Monday

Today we met up with Kristi and her family--Kristi is a Feingold mom and is homeschooling. We took the kids to Constitution Village for their Alabama History workshop for homeschoolers. It was a lot of fun and I think the kids even learned something. Here are all of the kids together...Bryan, Luci, JT, Sam, and Nick. (See, Kristi, I remembered which one is Sam!) I put all the photos together because each one seems to show the personality of the kids. They were all hilarious! Kristi, you have two smart boys!

Here are (mostly) my kids...waiting in line at the "Necessary House"...doing sums on a slate...Bryan posing behind the girl's cut-out...JT participating in a duel, and doing surveying work.

Afterwards I took Bryan, JT and Luci to the Space and Rocket Center. Luci was relieved she wasn't tall enough for Space Shot...JT and Bryan challenged themselves on the Mars Wall Climb...Luci was relieved that Mickey Mouse does not live there...and we all melted in the 83* heat!

Finally, an editorial on "The Financial Situation" that will make you laugh.

BROKE TO THE BREAKING POINT

Written by Cindy Adams

New York Post
Last updated: 4:53 amMarch 8, 2009

Posted: 4:29 amMarch 8, 2009

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I HAVE decided Washington needs my help. I at least know about paying taxes, which is more than our treasury secretary does.

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I mean, what did I miss? What happened? This country grows wheat. It produces food. Our cows are contented. How did we get broke?

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In the old days the American business plan always worked. A guy with creative math manufactured an item for $1. He sold it for $4. He'd say, "You think 3 percent is bad?" So what went wrong?

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Industry, thanks to our ever-increasing tax structure, is leaving the country. An American entrepreneur comes up with a new idea then a month later the Japanese reinvent it and the Chinese sell it to us cheaper. A businessman can't win anymore. He does something wrong, he's fined. Does something right, he's taxed.

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A few minutes ago the folks who ran AIG were so rich they had their gums capped. Come April 15 we'll now be able to list that place as a charitable deduction. It's become a nonprofit organization.

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Noah was probably the last smart financier. Who else could float a company when the whole world was in liquidation.

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And the whole time TV's know-it-alls, who are fighting with their bosses to earn more than minimum wage, are spouting stuff like: "Commodity fluctuations multiplied by inflationary pressures complicated by international imbalances intensified by political tensions are what's causing our financial instability." Hey, if they don't know, why don't they just say they don't know?

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Everyone's kaput and yet the president says we're on the right road and business is booming. Must be he has a better location.

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The recession's so bad even plumbers are now flying economy. When I started checking into it I was told all this talk about soaring prices of meat and milk and bread is pure propaganda. Sure. Circulated by people who eat. What it really means is your savings won't buy as much today as it did when you originally didn't have any. Or, to put it another way, after you get enough to buy something, it isn't enough. My nephew said to me: "I put some money together to buy my wife a mink. Wasn't what she wanted but I couldn't afford to get her a pot roast."

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A dressmaker I know complains that longtime customers aren't altering new clothes. Why? They aren't buying new clothes. They love her work but she's now not getting work. She didn't invest with Bernie Madoff and doesn't understand how come she suddenly has no money. And her husband asked the paymaster in his plant, "Where's my paycheck?" The cashier explained, "After deducting withholding, state tax, city tax, Social Security, retirement fund, unemployment, insurance, hospitalization, our dental plan and group life insurance, you actually owe us $14.95."

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So I asked this couple: "Are you saying you can no longer live within your income?" And they replied: "You kidding? It's all we can do to live within our credit."

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I met a cloak-and-suitor who was told that if he wanted to survive he had to give up wine, women and song. Told not by his doctor - by his accountant.

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Nobody can afford anything. No wonder Michelle Obama's dresses don't have sleeves.

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Our economy is not in a coma. Our legislators are. The stimulus package they need is in the brain or other unused parts. Handing $800 billion to one company, $765 trillion to another. And a buck and a quarter to each American. I mean, where's all this money headed? It can't all be going to our government officials!

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Everything's tied into this stimulus. Coffee's a stimulant. Booze is a stimulant. Drugs are a stimulant. What Washington's stimulating is rage. The subway fare's going up, the jobs are going down. With today's price of postage it costs more to mail this stimulus than the person gets. Congress should announce: "We are now spending $3 to let you know you'll be receiving $2." And I figured out why it's so expensive to send out that letter. The postage is only 42 cents but it's $4 for storage. In terms of mail delivery, if not for ESP none of us would ever hear from anybody.

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But back to our economy. As I think about it, you can't trust bankers in any case. They can't count. If they could, they wouldn't always have eight teller windows and two tellers.

