Another Confused Rambling

Ok, sorry it’s been so long.
Here’s a synopsis of all the crazy things that have happened at our house lately.

Ok, so when your parents leave the house to go to a Valentine’s party for the second time that week what do you do? You dress up Civil War, of course!





Paul dressed up as a Southern soldier and I had a great time making him look bruised and dirty..... ooh, that sounds bad....!!! I put brown eye shadow all over on side of his face (to make it look like he had fallen in the mud while fighting) drew on a brown eyeliner mustache, and gave him red marker wounds!



Don’t let any of your little siblings read this; it might not make you too popular with mom when they color on themselves. I have been trying to convince Kate that she looks pretty with her hair done up; I’m sure after looking at these pictures you’ll all agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And if any of you are wondering why Paul is taller then me, it’s ‘cause he is standing on some books. It kind of made his head look too small, though.






Today we walked around the lake to get some exercise. And, being moist out and because it had just rained, there were lots of lizards out. The only problem was at least 16 of them were smashed on the road! I won’t even go into all the gruesome details about guts and stuff ‘cause it was gross. Pearl took a picture of every smashed lizard we found. Future accident reporter?

One of our school things today was really fun; Mom and Perry wrote the beginnings of stories, and we passed them around and finished them. Some of them, as you shall see if you go read them, are really, really funny. Mom’s face hurt after she was done reading them!

My Song

Enjoy! Check out that picture... this place inspires song-writing!

8.5 Laps around the Table

What does a one-year-old do when her family is taking longer to eat dinner than she does? Hint: it’s very cute, my one-year-old sister has made it a ritual, and it’s something that perhaps other people should take up.

Tonight, Elizabeth finished her dinner before we all did and Mom set her on the floor. She pulled up on Mom’s chair at one end of the table, cruised around the back of it, reached for Pearl’s chair, cruised along the backs of the three chairs down one side of our table, and giggled crazily when she came around Dad’s end of the table. She quickly worked her way behind Dad’s chair, reached for my chair, I counted, “One lap,” she cruised at high, excited speed along the four chairs on my side of the table, coming back to Mom’s chair, and without a pause, she started her second lap.

This is something that she does whenever she has a chance. She did it during school time one day, which, needless to say, did not facilitate much mathematics! She sings as she goes, making up her own tunes, words, and little screams of excitement when somebody interrupts with a “peek-a-boo!” She has a good voice for a one-year-old!

Why should other people consider taking up this end-of-the-meal habit? Well, let’s look at it scientifically: if she eats a hearty meal (which she always does unless it’s carrots) she might get chubby. Well, okay, she already is. Quite. But she might get chubby-ER! She then gets down and does, say, 8.5 laps around a table that seats 10; that’s pretty good exercise (when your legs are so short, anyway!). Not a bad idea... huh?

Sunday Dinner... Amish Style

You probably can guess who it is writing this blog post, so I won’t tell you. (Hint- remember my guest “disappearance” about making breakfast?) Now, about dinner. We got home from church around 2:30 so we had a light lunch of spaghetti. Does everyone know that on Sundays, the Amish eat sugary, almost workless dinners? Well, they do, and that is what we did yesterday even though we’re not Amish. Only, it did take some work. Perry mixed up a cake, and Mom made frosting for it. Mom also made popcorn! (Popcorn is one of the things on this planet that, um, is really good!)  So we ate cake and popcorn, and for desert, guess what...? Homemade French fries! This was totally disgusting and sort of wonderful at the same time!
Okay, I thought about attaching our frosting recipe at the end of this post, but I think it’s probably copyrighted by Wilton. Maybe if I posted it, I would be hunted by angry cake decorators with their frosting bag canons and powdered sugar bombs! Hmmm... I’d better not.

Henry V, Clay Beads, and Pockets of Sawdust

So here’s some ramblings on about the strange and various things I’ve done lately...

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more! Or close the wall up with our English dead!” Recognize that? Yup, it’s a line from Henry V. We’ve been speeding through the Middle Ages lately (which means a lot of reading) because we’re trying to get done with the Middle Ages and Renaissance so we can study American History. So when we were at a friend’s house and we saw they had Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V, Dad asked to borrow it. It’s so fun when you get to go back and watch movies you only saw a little part of when you were little. Still, though, we had to skip quite a bit of yucky battle stuff, and even that battle stuff we didn’t skip, I didn’t watch. It was interesting, and, boy, could Shakespeare write! Too bad he was so weird; he could have been a great theologian or something! I love the exchange between Henry and Katherine. (And Kenneth and Emma were married in real life.) Henry was so cute trying to find out if she would happily marry him. He said, “Can you love me?” She said, “I cannot tell.” So he said, “Well then, Kate, do you have any neighbors I can ask?” It was a very interesting commentary on the horrors of war... and all that over some land!

Something I’ve found enjoyable lately is to make beads out of Fimo/Sculpey clay. Sculpey is great because you can model with it, bake it hard, and make artsy beads! Some of them I just worked marker into the clay beforehand, and some of them I painted after baking. Then I sanded them to make them look more rustic. I wonder... would there be a market for those online? Can anybody tell me? Or is that just one of those things that people handcraft and overprice and nobody buys?

