Our Journey Westward » Family

Birthday Boy and Baby Jesus

Cindy — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:35:30 +0000

My little guy will be three on December 23rd. Time flies!

Because of the busyness of Christmas and my nephew’s birthday soon after Christmas, we always celebrate Eli’s birthday just a tad early. Three year olds have FUN partying!

Our church celebrates Jesus’ birth a tad early, too. Last night was the annual Christmas pageant. My sweet little cow was more like a bucking bull who wanted out of his pen after the birthday party excitement. He lasted just long enough to sing his song (first thing) and was completely done being cordial and pleasant. Mahayla was the angel Gabriel (yeah, I know, we don’t have enough boys.) And Caleb was the wise man bearing myrrh. It was a busy day, but lots of memories were made!

A Thanksgiving Getaway

Cindy — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:16:23 +0000

My 87-year-old Granny isn’t well. She lives in Alabama with my aunt and uncle who are doing a wonderful job caring for her. We were so blessed to be able to visit, along with most of the rest of my extended family, for a Thanksgiving reunion.

We took the opportunity on the way home to take a three day I-65 mini-vacation. First stop, Birmingham. We visited the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, which is a wonderful walk through the Civil Rights battles of the 20th century. Photos weren’t allowed in the museum, so I don’t have any to post. You’ll have to trust me that it’s an excellent field trip if you’re ever near Birmingham! We also walked through the Kelly Ingram Park just across the street from the museum and viewed the outside of the 16th Street Baptist Church where four children were killed during a violent bombing by the KKK in 1963. Unfortunately, we also had the opportunity to view several homeless people in the area, too.

Second stop, Huntsville. I can’t tell you how much all of us from the two-year-old to the 39-year-old enjoyed the US Space and Rocket Center! Real rockets, hands-on exhibits, life-size models, demonstrations, 3-D and IMax films, three rides, a playground, a rock climbing wall and more kept our attention from open to close. This is a trip my children will talk about for quite some time!

Third and final stop, Franklin, TN. It’s a beautiful little town with lots of character! I wish we could’ve spent more time touring and meandering, but a Civil War reenactment was taking place at the Carnton Plantation and that took up most of our day. Plus, the troops were beginning to wear down and we knew too much more touring and hotel hopping would send them (and us) into grump city – a place we didn’t want to visit!

Sorry for the picture-intensive post. I hope it didn’t slow down your computer too much!

Redneck Paintball and Shaving

Cindy — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:49:05 +0000

Have you ever heard of redneck paintball? I hadn’t either! Our preacher’s wife was in charge of the family event at church this month and her brilliant idea was redneck paintball. The kids had a BLAST! And, as you can see from the pictures above, my husband did, too!

The weapons are mustard or ketchup covered marshmallows. Each team is trying to approach the other team on the other side of the field to steal their flag without getting hit twice by the paintballs. FUN!! (And messy.)

That same morning, my nine year old decided the two year old needed a quick shave. The pictures were priceless!

The Pumpkin Patch

Cindy — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:20:31 +0000

A family in our church owns a pumpkin patch/ corn maze, and they generously host the families of our church each year for a cookout, hayride and free pumpkins for the kids. It’s always GREAT fun – and this year was no exception!

The rule was each child could take home any pumpkin they wanted as long as they could carry it by themselves. Do you see my little one walking near his daddy? Yeah, that was Eli’s pumpkin that he needed “just a little help” carrying.

Moments with Eli

Cindy — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:52:17 +0000

Before bed, Eli asks for a tractor story every night. From the picture above, I guess you can tell where his passions lie right now. The other night, he told me a tractor story – his first ever story by the way…

“Mommy, I tell you tacter tory tonight! Once pon time, Ewi ride tacter and Daddy ride tacter. They did fix barber wire so cows tay in. Me-cans hewp. Ewi did dwive fast. Daddy did dwive fast. Ewi put crewdwiver, hammer and naiws on wagon. I carwied hay on wagon, too. I do wike hewp Daddy. De end.”

