing. Most of our friends from church do not have girls Faith's age so she either plays with the boys or is left on her own. I feel sad for her however I remember playing with my brother when I was little along with his friends. I had a happy childhood. Faith will discover boys are much more fun than girls and have less drama and crying. After seeing our friends we wrapped everything up and headed over to the river to watch them from a nearby town. After waiting nearly an hour we decided to head home. It was getting late and the kids needed to get to bed. It was not till after we came inside and kissed Pa Pa that we realized we could see them from our front yard. Faith was in awe at their beauty. They were so big that they lit up the night sky. The kids and I layed in the front yard and enjoyed the show. After that it was straight to bed. My kids have a way of getting up at the same time despite what time they go to bed.
Andma and Pa Pa visited for the fourth. It is always nice to have them here. They are set to leave IL and move up here in a few days. I know it has to be hard. I'm so thankful to have them here though. The thought of them being able to see their grandkids each day is gratifying. Two weeks after they visited here the kids and I took a trip down there to see them. We stayed at our family friend's house. Her name is Norma. We took over her basement for 10 days. It was a treat. Illinois was in full drought this year and extremely hot. It made it hard to do anything fun with the kids. We couldn't go outside on a bike ride or go to the park because it was just too hot. Faith spent a lot of time reading and playing with her Lalapoloopsy dolls and accessories. Faith and I learned how use vinyl cement to make a leaf print. After we spread the vinyl cement over the back of the leaf, we let them dry and then peeled the leaf off. We used acrylic paint to paint them. Faith chose a purple for hers and I chose to make mine fall colors. They are in our flower garden now. I could make lots more. It is so relaxing to do art and create.
The highlight of this summer was mother daughter summer camp at Camp Nawakwa in Poland, Indiana. I remember this camp from when I was a girl. It was great being with Faith all weekend by ourselves. I have to say that the camping part was a little difficult and we only stayed overnight one night. We arrived Friday night and checked in. We enjoyed a nice dinner and then went on a nature hike. What was nice about this weekend was the fact that we could do what we wanted. There were activities offered but if we wanted to do something else we could. The first night we enjoyed some time at the theatre. We listened to the counselors put on skits and sing songs. We did alot of repeat after me songs. Faith's favorite one was about a hippo. It took her awhile to get accustomed to the fact that everyone was just there to have fun. Nobody cared that they looked silly or that they couldn't sing. We were all there to enjoy time together. After theatre we took an evening hike through the different camping units. We went with our new friend Kira and her mom Angie. Kira was going into second grade like Faith. After we returned it was quite late, 1030pm and we needed to get ready for bed. Faith fell right to sleep. I, on the other hand, tossed and turned all night long and waited until the sun came up. I think that I slept maybe an hour. It was pretty bad. I discovered that I enjoy my fan too much and it's ability to block out noise. I hate those noises that the bugs make. Croak, crick, chirp, woof, woof, owwww, ALL NIGHT LONG! Next time I will need to pack some earplugs along with a heavy blanket, air mattress and fan. Saturday was filled with activities. No wonder Faith crashed as soon as we left that evening at 10pm. We started the day with a hike at 630am followed by flag ceremony (which we always missed), singing logs (which we always missed too) and then breakfast. After breakfast we headed to art to make wax candles and dream catchers made from two sticks and yarn. After that we went to spa where I painted Faith's nails sparkle blue. Despite my best efforts to get her to try the oatmeal/yogurt facial I could not succeed. I think that I damaged her mentally when I did a banana honey milk one a week prior to that. If was then that we were off to canoeing where Faith made best effort to row the boat but ended up being rowed around the lake. Her expectations were high and unfortunately canoeing was just too slow of an activity. She became hot and tired and just didn't enjoy it. Our nature hike was last on the agenda for the morning. After our hike Faith made an egg carton caterpillar out of tacky glue, felt and pipe cleaners. We spent the entire afternoon at the swimming pool. Faith took off on her own swimming as she paddled four or five stroke before becoming tired. It was a huge milestone for her. Faith jumped off the diving board and had fun all afternoon. I loved being able to give her all the attention for two days. So often she is forced to share attention with Champ and it is difficult. We did everything that she wanted to do; even if it was swimming at 900pm. We left Saturday night instead of Sunday morning so we could both just get a good nights rest. A bribe of Dairy Queen ice cream is sure to get a parent whatever they want. She slept till 9am the next morning when I had to finally wake her in order to go get Champ from Aunt Kim's house. We will go back every summer for this special mother daughter time and I will also send her to camp at this camp every summer. There are so many choices for themes and activities that she will sure to have many memories of her summers in Illinois as she grows bigger. Until then, this will always be the first summer that Faith and I spent together at girl scout camp.
