Discovering, Breathing, Enjoying, and So On...

Yes, I have been extremely busy! You can just look at our church calendar and see at a glance 2/3s of what is filling our time. Add to that birthdays, celebrations, social events, and family ministry--wow!

Today's blog post is going to be a little different. So many awesome things have happened that I'm going to just share a few pictures of some of my favorite experiences. ; )

We celebrated Chum's birthday by feeding "eatmeal" to ducks at the park. He had a ton of fun!!

Chap and Uncle Paul watching the ducks.

Love that sweet smile!!!

Yeah, this is what I mostly did. ; )

On that same day, Pearl and I discovered our first Little Free Library! We had the back of our van full of rejected stock for our used book business, so we decided to take the time to fill the library with an assortment of books. It was so much fun, and we can't wait to do it again! ; )

Our evenings have been mostly occupied by church Bible studies. It's been a really good time of learning and fellowship! Mom, Aimee, Anna, and I are also going through the Botkin's Reclaiming Beauty study with some friends of ours and their homeschool group. We just had our third session today, and it's been really good so far.

Anna and I spent a huge chunk of one day decorating the backs of our notebooks with things we love. (Mine is on the left and hers is on the right.) ; ) It was a great sister togetherness time, and we were sad when the project ended. ; )

What else have I been doing? Well, living, experimenting (more on that later), discovering (love this creative community!), editing ("Mara"), breathing (glad to hear it, aren't you?), cleaning, studying (real Mount Sinai!!!), enjoying, loving, and learning (the Levites were presented to God as a "living sacrifice" just like we are to be!). 

Oh, and um... stories... Perry Elisabeth is hosting a short story contest!!! I'm so excited, and I can't wait to start on my submission. Also, if you go to my page on Noble Novels, you'll find the fifth part of "The Twin Arrows". (The suspense is building!!)

It's been an awesomely blessed week and a half! How was yours?

Josh Gwoban

Happy Leap Day, everyone! I hope you are enjoying this day since it only comes every four years. (Well, presidential elections do too, but that's a totally different story.)  I don't have a lot of time for blogging at the moment even if this day is "extra", but I thought I'd share with you a few hilarious videos we recently discovered. (Please be mindful of the fact that YouTube is a secular site. I also cannot wholehearted endorse the words of the first song since I've never been able to understand them all.) ; ) Enjoy!

Let's say you take a dramatic song like... maybe this...

\

and you do something like this to it...

Then you get us singing along to the dramatic version in husky little kid voices and just cracking up over it. (Add to that that we are coming off a cold so we're husky anyway...it's pretty great!) Poor Mr. Gwoban, though. I bet he's never been able to sing that song normally again! Especially after this...

Pretty awesome, eh? ; P

The Story of Sparkle

Once upon a time, not too long ago, a curl was born.

Or maybe it was a sparkle. Whatever she was, she did both. And as she grew...

And grew...

And grew...

And grew...

And grew, she continues to do both spreading her unique love and laughter to everyone she meets. Today is Aimee's 21st birthday; and we are so grateful for the hilarity, decoration, and love (and sparkles) she brings to our life. Happy Birthday, Aimee!

The Misplaced, Normal Friday

Well, this post was originally supposed to be for Friday. I totally intended to draft it and post it that day. I had the time for it. Only problem--I didn't know it was Friday. I've been one day off all week. ; ) It happens like that when you don't look at the calendar for a week and a half because you really don't need to. We were too sick to go anywhere for several days so everything was on hold.

We were all flat out on the couches at some point or another watching probably a million movies and feeling worth half a cent. We recently pulled out of the fevers (although congestion still lingers), and it has been such a blessing to have our health back again!!! Friday (even though I did it the dishonor of thinking it was Thursday) was, consequently, one of our first nice, normal days in a while. I always love those.

There was weeding (gorgeous job, Mom!), PianoGuys music, first taste test of the homemade orange juice the little girls and I had made the day before (that day was pretty normal too--making orange juice and a doll tutu), the tail end of Sense and Sensibility (Aimee loves to watch movies while she does laundry), tons of work for our used book business (sorting through it all, listing some, and finding out that we have a ton to turn into the used bookstore for credit!), and then...an Amazon adventure.

