This Week's Games

Megan had two basketball games this week, one on Tuesday (at a local school) and one tonight (about an hour away).

They lost Tuesday night's game, but from the first half to the second half, they only allowed seven points for the opposing team. Their defense came on strong. Alex arrived during the 4th quarter, so he was able to see the last few minutes of the game.

Tonight, we were short two of our players, so Megan got to be one of the starters. And, she actually put the first points on the board! Her efforts tonight added six points to their winning score of 33-10.

After receiving the inbound pass, Megan glances over at Coach to receive the next play to set up.

Dribbling around her defender.

Coach talking with the players and their parents after the game. He informed us of what they are working on to improve, what they need to improve, and how far they have come in just several weeks of practice and three games.

After the game, we stopped at McD's for a healthy (not!) meal with some of the team. It was fun to get to know some of the girls better, and it warms my heart to see how they have accepted Megan onto their school's team. Tomorrow is their team's Christmas party, which Megan is looking forward to. She is supposed to take a tree ornament, and we found a cute basketball one. We'll see what she comes home with.

~Wee

A Blessing from our Creator

Praise God that His mercies are new EVERY morning! This sunrise graced us with its splendor this morning.

~Wee

Which Jello?

Trying to decide which flavors to make for their finger jello, Leah laid all the varieties out on the kitchen floor and I heard her say,

"Catch a tiger
Meenie Minee Mo,

Catch a tiger
Meenie Minee Mo,

My mother told me to catch a tiger." :-}

BTW, she picked strawberry and orange. YUM!

~Wee

Let There Be Light

"Let There Be Light" was the theme of this year's Christmas program at church. Megan and Grace each had an acting part (no speaking) this year; Megan was a shepherd and Grace an angel.

We listened as the prophets of old looked on from Heaven and witnessed how their prophecies about Jesus' birth were being fulfilled. We watched as shepherds and wise men were also shown the fulfillment of the prophecies -- the shepherds, because of their humble hearts and the wise men, because of their searching and believing hearts. We were challenged to come to Jesus with humble hearts of faith.

Here is Leah's song ~ Jeremiah 29:13/Away in a Manger medley

Out of the six songs the choir sang, here is the theme song of the day, Let There be Light.

For some reason, this video is so choppy. I've included the words of the song, so you can at least "read" the beauty of them!

Let There Be Light

Star of wonder, star of night,

star with royal beauty bright;

westward leading, still proceeding

guide us to thy perfect light.

From the beginning the Father

had a magnificent plan,

revealed through the Law and the prophets,

to fulfill the redemption of man.

He spoke after centuries of silence,

in the midst of a still, starry night.

And Emmanuel came down among us,

and the Father said, "Let there be light!"

People who walked in great darkness

gathered from near and far;

shepherds with flocks in their keeping,

three kings who followed a star.

Together, the poor and the richest

witnessed that Bethlehem night,

and the sky full of angels announcing

the birth of the glorious Light.

We who are His have this calling:

to praise Him, and make His name known,

so one day the presence of Jesus

shines in every heart and every home.

Let there be light, let it shine bright,

piercing the darkness with dazzling white.

Hope for the hopeless was born on that night,

when God sent His Son and said, "Let there be light!"

~Wee

P.S. Sorry about the choppiness of the videos. I don't know why they are doing that during uploading. Suggestions, anyone, on what I might be doing wrong?

Sawmill

Last Friday was our December field trip. It was sunny out, but freezing! Dressed in layers, we first toured a local cabinet company. They were not producing or running any machines that day, but the guide led us through the process of first laminating the wood and showing us each step in the process of the making of doors, drawers, and finally cabinets.

Here, the girls are in front of various wood pieces cut and ready for use where needed.
At the end of the tour, we were able to freely roam their showroom, which "shows" all that this company makes. It was fun to open and close the cupboards and doors, enjoying some very unique designs, and to dream a little :) Isn't this kitchen beautiful?!
From the cabinet company, we went to a sawmill operated by the Amish.

This machine removes the bark from the trees.When all the bark is removed, the log rolls down the ramp and is later run through the sawmill.Inside the sawmill, the machines were running. On this machine, the logs went round and round as they were split into strips (you can see a strip shooting off the cutter onto a flat belt). Back outside, we watched this big crane at work. First, it picks up a tree trunk,
positions it in the sawand cuts it, then moves the cut pieces over to a different pile.
The girls in front of this fascinating machine.
Any unusable pieces of wood (from pallets, trees, etc.,) runs through a chopper and shoots into this barn. The sawdust is later used for mulch.From the sawmill, just a few of us families went down the road to a place that makes pallets (also run by Amish). This part of the trip was so neat, and I'm glad we took the time to see it. This machine is nailing the pallets together just after, and I mean "just after," the worker finished placing the boards on it correctly. There were a few times when the worker barely got out of the way of the machine before it moved back to nail on the boards. After the pallets are nailed together and before they are stacked like you see in the picture, each one is stamped with the company's name. All these pallets are going to a dairy farm.After the tour, I found out that the Amish man was a first cousin to one of my former massage clients from Topeka. It was fun to make that connection! It's such a small world.