Great grandpa was sick this time around so we did not get to play our famous Wednesday Bingo game with him. It was sad but we were glad to have seen him. He was in the hospital when we arrived not sure that he was going to make it many more days. They sent him back to the nursing home and were going to set him up with hospice when he made a complete turn around and began to communicate is needs, feed himself and smile. It was a miracle. God wasn't ready for him yet. Too many nurses to harrass still I suppose. I was glad that Faith was able to see him again and I was even happier that he knew who I was.
Faith and I traveled to Lincoln to visit Uncle Josh. We had not seen him in over a year. Faith is quite the Uno card shark making sure that she took most of the hands that were played. That girl is good at cards. I suppose she gets that from her Andma Pat and daddy. They both love cards. Faith even beat Andma at Go Fish and Crazy Eights. It is those times that she will remember. I remember just like yesterday with my grandpa and grandma. It was a event that I always looked forward to; Bugs Bunny crazy eights, Checkers and Chinese Checkers.
Back we go to Michigan to finish off the summer. Uncle Carl, Aunt Forte, and cousin Grace are visiting from TX. We are having so much fun. Bud is traveling left and right for work so he is often gone for a week at a time. Andma and Pa Pa move up here in a few days to their new senior apartment. I don't know who is going to love it more, me or them. School starts in four weeks and Faith is excited for her class.
Faith has actively been pursuing gymnastics this summer by attending twice a week for a total of 8 hours. She would like to be a level come Fall competition season however she still has lots of work to do. With a little under a month to go before her hours get dropped back down to 6 or so she still needs to work on her cartwheel on beam, round off backhandspring on floor and front hip circle on bars. All of these she can do however they definitely need some fine tuning on form. She has learned the lesson on what a hard conditioning class can do for your body. Each day 30 minutes is devoted to strengthening the body. Friday's class, which was supposed to be Fun Friday conditioning, turned out to be one of the toughest ones she's encountered. With a stop watch in the coach's hand the gymnasts were instructed to do whatever the coach called out for one minute. Anyone who stopped would cause the group to start over again. She cried during this conditioning. Did she make it through? She did and she didn't stop once. She is a tough little one and we've had lots of discussions about the importance of being strong in this sport. I could sit and watch her every day do this sport. It is after this summer that I have realized that I need to pursue my dream of opening up my own gymnastics center. I am off to school again this Fall to major in Business Management and Enteurpenurship.
With a strong encouragement from Faith's first grade teacher Mrs. Davis to continue summer learning Faith and I agreed that each day M-F we would devote 5-10 minutes a day to keeping up with our math skills. She has a 2nd grade workbook that we have worked through and now she has discovered a math web site that allows her to do 3rd and higher math. This week she has found that she enjoys identifying the worth of an underlined place value. Hey, I don't mind that computer time. She would like to have Bud purchase the program so she can have unlimited access. Right now she gets 20 problems a day. Her reading is strong. She enjoyed some Junie B Jones books this summer along with She earned her yard sign to place in our yard saying that a wonderful summer reader lives here and also she earned her t-shirt. She has discovered the joy of reading this year. Although she has enjoyed reading fiction another love has emerged. I am excited to see her digging into non fiction books. She has picked up books about Mars, Pluto, black holes, snakes, nature, gardening, and more. She can tell you just about anything you want to know about snakes. I think that she enjoys these creatures because her daddy and Andma dislike them. Non fiction books are a wonder. I never realized that they were organized so nicely in the library.
This fourth of July we visited our friend Melody and enjoyed some time with friends. Faith experienced her first time with being up close and personal with fireworks. They are all legal where we live. I don't think that even I have experienced it. It was indeed sort of scarey. At one point in time a firey ash fell from the sky and landed about a foot away from us. One sister brought chocolate chip cookies the size of two of my hands. Can you guess who ate that? Yep, Faith devoured the entire thing. Most of our friends from church do not have girls Faith's age so she either plays with the boys or is left on her own. I feel sad for her however I remember playing with my brother when I was little along with his friends. I had a happy childhood. Faith will discover boys are much more fun than girls and have less drama and crying. After seeing our friends we wrapped everything up and headed over to the river to watch them from a nearby town. After waiting nearly an hour we decided to head home. It was getting late and the kids needed to get to bed. It was not till after we came inside and kissed Pa Pa that we realized we could see them from our front yard. Faith was in awe at their beauty. They were so big that they lit up the night sky. The kids and I layed in the front yard and enjoyed the show. After that it was straight to bed. My kids have a way of getting up at the same time despite what time they go to bed.
