Softball!

Is this adorable or what?!

Being so close in age has its perks! We're on the same team!

Nathanael and Micah have decided they want to play softball this season. We tried t-ball once before with Nathanael when he was 5. That didn't go so well, so we have steered away from baseball since then. But they really wanted to play and they are a little older now, so we decided to give it another shot.

Micah swings for the ball

We were excited to find out that one of our friends from church is a softball coach. We requested him and were put on his team. Both boys are enjoying the sport and are glad they joined the team. We have had a couple practices and two games and there are nine games left. At this age, their games are not that serious. Scores are not kept, and kids don’t always get sent off the field when they really should be out. They only play three innings and every child on the team gets to bat before the other team has their turn at bat. I'm glad for this, as the boys aren't that great yet, but they are still getting a chance to play the game and grow in their skills. The run may not count for points, but you wouldn't know that from the looks on their faces when they come running into home.

Nathanael runs home

Most of the other boys on the team have played before, but mine are still learning how the game works.The coach told me that he thinks Nathanael has some natural talent and that he may be pretty good in a few years if he sticks with it. We'll see what happens!

Spring Recital

Nathanael and Micah participated in a spring piano recital today. Here is the video footage. They are really progressing well. (Videos may not play properly in your email program. If they don't, go to the actual blog to see the videos.)

This first one is Micah's piano solo, entitled "Firefly."

This second one is Micah and Nathanael playing a duet together. It's their first duet and they were so excited to be able to play together now. Micah just started last May, so he was absolutely tickled that he's good enough to play with his brother now. It's called "We Love A Parade."

 

This is Nathanael's duet with his teacher, Ms. Ruth. It's called "Diabelli March" and I think it's my favorite of his songs so far. His fingers got a little tripped up in the middle, but thankfully he was able to recover.

 Here is Nathanael's part of Diabelli March by itself, for those who are not able to discern the lower section.

 

 

 

They are progressing nicely and we are very proud of both of them! 

 

Ouchies

Well, I guess we made it one whole year before John had his first farm injury requiring a doctor's care. His hand got smashed between a heavy piece of  metal farm equipment and a cement wall today. He had a gash requiring stitches on his right index finger and that same finger is also broken. He's right handed so it's also his guitar strumming hand. (I guess Luke won't be having any lessons for awhile.) The urgent care doc wants John to follow up with an ortho doc on Monday. The middle finger is also injured and swollen, but I don't think he notices that one as much when the other finger is throbbing. Please pray for him. He's in pain, but hates meds so he won't take anything for the pain.

We are quite the couple right now. I sustained an injury to my left rotator cuff about two weeks ago that I am still healing from. I am left handed, so both John and I injured our dominant sides. Thankfully it's not torn, but my tendons are inflamed. My entourage and I have been going to physical therapy three times a week and just chilling around the house so I can take pain meds. I just returned to Zumba instructing on Wednesday, but I am doing it one armed. That was a little painful and also a bit tricky, but thankfully I am feeling much better than I was at first. I wasn't able to even stir food without pain last week. It's a good thing John mowed the yard the other day, because between his injury and mine it may be awhile before that happens again! (I can't handle the zero turn handle bars on the mower right now.) It's also a bummer that neither one of us is in great shape to help the boys practice their baseball catching, as baseball just started up and Micah and Nathanael are both playing this season. I am thankful that John just finished the last of the garden expansion work last night, so at least that won't fall behind.

We'd appreciate your prayers!!

Welcome to the family!

Please rejoice with us in welcoming Hannah to the family of God! She decided to give her life to Christ tonight. 

March

As promised, I am continuing to play catch up. Here is an update on March. But first, I just noticed this little story in the news:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/17/us/gorilla-charges-zoo-window/index.html

Just have to say that this is our local zoo and the one I posted about going to back in January. We have a family membership there. A gorilla charged at Luke like that once while we were there. It didn't break the  glass when it slammed into it, but it definitely shocked Luke!

March...ah March. It's such a crazy month for CC families. In March, we are in Memory Master mode at full speed! What is a Memory Master? It is a child in our Classical Conversations (CC) homeschool program who has memorized all 24 weeks worth of memory work. For those not familiar with our program, it is based largely on memorization at the stage we are in. Each week for 24 weeks, the kids will memorize a new piece of information in seven different subjects- latin, timeline, math, grammar, history, science, and geography. A memory master has mastered all 24 weeks worth of facts and has recited them back to four different adults. Here is what we learned this year:


 160 events and people in a chronological timeline

·         24 history sentences to “put some flesh” on our timeline (including the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution,  the Bill of Rights, and U.S. historical events from Columbus to 9/11)

·         44 U.S. Presidents

·         120 locations and geographic  features in North America including:

o   States & Capitals

o   U.S. Rivers, Mountains and Deserts

o   U.S. Bays, Canals, and Great Lakes

o   Historical Trails

o   Territories, Terrains, and other prominent features

·         24 science facts, including (but not limited to):

o   Anatomy:  Parts of 8 major systems of the human body

o   Chemistry: The first 12 elements of the periodic table (along with their atomic number and mass) 

·     `` Latin rules and vocabulary.  Emphasis:  The text of John 1:1-7 in Latin with its English translation

·         English Grammar facts (including the principal parts of 12 irregular verbs, sentence parts, clauses, and sentence structures and patterns)

·         Multiplication tables up to 15x15, common squares and cubes, basic geometry formulas and unit conversions, and the algebraic laws of addition and multiplication

This year, both Nathanael and Luke decided to be memory masters. Luke has done it every year since we started the program four years ago and Nathanael did it two years ago. The testing process usually happens in March, which makes it a month where we drill, drill, drill, and drill again....times two! But I am happy to say that they both did it and I have two memory masters again this year! (Insert big sigh of relief here!) We are so glad to be done with the drilling! We are not returning to CC next year, so it was nice to go out on a high note.

