Garden Club 5/ 22/ 09

I think I missed a couple weeks, so I may have lost our few Garden Club members... spring is such a busy time here!

Anyway- my garden is looking great. My peas, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage all look great, but as of yet have no fruit on them. I am not sure if they will just look good but not produce, or whether we are still OK.

We have been eating turnips every day, so my spring garden wasn't an entire loss, I suppose. Oh yeah- and lettuce is still producing, although our spinach bolted. The kids don't like it as much, and since I send them to cut the salad greens before dinner, they didn't get much of the spinach.

Our peppers have flowers coming on them. Tomatoes are small, but we have solved our cutworm problem and they are now growing. Cucumbers are starting to vine. We have lots of cataloupe and watermelon planted, so we'll see how these do.

We are getting a few strawberries a day, but not enough to even give everybody one. I am not sure we'll keep them, since to give enough space to grow enough for us to feed us would take a whole other garden.

Our fruit trees and blueberry bushes are in the ground and looking great. We'll only get about 4 apples this year, and a handful of blueberries, but soon they will be fully producing. We have room For about 5-8 more fruit trees. I hope to get them in the fall.

Green beans are growing up their poles, but something is eating the corn... I am guessing it's deer. That particular garden is not fenced yet.

I have Thyme and Lavender from last year. The Thyme is ready to be cut back and dried. The lavender has lots of buds. When they bloom I will dry them too, hopefully for a wonderful sachet of potpourri!

And, although it is not from my garden, it IS part of feeding my family, we bought 3 flats of strawberries and made two of them into 20 pints of jam. The third one we froze whole strawberries to use in smoothies. The children LOVE to add milk, frozen strawberries, and a little sugar (or a lot depending on which child is adding it... I have one who figures if a little is good, a lot is better. We're working on it!). Yum, Yum!

That's all that's going on in my garden!!! What's growing in yours?

Mercy Medical Update... May 2009

We had a WONDERFUL series of tests/ appointments in Cincinnati early this week. On Monday we had an echocardiogram, EKG, and meeting with the cardiologist. He said she looks, "Fantastic." Her heart size is reducing, which we suspected as she has a lot more energy. He had not seen her hemangioma since we started the propranalol, and was amazed at the reduction of the mass.

The next morning we had an MRI, but we don't have the results yet. Then we went to do a blood test which shows whether her body is making whatever hormone the prednisone replaced for two years. We won't get the results for a week or so.

From there they did a scan of her spine to see about the bone density. Evidently long term prednisone use can reduce the bone density. These results came back PERFECT... as if she never used prednisone. This is a miracle.

Then we saw Dr. Adams (hemangioma), Dr. Azizkan (head of surgery), and Dr. Elluru (ENT). They were all thrilled with her progress. She has an ear infection in the bad ear, so we have antibiotics. We also increased the propranalol, since she is doing so well cardiac wise.

AND!!! We don't have to return for 6 WEEKS! We have NEVER had a 6 week break from doctor's appointments. In this busy time of year, I am thankful to not have to go to Cincinnati!

In other Petersonclan news, Josiah fell off a slide at the park and hurt his foot. It is evidently not broken, but he is in bad enough pain for it to be. So he is out of commission. Lucky him... he now has no excuse to not know the Bible verses for the week. ;)

Off to make strawberry jam and weed the garden. Have a great day!

Bible Bee Schedule Week 2

Hello, fellow Bible Bee participants!

We had a VERY successful week in our memory... especially since the leaders at Bee headquarters took off the highest levels for the local contests. All the girls made the memory goals, and are drinking their choice of hot chocolate or tea in celebration.

The boys came a little short, but they both did pretty well, so we count it a success all the way around.

I am changing things a little this week... we will still take the verses we need to work on, but I have divided it between the days of the week, so they have certain portions to work on every day. Just saying, "Memorize these by the end of the week" was a bit too broad for a couple of them.

If the verse has a * next to it, a portion of this verse was memorized last week, so we already know a portion of it.

So here is our goal for Week 2:

Category 1

Psalm 34: 8-9 (M)
Psalm 34: 18-19 (T)
Psalm 56: 3-4 (W)
Psalm 90: 1-2 (Th)
Psalm 100: 3 (Th)
Psalm 119; 10-11 (F)

Category 2

Joshua 1: 7-9 (M)*
1 Samuel 12: 22-25 (M)
1 Samuel 15: 22-23(T)
1 Chronicles 29: 10-13 (T)
Psalm 19: 1-4 (W)
Psalm 32: 6-8 (Th)
Psalm 33: 6-9 (F)

Category 3
Psalm 1 *
Psalm 8
Psalm 18: 30-36
Psalm 23 *
Psalm 32

We will continue to learn 5 Bible Knowledge questions each week, and will continue to work through Genesis at 3 chapters a day... this week will be Gen. 31 - 45.

