Monday, June 30, 2008

Wild Blackberries and Friends

We went to the park with some of our favorite people recently. We found yummy wild blackberries and we all tried some. It was the first time for me though my kids have eaten them before.

The wild group of friends

Posted by Picasa

Swim Lessons


Arianna began taking swim lessons at our neighborhood pool recently. She has done so well. She can now "swim" underwater for a short amount of time. She can pick up dive sticks from the bottom of the pool. I am amazed at how far she has come in 2 weeks. The cool thing is Ryan is imitating her. He has also learned to swim underwater. He can actually swim underwater longer and farther than Arianna. It is almost like 2 for the price of 1 swim lessons:)
Posted by Picasa

Future Paleontologists

We have been studying dinosaurs in school. We buried chicken bones in the sensory table. The kids enjoy digging for the fossils.
 

 

 

Goofy Face!

 
Posted by Picasa

Cool video

This is amazing!

I would love to be in these guys shoes. Amazing!
Christian the Lion

Posted using ShareThis

Sunday, June 29, 2008

100 Things About Me

New fad for blogs is to list 100 things about yourself. I don't know if I can think of 100 things about me but here goes my attempt...
1) I always wanted to be a Mom
2) I always wanted to stay home with my kids
3) My husband and I both knew on our first date that we would marry each other (though we didn't say anything about it to each other)
4) I have always loved animals and they have almost always loved me
5) I wanted to be a vet when I grew up
6) Therefore I only applied to one college...NCSU
7) I received my acceptance letter before all my friends had even applied to colleges
8) I went to college with 20 hours of college credit and still took 4.5 years to graduate
9) I am really bad at Chemistry
10) Chemistry kept me out of vet school
11) God knew my talents better than myself and led me to Child Psychology
12) I changed my major from Zoology Pre-Vet to Animal Science Pre-Vet to Zoology Pre-Vet to Accounting to Ethology (study of animal behavior), to Psychology, to Family and Child Counseling, to Elementary Ed to a double in Elementary Ed and Family and Child Counseling.
13) I graduated with a Degree in Psychology with a concentration in Family and Child Counseling.
14)I lack 20 hours of the COR classes to have a degree in Elementary Education
15)Though I stay at home and do not bring in ANY income, I am still paying for my college education
16) Though I do not work making money in my degree, I really feel like my degree prepared me to be a Mom
17) I love teaching and find very little to compare with the love of a child
18) I love seeing the joy in a child's eyes when they feel cherished
19) I plan to homeschool my kids through high school
15) I am excited and yet terrifed to do that
16) My husband and I won runner up in a contest at a Bridal Show about Most Romantic Engagement stories
17) My husband is my best friend
18) I would rather spend a day with him than anyone else!
19) We got married when the huge blizzard came in 2000. We got a total of 26 inches on the Tuesday before our wedding. We weren't sure we would even be able to get married
20) I wanted a spring wedding so had all pastels in the wedding and there was snow everywhere.
21)I love Game nights
22) My favorite game is Bohnanza
23) My Mom had me at 16 and she is the best example of a what it means to be a Mom
24) She taught me what it means to sacrifice your all for your family and kids
25) Even though we were dirt poor, she was at home with us when we were at home
26) My Dad just turned 50 this year, I have friends that are his age. That is weird!
27) My Grandfather taught what it means to be loved. He was my safe place when I was a child.
28) He used to tie me to the john boat when we would go fishing to keep me from falling in. (Not sure what he planned to do if the boat flipped:)
29)My Mom and I married my stepdad when I was young (4 or 5). He always loved me like his own. Most people do not know that I am not his biological child.
30)I always said I was going to marry him when I grew up.
31)My husband and stepdad are both engineers. They have a lot in common.
32)My stepdad walked me down the aisle at my wedding. That was a tough decision. It really hurt my real Dad. I still feel bad about that though I still love that my stepdad walking me down the isle.
33) I have 5 dachshund. All with "strong smart" names. Apollos, Athena, Lydia, Pandora and Goliath. We have a 6th pup that we gave to a friend when he was 8 weeks old. We named him Hezekiah (Chi for short). When they got him, they wanted to rename him to Tootsie Roll. I am glad they changed their minds!
34) My Dogs were my first kids.
35)I let the dogs kiss me in the face
36)My kids think that you greet dogs by kneeling down and letting them kiss you in the mouth. I get embarrassed when they do this to stranger's dogs.
37) I want to adopt a set of twins from a different culture
38) I love fondue
39) I love hanging out with friends
40) I love hanging out with family
41) I don't like TV