I hope I don't bore you with posts like this, but my main purpose of our blog is to not only share what we are doing/learning as a family, but it also doubles as an online journal for our family. By the time I get around to scrap booking this field trip, I will probably have forgotten all the details. So, thanks for hanging in there with us! :)

~Wee

A New Experience

Megan has been asked to be on the girls' basketball team at a local Christian school. She's played Upwards basketball for the past four years, three of them with the same coach. We have become good friends with her coach, whose daughter is the same age as Megan. This is Coach's first year of coaching at this school and since they were short on players, he asked the principal of the school if he could invite Megan on the team, even though she was home schooled. The principal allowed that request, giving Megan a great opportunity to play a sport that she loves in another great environment! We are thankful for this avenue that God opened up in her life! (This principal has been a patient of Alex's and I have visited with him before in the office. It's such a small world. He even came up to me before the game tonight and introduced himself again to me and was glad to have made the connection on who Megan was.)
Coach's pep talk before the game.

They've had a few weeks of practice and tonight was their first game. The ending score was a whopping 40-2. Alex closed the office an hour early so he could make Megan's first game. He arrived at the end of the first quarter and was able to see the rest of the game, in which Megan played portions of.

On defense.

Bringing the ball up the court.

Once again, I truly delight in watching the girls play! It is so neat to see their improvement and development in skill and coordination from year to year. She handled the ball well and had several nice drives in the lane. She even made a basket in the 4th quarter! At the dinner table tonight, Megan was telling us how when she was dribbling the ball and all the players moved out of the lane with their opponents, "it was like I was wide open." I think she was even amazed at the level of play these girls have learned and are now performing!

We'll keep you posted on how the season goes......so I hope you'll bear with us! :)

~Wee

New Rooms, New Looks

The week before the girls and I went to my parents for a week back in October, we switched some rooms around. The girls went from sharing one room on the main floor to Megan having her own room and Grace and Leah sharing a room. They were excited to move upstairs and into their "new" rooms. Over the course of this week, we finished the project -- we painted.

We chose bright colors for Grace and Leah's room. The exciting part was that we were able to use things we had here around the house. The only purchase (besides paint) was the tulle for the windows. It's always helpful to keep costs down!

This room brings back memories of my childhood :) I also had a yellow room (though a bit lighter), the two lamps were what Tess and I each received for birthday gifts years ago, and the comforter on the bed is what my Grandma Broquard pieced together.
Liking their new room!
Megan chose chocolate and pink for her room colors. We used an entire gallon of paint, needing three coats, on the two chocolate walls alone. Now that it's done though, we love the results.

We also painted the bathroom upstairs, which will obviously see more use now that the girls sleep up there.
We've been in the house for five years now, and this is the first project we've done on the upper level. It's exciting for me to finally be "doing something" as far as decorating up there! I've waited a long time for this!

~ Wee

Round #1 Done

Today was an exciting day for Megan. Just shy of two years ago, she got her first round of braces on, and today was the removal date. She and I were up and out of the house for her 7:30 a.m., appointment. This is the last breakfast she had to eat with her braces on.

After the brackets were all removed, Dr. Cohen scraped off the glue residue and polished up her teeth.

Her beautiful smile!

~Wee

Another Great Season

Brrrrrr! It was another chilly one out there on the soccer sidelines. Today's games brought an awesome season to a close. We battled the cold wind and light rain during Grace's game, but it was a fun one to watch! Her team finished their season with a bang, winning 6-0! Five out of the six goals were scored by different people, and Grace was one of them! We are so proud of how much she has grown throughout this season. Good job, Grace.
Here is Grace with Coach Trent.Megan's main position throughout the season was left midfielder. Today, her team also won 6-0. This season, her team went undefeated, so that was really exciting! Her coach this year was the grandpa of one of her teammates in basketball the past two years. When we walked up to the soccer field at the beginning of the season and he recognized Megan, that was neat.
Here is Megan with Coach Biglands. For the last four or five weeks of the season, this is how we enjoyed the games.....dressed in layers, sporting winter coats, hats, gloves and scarves, wrapped in blankets, huddled together, and seeking shelter from the wind underneath umbrellas. That's what helped make the season so memorable. I have enjoyed all our sideline chats throughout the season and will miss them when it's over!

~Wee

Week No. 4

It was a chilly one out there along the soccer field side lines this morning! It spritzed a little during Grace's game, but thankfully the rain held off. There's nothing worse than being cold AND wet. I am thankful we took the time yesterday to dig out the warmer clothing, along with hats, gloves and scarves.

Megan's game started at 9:30. The team they played was the green team, the same one they so lopsidedly beat a few weeks back. Today's score was 4-1. The green goalie made several amazing stops!