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I understand the economy is grim. Remember Alan Greenspan? The man hasn't smiled since his bar mitzvah and as near as I can figure that's about when we had The Great Crash.

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And the problem is global although other countries have their own particular problems. Like take Cuba - please! The island's in the Caribbean, the government's in Moscow and the people are in Miami. And the Middle East? Hezbollah officials just released a cable that went to Ahmadinejad saying, "Keep up the good work. You're my kind of guy. Signed, 'Khadafy.' "

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Who I really feel sorry for are the muggers. So few people have cash these days.

Spring Forward! We did, did you?

John thinks I get this big, old bed all to myself. He is somewhat jealous, since he has a skinny, lumpy cot. Here is what I usually find when I wake up in the morning: company! On Sunday mornings when the kids won't get up, I sing this Irving Berlin song--

Oh! How I hate to get up in the morning,
Oh! How I'd love to remain in bed!
Someday I'm gonna murder the pup--
the guy who gets the bugler up--
And then,
Spend the rest of my days in bed!

Interesting bit about the song from here:

Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" is a song written by Irving Berlin in 1918 that gives a comic perspective on military life. Berlin composed it while serving as a sergeant in the United States Army during World War I and used it in a show called Yip Yip Yaphank that he wrote and produced with an all-soldier cast to raise funds for a new building at Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York "There were a lot of things about army life I didn't like", said Berlin, "and the thing I didn't like most of all was reveille."

My method is to keep singing, getting more out of tune and silly as the verse repeats, until everyone is up.

Sorry about all the changes....

I wanted the picture of the Chinese Bouyei village to show in its entirety, so I changed the blog look for about a week. Now we are back to the old view, which I like better. And changed from blue (John's favorite color) to green, in a nod to Spring and St. Patrick's Day.

Wish Blogger had a bunch of templates to choose from, as Vox Blogs do. That would be so much more fun.

Spielberg and Lucas, Take Notice!

Bryan and JT had two boys from church spend the night last night. I looked out the back window today and saw four young, costumed filmmakers heading down to the creek. They look like they might be working on a Star Wars or Lord of the Rings re-make. Lots of fun!

Good Friends!

We were invited to Lori's house last Wednesday. It was so fun! Her kids and my kids are different ages but they get along so well (a bonus that many homeschoolers know about). Another bonus of homeschooling: you can plan your schooling around your visits! I love that!
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JT and Nathan played and JT got an up-close view of Nathan's pet lizard. I am clueless about lizards and don't know exactly what kind it is. Pretty exciting stuff for JT.
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Casey was so sweet with Luci. Casey has some gorgeous baby dolls. Luci had a blast playing with them, and doing "real baby stuff" with the dolls--including applying lotion and using some cute baby bottles filled with a mixture of water and white glue. They looked like they had real milk in them, and were tightly sealed. Clever!
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I got the best part of the visit...a real, live grown-up friend to talk to! Lori and I had fun talking about everything. She even has a little school house in the back yard--that was so neat to see!
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My house next time, Lori!

My, Look How They've Grown!

John was at the Ka bul, Af ghan istan's office of the Corps of Engineers when it was made an official branch of the Corps. Here is the official photo from March, 2004. John is right in the middle.

This is from the 5 year anniversary, taken early this week. I had a hard time finding John in this photo, but Luci found him right away!
Nice coincidence that John was there at the beginning of this office, and there again. There is one other person in both photographs, too--and I'm sorry I cannot remember his name.

A Bouyei Village in Guizhou

Recently a friend (hi, Don!) asked about Bouyei. Here is a village in China that is Bouyei--that's Luci's minority. Sometimes when you travel, you get where you're going and things look not too differently than what you left at home. When we got off the plane in Guizhou, we were surrounded by karst mountains such as these. It was quite satisfying, somehow, to know that we were "in a foreign place."
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More information on Bouyei and other people groups
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photo info:

Shitoucun,Longtanzhen,Guizhou,China.jpg‎ (800 × 600 pixels, file size: 114 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

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Bouyei minority Shi tou village, west Guizhou (near Longgong caves), China. Taken by Ariel Steiner.

Thank Goodness!

Scientist Solves Mystery of Belly-Button Lint

At least he spent his own money on the study.

More Luci-Speak

Heard today:

When I play soccer, I am going to be a good spork.this photo was from a year ago, but too cute to pass up!

