London Eli Scout
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
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Book Club: Island of the Blue Dolphins
Book Club. I’ve been loving it since it began. February brought us Island of the Blue Dolphins. I think Scott O’Dell should have put the author’s notes in the front of the novel this time instead of the back. It wasn’t until after I read the entire book that I realized that the fascinating story was based on true events. This was the first novel that London, Mosely and I each read separately. London first. Mosely second. Me third. Surprisingly, London was a big fan. She actually discussed this book on her own, pre-book club. (She reads books and usually responds with – “it wasn’t my favorite”.)…
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Bergen Hawkeye, HomeLife, Keiglets, London Eli Scout, Mosely Ella Claiborne, Otto Fox Wilder, Piper Finn Willow, Riley Amber
What They’ve Been Up To Lately
Scrambling eggs. Becoming increasingly obsessed with The Lord of the Rings. (Despite the fact that none of our children have ever watched even one of the films.) Saying “happy new year” after every sentence, regardless of appropriateness to the conversation. Speed reading through The Hobbit. Taking her first college level science class, complete with weekly three hour lab. Painting drumsticks red without anyone’s permission. Wearing a Snow White costume on top of her normal clothes. Reading food labels and researching soy lecithin. Attempting to stop sucking her thumb every morning and forgetting about the challenge every evening. Baking Aunt E’s Famous Pizza Dough recipe solo. Creating miniature paper cutouts of…
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six flags over georgia.
Summer reading programs abound. In fact, I often lose track of them. Suddenly it’s September and I realize that I missed out on the chance to get three free books from Barnes & Noble. Six Flags offers a year-long reading program that we took advantage of last school year. For reading the required number of books, each child receives a free ticket (and one teacher ticket too!) to the Six Flags amusement park of your choice. We chose Georgia. And yesterday. Thanks to my kind friends Hannah and LIndsey, Otto and PIper were well cared for all day so that they did not have to wait in long line and…
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words fitly spoken . . .
I know I’ve written about my kids being that still, small voice of God to me sometimes. So many times I’ve been convicted by their words and their actions and have been forced to reconsider my words and my actions. And while later, after the fact, I’m prone to lean toward being pleased with my children for their clarity of thought and their purity of purpose, during the moment of the revealing of truth I am blindsided by something else less flattering although equally familiar. Pride. Humility. A quick flash of frustration that a nine-year-old has a higher degree of sensitivity than myself. You know, feelings like that. And so,…
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nine. 9. number nine.
When you wake up as a nine-year-old and your name is London Elizabeth Scout this is what you do ….. You wake up to your special requests coming true. Fruity Pebbles and the Sunday comics in bed. (Yep. Fruity Pebbles. Gasp!) You are allowed to open your presents before your cake. (You should know that agreeing to this decision was strongly influenced by Daddy. Mommy prefers the long wait and the building up of anticipation.) Now you have your hiking backpack for our future adventures. You get to choose our day’s activity. A day at our local water park. (How convenient that the library gave away tickets for the water…
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swim lessons.
Isn’t it weird how one moment can change your life forever? And how your life is actually kind of made up of loads of life changing one-moments? I mean, you don’t really know it at the time, or you do, but you can’t really wrap your brain around it. And as parents we are watching those moments happen practically every day. When I think about this for too long, I begin to feel as if I’m swimming in water way too deep for me. And it’s funny that I use a swimming metaphor because it’s last week’s swim lessons that got me started thinking like this in the first place.…
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lo-mo
A sister is a little part of childhood that can never be lost. -Marion Gerratty
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in the gallery
On her own, all the time, London draws. She holds her pencil contrary to the way in which I showed her in kindergarten. But like so often in her eight years, she has discovered her own way to approach a task and she has mastered it in that unique manner. This time, her pencil captured Otto Fox Wilder and all the treasures that matter to him. And I could not have done better. This I know.
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a magic number
I am so enjoying eight at our house. I love the way London is a deep thinker, a kind leader and an amazing artist. She is such a good protector of her baby brother and she is so capable of real, helpful tasks. She can ride a bike, catch lizards, read stories and a few weeks ago she made a red velvet cake – plus cream cheese icing – entirely from scratch, completely by herself following the directions in an old family cookbook. It tasted delicious. It was like eating a miracle. That she was once a dependent little thumb-sucking infant and now she is all of this. That’s astounding.…
Keep Reading . . .
Six Steps to Hiking & Adventuring With Kids
hello out there.
The newest little human.
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art.
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. ~Pablo Picasso I adore the works of her not-quite-so-small-any-longer hands. I hope she never stops creating. Never stops imagining. Never stops putting pencil to paper. I want her to remember that she is always an artist.
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little eyes.
I was sitting at the dinner table. Completely zoned out. Staring into space. London interrupted my intergalactic moment. “Why did you do that thing with your lip, Mommy?” “What thing?” I asked. I had no idea what I had been doing. “This thing – ” And she demonstrated. And then she explained, “That’s the thing you do with your lip when you’re angry.” Little eyes. Always watching.
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8.
Is a birthday all about the presents? Is it all about the family meal? The one where you get to choose any of your favorites, regardless of the combination, and have them served to you on the special birthday plate? Of course not! A birthday is about celebrating the life of someone you love, someone you know, someone you are so glad was born on this earth and you get to go about your days hanging out. Even better – you get to be family. Forever. A birthday is entirely about celebrating that person. And this weekend we celebrated our brand-new-eight-year-old . . . London Eli Scout. There are not…
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a little late night change
Sometimes it is only in retrospect that you recognize a moment that signifies a shift in your story. But sometimes, when you are right smack dab in the middle of the moment, you know something noteworthy is happening. It’s not necessarily a life changing moment, so much as it is a moment that will define a time period. You know, like the summer my family moved to the dairy farm when I turned 11 or the time I wore hot pink glasses for an entire year. That kind of moment. Last night, Kevin and I stayed up veryveryvery late helping London create just such a moment. We took our little…
