Swim Lessons

Swim lessons started today. Both Ben and Rosemary can take them at the same time but they are in different classes. Each of them only have one other person in their class, so they should get lots of help in these coming weeks.

Ready for her lesson. This girl wants to swim!

Ben was a little hesitant at first, but we had prayed for both Rosemary and Ben not to be shy when class started and God answered that prayer. Both went boldly to their teachers when the time came.

And God also answered our prayer for nice enough weather so that they could have their class. There was even some sunshine and the rain waited until we had walked inside to pick up Charlotte.

While they waited their turns, they would occasionally chat as they sat on the side.

Jumping in

Ben’s jump

Cave Painting

So in the official first chapter in Story of the World, we learned about nomads. I’m finding that we need to carefully navigate through these early chapters, but they are certainly capturing Rosemary’s interest.

For this chapter (which because of VBS covered 2 weeks) our big activity was cave painting. It was mentioned in our reading that nomads lived in caves so I found the chapter on the Lascaux, France cave paintings in our art book and did a very short lesson on the paintings found there. Then we went into our ‘cave.’

Before we got in we turned off all of the lights in the house.

We had a limited color palette of just pale yellow, black, brown, and dark red and she could mix colors from there. And apparently cave painters preferred to dress in costumes. :-)

Tracing her hand.

I took this one without the flash. It was really dark in there! Initially we just brought in a little lantern that Rosemary got from a Chick-fil-a kids meal, but we needed more light so I got my little LED flashlight.

While we were “in the cave,” I got super sleepy. I couldn’t sit up straight, it was nice and warm, almost completely dark, so I laid down while Rosemary painted. And I completely fell asleep. On the floor. Under my dining room table. Rosemary asked me how I could sleep on something so hard. I told her that I had no idea!

Anyway, Rosemary thoroughly enjoyed this activity. I painted a bit of the things on the left (before I fell asleep), she did everything on the right.

Vacation Bible School @ Trinity

Last week, Rosemary and Ben attended VBS at Trinity. They both had a blast. This was a big step forward for Rosemary. She attended two years ago and hated it…wouldn’t even go last year. This year, she was a completely different child. She has grown so much in that time. And I am so thankful for God’s answer to prayer! New and different situations are not as overwhelming this year. And Ben was great! Drop off a couple of days was tough, but he was doing that for preschool even at the end of the year. Once he got into the groove of things though, he had a great time too.

Ready to head out on the first day.

The last day the kids sang in the worship center. I was so proud of Rosemary and so touched by the kids singing praises. I just sat there (in the front row at Ben’s request) with tears in my eyes. I wish that I had brought the video camera. It was wonderful.

Rosemary beside her friend, Caitlyn

The kids thoroughly enjoyed VBS. I think they would have gone this week too if they could.

Happy Father’s Day 2012

We had a pretty low-key Father’s Day with church, David’s BBQ, and spending time at home. We are all so thankful for Jonathan. These kids really have one amazing father.

The Big Moving Sale

My parents will be moving out of their home for the last 17 years this week. Our family went down for a few days to help them get ready for a moving sale.

Our first day down, Jonathan emptied the attic so we spent some time sorting through that. It was a bit of a walk down memory lane for me. I found my UF and William and Mary admission letters, certificates that dated back to second grade, pretty much all of my high school notebooks (embarrassingly, one of my math notebooks I opened wasn’t labeled…I think it was calculus, but I have NO idea…I remember nothing), and little bits and pieces of my childhood. Most of it made its way to the garbage or recycling. I saved a few things. Less than a box, down from 3 or 4.

The next day mom and I sorted and priced everything that was going in the sale. We got most of our work finished in the morning, which was good since it was pretty warm. That night, we got the house picked up and furniture labels up.

Friday morning we were up at 5:30am so that we could start setting up at 6am. Our first customer came by at 6:24am (someone walking in the neighborhood) and we had advertised that we were opening at 8am. We knew there would be early birds.

Here are a few of the before pics I took when we opened Friday:

The full-sized bedroom set. I’ve always loved this furniture. It went fast on Friday.

By the end of Friday, the couch and tables were gone. On Saturday, the recliner sold. Jonathan really wanted to find a place for this at our house, but we have no room. But Jonathan’s parents bought it so that he still will have a chance to sit in it.

The dishes on the table sold, but the rest in this room was donated.

Lots of toys on Friday. Almost all were gone at the end of Saturday.

A “few” Christmas things for sale…and mugs too.

More Christmas and décor items.

Tons of stuff in the driveway too.

More stuff

Mom and Mrs. Hewson ready for the crowds. On Friday it was almost constantly busy. My mom’s friend, Mrs. Henderson, also helped out, which was great. That way two of us could be outside and two could be inside showing the furniture. My dad took Friday off so he could watch our kids.

Saturday was quiet, to say the least. Thank goodness for the throngs of people who came by Friday!

But, really, so much sold. Below is a pic of all the garage and driveway stuff that was left to be picked up the next week:

That’s it! Plus the computer desk, dining room furniture, and two recliners. Everything else, gone!

The kids enjoyed their last trip here too.

Enjoying some breakfast…chocolate doughnuts. Now, that is a special treat.

On Saturday, Rosemary and Benjamin took one last dip in the spa with my dad.

I think the last dip wasn’t so tough knowing that the apartment has two pools and the new neighborhood has a community pool and a playground. They are excited about where Grandpa and Grandma will be next!

Archaeology Dig

We just started using Story of the World for our history curriculum and the first chapter (actually, it’s chapter 0) talks about what is an historian and what is an archaeologist. We’ve read books and talked about it, but one of the activities it suggests doing is creating a dig site. So we did. It was very small, but I think Ben and Rosemary had a lot of fun. They went out Monday morning to dig while Charlotte took her morning nap.

We used shovels, paint brushes, and toothbrushes to find our artifacts

Rosemary had just discovered the remains of a ceramic mug

Brushing the dirt off the remains of an egg carton. We deduced from this artifact that whoever left this item likely ate eggs. :-)

A pair of old eyeglasses

After collecting all of our artifacts, we bagged our finds then took them into our ‘lab,’ as Rosemary called it, to record our observations.

All six of our artifacts: seed packet, eyeglasses, egg carton, empty soap pump, pencil, and mug fragments.

Next, we plan to do some cave painting, but at the end of the summer we hope to mummify a chicken!