Did we do anything else in March? Honestly, I felt like all we did was drill! I'm a tutor for our CC group and the last several weeks (we end the first week of April) are just a really busy time and we primarily focus on memory work and finishing strong (because we are always exhausted by this point of the school year). We did squeeze in a few other things, however. I took the kids to Lowes' one Saturday for a Build and Grow event. They got to build a wooden model of El Toro Loco (a Monster Jam truck).

Nathanael and Luke participated in a music event sponsored by a national music teachers group. They both did very well and Nathanael received the top rating you can get for his performances. Unfortunately, I missed this event because I was at an all day Zumba training that I couldn't have done at another time. I was already licensed to teach Basic Zumba and Zumba Kids. I was given a second class at the YMCA that began in January, so I'm now teaching there twice a week. But there are a lot of older people here and I've also had some of them and also some health challenged beginners come to class and my class is too intense for both of those groups. So I really wanted to get licensed to teach Zumba Gold, which is geared towards beginners, seniors, and those needing a less intense workout. So now I am licensed to teach that and I'm hoping we can add Zumba Gold to the class schedule at the gym this fall. It sounds like I should be getting two kids classes over the summer that will be geared towards the kids attending summer day camp at the Y.

We also celebrated Grandma's (John's grandma) birthday at the end of the month (actually on the same day as my training and the music festival...very busy day). It was the first time the kids and I have ever been with her for her birthday. It is nice to have these opportunities to build these memories with family that we hadn't seen very often previously.

Plate we made for John's Grandma's birthday gift

There! I'm almost caught up...next up is our party month!! While you wait for that post, enjoy some random photos and video from March.

Lego volcano he made after we studied Mt. St. Helens

This year we started seedlings indoors for the first time. Here is our growing set up in the basement. We wound up using all four shelves in the end and it worked out pretty well.

John starts expanding the garden. We only had the two boxes last year.

The guys started a worm composting bin. The plan is to use the worm castings (aka worm poop) to help fertilize our garden. There are 200 red worms living in my garage now. They eat table scraps.

And finally, some footage of my baby teaching my baby to play guitar. Makes my heart so happy!!!

I'm really behind.....(winter update)

Life has been busy and I have gotten very behind on the blog, so I am going to do several update posts. Sorry to those of you who were trying to keep up with us who have been waiting for a new post since February.....

~Winter~
I made posts about our two winter birthdays, our Christmas and our New Years. As far of the rest of the winter goes, I can sum it up in one word...COLD!!!!! We just experienced the coldest winter of our lives. It was also the longest winter of our lives. The wind is almost constantly blowing and when it's already below zero it just cuts you right to the bone. It was not unusual to have temps in the negative 20s when the wind was blowing. And it was cold for 5 months straight, whereas I'd classify a northern VA winter as 2.5 months. I'm so thankful for our indoor bounce house, our big playroom, and the indoor pool at the Y. I don't know what I would have done without those sources to burn the ridiculous amounts of little boy energy in my house.

In December, John decided to take up hunting. There are lots of deer on his grandpa's property, and Grandpa was gracious to allow John to hunt on it. This was nice because he was not having to compete with other hunters on public land (which also means it was safer). John and a buddy went out several times together. His friend shot his first buck in December and split half the meat with us. Shotgun season is only two weeks, so John thought his chances were up for the year. But our brother in law let John borrow his muzzle loader, which enabled John to hunt for a few more weeks, as that season runs into January. Thankfully, John was able to get a doe in January. That same brother in law is an avid hunter and processes his own meat. He and my sister in law (John's older sister) add ground pork and seasoning mixtures to some of their meat as they grind it and make a variety of sausages. They taught us how to do that so out of our meat we got steaks, roasts, plain ground meat, Italian sausage, and Andouille sausage (John's from Cajun country). The Italian stuff is awesome and we really enjoyed it in spaghetti. I wasn't sure what I was going to think of game meat, but this venison was pretty tasty and did not have a gamey taste at all. I believe that is partly due to the deer here being largely corn fed versus grass fed. But the other part has to do with the way the meat is processed. When John got his doe, another friend of ours came and helped him cut it up and he taught John his steps for eliminating the gamey taste. I was able to use that meat in any of my recipes that called for beef without any taste issues. We were able to not buy red meat for three months and that was really nice on the budget. Now that we know we like the meat and how long one deer lasts us, we are hoping can get a couple next winter.

We didn't get as much snow as I had expected over the winter, but we did get a big snow in early February. The kids had a blast sledding down our hill, building forts, and making snow tunnels. It took 5 of us 3 hours to shovel the driveway. The winds here caused the snow to blow all around and make large drifts in the yard. It looked like white sand dunes all over the yard. So in some places you could still dee the grass and in other places, it was up to my waist. We will definitely get a snowblower for next year.

Their sledding train- there were so many happy giggles while they did this!

I spent February and March dealing with some health issues, but thankfully those appear to have passed now. For Valentine's Day, John and I went on a search for the best cupcakes in Omaha. We tried several different places. We were not impressed by any of them. We have been spoiled by Georgetown Cupcakes (of TLC's DC Cupcakes) and have found that they are truly the best cupcake bakery in the country. Everywhere we go, we try cupcakes and nothing compares. We also went to dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse in Lincoln. I had never been to one before. It was pretty tasty. I don't think I've ever had so much protein in one meal before!

Next update.....March!