Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Life is So Full of a Number of Things: Facebook Friends

Life is So Full of a Number of Things: Facebook Friends

Here is a boundless article on Facebook that I liked:
http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001990.cfm?utm_id=emailafriend&utm_campaign=1

Photo Record

Allie & Annie

Taliah, Jared, Anneke

We were watching the buffs to make sure they didn't wander on to the road. That was our "rodeo" day. We spent all day getting them rounded up and back to their own pasture.

Jason, Jim and Jeremy gutting turkeys in the yard.

Jared on the trampoline at Uncle John & Aunt Melanie's

Sweet times with Uncle Arnie

An amazing evening with Mr. & Mrs. Finnamore

Taliah had her first manicure by her cousin Lacey.

She also lost her first tooth that week.

Reading glasses

Shooting blow darts with Uncle Scott

Anneke & Taliah

Aiden's U8 Soccer team

Uncle Andrew's singing "Bill Harlan's Goat."

Alethia likes to play dress up.

Twin Time

I'd Rather Be Gardening, Wouldn't You?

It's just that I have a love affair with summer. We have had the most delicious nights with the sun setting late. I can smell the lilacs, the apple blossoms, the grape blossoms; it's a heady, swoony feeling. I want to go out and check the seedlings one more time, swing on the tire, dig a bucket of dandelions, reintroduce my bare feet to the soil, walk, run, go on a road trip, read a great book, dream of childhood, climb a tree, hold hands, name the constellations . . . Don't you?
Every summer I get this feeling of intense longing. I remember feeling it in Kansas as a child, in Nebraska wtih Grandma & Grandpa, in Cote d'Ivoire as a teen, in Wisconsin as a young adult, and still now. The other day I was driving down a tree-lined lane in North Platte, seeing ladies working in their lawns and people walking and garage sales and I felt so overwhelmed by longing that my chest was tight. I long for peace and rest from drama & worry. I long for all the pains I pray for to be healed and no longer burdensome. I long for there to be an evening of pure childhood innocence of the world's evils. As I was driving that day, it occurred to me that what I am pining for is Heaven! At first I felt a little dismayed that I never can completely have these longings fulfilled here, but then a quick sense of relief and a little more understanding of the meaning of Heaven. There will be no night there. Just basking in the light of Jesus' glory, and OH! Pouring out all my stored-up worship for ever and ever, and green growing things and peace.

Sick Day

Except right now the ibuprofin is working, so I'm upright for awhile. We had NO sickness in our family all winter until March & April, when winter began in earnest. It's been nothing but noses since then. Since the end of February, we've had a blizzard a week. So while spring was on our minds and the garden was in our hearts, we had to find something to do with all that cabin fever.

Jason took up mandolin. He can already play several chords smoothly.

I took up Dickens and knitting. I decided to read Little Dorrit after seeing part 1 of a 5-part miniseries on PBS. I was so intrigued, I went to the library that week and found the (800+ page) book. It's been so long since I read a novel, I forgot how they consume your thoughts. Charles Dickens is sarcastic about social structures, compassionate for orphans, and develops his characters so richly. The main character, Little Dorrit is so good as to see through the best intentions in us. Her family is so bad as to embarrass what we see of ourselves in them. Perhaps not coincidentally, I am reading George Mueller to the kids right now. His life work took place in Dickens' England. Dickens can paint such a dreary picture that I love reading of all the light the Mueller's were shining at that time. I thought I'd like to knit because I like to wear knit clothes and it seems like a useful skill. So far, only one stitch mastered.

Aiden & Taliah took up Adventures in Odyssey. Like good little descendants of Johnsons, they can quote episodes with the best of them.

Jared took up a computer game. We hadn't let him play on the computer before this spring. He likes to "color" pictures of David & Goliath, but especially Goliath.

The twins took up toilet training, finally of their own accord. Praise be to God!

I wasn't there to take pictures, but Aiden got to attend his first branding. He was the brand caller for awhile, and he can't wait for his next one. They got him to sit on a calf, but he wasn't quite ready to ride it. He also learned a few new words. He told Mr. Miller, "We need a steer-maker over here."

"It Was A Wild March Day"

This here is a quote from our current "read aloud" (to use a little homeschooling lingo). We're just finishing Mountain Born, a book about the lifecycles of a European family of shepherds. Every time we get to the end of a book, Taliah gets tears in her eyes, because she doesn't want the story to end. Speaking of literature, we were thinking of

Storybook Bears We Love

The Berenstain Bears

Winnie the Pooh

Little Bear

Moonbear

Cordouroy

Paddington

The Three Bears

Can you think of any more? Let us know.

March has been ripe for harvesting kid soundbytes.

Here are a few:

ALETHIA: (watching Jared carry a big box) Jared, awesome!

ALETHIA: My unnerwear hurts.

ALETHIA: I dooted. (A statement which brings great delight to her 8-year old brothers heart).

ANNEKE: My buns falling down.

ANNEKE: No! Not daaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!

JARED: (singing) If I were a caaar, I'd fank you Lord for giving me wheels.

JARED: Mom, did March come out like a monkey, or a lion?

TALIAH: (while beating eggs for an omelet) (crooning) Poor little chickens who couldn't be born. . .

TALIAH: (wrote her name on a teeny scrap of paper and handed it to me) That's for when I'm married, in case you forget me.

ME: Thanks. You mean after you're gone? . . . .

. . . I don't think I'll ever forget you, though.

TALIAH: Just in case.

AIDEN: (upon being scolded by Taliah for his bread-making mistake) Hey, I don't know how to make bread! Boys are supposed to work; girls make bread.

AIDEN: Dad, do you want to know a fact about Mars?

AIDEN: Mom, you look like a rancher in Hank the Cowdog.

Spring is . . .

Calling outside, and I just spent thirty-eight minutes trying to update this blog and get pictures from the camera and change the background and write about spring. But now it's been 39 minutes and only one of the list accomplished, and minutes during the twins' naptime are precious . . . . Perhaps next week I'll be able to write about spring. Hang in there, dear readers.