Odd Children

For the last three months, and for the next three weeks, my four children all have odd-numbered ages. 13, 11, 9, and 5. In honor of easy to remember number sequences--albeit for a limited amount of time--here of some photos of my great kiddos.





Timothy, whose highest complement very well may be to say you are "random" and who values uniqueness above many other things, is looking forward to being 14 in three weeks. He is also looking forward to summer vacation with no more schoolwork.




Andrew and Melinda have become very good friends this year, verified by many tears when Andrew went on a two week trip to Papa's and MeMa's house (by Melinda at least, I wasn't witness to Andrew's parting reaction.). This was the scene when we were reunited:












And lil' Audrey was beyond thrilled when her daddy made ribs this weekend; she had been begging for them for months! (Notice how well used her paper towel is!)

Cottonwood, Kidz, and Communion

Recently I haven't been blogging much, although it's not for a lack of things happening or thoughts in my head; rather, I just haven't had the time to fish the words out of the clouds in my head and pin them down on virtual paper.  I am going to attempt to remedy that, beginning now.  I have gardening pictures, and kid quotes, and book club thoughts to share, but today I want to talk about church.

Last Sunday I was--to quote Chris (my husband)--"recruited for the military".  Said in the most admiring and respectful terms, of course, and meaning that I'd volunteered to help in our church's children's ministry (Real Kidz).  I am planning on holding babies rather than teaching older kids, because I figure that I have built up patience in the baby arena.  It has been years since I've been in those particular trenches, (those of spit-up and crying and diapers) and have no plans to jump into them again, therefore I figure it's a great opportunity for me to be able to provide some temporary relief to those who are still in the middle of it.  Chris' comment reminded me of a song from Sunday School (good memories!):

I may never march in the infantry,

ride in the calvary,

shoot the artillery,

I may never fly over the enemy,

but I'm in the Lord's army.

Yes Sir!

Last Sunday we also took Communion.  I really try to focus when it's Communion time; it's so easy for my mind to wander, and it's not something I want to do mindlessly.  I started wondering about the exercise of taking Communion, and what it really means.  I realize that I am most likely stumbling into an ancient and well-educated theological argument here, but 'oh well' and 'too bad'--here I go!

Looking at Communion from one small perspective, certainly not all-encompassing, I found myself relating it to physical exercise.  When exercising your physical body, the act of mental concentration on specific muscles actually helps to work those muscles more.  It's amazing to me that focusing your thoughts can result in a better workout.  So then, in Communion, when we take the time to focus and concentrate on what action is taking place, is not the effect greater there too?  In fact, Jesus even said to "do this in remembrance of me" which to me says that he wants us to put the effort in to remember and think about what we are doing, rather than just doing it...possibly suggesting a different outcome when you do.

The question then is, what action is taking place when we take Communion?  I'm sure there are many answers and opinions on this, but what came to me is that the bread and drink represent his body and blood.  His perfect, sinless body and blood.  A picture springs to my mind of his perfect blood cells, healthy and pure, joining with my flawed self, making mine that much more pure, that much more strong.  If the act of consciously taking Communion, of putting the effort into focusing on what God does for us, can make the outcome of this joining bond more effective, then you can be certain that I will be doing my part to make it happen.  Whatever the action is that's occurring, if Jesus said to do it with remembrance I'm fairly confidant that it would be a good thing to do so. :-)

--Melody

Make Way For Ducklings

One of the fun things about Southern California is its amazing ability to support year-round gardening. One of the fun things about our new house is the amazing amount of gardening to be done. Endless possibilities here, people!

Recently my girls and I were weeding and watering when a very flustered bird erupted from the nearby peaceful foliage. I didn't get a good look at the bird, but figured it was a dove or some other fairly common bird around these parts, and we continued with our weeding. About a week later, our cat happened to expell this same bird from the same area of our yard, and this time the bird stuck around long enough for a quick pic:



It was a momma duck! We had seen a pair of ducks by our pool a month or two prior, but no sign of them since. After the duck flew off I carefully, gently, and unobtrusively explored the area where she had flown from and found this:



A nest of around eight eggs, the size of large chicken eggs, nestled in the greenery. The miracle of life just never gets old, and this was amazing to see. In the interest of the little ducklings I didn't tell my children about them (they would love them--possibly to death) until a couple of weeks later when we returned from Tahoe after Easter break, and discovered the nest to be empty apart from some broken, empty, crushed eggshells. I am hoping they hatched and grew, and nothing bad happened...but mostly I'm just thankful I got share a little in this amazing process.

Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming...

...from tender stem hath sprung...

