HomeLife
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard
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Happiest of Birthdays my Little Piper Finn
You guys. Despite our absolutely telling her to stop – this kid of ours named Piper Finnian Willow Lacey has been growing up. Right before our eyes. It hurts my heart, I tell you. Hurts my heart something fierce. She is SEVEN. I know it’s the lament of every parent at every birthday. But I just can’t believe how quickly these years keep piling up. I was going to spend this post writing sweet things about my girl. But I got distracted when I typed her name in my “search” button and began reading the snippets of her life from this blog. She is so funny. Always has been. And so…
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Otto can wear whatever shoes he wants. And I’ll tell you why.
In case you’ve lost track, we have six children. Our sixth child, our youngest son, at five, has been lately addicted to a pair of shoes we purchased at the last minute for a wedding he was in. A pair of black slip on shoes that are not my personal style for my child and are not anyone’s personal style to be worn with camo shorts. And yet. He does. Nearly every departure from our home will find Otto Fox in an ensemble that includes comfort clothes and black fake leather slip on shoes. He calls them his “inside shoes”. His inside shoes that he insists on wearing outside…
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Colorful Family Pictures.
If you’ve seen the Keigley kids lately wandering around here and there you may have noticed our five year old son has a pink streak across the back of his hair. Maybe you saw that London has reddish dye all across the tips of her hair. I have a green streak somewhere in the back of my hair and our hands were all multi-colored for days. It’s not that we’re really into color vibes or hair dye. It’s more like this: Our lovely friend Jane is a photographer. A week or so ago we had a family photo session scheduled at our house. She sent me a text. It said –…
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Wildwood Halls of Ivy: Let The School Year Commence
Hello school year. It has arrived. This will be the year I teach five children at our home. That’s a lot of one-room school house learning. (I’m sure there are homeschool moms who teach more.) On our first day we did a little pantomiming with friends. And there were costumes worn to class because, uh, homeschool. Last year, of course, our curriculum was based on The Little House on the Prairie novels. This year we’re moving to the Chronicles of Narnia novels. (Kevin keeps joking that next summer, instead of visiting the Laura Ingalls sites in the west, we are all going to Narnia. He should be careful with that…
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and speaking of …
Somehow I still feel like I’m catching up to myself after our trip this summer. Which wasn’t like two months long or anything so you’d think I should be just fine and all caught up. I still haven’t even taken the time to write a post about my second favorite stop on our trip – Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Mansfield home, where she actually penned (literally – penned) the entire set of nine novels. And I think all I’m talking about lately is how I am off track on all courses. I have felt some comfort in the fact that I am not alone. Maybe it’s just the season – it…
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Summertime Blues
I don’t have my act together. School begins this week and I’m basically prepared for that. But all the rest – you know, regular life details – I’m just not really on top of lately. Maybe it’s the return from such a happy, busy summer adventure. Maybe the lack of structure has me feeling plain lazy. Maybe I just don’t care for doing dishes or washing laundry or sweeping floors. Maybe I really want to just lie still for hours upon hours and play board games with my favorite six year old and read Charlotte’s Web out loud for the twelfth time. I don’t know. But I know I do…
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mid-week smattering
One week from today the Wildwood Halls of Ivy opens their doors again. This summer has been speedy. (Like they all are.) Sometimes our kids ask to paint their faces for no reason. Sometimes I say yes. This week we have a family portrait session scheduled with our lovely friend Jane. I wonder what level of mayhem will ignite. I think it might be time to cut Bergen’s hair. Just a little. When we hike with our friends we look like a commercial for Keen. Every time we get together to hike I think I’m in decent shape. Every time we finish the hike I remember that I am not.…
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home.
You might think, from my sudden silence here, that I have fallen in the prairie grasses and am wandering aimlessly on some South Dakota dirt road. I am not. We made the trek home – we’ve been home all week actually. And it’s probably taken about that long to reclaim our days – we’ve been trying to catch up on sleep. Going to bed late and sleeping on the ground every evening makes for some tired kids (and grown ups). We’ve spent the week home reclaiming our jungle of a yard – apparently it rained non-stop here at home and the yard formed its own prairie to welcome us home.…
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Tricks of the Trade: Storing Our Souvenirs
This summer’s Prairie Adventure is crashing in at our door. blink. blink. And the car will be loaded and we will be on our way. (I only wish packing a car for a two week trek was that painless. I really do.) Last year I saw this idea on Pinterest and I snagged it for last spring’s Harbor Island vacation. First, I purchased a plain wooden suitcase-looking box at Hobby Lobby. (It was only about $6 with my 40% off coupon. Man, I love that store.) Next, I painted the box. Harbor Island’s box has a yellow coat. Then we packed the box in the car and took it along on…
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Cross Country Cousins
We were blessed by a wonderful summer treat last weekend – a visit from our Wyoming cousins. You know, it is not often when West meets East and it had been far too long since our family has had the pleasure of being in the company of these two sweet girls. The kids had a fabulous day together – playing games and dressing dolls. Carlee joined in London’s scone-baking business and the girls baked together. What a pleasant event to witness! We tried out the zip line and the slack line, posed for a series of endlessly silly pictures, colored together, made friendship bracelets and enjoyed general happy togetherness! Harmony…
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A Slew of July Fourth Memories.
Oh you guys. You know July Fourth is my favorite holiday. And I’m not home writing now and typing this post – I’m embracing internet-less good times at The Farm in Virginia. And I’m sure I will return with photos too many and stories too much. But – right now I’m just giving you a little weekend reading. I’m linking up as many July Fourth posts as I can find and more than you probably want to see. Here you go ….. The one with London in a red cowboy hat and Piper making pouty toddler faces. The one with a picture when we tried to create a Camp Fourth…
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It’s winner time!
I confess. My track record here is poor. I think I was late on announcing an earlier giveaway. Can you guys ever forgive me? I sure hope so. I was busy today – taking the kids on an early morning guided bird walk with an expert ornithologist. Watching World Cup Soccer. Watching my friend teach the kids how to make those fun old school friendship bracelets. You know – stuff. (Sounds like I spent my day mostly watching other people do cool stuff. That’s probably accurate.) At any rate. There IS a lucky winner of Jo’s fabulous giveaway. And that person is ……. Angel! Angel – you are the winner! Congratulations!…
Keep Reading . . .
these days ….
This Age.
five finds friday (except it’s four because I ran out of time)
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The Slack Line.
Last Christmas (Wait. Was that seriously six months ago already?) our kids’ main Christmas present was a zip line. It’s been jolly good fun. That gift was part of a concentrated effort to make our yard Fun. We want our kids to play outside. And we want our kids’ friends to want to be out there too. With those thoughts driving us, Kevin also purchased a slack line. A slack line is just basically a nylon strap that you cinch between two trees and then you try to walk across the nylon strap – tight rope style. Wild and crazy people string them very high and even attempt stunts from the slack line.…
