Thankful for 10

During our bedtime routine on Thanksgiving night, I asked the boys what they were thankful for. We just happen to love lists and round even numbers around here so they decided to come up with 10....

Brody
1. God
2. My Parents
3. My Brother
4. My Pets
5. Food
6. Reading/Books
7. Drinks
8. Sheepie
9. Sleep
10. Sugar (Gum, root beer, and cool whip)

Connor
1. God
2. Mom and Dad
3. Food and Water
4. Brody
5. The Pets
6. Clothes and my bed
7. Books
8. Our House
9. Football
10. Vitamins

One interesting fact to note here; they came up with these lists ALL on their own with one exception. After Connor heard Brody list God first he moved Him up a notch;)

Thanksgiving Day opened up the door for some special sweet treats which highly affected the end of Brody's list as you can clearly see. The most unusual addition is the vitamins on Connor's list and of course after all the football on Thanksgiving Day I was not surpised to see it make the cut!

However, over all I am pleased for the most part where their priorities seem to be at their young ages and I thought these were too cute not to share!

November Notes

I started out so good and have had so many ideas and thoughts to blog about it, but it just hasn't been happening. I believe the weather is partly to blame. Here in Oregon, fall or an early winter is in full swing and since we practice zone heating....I am found more often in the living room by the wood stove. The computer room is completely in the back of the house and I am spending less and less time there because there is no wood stove! I have pulled out the space heater so things might pick up, but the ambiance just isn't the same.

However, I feel the need to catch up some....so here is some notes from November so they aren't forgotten!

It has been a busy, but fun month already. Our last boys club event was wonderful! We had the grandparents of one of the families volunteer and they delivered a fantastic afternoon. There was a devotion, followed by the making of their very own personal stomp rockets!

I had to make them pause to take this picture because I couldn't get one that wasn't blurry! The best part was that Mr. Martin was a shop teacher and had lot of experience setting

up for a class setting like ours. All the boys were allowed to cut their own PVC pipe and hoses and it was such fun for them. I tried not to be nervous as I watched each one of "my boys" pick up a hacksaw and go to town:) Here is my brave friend Becca holding the board for Connor and Brody to have their turn!

We also had our Harvest Party with our co op and spent some time decorating gourds which was a ton of fun for the kids. I love having these adorn my kitchen counter for the holiday season;)

School has been going great. I decided last Monday to take a week or two off from our traditional Sonlight "core" classes so we can start American History in the fall at the same time as a few families that will also be starting. This will make it fun to plan some field trips and share ideas so I am excited about that. With the free time, we decided to study the dinosaurs and the age of the Earth from a biblical worldview and it has been very interesting. We also spent some of the extra time finally reading the first of the Chronicles of Narnia...The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which we finished tonight and enjoyed. Here is a few shots of what our school mornings have looked like around here...

Connor and Brody love to make desks in odd places and this day they set the cushions on top of the arm rests with the back pillows and had so much fun doing their work there. As you can see Owen liked it too.I absolutely LOVE this picture. Jake certainly likes to be where the action is when he is not sound asleep and as Connor was working on his vocabulary, he got to spend some quality time with boys best friend. I think it is so sweet the way he is petting him with one hand and holding that book with the other.

So, now we are getting ready for Thanksgiving reading books about Squanto, and the Pilgrims and enjoying some much needed time off that Bryan has been blessed with. Aunt Lara is coming Friday to visit for a few days which us all very excited and eager for the week to hurry along!

"A Fly Also Lives"

Recently I finished reading The Chosen by Chaim Potok. It seemed to take a little while for me to really enjoy it, but once I got to a certain point, I could hardly put it down. I realize that it has been almost a week since I finished it and I can't get a certain part out of my head. I keep thinking about it over and over again so I wanted to share it.

This is a conversation between the main character and his father and I believe it to be life changing if you let it.

"Human beings do not live forever Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?" He paused again, his eyes misty now, then went on. "I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasruable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here. Do you understand what I am saying?"

"Merely to live, merly to exist-what sense is there to it? A fly also lives."

Wow and Amen!

Bean Wisdom

It is time to share some of Brody's recent journal posts. They are so enjoyable to me and something to treasure.

Part of what makes these so special right now is the writing. I love the way he sounds out the words and since they still fit on one page, I decided to scan them so you can view them in their original glory!

Here his assignment was to define what Love is to him...

This one just had to have the picture with it. The topic was..."If you could do anything you wanted right now, what would it be?"

This was our field trip with our co op group to Bauman Farms!

Here he got a free day because of course he had to journal about his new bunny. This is also one of my favorites. It shows his sweet nature to me;)

There you have it. Some "Bean Wisdom" for today.....may you have a good one!

Maybe you will now desire a trip to New Zealand, some candy from those you love, and you might just go out and acquire some pets and vet bills to make your life complete!

End of the Season

Saturday marked the end of our first organized sports season. I have to say we went out with a great big bang for a few reasons.

I was dreading our last game as it was against an undefeated team, it was the earliest game time at 8:30 in the morning and it was supposed to be pouring down rain. The hardest part though about the season ending is that we were just starting to look like a team! All the parents were talking on the sidelines about how the last few games looked like real games and were quite enjoyable. The coaches did an amazing job through the season and they brought the kids a far way from the chaos that was there is in the begining. Both Connor and Brody felt like it was just getting started and were sad to see it end.

Connor made some huge improvements in the last few games pulling some flags which he really tried hard to do. More important though, he got over a fear he had of making a mistake and really got into the games. Here is the best action shot I got the whole season. He actually got this kids flag and as you can see had to work really hard for it, he is on the ground turned the other way! It was very exciting.