Andma and Pa Pa visited for the fourth. It is always nice to have them here. They are set to leave IL and move up here in a few days. I know it has to be hard. I'm so thankful to have them here though. The thought of them being able to see their grandkids each day is gratifying. Two weeks after they visited here the kids and I took a trip down there to see them. We stayed at our family friend's house. Her name is Norma. We took over her basement for 10 days. It was a treat. Illinois was in full drought this year and extremely hot. It made it hard to do anything fun with the kids. We couldn't go outside on a bike ride or go to the park because it was just too hot. Faith spent a lot of time reading and playing with her Lalapoloopsy dolls and accessories. Faith and I learned how use vinyl cement to make a leaf print. After we spread the vinyl cement over the back of the leaf, we let them dry and then peeled the leaf off. We used acrylic paint to paint them. Faith chose a purple for hers and I chose to make mine fall colors. They are in our flower garden now. I could make lots more. It is so relaxing to do art and create.
The highlight of this summer was mother daughter summer camp at Camp Nawakwa in Poland, Indiana. I remember this camp from when I was a girl. It was great being with Faith all weekend by ourselves. I have to say that the camping part was a little difficult and we only stayed overnight one night. We arrived Friday night and checked in. We enjoyed a nice dinner and then went on a nature hike. What was nice about this weekend was the fact that we could do what we wanted. There were activities offered but if we wanted to do something else we could. The first night we enjoyed some time at the theatre. We listened to the counselors put on skits and sing songs. We did alot of repeat after me songs. Faith's favorite one was about a hippo. It took her awhile to get accustomed to the fact that everyone was just there to have fun. Nobody cared that they looked silly or that they couldn't sing. We were all there to enjoy time together. After theatre we took an evening hike through the different camping units. We went with our new friend Kira and her mom Angie. Kira was going into second grade like Faith. After we returned it was quite late, 1030pm and we needed to get ready for bed. Faith fell right to sleep. I, on the other hand, tossed and turned all night long and waited until the sun came up. I think that I slept maybe an hour. It was pretty bad. I discovered that I enjoy my fan too much and it's ability to block out noise. I hate those noises that the bugs make. Croak, crick, chirp, woof, woof, owwww, ALL NIGHT LONG! Next time I will need to pack some earplugs along with a heavy blanket, air mattress and fan. Saturday was filled with activities. No wonder Faith crashed as soon as we left that evening at 10pm. We started the day with a hike at 630am followed by flag ceremony (which we always missed), singing logs (which we always missed too) and then breakfast. After breakfast we headed to art to make wax candles and dream catchers made from two sticks and yarn. After that we went to spa where I painted Faith's nails sparkle blue. Despite my best efforts to get her to try the oatmeal/yogurt facial I could not succeed. I think that I damaged her mentally when I did a banana honey milk one a week prior to that. If was then that we were off to canoeing where Faith made best effort to row the boat but ended up being rowed around the lake. Her expectations were high and unfortunately canoeing was just too slow of an activity. She became hot and tired and just didn't enjoy it. Our nature hike was last on the agenda for the morning. After our hike Faith made an egg carton caterpillar out of tacky glue, felt and pipe cleaners. We spent the entire afternoon at the swimming pool. Faith took off on her own swimming as she paddled four or five stroke before becoming tired. It was a huge milestone for her. Faith jumped off the diving board and had fun all afternoon. I loved being able to give her all the attention for two days. So often she is forced to share attention with Champ and it is difficult. We did everything that she wanted to do; even if it was swimming at 900pm. We left Saturday night instead of Sunday morning so we could both just get a good nights rest. A bribe of Dairy Queen ice cream is sure to get a parent whatever they want. She slept till 9am the next morning when I had to finally wake her in order to go get Champ from Aunt Kim's house. We will go back every summer for this special mother daughter time and I will also send her to camp at this camp every summer. There are so many choices for themes and activities that she will sure to have many memories of her summers in Illinois as she grows bigger. Until then, this will always be the first summer that Faith and I spent together at girl scout camp.
Great grandpa was sick this time around so we did not get to play our famous Wednesday Bingo game with him. It was sad but we were glad to have seen him. He was in the hospital when we arrived not sure that he was going to make it many more days. They sent him back to the nursing home and were going to set him up with hospice when he made a complete turn around and began to communicate is needs, feed himself and smile. It was a miracle. God wasn't ready for him yet. Too many nurses to harrass still I suppose. I was glad that Faith was able to see him again and I was even happier that he knew who I was.
Faith and I traveled to Lincoln to visit Uncle Josh. We had not seen him in over a year. Faith is quite the Uno card shark making sure that she took most of the hands that were played. That girl is good at cards. I suppose she gets that from her Andma Pat and daddy. They both love cards. Faith even beat Andma at Go Fish and Crazy Eights. It is those times that she will remember. I remember just like yesterday with my grandpa and grandma. It was a event that I always looked forward to; Bugs Bunny crazy eights, Checkers and Chinese Checkers.
Back we go to Michigan to finish off the summer. Uncle Carl, Aunt Forte, and cousin Grace are visiting from TX. We are having so much fun. Bud is traveling left and right for work so he is often gone for a week at a time. Andma and Pa Pa move up here in a few days to their new senior apartment. I don't know who is going to love it more, me or them. School starts in four weeks and Faith is excited for her class.
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