Journal

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Nov. 21, 2007

These video are of the kids reciting the verses they are memorizing for the Christmas production.

Nov. 20, 2007

• The kids are working on the weekly free sample from Dover Publications. O. dedicated this one to me.
• E. is off with Mom getting his free 3 yr. picture from the local temple of consumption.
• J. is learning her states and capitols. I pay $.10 per correct answer, but she has to me back if she forgets one.
• O. is learning her books of the Bible. Same payment plan.

Update – Added picture we got of E.

Nov. 9, 2007

• 11:03 PM, listening…Hutterite choral music, drinking…Mexican beer, eating…slightly charred chocolate chip cookies, A/C…running, reading…Jacques Ellul.
• Had lunch today at our local Ikea with the wife and kids (by the way this is a funny, read it). Swedish meatballs all around. We exited with $60 worth of goods. The Keynesians will be happy. What does $60 at Ikea get you? An art easel with chalkboard, white board and paper. A swing and some ropes with handles, which have been attached to the frame of old lawn furniture. Also got some beads which the kids use to make things from (sans the date rape drug).
• Tomorrow…two soccer games. Thankfully there are only two more weeks of this. Next year I am tempted to give my daughters the option of soccer or tea parties with Dad on Saturdays for 10 weeks, my bet is they will go for tea.
• Watched Lassie yesterday with the kids (the one where Lassie is in Scotland). The movie takes place during the lead up to WWII. They asked about war and were worried they would have to go someday. I assured them we don’t send our girls off to war. They were relieved. I told E. he might get to go. He was excited.
• Bought “Wall of Separation” by Brian Godawa tonight.

Nov. 5, 2007

• J. had fever and a bit of a tummy bug on Sunday, we had to return home after Sunday school. She is better now.
• E. really doesn’t like getting dressed up for church. Once we got home he let me know he was ready to get into some play cloths, quote, “Daddy, I don’t want to be church boy.”
• J. gets to pick a prize if she memorizes her Bible verse in Sunday school. J. picked a dinosaur for E. She has been talking about it for weeks. Child like faith in action.
• O. and E. are able to play together very nicely for hours at a time. They usually play farm or pretend to be dogs.
• J. awoke Sunday night to tell me about a very vivid dream she had in which she saw our family with eight children. She was very excited about it. I told her that God does sometimes show us things in dreams and there is a chance that this could be true, we pray that it is! I have actually experienced one such event in my life and still shudder when I think about it.
• Fiddle practice is coming along, still can’t play a song or anything but my bowing is improving.
• We went to a nice restaurant on Friday night for a friend’s 40′th birthday. All you can eat Italian food served family style. It was wonderful!
• Cool weather moving in, need to get plastic cover over the garden soon!
• O. is beginning to read. Mommy has been working hard with her on this.
• Will work from home tomorrow.

Nov. 1, 2007

• J. is pictured below testing out the idea of head coverings. Actually she has been reading some of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and enjoys the idea. The pose is all her doing also, she was trying to look sad for some reason.
• E. and Daddy got to fly his airplane during J.’s soccer practice. E. chased the plane with great joy while it flew in large swooping circles overhead. E. also decided to bear his sword against his mother today in anger. Thankfully Daddy worked from home, justice was swift and decisive. We have a fun bed time routine with E. which I will need to record and share with everyone.
• O. asks to sleep with our dog Rockford. I told her when he is two.

Oct. 31, 2007

• Halloween, the holiday I would rather do without. We took Superman and two princesses to a local shoppers paradise to have their bags filled with treats. We enjoyed Mexican food for dinner at a restaurant nearby. Can you guess who the girl seated upside down is in the picture below? If you guessed O. our consistent contrarian you would be correct. A perfectly fitting picture!
• Worked from home, what a blessing to be with the kids throughout the day.
• J. made a wonderful coloring book from scratch for a friends son. A. watches a boy named Stephen and his sister once every one or two weeks. She did a great job and I took some video. I might post it in the near future.
• E. did not let me forget that I promised him a sword fight, one I didn’t get to.
• If you’re interested I added my notes/thoughts from last Saturday’s events at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival. You can read them here.
• And for a family with no cable TV and one tiny antenna in the garage this was the best news of the day for Dad. I will try to merge this with exercise time as to not neglect any of my other duties.

Oct. 30, 2007

• A. and I went to San Antonio for the weekend and attended the 2007 San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival. We had a wonderful time, I have posted the details of the first full day here. The kids stayed with Granny and Papaw.
• E. and O. both shot Daddy’s new pellet rifle on Sunday.
• Last night E. engaged an evil knight in battle with his sword in order to defend two beautiful princesses. He fought ferociously. Daddy learned that plastic swords can really hurt.
• Cold weather is not far off, need to start thinking about getting some plastic over the garden. A few large tomato plants are finally putting out some fruit but they seem to fall off before they get ripe.
• Short and sweet, until next time!