This picture was taken just after Megan kicked the ball up field to her teammate.
Approaching the ball.....At 11:00 we moved over to Grace's field. She played forward for three of the four quarters. She had several close shots, one even up to the goal line, but the goalie made a good save. Her team lost 0-1.
Grace and Honor take the ball back up field.The first thing we did after arriving home was to get out the warm blankets and put them in the van, where they'll be ready for next week's games. What Leah did when she got home ~~ she promptly stripped off her winter coat, scarf, and clothes and put on her tutu. Brrr! Makes me cold just thinking about it!

P.S. Just before posting this entry, Leah came to me and said (can you guess), "Mom, I'm cold, so I'm going to stay right here." Silly girl!
~Wee

A Science-filled Day

Today kicked off our year for our science co-op group. We are studying Biology this year, beginning with plants. Since I had to teach the 4th-6th graders today, I have been busy preparing, etc., the last few weeks. We are loving picking up living things from nature, whether it's a leaf, moss, mushrooms, or various pieces of food, and examining them through the lens of a microscope. Today, the kids in class really seemed to enjoy that avenue of closely examining God's creation.

Here, the students are practicing being taxonomists and are using their classification skills in organizing a tub of legos. Megan's crew is attempting to classify various shoes.
When we were leaving, we saw this praying mantis on the glass door and another one on the wall near by. We brought them home and placed them in our landscape. This one is the female. We figured that out because when we dumped them out of the cup, the two of them were....eh um...mating.
When I walked out of the house, this is how I found the girls. I bet we sat and watched those amazing insects for about 20 minutes. Very fascinating!
I know you can't see them very well, but they are hanging on to the end of the twig Megan is holding.
While I was preparing lunch, Leah excitedly came in from outside and showed me what she found~~a white furry caterpillar. She intently watched it crawl around either on her hand or on the little chair she so tenderly placed it on for quite some time, talking to and petting it all the while. We then thumbed through our caterpillar book and believe she found a hickory tussock moth. I just have to share little snippets of her conversation to both the caterpillar and to me:

"He likes me because he will stay there while I pet him.

[she said to the caterpillar when he had the nerve to start crawling away] "Hey, don't you like me?"

"Mom, is he a daddy one?"

"Yeah, he sure is sticky. Their legs stick on you."

"Mom, do you like caterpillars and butterflies?" "....but not worms."

"Oh, there's him's head. Mom, him's head is black."

"Him won't obey me." (guess Mr. Caterpillar was crawling away again:))

[she said to her sisters] "Guys, come and feel him! Him's so soft!"

A little while later.....Leah came to me in tears because she couldn't find her caterpillar. Walking back into the kitchen, we found him there at the top of that little chair. As affectionately as I could, I said, "Come on, baby" while trying to get him on the napkin to take him back outside. Appalled, Leah's comment to me was, "Mom, "him's" a Mommy one, not a baby."
~Wee

20 Days Before

Today marks 20 days before my birthday.

To provide a bit of background info: 20 days ago (which would have been 40 days before my birthday), I received a cute Happy Birthday e-card. Then, 10 days ago, I received a Beth Moore prayer devotional. This past weekend when my parents came out to visit, they delivered a box full of gifts, each one labeled to be opened on a certain day. The girls had such fun reading each gift's clue to figure out what's inside.

These are all the gifts before I opened the one for today, and they are ALL from my very thoughtful and creative sister. Thanks so much, Sal!!!! I'll look forward to "10 days before" and beyond! Love you!

Today's gift was a ring (I'm not exactly sure what it's called) for my ever-burning candle, and I love it! Only 20 more days to go and such fun to look forward to along the way!!!!

~Wee

Week No. 2

The highlight of yesterday's soccer games was that my parents were able to see the girls play soccer for the first time in the four years they have played. Since Dad isn't in the field yet with harvest, they were able to come out on a free weekend. The girls were so excited to have them at their games cheering them on. Grace's game was first. She played forward the first and fourth quarters. Her team tied 1-1.
Right in front of the goal once again, but blue's defense shut her out.Megan's game was a bit lopsided, and because of that, Coach played them in various positions, as well as rotated players in and out several times. I think at least 6 out of the 12 players on the team scored a goal. Megan got her first goal of the season, and the exciting thing was that Grandpa and Grandma were there to see it! In this picture, Megan has the ball in front of the two green players. We lost count after about nine goals, but they say the score was 16-1.
After the games, we went to the Johnny Appleseed Festival in town. Here John Chapman is setting the stories straight about the clothes that he did and didn't wear. A tin pot was not one of them.In the Civil War camp, we ran into President Lincoln. Leah didn't want to get in this picture, but....the President acknowledged her anyway. It was so funny....as he was talking to her, first she looked at him, then looked down, then turned her head completely away. We were able to see this Revolutionary War cannon fired off. Pretty cool!
Leaving the Civil War encampment, it was neat to see the President visiting the soldiers at camp. It made you realize the authenticity of what that would have been like, obviously under a very different living environment.
It was a beautiful fall day! Hope you enjoyed it, too!

~Wee