Okay, my last rambling: oh yes, pockets of sawdust! Our most favoritest loggers (sorry to all the rest), Mr. S and Rob, his son, invited us for a field trip to see them log at their job site! I wasn’t sure I was going to go because I had a lot of school to do, but I’m glad I did because it was interesting. Mr. S (he’s great; I wish he were my grandpa!) had saved some big trees for us, which in my opinion was a pretty cute thing to do. They sure knew what they were doing! It was pretty loud whenever a tree went over! Mr. S, who had wanted to be a logger since he was a boy, saw us watching from the side of the road and shouted “Timber!” after they falled a particularly big one! (You “fall” trees... not “fell” them!) When it was time for their lunch break, they came over and said, “hi” and Mr. S explained to Dad that the timber market was down. While we were talking, he was turning his pockets inside-out and scooping sawdust out of them! Rob just stood there and grinned. Perry said, “Rob, there’s nails in the bottom of your boots!” He laughed. Loggers wear studded boots so they can walk across logs easily. Mr. S explained that, and, since we were walking down the road, Perry asked, “So are you guys only allowed to walk on the road with those on between November and April like studded tires?” That cracked them up! Anyway, here are some pictures. Maybe at a later date, we can post a movie!

Adios, and I hope this wasn’t incredibly boring!

A Great Sunday Activity

We went to the Portland Pro-Life Rally this Sunday! It was good to be there even though it was a long drive to get there, it was cold and rainy, and there was some nervousness about the nature of the rally and the possibility of problematic counter-protestors. Dad dropped Mom and us kids off and went to find a parking place for our van. Shortly after we found a place and were enjoying the speech being given, we began to notice a strange, almost “pagan-temple” sounding chanting from across the square. There was a small group of 125 counter-protestors (according to the news) across the street from the square where at least 3,000 pro-lifers were gathered. From our higher vantage point, the square looked like a field full of mushrooms: people’s umbrellas of every size and color. But many of them had something in common... they had stop-signs that said, “Stop Abortion Now!” Many other signs were there: “Men Regret Lost Fatherhood,” “Women are Hurt By Their Abortions” are just a couple examples. There were many others, and I was quite relieved to see that all these were non-graphic! Then, at the far end of the square, toward the counter-protestors, I spotted the top half of a sign peeking above the KPDQ (our Christian radio station) pavilion. It said, “Meet Baby ‘Choice.’” Okay, so there was one graphic sign, but it was far away and most of the time was hidden by the Christian radio station’s pavilion! I don’t think any of our littler ones without context caught sight of it!

The speeches were really good; I didn’t really realize how loud cheers from 3,000 throats was! (Oops! Now you know I’ve never been to a sports game!) It reminded me of the song, “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing”! There were people there from all sorts of denominations, but united by the common cause of ending abortion in Oregon and in America. One man, a passionate African American deacon, gave a wonderful speech about men needing to step up and be leaders and heroes in this crisis. To save the lives of the innocent! Very good stuff! Very passionate. We ended with a good prayer, led by a former Oregon legislator, a committed Christian and pro-lifer.
Once we were in the van, Dad told us about an interesting experience he’d had. For one thing, he remarked on how interesting it was that nearly all the counter-protestors were college-aged women. There were a few feminized looking young men too, but mostly young women. (To quote the Professor in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, “What are they teaching them in these schools?”) He had been walking down the sidewalk to find us after parking the van. A college-age young woman was walking down the sidewalk going the opposite direction. She was crying. Later, he said he saw her cross the street to the pro-life side and wave her pro-abortion sign (you’ll not catch me calling it “pro-choice”!), making all her friends across the street cheer and yell even louder! Dad said a pro-life lady holding a sign nearby started to talk to her. I’d love to hear the end of that story.
I’m considering doing something interesting... Oregon Right to Life has a short film contest (3 mins. or less, or 30 secs. or less) with a pro-life message. They use them for putting on TV, I think. My parents were encouraging me to try making one since I have a video camera now. (Really exciting birthday present!!!) They gave me some good ideas. That’s something I will be in prayer about!
But for now...
A rainy day in Portland, 3,000 pro-life Oregonians, a big set of loud speakers, many Portland police officers and light-rail security guards, chanting counter-protestors, cheering, prayer...
That’s something I’ll keep re-living, praying about, and seeking ways to help with!
"They have grown fat, they are sleek; Yes, they surpass the deeds of the wicked; They do not plead the cause, The cause of the fatherless; Yet they prosper, And the right of the needy they do not defend." (Jeremiah 5:28, NKJV)

"A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, Is God in His holy habitation." (Psalm 68:5, NKJV)

Be like your God...

"Defend the poor and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and needy." (Psalm 82:3, NKJV)

Now, go read Hosea 13:16! Considered judgment by the Bible!

Firewood

Aimee here,
Wow, today was very interesting.
A man that lives near to us told us we could go get some wood off his land, it was really nice: it was already cut and split (he had hired some guys we know to do it), I guess he just had more then he needed.
Some friends very kindly came and helped us move it and stack it. Thanks guys! They brought their trucks and wheelbarrows, which was very helpful (even though some of the guys could carry 6 pieces in their arms!) Being one of the only females on a work site is very strange because for some reason all jokes, comments, pickings-on, or sniggers when you squeal about a mushroom that’s growing out of a piece of firewood, seem to be directed at you. I couldn’t help screeching a little bit when the whole woodpile almost fell down on me while we were loading up. This seemed to be highly amusing to certain people who will remain nameless! I’m gonna have arms that would look great on a man but rather strange on me (do I remind anyone of Popeye?)—don’t answer that!
We brought the enormous load of wood to the house, and unloaded it into the garage because we don’t have a shed and tarps don’t work. The water condenses on the underside of the tarps and gets the wood all soggy! They parked the truck in the garage door, we made a chain, passed the wood down the line to the stacker, and soon we had a big, big pile. While we were waiting for the guys with the other truckload of wood, we drank hot chocolate. One man was stirring his hot chocolate with a sliver of firewood! Complicated immune system!?!
Ok, I’ve rambled on enough, here are some pics; sorry the lighting is sooo bad!!!