42) I am not sure if I like computers or not. I enjoy the sharing of info and connection with friends and family. But I hate the ability to access so much bad stuff so easily and that people no longer spend time together because they would rather be on the computer. I guess it is a love hate relationship for me!
43) I love the outdoors
44) I enjoy rolling down a grass hill
45) I hate high heals
46) I don't really like shoes. I would rather go barefoot.
47) God gives me kisses in the form of Cardinals
48) I am walking/running in a half marathon in 2 months which is why God gives me so many kisses. I need the extra help
49) I don't like to walk/run
50) I want to raise money for leukemia and lymphoma for the marathon
51) I know at least 5 people that are friends or family that have struggled with leukemia and lymphoma.
52) I love the beach
53) I feel closest to God at the beach.
54) I wish I lived at the beach if not for the hurricanes
55) I had a pet pig named Freddie growing up. He lived with my grandparents and was house trained and slept in front of the fireplace. He was the runt of the litter and we brought him in to keep him alive
56) No one told me what happened to Freddie. Turns out that they tried to reintroduce him to the other pigs and the other pigs killed him
57) I didn't know where meat came from until I was much older
58) I can't believe I never became a vegetarian. I hate thinking about where meat comes from
59) I love to scrapbook
60) I have 7 scrapbooks of my daughter's first year of life. I haven't started on her 2nd year of life yet. She is 4. I have done my son's first month and he is 2.5. I am way behind. I take too many pictures and too little time.
61) I do a slide show each month of our family
62)Chris and I picked out the names for our children when we were dating
63) If we had a boy it would be Ryan Malcolm after a dear friend of ours who died of lymphoma at age 26
64) If we had a girl it would be Arianna. We saw that name in the credits at the end of the Mummy Returns.
65) Arianna was the first born female in Chris' family in over 100 years
66) My husband seems to be a descendant of the Dalton Gang. His family has a lot of the features from the Dalton Gang.
67) I love fresh picked strawberries and fresh picked blueberries
68) My dance teacher in high school was one of the Ed Sullivan dancers
69) I have eaten insects...grubs, crickets, grasshoppers, and millworms
70) I enjoy hiking
71) I wanted my first children to be twins. God knew what I needed and spared me twins for my first child.
72) My dream is to swim with dolphins
73) I love mushy romantic movies
74) My favorite is Where the Heart Is
75) I am terrified of snakes that I can't see but I am intrigued by snakes that I can see.
76) I am afraid of the dark if I am by myself
77) I enjoy camping especially at Shackleford Island
78) I would love to have an animal farm. Not very good profitable idea though since I wouldn't be able to eat my animals.
79) I love to take pictures especially of my family. I probably take around 500 pics a month. Sometimes it is much more than that.
80) I have very few pics of me when I was little. I guess I compensate for that by taking so many of my kids. My husband says that my kids will have better documented lives than kings and queens.
81) I would love to be a zoo keeper
82) I would love to have a pet lion or tiger
83) I love roller coasters!
84) Gatlinburg is one of my favorite places to visit
85) I still like dressing up for Halloween
86) I enjoy deep conversations with others
87) Almost there...this is hard to do...I guess I have a hard time thinking of things about me. I don't have a very good long term memory so it is hard to remember things about me:)
88) My husband kept trying to get me to do a blog for a long time. I finally broke down and took his challenge. I enjoy blogging. It is sort of like scrapbooking online.
89) I really didn't think I would like it because I don't feel like I have anything to say that people would want to read
90) oh well, if people don't want to read it they won't but at least I can share the mixed up ramblings of my brain
91) I like kids music. Well I used to until I had kids and now I don't get to listen to anything else. I guess I used to like kids music then:) Who knows when variety returns, maybe I will like it again.
92)I enjoy learning with my kids. It is so cool to get to study insects, sharks and other things that kids are enthralled with. Insects and sharks are amazing!
93) I am amazed at what I don't know even though I had 12 years of public school and 4.5 years of college. I have learned far more being a teacher than I remember learning in school. I seem to remember the info better too!
94) My favorite classes in college were ENT201 (Insects and People) and PSY475 (Child Psychology)
95) My favorite classes in high school were Accounting and Geometry
96)I wear contacts and can hardly see without them
97)I am really bad at history and geography
98)I became a Christian when I was 18
99)I am very grateful that God chose me and protected me from so many bad things by pulling me out of the world so young
100)I strongly desire to glorify God with my life and my family