Brody never did get a flag and he wanted to so bad, but he did get to carry the ball a time or two and seemed content. They both had great attitudes and were excited about each and every game win or loose.

Overall we had a great experience with Upward Sports and they are both already making plans to sign up next year. I talked to them about other sports but there is nothing else they want to play which is OK with me;)

Back to Saturday....I believe in the first 30 seconds the other team scored a touchdown and then quickly got another and let's just say it wasn't looking good. However, they played hard and actually came back to win it with an ending score of 26-22! It was a very proud moment, more than it probably should of been and that "soccer mom" in me reared a tiny part of her ugly head. I know that she exists and do my best to control her though.

To cap off a fun season, something happened at the last Star Ceremony that I am most proud of. Both Connor and Brody earned the hardest star to get and that was the "Christ-likeness" star. When they called them up the team mates shouted things like.."yeah for the brothers". The assistant coach explained that they earned the stars for the way they looked out for and treated each other all season. That brought tears to my eyes and I was very excited that their relationship was honored in this way and that others recognized it. What a wonderful thing to happen!

So, next year I am sure we will be out there again. Because of their age, they will be separated on different teams which will be an interesting factor to see played out. I will be there with my fancy new sport brella, my new folding chair, a lot of my regular self and what the hec...I'm sure I will unleash "Soccer Mom Suzie" once in awhile. After all, that is MY boys out there!

The ER Bunny

Yes...I wish those letters stood for something like "exotic radiant bunny", but they actually do mean just what you probably thought. Meet our Emergency Room bunny!

Here is how it happened..

We went out after church and got the bunny a litter box because it is too hard for Brody to clean the cage with the heavy tray, and we heard there is a really good chance to teach them to use it. I proceeded to take the bunny out and put him in his exercise pen while I got the cage all cleaned up and ready. Bryan decided it was a great time to clean off the patio as well. (Have I mentioned how messy bunnies are?) Anyway, being a guy he did what guys do and brought up the leaf blower...which it turns out really scared the hec out of Dusty. It scared him so much that he flipped out... literally... and broke his leg. Bryan noticed it because it was dragging and when he picked him up to look at it, it was awful! The back right leg could just do a full turn and was just hanging there. Bryan was sure that the bunny would have to be put down, not thinking there was anything they could do and was also sure that he was suffering. So, we prepped the boys and after the tears decided to head to the emergency room because of course this would happen on a weekend;) While in the waiting room, I used my nifty little iphone and did some research and it turned out the results weren't as bleak as we thought.

After meeting with the doctor, we had three choices..

1) Put him in a very small space and keep him confined as possible and let the bone heal. This option came with a huge risk of infection.

2) Splint the leg which obviously came with a price tag and an inconvenience.

3) Have surgery with an osteopathic specialist to fix it properly which probably cost as much as a car and would be a tougher recovery.

We went in the middle and splinted the leg. Bryan and I fully admit that this was done mostly out of guilt since the bunny was in our care when it happened! Also, I have to admit if the bunny was a jerk of a bunny or jumped out of the cage, we might not have been so willing:) Truthfully, he is a darn sweet bunny and a real good pet, with a great personality.

So, we went back later and picked him up and it has been quite the ordeal around here. Turns out bunnies don't have much of a will to live! Who would of known? Anyway, getting him to eat and drink was critical in that first 24 hours so like a nurse I was there holding the water bottle and hand feeding him Timothy Hay and kale that we happened to have on hand. After a day he did start coming back to life and is now progressing very well.

Thankfully, we have not had to put one of those awful collars on him that prevent him from chewing. The first day, he put that hole in the top bandage, but has left it alone since. I am grateful for that because I imagine that would be a huge step back for him adjusting. We are just now getting our bunny back and I can't wait for that thing to come off his leg. Obviously the litter box training is on hold and we can't take him out of the cage, which is a big bummer for all of us!

I know there are people that are going to call us crazy for doing this and some that think we should of put all costs aside and gone for the surgery. We made the best decision for us, which is all we can do. The truth is we could afford it and this is a perfect example of why we save from every check that we can. Although it isn't at the top of our list on how to spend the money, especially with the holidays coming up and with both boys having birthdays, but we felt we owed it to everyone to do something since we could. We would of had no trouble explaining that we weren't going to do something if we really couldn't.

Plus, if you would of looked into Brody's sad eyes that day, trust me, you would of wanted to say you would do something too;)

I can't wait to blog that the splint is off!

Party Poopers!

So I was just visiting a few of my friends blogs reading about all of their Halloween fun and I feel like major party poopers!

This year was kind of strange...I just couldn't get the kids excited about dressing up. I felt I was totally pushing them and they were just very un-excited. They said they would wear their costumes from last year and didn't even sound interested in the carnival at church that we go to every year. So...I threw another idea out there....how about we buy some candy and stay home and watch a movie? They jumped and down and were thrilled with the idea....so there you have it. We hit Winco where I let them go a little crazy in the bulk bin section, then we spent the night snuggled on the couch watching "Air Bud, Golden Receiver". I might be a party pooper, but it is all my kids fault;)

Actually, they did put on some costumes to go visit a few neighbors that bought candy just for them since there is no trick or treat business where we live. I never thought I would see a football playing monkey, but now I have.

Also, what a great opportunity to share these memories.

Truthfully, they do dress up and seem to enjoy it...just recently they tailored these fine knight uniforms all on their own from foam board!

You know I can't help but think of that quote that paraphrased goes something like this...Every time you buy a child a toy, you take away their desire to create it on their own.