Category: All Posts

…she pretends that a little knobby stick found in the driveway is “an author, named Emily N–” who wrote books called “The Car Who Went to the Sink and Elizabeth Washes Her Hair.” (Don’t most kids pretend that sticks are swords or soup-spoons or just sticks??)

I wish I had had my camera with me, but I just wanted to let you know, mom, that with her precious quarters, Vivienne purchased a whole handful of chick-lets and an adventurous ride on Clifford.  The small change transformed into a relational blessing when the little boy waiting in line for Clifford asked Vivienne…

A visit from my sister usually convicts me about how flippant and sarcastic I can still be with someone who *has to* love me despite my ugliness. I don’t know why, but this particular sister always gets the worst of my words (I think Ryan must come in second place for my carelessness). She’ll be…

Both Ryan and I felt little Jingle Bells kick (on the outside!) last night.  The Saturday football games must have been deeply inspiring!

Weigh in: 10.5 inches and 10.5 ounces of “solid baby-miracle goodness” (as one website put it) Big picks this week: bones continue to ossify and strengthen, finger and toe pads are finishing up. The limbs have reached their relative proportions, the eyelashes and eyelids are visible… the baby is really looking like one of us…

Ah, parenting. Isn’t it so nice to bask in a good lesson that you invent in a tight moment; your child absorbs the lesson and beams up at you with gratitude just for taking the time to teach her so well? …Until, of course, time passes and suddenly that lesson backfires. The basking: When we…

This is my first year without out-of-our-home work and I am loving it. I love the changes that have had to occur in my accomplishment-addicted mind and in my definition of “worth.” I love that all of my time and energy flows into one man and two little children. And I love these people; I…

Vivienne quickly learned her full name, address, and phone number through playing “Doctor’s Office.”  When “the patient” (played by Vivienne herself) comes into the office, “the nurse” (played by me) uses a notebook to record all of her information in “her file.”  Then as I check her heart, lungs, throat, eyes, and nose, I sketch…

Tonight, we were eating pizza at a little place in Boalsburg. Viv spotted a slot machine on the floor; the buttons and levers were at just the right height for her and it wasn’t plugged in, so we let her play with it while we finished our dinner. When I knelt down to find out…

My thoughts after three weeks of homeschooling my spunky 2-year old: *  A 2-year old can be a fantastic learner, but is not a young adult (‘learned that on day 1). *  What I do today will influence the tone of our home as that 2-year old grows into that young adult *  That’s why…