Translation: Mommy, I’ll tell you a tractor story tonight! Once upon a time, Eli rode a tractor and Daddy rode a tractor. They did fix barbed wire so the cows would stay in . Our Mexican friends helped us. Eli did drive fast. Daddy did drive fast. Eli put a screwdriver, hammer and nails on the wagon. I carried hay on the wagon, too. I do like to help Daddy. The end.

Two and a half year olds are so precious! He is always making me smile. I thought I’d take a few minutes to jot down some memorable conversations as they are ever-fading…

Steve and the big kids passed by the house with a wagon full of hay to unload. Eli said, “Mommy, mommy, can I go hewp, too? I not a wittle boy anymore, I a big man.” After this, he proceeded to flex his muscles and growl. (He got to go help. ;o)

He hates bandaids. A sore on his finger really needed a bandaid and some ointment. He kept taking the bandaid off. When I told him the sore wouldn’t heal without the bandaid and he really needed to keep it on, he looked at me just as matter of factly as possible and said, “I’ll let God heal my finger inthead.”

We have a deal right now. He doesn’t want to take naps anymore, but he doesn’t want to give up the diapers for #2 either. As long as he continues to poo in diapers, he has to continue taking a nap. He’s good with the deal and so am I!

He’s my little nature walk buddy. I guess since he’s so close to the ground, he’s really good at finding awesome nature treasures. Anytime we take a walk, he says, “We’re going on a nature walk!” And about every two feet I hear, “Wook, mommy! Wook!”

He went trick-or-treating for the first time last year and loved it. What kid doesn’t like getting a big bucket of candy, right? I asked him last week what he wanted to be for Halloween this year and he immediately said, “You mean candy Halloween? I like dat!”

Eli is always concerned when he sees a child or animal without its mommy. If he’s watching a cartoon and sees only one of a certain animal for instance, he asks, “Where dat baby’th mommy?” He never seems to worry about the daddy, though. He just says, “The daddy probwy out checking cowth.” Hmmm….Steve, ya think you might check cows a little too often??

At the Creation Museum, there’s a presentation where the chairs shake once in awhile for effect during the show. After returning from the museum recently, Eli was giving his daddy a rundown of the day…”And thomebody was crawling under our chair to make it move!”

Eli looked deep into my eyes one afternoon and finally said, “If you give me your big rolling ballth (balls), I’ll give you my wittle rolling ballth.” He was talking about exchanging eyeballs! I found out later he’d offered the same deal to his sister!

Caleb had a loose tooth that he really wanted out. He tied a string to his tooth and a door knob. This scared Eli and he begged Caleb to stop. He cried and called for us. When we told Eli it was okay and left the room, Eli took matters into his own hands. He grabbed a pair of safety scissors and cut the string so Caleb would have to stop!

He and his brother and daddy wrestle sometimes. Eli’s wrestling name is Cheesy Charlie. His daddy always starts the match by saying, “And in this corner…Cheesy Charlie” while he lifts his arm in the air. Then the match begins. The other day he walked up to me in the kitchen and asked me to call him Cheesy Charlie. I did and he said, “No, you have to lift my arm up.” So I went through the motions like his daddy does and he ran into the other room to his brother and sister and said, “Now I’m ready to fight, who wants to wrethle?”

To his sister, “Thithy, you’re my betht fwiend.”

To his mommy, whispered, “You’re beautiful.”

After seeing our wedding picture he said, “Mommy, I did thee you at your wedding. I’m gonna have a picture at my wedding, too.” (Who are you going to marry, Eli?) “Mommy and Eli will get married.” He’s the third man in my life who’s wanted to marry me at one point or another. I don’t think Steve’s too jealous, though.