A Baseline

Just when I think we are moving right along average with these kids, one of them will do something that makes me wonder what is percolating inside their cute little heads.
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Luci has drawn two pictures this week that have a baseline in them. A grounding. Something for the object drawn to sit upon. I remembered Dr. Faye Doran's class at Harding and wow, got excited for Luci. Luci is four years and just barely four months. Baselines come along for 5 and 6 year olds, in normal, untaught development. I saw her first drawing and tried to not get excited...but two in the space of two days, well! Way to go, Luci!
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Introduction of the Baseline

Snow!

We got some of that snow you've seen on the news. It was lovely, and gone by noon. It's still pretty cold outside, but you can't keep snow around when the sun is shining. I woke the kids up early this morning to play in the snow, before getting ready for church. But it was too cold to stay out! You can see Luci below, complaining to me that Bryan won't help her build a snowman. The boys did build something for me, though. Yesterday I found these little shelving "cubicle" things at Target--on clearance, you can't beat that! They all worked hard and now the cube things are holding some essential toys in the living room.

Library Fun

We finished up a reading program at the library this week. The preschoolers had a Snowman reading program and added parts to their snowmen with each 4 books they had read to them. Here are some shots from this week.
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Kalyn and Luci at the party (Thursday). Luci next to her snowman (Wednesday).

Singing "A Tooty-Ta-Ta". The girls refused to give up their chair!

Luci really gets into this song!

So funny!

Tree Removal

We had 4 trees removed this week. Three were leaning, and a fourth was a little tree too close to the house. So now we get to choose the type and placement of some new trees. Right in time for a unit study on plants! Good timing. Weaver Curriculum, Volume IV, chapter 3.

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Luci was fascinated by all the work. She has on her headphones.

The tree stump here with the big dead spot was the tree that was the most dangerous. It was at least 50 feet tall (I'm sure it was bigger but I do not judge heights well), and very close to the power lines. It would have certainly hit the house if it managed to miss the power lines had it fallen on its own.

This is that dead tree. Taken from the front porch. It was much taller than what this photo shows. If you look closely, you can see the man leaning out of the bucket with his chainsaw. This is the same guy who took out trees at our old house when John was on his last trip to Af ghan istan. Fascinating for Luci!

Hundreds Join in Global Warming Protest

Soccer Evaluation

Excited, but nervous.

Doing her thing. Very slowly, by the way. This is actually a video--not really, but Luci was very slow and careful during every drill.

The film crew. The boys took TWO handycams, and made a nice video for John. They worked really well together, and I am proud of that! We had to explain to every skill station what we were doing. "We brough Luci's film crew so we could send the action to Daddy in Afghanistan." It's a big church, and not everyone remembered where John is. We go to the late service and a couple of people at the evaluations go to another service and so were new to me. :) So glad we have so many who are willing to help our little ones learn a new game!

Bryan thought I was nuts for suggesting he lay down for this shot, but it made a very effective background for the credits in their film. Mama sometimes has good ideas!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

I didn't know...

...that soccer cleats came in such a small size, or that there was such a thing as a pink soccer ball! (and thanks, Mary K and Joan, but there were NO pink soccer cleats in town in HER itty-bitty size! Believe me, we looked everywhere. We may color the stripes with a pink marker--she's already mentioned that!) Upwards Soccer starts soon, and Luci is ready! Links to sign up here.

Yeah, But How Did It Taste?

Bird Suspected to Be Extinct Photographed for First Time ... Then Eaten

Poor Baby....times 2

Poor Baby!

JT looked a little unsettled tonight, so I asked him, "How are you doing, JT?"

He sat in my lap and said, "Why is it when my Dad goes on a trip, they show lots of commercials of kids with their dads?" He sobbed, and I hugged. Poor Baby!

I know how he feels! I was 10 when my Dad had his big trip to the SE Asia area. Too many memories.

Poor Baby!, second round:

Bryan caught what the rest of us had just in time to miss a big teen trip with our church. A 4 day trip to Gatlinburg, for a huge Christian teen conference. Poor Baby.

I am trying to look at the money lost from this and last week's dinner (also at church, the annual teen dinner for the parents) as not a big deal. It would cost about the same to take all three kids to the doctor. (Last week I almost took both JT and Luci to the doc but they got better.) We still all have coughs. I'm so sorry Bryan is missing this super weekend. Last year he came home from that trip closer to God and with lots of great ideas and thoughts swirling around in his handsome head.

A Day in the Life...

Luci had to have her hair up like Mommy after I washed my hair. Yes, she's riding the trike inside. :) She's feeling better--so funny today. Luci took the shot of JT--poor thing has a red nose because of his cold.
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For those of you who aren't able to translate 4-year-old-ese, this says, "Happy Valentine's Day Mommy, I love you." Can you tell she wrote it inside a heart? I loved this!