Reece still loves a good bubble bath..

Guilty...

I read this quote, from John Piper, several days ago and just cannot get it out of my mind. I love how John Piper can do that to me and I dislike that at the same time. I guess it is simply called 'conviction'. I am so guilty of what he says here:

“The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18-20). ….the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth.”

~John Piper in A Hunger for God

Right Start Math -Asian Math

I've had quite a few friends recently ask me if we are happy that we changed Math curriculums. I just didn't know, at the beginning of fall, but now I can definitley say "yes!" This is Reece working on his Math. He is supposed to add 1849 + 2735 + 3817 and get the answer, by himself, using picture cards. He has already learned how to trade 10 ones for a ten, 10 tens for a hundred and 10 hundreds for a thousand. I just sat back and watched him work and, doing Math the Asian way, he knows how to figure this problem out.

I also love that we don't have hours of "busy work" drill sheets (we used to do this in our American Math curriculum), flash cards, etc. Now Reece has learned his basic addition facts doing the "addition war game". I guess the best is that he loves Math. So, yes, I am happy with the change for all three kids.

These are the ones, tens, hundreds, and thousand picture cards that he is trading up.

He found the answer out and just loves the whole process. Not too bad for a 5 year old. :)

Parties for the parents.

As I mentioned in my last post. You can never party too much for Valentine's Day -- or Valentine's weekend. With the Grandparents in town, we took full advantage of their awesome babysitting skills. Friday night Brian surprised me with dinner out at a Japanese restaurant. This is a place where they cook the meal right in front of you. We had the same restaurant in Ohio and Brian knew I would love this for Valentine's weekend.

They call that orange contraption, that is holding my chopsticks together - "cheaters". Brian did not use cheaters like I did, but at least I didn't use my fork the whole night.

For Valentine's night, Brian had a one hour gig at a Cuban Restaurant. It was playing in a salsa band. The gig didn't start til 11p.m. but we still made a night of it. It has been SO long since I've been to one of Brian's gigs. It was fun to meet the other wives/girlfriends and hang with them as the band set up and played. Salsa is recently something that Brian has taught himself. It is quite hard in that it is constantly 16th notes and a fast tempo. Brian's fingers actually ached afterwards. And we were laughing so hard because I think we were the only couple that stuffed kleenex in our ears to protect them from the volume. I'm sure it isn't proper etiquette to keep pulling kleenex out of my ears when I was visiting with people. Oh well....I'd like to still hear when I'm 80. I loved the maracas, congo drums, trombones and singers. SO different from the jazz gigs. I guess a musician can always reinvent himself and that's Brian.

Generations Valentine Party

After a full morning at co-op, complete with Valentine surprises, we just hung out and prepared for our Generations Valentine Party. There were 97 kids coming for this and I was a co-coordinator this year. It sure made having 20+ toddlers, at my house, last year seem quite easy. Lindsey missed out on a Girl Scout Valentine Party which was held in the same building. I joked about going back and forth, between parties, but then 'got real' about that crazy possibility. A dear friend left Lindsey a bag of goodies, on our Van window, so she still got to share in on the Girl Scout Party too. You can never have too many Valentine Parties!

Lindsey is rushing around playing musical chairs which she won. She is quite the competitive little girl.


Here Austin is with his best buddy, Steven, doing the three legged race. They even chose to wear Mario shirts together.

Oh the food at the party was crazy. Cupcakes and more cupcakes and so many goodies. Talk about a sugar high!

Co-op

This past weekend, Grandmom and Granddad were able to visit and Grandmom came with us to co-op classes. During my kid's classes, I am in my own prayer time/sharing time class with other Moms, but I was able to sneak in and snap a few pictures since our Mom's group let out early. I took some pictures of Lindsey and Reece, but searched all over the place and could never find Austin's "working with clay" class.

This first picture is of Lindsey working in her art class.

Reece is showing Grandmom what he is learning about in Reptiles/Amphian's class.

Lindsey and some girl friends hanging out between classes.

Austin and some buddies during their break time.

I've been tagged....

It's been so busy lately and now I've been tagged. Rarely do I post much that takes any thought as this blog's main purpose is to get out kid photos for family. I still don't think I will think much on this post so......there's your warning. This is bad as I can't even remember all the "tagging rules." I think it is supposed to be 7 (un)interesting things about me. That should surely be easy.. :)

Here are some childhood, teenage silly things...

1) I grew up on a 200 acre farm and one early Sat. morning my friend and I were in the hayloft.
We were flying off of a pyramid of hay bales and landing in a blanket of scattered hay. I landed
just fine until I saw a huge black/yellow jacket bee grasp my thumb. My thumb doubled in size
in seconds. I apparently landed on an entire nest and was surrounded by these bees. My whole
body had bites everywhere and I even had a few fall out on my Mom's bed (good morning, mom) when I ran inside screaming. The doctor said I would have been dead in seconds had I been allergic. I could never get up the courage to go back to our hayloft. Sigh.

2) In small town Iowa one of the youth groups favorite activities was t.p. ing homes. No one was exempt including our Pastor, mechanic, etc. Our farm was plastered quite a bit. Can't imagine how many rolls of t.p. that took. Did my parents mind our pasttime? Not at all....who do you think paid for the t.p. ? Also.....I guess maybe people weren't as uptight as we all can be now. I can't imagine doing those things now. People really had good humor about them back in the day.

3)This particular crazy thing is why my kids will have gps devices implanted in their heels. As a teenager we would head to a bigger town for "cruising". My friends dared me to ask for a motorcycle ride from someone I didn't know. I couldn't resist a dare and I will not be writing how fast the guy went and without wearing helmets. Shudder at the thought.....

4) I've never taken a hayride where people actually sat still and sang songs or just chit chatted away. I've only known hayrides where you are constantly being attacked or attacking and you go home stuffed like a scarecrow. I'm telling you....growing up on a farm was SO much fun. We just didn't need game boys, Wii, computers, etc.

5)My Dad loved doing donuts, with the car, on ice. We always outdid ourselves on April Fools Day. No one would take calls from our family on that day. Dad always drove cars until they were totally spent. He thought -and still thinks - 200,000 miles was just "breaking in a car". My friends loved being in the car, with us, whenever it turned another 100,000 miles. Dad would always have us get out of the car and run around it several times to celebrate another 100,000 miles.--what did we call that, Lynette. I can't think of the name. My Dad is the one who taught me how to have fun in life and laugh A LOT.

6) Hey....it's almost Valentine's Day so let's do a sweet one. After our (Brian and I) first date we went back to the college campus and we goofed around on the piano in the band room. (I goofed around on the piano. Brian's piano playing doesn't sound too goofy ever. :) I asked him to play the theme from Ice Castles. My favorite romantic song at the time. He also surprised me with that at his big senior recital for his encore. And then he played it, at our wedding, as the bridesmaids were coming down the isle. He also composed a song using the tones of my college phone number. Very sweet!

7)Goodness....you people on face book did 25 of these. I'm burning out of steam here, so my last one is this. I absolutely HAVE to dip my grilled cheese sandwiches in ketchup. It is a must!!