Oct. 22, 2007

• I hope my neighbors know the man chasing rabbits down the street at midnight with pellet rifle in hand is just little ol’ me.
• Cold weather has arrived.
• O.’s conversation with Mom…”Did you know three plus two is four?”…”No, three plus two is five, if you had two M&M’s and I gave you three more you would have five.”…O. replies promptly…”Let’s try that!”
• A lot of sword fighting tonight with the kids. Each time I fell to the ground from the wounds delivered by my opponent O. would promptly run to me and snuggle extra tight, even when it was her that dealt the fatal blow.
• J. sang hymns tonight and announced that she knows all of the verses to “O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing”. She learned them all on her own! I announced to her that I don’t think I know all of the verses to any song!
• E. got a haircut tonight, Daddy does the cutting. He was a bit worried. I lopped off a lot of shag, and he could tell it felt different.
• The photo below was taken at a small park in Bowling Green, KY. The kids got to release butterflies that had just arrived in the mail. They come packaged in envelopes and as the warm up in your hand they fly away.

Oct. 21, 2007

• Watched Gattaca tonight with the little lady. Not a bad movie. Some folks seem to think modernism is passe, someone needs to tell the geneticists, hear there are chimera afoot even as we speak.
• One less rabbit in our county tonight, I will not speak of the nature of this particular rabbit’s demise, I will just say it wasn’t pretty. Sure feel sorry for those fellows that work down at the slaughterhouse, must do something awful inside a man to earn a living in such an environment. Killing is ugly no two ways about it. I am sure these men need our prayers. The more I think about it the more I am convicted this system of doing things is wrong headed. I recall one summer my grandfather butchered one of the barnyard chickens and cooked it. I can’t recall if I ate it, the color was wrong to me but I am sure I was not as appreciative as I should have been. Feel pretty awful about it now, wish I could go back, would do a lot of things differently.
• Garden Update: Amazing small caterpillars can do so much damage! Hard to pick them off the plants. Discovered that a small stiff paint brush works very well. Might need to dip it in a bit of Sevin now and then or put some on the ground to make sure the don’t crawl back up on the plant.
• E. brought his sword to church tonight but we told him to keep it in the car, we carry the sword of the spirit around these parts.
• O. was interested in a picture on my desktop depicting a scene from Virgil’s Aeneid. The painting is called “Aeneas Flees Burning Troy” (pictured above). After describing the events of the picture O. told me in no uncertain terms she was never going to ever visit that place. E. bearing sword in hand piped in that he was ready to go! Daddy was proud. We have never got around to decorating E.’s room and potential themes have been “World Explorer” or “Alaskan Cabin” but now I am thinking “Weapons of War”. I might need to run that by the misses.
• Children study catechism at church once a month. As we were driving I looked in the mirror to check on kids I see Jenna with catechism book in hand studying. Very proud of her. Have I told you she is a joy to teach? She is!

Oct. 20, 2007

• Two soccer games today and a birthday party for a one year old. Windy and warm today. E. and I spent most of our time flying a new airplane with small battery charged propeller. Surprised it flew so well in the wind, went at least 1/8 of a mile at one point.
• Awoke to discover my small garden was attacked by rabbits last night. I noted some damage a few days ago but last night they had at it. Almost all my young carrots are gone, 1/5 of lettuce, some Swiss chard also. Made a run to sporting goods store and picked up .22 caliber pellet rifle. We will be serving up rabbit stew soon. Caterpillars are also back, hitting my cabbage hard, insecticidal soap not doing the trick, will hit them with Sevin tomorrow. Sure hope the wind dies down.
• We rented two fiddles this week, one for the kids and one for A. and I. So far so good. Have not thought of a name for the band yet. O. named the dog and she did pretty good so maybe I will let he name the band. I figure we will fiddle around with the fiddles for a bit then pick up a mandolin. All three kids seem to enjoy short bursts of practice here and there. I think Alison also likes it.
• Tonight at the birthday party Alison mentioned to another guest that I had been speaking to her about infatuation…I corrected her and told her I was speaking about inflation. The topic came up because he had recently visited one of the Federal Reserve printing facilities. We ended up in a detailed discussion about the causes of inflation. Only later did I determine that he manages investments and research for some billionaire oil types. Ultimately his view was inflation good, weak dollar good. I learned a few things but we disagreed on a number of points. At the very least it was excellent conversation for a kiddo birthday party. The cake (strawberry) was excellent.
• E. got a two dollar sword for his birthday, he carries it everywhere. At the pizza place last night he was using it to attack bad guys on the video game screens. He also got a nice homemade Thomas the Train blanket. He now sleeps with 1 rocket blank, on top of 1 flower blanket, 2 (not sure) blankets, 1 tractor pillow case, and 1 Thomas the Train blanket…he will be warm this winter.
• O. performed a very giggly song for me while seated on the toilet just before bed. Something about 1 hammer, 2 hammers, 3 hammers…and so on. With each hammer a let or arm started to swing. At 5 hammers she just about giggled and shook herself off the toilet.
• J. is great fun also but also very responsible. Tonight she wore jeans and a nice white blouse. She looked so grown up! She took charge tonight while the kids were batting balls off a tee and made sure everyone took turns leaving Daddy free to debate economics!