We are all having such a good time doing this together as a family. It is a wonderful tool!!! I do quiz the kids each day on the verses they have memorized, maybe for about 10 minutes a day, but the children are doing this.

I have all the OT verses printed out with just the first letter of each word. We have put these on the backs of our cards. If you want to have these, please contact me. I will try to send them. I have them in power point, but if you don't have that program I can try to make it a PDF file to send you. Just e-mail me at: petersonclan at momys dot net.

I will be out of town for Monday and Tuesday taking my little one to Cincinnati for a couple days of tests, so if you do not hear back from me until the end of the week, don't worry. I'll get to you!

Bible Bee... finishing Week 1

We have been working diligently (or not so diligently depending on the child...) on our Bible Bee memorization, etc.

Yesterday the headquarters sent out a new explanation of the regulations... stating that the younger children only have to know Categories 1 and 2, and older children Categories 1, 2, and 3 for the Bible Memory sections of the local contest in September. They will add one level if they make it to the National level in November. This was a relief to us all!!! They decided that they would work on the verses for the local level, and only add the additional level if we continue on to the National competition.

Josaiah stated, "The Lord has heard our cry! The Bible Bee People have taken away some of our fear!!!" I thought that was pretty funny.

Taking one level off for each of the children made us able to keep up with our schedule. This would not have been the case if they still had ALL the verses to do. All except one child (who has learning issues) will have memorized their sections of verses... I am posting the updated list here for those of you who want to either give the children a pop quiz as you see them, or use the schedule for your own studying.

Category 1: Week 1:
Genesis 1:1-2
Joshua 1:9
Nehemiah 9:6
Psalm 1:5-6
Psalm 19:14
Psalm 23:4
Psalm 23:6
Psalm 23:4-5

Category 2: Week 1
Genesis 3:14-15
Genesis 8:20-22
Exodus 15:11-13
Exodus 34:6-7
Duteronomy 1:29-31
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Deuteronomy 32:1-4

Category 3: Week 1
Genesis 1:26-31
Genesis 2:20-25
Leviticus 19:11-18
Deuteronomy 7:7-10
Deuteronomy 8:2-6
1 Chronicles 16:23-33

We are in good shape to complete these... Anna, Emma, and Matt are all memorizing Categories 1 and 2, and Angela and Josiah are memorizing 1, 2, and 3.

Oh yeah- and Sara (age 5) has memorized all the category 1 verses for the week, and Nate (age 4) has done the first two or three. They are too young to be registered, but they are listening to all the quizzing and studying around here and picked it up.

Yes, it is a hard thing. Yes, they have to work on these. But it is possible. It is even good for them to have such a high goal. I encourage all the parents to stay positive, and keep telling the children they can do it. They CAN do this!

The Bible Bee, Week 1

Our studying for the Bible Bee is in full swing here on the "farm". We are all a bit excited, and a little overwhelmed, at the scope of this challenge. We started out a little slowly, but we are in full gear for this week.

First we cut out some of the verse cards and put them on index cards with holes punched in them. Then we put them on rings... my ever present combo of index cards and rings... I love those things.

We started in to work. They "worked" all week while I was trying to figure out how to break down the verses into the 16 weeks we have to study. There are really 18 weeks, only we have two weeks of vacation built in.

At the end of the week I had them count up the verses they memorized... most had done 7 or 9 verses in the 5 days. One learned 15, and my eldest learned 34. She had worked really hard.

I delivered the news that the two younger children had to memorize 15 verses each WEEKDAY, and the bigger kids needed to do 25! Wow were we all shocked. So we needed to figure out a way to memorize more effectively... we fell back to our old standard of putting the whole verse on one side of the cards, and just the first letter of each word on the backs... so Joshua 1:9 (a category 1 verse) would say on the back of the card, "HIncy? Bsavc. Dnbt; dnbd, ftLyGwbwywyg."

I figure if we spend some time at each meal reading over the verses for this week using just the first letters, and the verses for next week using the full words, we will have read it over many times and they should have an easier time remembering them.