I have had adverse feelings towards roses ever since, as a child, I enthusiastically volunteered to help weed my grandmother's rose garden.  I was bored, and took the bait to earn a little money by yanking out the undesirables.  I went after those weeds full force, determined to get every minute piece of greenery that dared to peep up from the compact soil.  Proud of how good a job I was doing, exhausted by the work, and sizzling in the sun, I stood back to admire my work and was crushed to find that all my energy resulted in only 1/164th of the rose garden being complete.  I lost my motivation instantly, (and, as it turned out, any hope of making money, for who would pay for such a minuscule amount of help?)  Instead of this coloring my opinion of gardening in general, my animosity was reserved--in a dark corner of my heart--for roses alone.  I decided they were not so handsome after all; quite ill favored. So bare! So typical!

Imagine my chagrin, then, when I discovered how many roses I had inherited with the purchase of our new house. Rose arbors, rose trellises, rose bushes, rose trees, miniature roses, gargantuan roses, (ROUS's...Roses Of Unusual Size,) roses of pink, orange, yellow, red, white...roses, roses, roses.

And then Spring sprung.  As did the roses.  And I'd be remiss if I didn't admit how wonderfully beautiful they are.  Blooms everywhere, of so many kinds and colors, as to please me exceedingly.  Please, know that you are welcome to stop and smell the flowers.

Introducing Audrey

The truth is that recently I have no inspiration for blogging about anything other than books, so I am going to turn this post over to one of my budding creative geniouses. Introducing my 5 (and a half) year old: Audrey. She loves to create songs, games, and stories, as well as take pictures.

For example, there is no reason whatsoever that her horsie cannot play chess with her:


Or that her teddy bear, Georgia, cannot read stories:


Or that a five year-old cannot take amazingly artistic photos:











My heart goes pitter-patter...what creativity! I think it's time to print some photos and go frame shopping.

How Jane Austen Improved My Eyesight

When I turned 25 I decided to start keeping track of the books I'd read.  I made this decision for two reasons.

First, because I was pregnant with my third child and had realized that children do indeed suck the brain cells right out of your head, leaving you unable to remember the color of the sky let alone which books you had or had not read.

Second, because I had goals.  When I told my brother that I was planning on getting 50 books read each year, he looked at me and said, "That's like one a week."  No doubt he was at that moment picturing the lack of brain cells left in my head.

Nevertheless, I have records to prove that I did pretty good on those goals, and averaged reading about 45 books a year until my 4th child arrived on the scene.  How many books did I read that year, you may ask.  Well, the first 6 months I read a grand total of 3 small books. The Whole Next Year I read a total of 7 books, and it was only that many because I was on vacation for a whole week that year.  One of those books just happened to be Pride and Prejudice.  The next year I read 10 books; one of them was Persuasion. The year after that I read Sense and Sensibility, and reread Persuasion (along with 28 other books.)  Jane Austen awoke a new appreciation for literature in me.

In 2008 I decided to attempt the 888 challenge: read 8 books in each of 8 different categories, and while I didn't reach that goal (I'm no good at reading only books on a preset list, I'm much more of an impulsive reader) I did manage to read 110 books that year.  Admittedly, many of those books were junior fiction books that I read to (or because of) my children, but if you've read any number of Sonlight books you'll agree that they are nothing to be sniffed at.  Oh, and there was more Jane Austen, of course.

Okay, so enough about Jane Austen and onto my eyesight.  I got glasses when I was in 5th grade because the chalkboard at school was looking blurry all of a sudden.  My eyesight worsened incrementally into my teens, and then remained the same until last year.  In September my contacts were all of a sudden feeling very strong, so I went to the optometrist.  My prescription had changed from -2.75 to -2.0.  The doctor wasn't too concerned, she said that it happens sometimes.

In January of this year I started getting headaches, and then realized that they disappeared when I took my glasses off, and reappeared when I put them back on.  So this week I finally got back into the optometrist.  My prescription is now -1.5.  The doctor looked at me quite skeptically, as if I was trying to pull one over on her. She repeatedly asked me if I'd been using the computer a lot more recently.  I kept telling her I hadn't, but that I had been reading a lot more in the last few years than in the years previously...she told me that all that reading could be improving my eyesight.

So, do I thank Jane Austen?  Maybe Sonlight for all the amazing Historical Fiction?  Maybe God for an answer to prayer?  Heredity? All 4? Other ideas?  Maybe it's the fact that the brain cell suckage has even out to a slow steady pace. I don't know, but it sure is a nice change.

Set it on Fire

Timothy got a blue ribbon for his Science Fair Project, but even better than that, he was really excited about it.  It is not a common occurrence for him to be excited about a large homework project, I assure you...it was a picture taking opportunity.

Chris helped Timothy come up with the idea and provided motivation, and Gramps helped him with the building plan, supplies, construction and operation of the project (thank you Gramps!) All Timothy cared about was that he'd get to do something with FIRE.  When he got to add music into the mix, he was one happy camper.  His presentation was about the principle of sound waves, which he demonstrated with a Standing Wave Flame Tube.  He had a great time demonstrating it at the Science Fair; he got a fantastic response & drew a continual crowd.  Here are some pics: