You Can Pick Your Friends...

Everyone has heard the old saying about picking your friends, but not their noses... however- evidently around here we can pick our friend's CHILDREN'S noses. Guess you can do that in Kentucky.

We had our wonderful friend Lisa and Kids over for the night a couple days ago. It is such a blessing to get back together with old friends. People we have enjoyed friendships with throughout the years. We were all together in an OCF Bible Study as newlyweds... only 1 child between the 4+ couples. Now we have 21 children between us. A mighty army for the Lord (even though their Dads are Marines...). It was so nice to remember all we have come through together, and to have people who love us, even after years of separation.

So anyway- Lisa and children arrive for the night. We have a delightful dinner, and the children all enjoy chasing chickens in the twilight. We give baths, and get them going to bed, all laid out slumber party style. About 45 minutes into the relative peace and quiet of 14 children giggling and chatting in their sleeping bags, Lisa and I get interrupted by one of her daughters coming downstairs crying because her nose hurts.

Turns out she has a BEAD up her nose. Not a nice, round, nose fitting bead which could be blown out by plugging the other nostril and having her blow really hard. (I know how to do this sort of nostril blockage removal from the time Emma put a corn kernal up her nose...). This was a Y shaped bead with plenty of air space to keep us from being able to blow it out.

So out come the tweezers, and enter Dr. Eric. He does have a medical background since he flies an EMS helicopter you know. (That's a joke... he's just the pilot. But all sorts of people assume he can treat anything.)

It takes about 1/2 hour, but we finally extract the bead from the child's nose. Sigh. She didn't even get to blow it on Eric's foot. I was going to give her a bowl of ice cream if she did that. ;)

Do these things only happen to MY family?!?!

Bible Bee Study Schedule Week 4

We were on vacation last week, so we took a week off from learning new verses. A couple of my more motivated children used Thursday and Friday to solidify the ones they were weak on, but other than that and a little reviewing we took the week off.

So we are back at it full swing this week. We will continue doing 3 chapters a day in 1st Samuel, and 5 knowledge questions a day. We will memorize the following verses this week:

Category 1:

Matthew 11: 28-30 (M)
John 1:1-2 (T)
John 1: 14 (W)
John 3:16 (W)
John 3:19(TH)
John 3: 35 - 36 (F)

Category 2:

Psalm 95: 1-7a (M)
Psalm 100 (T)
Psalm 102: 25-28 (W)
Psalm 103: 1-5 (Th)
Psalm 103: 20-22 (F)

Category 3:

Psalm 33: 13-22 (M)
Psalm 34: 1-10 (T)
Psalm 36: 5-10 (W)
Psalm 49: 7-13 (Th)
Psalm 71: 14-24 (F)

Garden Club 6/5/09

Can it possibly be Friday again already?! Wow has time flown. Last Friday I was quickly posting, because I was also needing to pack for our trip with my family to the Smokey Mountains. We left Friday at 1, and returned Wednesday afternoon. It feels so good to get back to our house and get into the normal routine! I have so many little ones that being out of normal routines gets very, very difficult!

I'm going to post photos, but I will tell you up front that they are from last week. Today I was too busy actually weeding the garden to take photos of it! Lisa from Best Life... here are your photos of my "farm"... let me know if you want to see anything else. ;) My wish is your command.




But on to my garden. I was delighted to return to such wonderfully cool weather. My peas, broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower are LOVING this weather. We have actually been able to eat sugar snap peas the past few days. Yummy!!! We still have some lettuce, and the spinach is big and needs to be eaten. I was thinking of making a lasagna with it, as I think it is going to be more bitter than we want on our salads.



I also saw some little cabbages and cauliflowers developing... that is so exciting! I have never raised those crops at all.



We are having a tough time keeping up with the weeds currently, between weeks of rain and our little trip. We will need to be out weeding every day for the next couple weeks to get them under control. They WILL get under control if we keep at it. I learned last year that if we get them under control early in the season, we will have less to do when it is very hot in the summer. Isn't this true in life? If we get the sins (weeds) under control before they take serious root then we will have much less work in the long run.



I really love weeding. This morning was so beautiful. Cool, the birds were singing, and I could SEE progress. I could see where I had been, and where I still needed to go. It is such a satisfying feeling. Much more satisfying than washing dishes or folding laundry. Am I weird in that? Maybe it's just me. :)



Broccoli/ Cabbage/ Cauliflower


Beans


Watermelon and Cantaloupe Hills


These are very unsatisfying photos as the gardens are MUCH fuller today than last Friday. Maybe you'll just have to subscribe to my blog so you don't miss if I spur of the moment decide to take the time to put up current photos!!!

Oh yeah- I found this link while perusing blogs this morning... check out this greenhouse. I'd revamp it a bit to maybe put the roof on hinges so it can open up if it gets too hot (the man who posted it was in Scotland... I doubt they have that problem there!), but I think it bears looking at here. Just for the record, we rarely buy soda, but I am sure enough others in our church drink it and we'd be able to get their bottles.