This leads us to knowing which verses need to be learned each week... I plan on putting up a full schedule on the blog for those who are studying for the Bee, but until I get to that, here is the first week. We counted out the number of verses in each Category and divided it between 16, so we would know the amount to memorize each of the 16 weeks.

Category 1: Week 1:
Genesis 1:1-2
Joshua 1:9
Nehemiah 9:6
Psalm 1:5-6
Psalm 19:14
Psalm 23:4
Psalm 23:6
Psalm 23:4-5

Category 2: Week 2
Genesis 3:14-15
Genesis 8:20-22
Exodus 15:11-13
Exodus 34:6-7
Duteronomy 1:29-31
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Deuteronomy 32:1-4

Category 3: Week 1
Genesis 1:26-31
Genesis 2:20-25
Leviticus 19:11-18
Deuteronomy 7:7-10
Deuteronomy 8:2-6
1 Chronicles 16:23-33

Category 4: Week 1
Genesis 2:15-25
Exodus 20: 3-17
1 Samuel 2:1-10
Nehemiah 1:4-11

We also go over 5 Bible Knowledge Questions every day (25 a week), and 3 chapters of the books we need to know from the Bible. So for Week 1, we are discussing (and outlining) Chapters 1-15 of Genesis. (Eventually we will have gone over Genesis, 1 and 2 Samuel, Matthew, Acts, and Romans.)

Yes, this is a lot of work. I think it is good for them... when else are they going to be able to have the undivided time to hide God's word in their hearts? Certainly not as adults. I am pretty sure that none of us with our old and weary brains are up to this challenge.

We are basically done with school (legally only need 5 more days, but don't tell them that!), so as long as they do Math (and read) every day, they can choose to work on these verses or do the other remaining school.

What is more important? Grammar or Bible? Of course Bible. So we are taking the time this summer to do this. We may not be able to memorize EVERY verse they ask us to. But we will have memorized far more than if we hadn't tried to do it. And that is a winning situation no matter how you spin it.

Oh- and people who see us in real life... feel free to stop my children and give them a pop quiz... ask them any of these verses at the end of the week. Hopefully they will reward you with a word perfect rendition of the verse.

Here is a video I snuck of some of the children reviewing their verses... evidently they had to jump off the swing if they got something wrong. They did not know I was videoing them... it sounds as if they are right next to me, but really they are across the driveway. I did ask all their permission to put this online.



So is anyone else with me out there? Are there other families working on hiding God's word in their hearts in preparation for the Bible Bee? Let's join together and let each other know how we are doing!

Warning: A photo heavy post!

In honor of Mother's Day tomorrow, I am posting a bunch of my favorite reasons to be a mom. ;) We had a fun day at our friend's house the other day, and now the kids are begging for a cart pony. I already vetoed the snake, but could be very convinced of the pony. I have it on great authority that if the children are all outside with the pony, the house stays clean. It's worth the try!









And now: in order of age... a few of my favorite reasons to be a Mama!

Angela... age 16...





Matthew ... Age 15 ...



Josiah ... Age 12...



Anna ... Age 9 ...



Emma ... Age 7 ...



Sara ... Age 5 ...



Nathan ... Age 4 ...



Mercy ... Age 2 ...



Bethany ... Age 10 months ...



And now, at the risk of bogging down your computers, but because I have so many beautiful photos of my children taken while they and friends were playing with cameras, some of my other favorites from the last couple weeks:













These all show Emma so very well... her personality is wonderful!

Garden Club 5/ 8/ 09

Good morning garden friends! Anyone else having this horribly WET week that we are? I am sure that once the sun in out our plants will grow like gangbusters, but right now they are a little soggy!

We did have ONE quick moment of sun... I blogged about it Here. The gardens are mostly weeded, except for the one which has corn in it... since corn and grass look similar, to say the least we need to wait to see which is which.

My peas look wonderful. My beans are growing, and the strawberries are flourishing. My broccoli and cauliflower are weak. I doubt they will be doing much. My peppers look good, but the tomatoes are still weak. We'll see if they grow or die.

Something is getting into the side garden, through the fence we put up. I suspect it's rabbits. They seem to like one of the three boxes over the others... all I have are stems left in them. Cucumbers, tomatoes, anything... just stems. Anyone have any ideas for keeping the critters out? It is right next to the house, so I thought the dogs would do a lot to keep things out, but maybe not.

It seems that Mr. Linky is on strike today, so just leave your links in the comment section.

Hope you are doing well!