That's right. An Amazon adventure. And I'm talking about the Amazon that has a smile instead of snakes. Just near the beginning of when we were getting sick, Amazon had me to do some focus group work for them and a phone call interview that included a complementary gift card. GIFT CARD. Thank you. Let's just say, without gloating, that it was a big one. So you might be hearing about some more Amazon adventures lately because--it was a big one.

Anyway, my normal Friday did have it's spark of the exciting because it is always exciting when you've been tracking your package while working on other things and "out for delivery" is staring you in the face. And then you take a few enthusiastic little sisters to the mail, and there is your gorgeous, fat yellow mailer.

And you have this inside...

Yay!!! You have been patient long enough and not bought "inferior" ebook copies! You may now hold, sniff, and love (that can also mean bend) real copies!!!

And take pictures of them with your dorky green couch in the background! Yay!

You may also see the back cover of the book you test read and point out to your siblings that your name (and your book's name!) got to be on the back. ; ) I always find it so cool to see something I've test read be published and know that I've helped in a tiny way to get it published. It's especially awesome because this time I get to read it with the illustrations. ; )

But back to normal Friday. I interrupted my siblings' projects to specifically show them Through the Tunnel since we had all gotten to help out with the snowflakes inside. They were all thrilled to see their own creations in a real book, and the credit with their names telling that they had made some. Even Anna who hadn't made a snowflake but helped me trace everyone else's was included with a special thanks that both surprised and delighted her. Here's my snowflake...

But the day wasn't over. Now I'm not so sure it was normal; because now that I think of it, it was pretty exciting. I guess I just use the word normal for "not-sick-or-too-busy-or-overly-stressed-out-day". Daddy brought home a little ice cream to celebrate how normal the day was and some Valentine's Day flowers for Mom. That ice cream was so yummy!!!

After the younger sisters were in bed (have I told you about their reindeer names? Hmmm... I may have to get special permission...), Dad, Mom, Paul, Anna, and I watched "Beyond the Mask" together on our starry projector. It was Paul's and my second time around (I enjoyed it way more this second time!), but the others had never seen it. Dad and Mom both really liked it (which is a huge compliment to an independent film!), and so did Anna; so altogether it was a hit! ; )

So, that was my nice, normal Th--Friday. ; P Lots of good excuses there for not posting. ; ) How was yours?

Sick Day

Last weekend, we were at the Southwest Family Vision Conference hosted by our church and a few others in the valley listening to amazing sermons like "Conforming Marriage to the Image of Christ and the Church" by Scott Brown and "Are Family-Integrated Churches Legalistic" by Greg Thornberg. (There were many others, but those two are my particular favorites.) ; ) We were also enjoying fellowship with friends from church and making new ones.

This weekend is a bit of a different story... We are keeping company with lemon/ginger tea, zinc lozenges, elderberry tincture, and crackers. Mom carries her thermometer like her life depended on it, and we are keeping the hours of retired people. (With an emphasis on the tired...) Kid Snippets, VeggieTales, and other random family friendly movies have been the daily fare; and yesterday the living room was a regular sickbay. (The dog even got in on it deciding that the end of the mattress on the floor was perfect for napping on.) We seem to be on the mend as far as high fevers go, but we are all still very tired.

Sometimes it takes being sick to make us grateful for health, and I think we are all excited to get back to our regular everyday lives no matter how ordinary they are. ; ) So, here's to being patient and riding it out and eating chicken soup!

Just Another Gift

“God who is the Creator of the world is also the source of knowledge for the Bible. God does not lie or contradict Himself. True science is a search for the truth of God’s world. The Bible is truth. By the very nature of the two, they will not disagree.”

~ My science textbook “Investigating God’s Orderly World”

Today I am thanking God for the privilege to be schooled and discipled at home where my book lessons never contradict my Bible ones! ; ) 

I also wanted to thank you for bearing with my short, infrequent posts this month. ; ) We've been really busy with everyday life, ministry stuff, and our church's conference; but I hope to be back soon to update you on these adventures or move on to telling you about new ones. ; ) Thanks for reading!

Real Men Wear Pink (Helmets)

This week has been really amazing, but I think this part has probably been my favorite...

Sorry, boys, your aunties really don't own any other helmets. Pink is the only option. You both look awesome anyway!!! ; )