They'd have to be washed out well or the extra syrup would attract ants. Ugh!

Mr. Linky is not functioning, so we will just have to leave your links in the comments. If you have trouble commenting, please e-mail me your link at petersonclan at momys dot net and I will put it in for you.

Happy Gardening!

My Wise Husband

We are back from a quick trip with my family to the Smokey Mountains. Vacations are fine, but it sure is nice to be home. Especially made wonderful since my checking out my garden led to a handful of sugar snap peas able to be eaten at dinner last night. With our pancakes. But I tried not to think about that.

I did have to say that I have a wonderful husband. On the way home yesterday, we were talking about my latest idea to get us closer to self sufficiency in the all elusive attempts to stay out of Stuff Mart. After about 15 minutes of telling him the pros and cons of the different options he says,

"This has Hair Brained Scheme written all over it."

And to my chagrin, it probably does.

But it's a great idea...

(Humble Muse... call me. I have an idea for you.)

Garden Club 5/ 29/ 09

With the perfect combination of rain and sunshine this week, my garden has been growing beautifully. We have lots of flowers on the peas. My broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower is growing but as of yet has no fruit.

The rest of the plants are growing strong. We were out weeding several mornings this week, and still only got about half-way through. Luckily we have plenty of time to get rid of the weeds. So please just ignore the weeds in the photos. You can do that, right?

We are toward the end of the lettuce, one of them is bolting. So I am going to let that one go and try to get the seeds from it. The rest we will cut today and see if it grows back or if it is too hot now.

My lavender is also about to flower! I am excited for that to happen.

Once again, I have run out of time before posting photos... they are on photobucket, so maybe I'll put them up when I have time. Also- Mr. Linky is still not working, so just leave your links in the comments section.

And Happy Gardening!

If the Shoe Doesn't Fit...

This is a re-run from Feb. 13, 2008... but it is too great of an idea to forget.

"Recently my husband and daughter were preparing to go with our church to the jungles of Ecuador for a week. The only boots Eric had were cracked in the sole, and I was uncomfortable sending him to the jungle with boots which may fall apart before the week was done. So he went to Stuff Mart and bought a pair of waterproof hiking boots.

Unfortunately, the left one was just a tad too tight once he got them home and tried to break them in. That would not work while hiking into the deep jungle, either. So I remembered reading something in Tightwad Gazette #3 -

We put a ziplock bag inside the boot and put some water in it. Then put it in the freezer. After it was frozen, took it out and pulled out the bag of ice. It had expanded just enough to stretch the boot and fit him just right!

I was so proud of this idea I just had to share it!"

This is linked to Works for Me Wednesday. Hope you all are having a great day!

Bible Bee Study Schedule Week 3

We are trucking along on our Bible Bee Memory and studying... The girls are completely caught up, the boys are a bit behind. One of our friend's boys is studying hard because he cannot stand the thought of GIRLS beating him. That psychology is not working on my boys, though I am proud of them!

Some of the people who live around here have asked me what exactly IS the Bible Bee, anyway? You can look at the website here. Basically it is like the National Spelling Bee, only with Bible Knowledge and Memory. In my opinion, much as I think it is important to spell well, I think it is more important to know and love the Bible.

There will be a local competition here in our little town on Sept. 12. The top 100 students in each category in the nation will go to Washington D.C. in November for the national competition. There are significant prizes offered for the top 3 students in each category, but the biggest prize is going to be gained by all who participate... increased knowledge (and hopefully closeness to) our precious Savior. Already, after just two weeks, my children know between 150 and 200 more verses than they did before. That is a winning situation, no matter whether we progress to the national level or not.

For those of you reading who are local, we DO have need of the help of about 10 people who don't have children in the competition... I have 4 who have agreed to help us. If you would like to help correct tests, give the tests, or judge the oral rounds, please let me know.

I have received many questions from people who are having their children also memorize for the competition. This is NOT an easy amount of scripture! We spend time every day working together. We read the verses at mealtimes. I try to quiz the children several times a week... reviewing all the verses they have learned so far.

So THEY are doing the memorizing, but we are also doing it together. It is a family effort. I could use the Bible memory times, myself, so it is all good.

We are going to finish Genesis this week, and start in on Exodus. We are continuing our efforts to learn 5 quiz questions a day, also.

So- we are actually on week 3 of our studying. This week works out that we have 5 verses from each category. We will be memorizing the following verses this week, one each day from each category:

(The * means that a portion of the verses have been already memorized in other categories.)

Category 1:
Psalm 119: 103-105
Psalm 126: 5-6
Proverbs 15: 1-2
Isaiah 26: 3-4
Matthew 9: 37-38

Category 2:
Psalm 37: 1-6
Psalm 66: 16-20
Psalm 71: 16-18
Psalm 85: 8-13
Psalm 94: 8-12

Category 3
Psalm 33: 13-22
Psalm 34: 1-10*
Psalm 36: 5-10
Psalm 49: 7-13
Psalm 71: 14-24*

I'd love to hear from others who are working with their families in preparation for the Bible Bee! Drop me a line!