I’ll end with one of Eli’s recent prayers…”Dear God, wank (thank) you for Bubby’s go-cart working, wank you for my thwides (slides), my big thwide and my wittle thwide. Wank you for my mommy, my daddy, my thithy, my bubby and my Ewi (Eli). Wank you for Jethuth (Jesus). Wank you for God. Amen.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Daddy’s Retirement

Cindy — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:56:55 +0000

Below are some pictures from my Dad’s retirement parties. He worked at a hospital for 30 years – in the laboratory for about half those years and in the technology department for the other half. It was quite obvious that those he worked with loved him very much and I was so glad they asked us to be part of his celebrations.

His department gave him a lovely catered dinner the evening before he retired. It was a complete surprise to him which made it even more fun. The day he retired, the hospital held a reception with cake, punch, a powerpoint presentation of his 30 years and two lovely Paul Sawyer prints. It was so neat to see how special he was to his coworkers, employees and friends!

So what’s next? Well, he and my mom are preparing to go on their dream vacation of a cruise to Alaska and they’ve just purchased a small camper for traveling. I’ve already informed him that he gets to teach biology (especially dissection) next year. And the way Algrebra 1/2 is going, he may get to teach it this year! I’m excited about his new chapter of life and I’m pretty sure he is, too!

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Seining – A Family Event at Church

Cindy — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:13:31 +0000

Most of you probably remember that my husband is the youth minister at our church. We try to be as family oriented in our activities as possible, making sure there is at least one family event per month. This month’s event was planned by a very neat family that used to homeschool and love the outdoors. We went seining in the creek on our church’s farm!

(Seining for sport is actually not legal in Kentucky, but fear not, we were only seining for educational purposes. All the “catches” were put back into the creek unharmed.)

Our big “kids” – my husband and the gentleman who planned the event – enjoyed the seining tremendously. Everyone else did, too – for a time. Then there were bigger and better things to tackle.

Here are a few nature shots I took while I waited on the creek’s edge with Eli.

And here’s Eli deciding his turn had come to get in the water.

A wonderful time of food and fellowship ended the evening. What better way to worship God than enjoying His creation with brothers and sisters in Christ?

Summer Time!

Cindy — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:07:54 +0000

Whew! I’m ready to get back to school just so I have an excuse to stop the insanity! LOL! What’s been keeping us busy lately?

: Softball

: Nature walks

: Fun days out with friends and family

: A music, art and food festival

: Walks with Grandpa

: Games with Grandma

: A VBS Carnival

: Caleb (and the other kids) could’ve done this all day!

: None of them minded being dunked!

I know I’ve been MIA a little lately. Between all these fun activities, the garden, planning for school and writing the next set of NaturExplorer units, I haven’t had much time for blogging. I have several posts in the hopper, though – how we planned our family VBS, a wonderful family event we did at church recently, the coming school year plans and some wonderful nature walk finds. Hang in there. I’ll get to the posts and start updating my sidebars soon. Hope you’re enjoying your summer!

Mother’s Day

Cindy — Sat, 16 May 2009 12:36:55 +0000

Being a mom is truly one of the most precious gifts the Lord blesses us with! I have wonderful children and I thank God so much for them – their sweet little hearts, their funny spirits, their creativity – the list goes on and on! Here are just a few memories from Mother’s Day this year.

Mahayla made me a homemade bouquet of flowers.

She (and Steve) made me a flower press. She even started a wildflower nature journal for me to use!

Caleb was inspired by our trip to the Cincinnati Art Museum and made a sculpture for me.

We were so lucky to be able to spend Mother’s Day afternoon with Steve’s grandma and family!

I hope your Mother’s Day was just as special!

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Easter is Just Around the Corner

Cindy — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:29:54 +0000

Here is a compilation of my favorite Easter resources…

Nature Study Through the Holidays helps to prepare your hearts for Easter through a unique, Christ-centered nature study tied into the Biblical account of Jesus’ final week, including His death, burial and resurrection.