A Trip To Gunston

Vicki talked, in her blog, about our (Alex and my) trip to Gunston today. It's a very nice school. I almost didn't go to the open house because there's no way on God's green earth we can afford a private school. But, looking is free. And so is filling out paperwork for financial aid. So, we looked. And we'll fill out the paperwork. The rest is out of our hands. We know that God will provide for whatever He wants us to do.

While Alex and I were out this morning, Kenzie attempted to run the classroom while watching Bekah. Connor just did his own thing. Kenzie did get some work done with the twins; they got a little bit of their Language Arts done. The major accomplishment of the morning, however, was repair work to the chicken coop. Kenzie noticed the netting that covers the run had a big hole in it. Naturally, her mother hen instincts took over and everything else was dropped until the hole was fixed. She did this without instruction from me, which I find as impressive as Bekah learning sign language (again, see Vicki's blog). We eventually finished school after lunch, and even had time for a family walk along the waterfront.

I was still working with Alex when Kenzie and I had to leave for her softball practice. It turned out to be a hitting clinic with five girls from her team. As usual, Kenzie excelled. In the batting cage, she only missed one pitch.

Now, everyone is depressed. The Ravens just lost to the Bengals in a very ugly game (for a Ravens fan). They looked awful. We're all hoping they had to get this one out of their system before the playoffs, and it won't happen again.

Now I'm supposed to find some kind of picture with lights in it for Vicki's Saturday scavenger hunt. Ugh, and the picture she wants is probably in the box, in the far reaches of some corner of the garage.

Incredible Sunrise

This was two mornings ago, about 15 minutes before sunrise. This picture is not altered in any way by me, except to make it small enough to download.

Piano Recital

Saturday evening, Tyler, Kenzie, and Connor had there first piano recital of the 2006-07 school year. It was at the Festival of the Trees, which Vicki talked about briefly in her Blog the other day. I like this event because it isn't as formal as the kids' other recitals, where they usually are are in front of a larger crowd, getting judged, or being evaluated. They just sit at ground level at the side of a room full of decorated Christmas trees. The kids are just providing the background music for the folks wandering around the room, admiring all the trees. One of the reasons I really like this piano teacher (Mr. Ray) is because he provides so many more opportunities for the kids to perform than most piano teachers; he averages about one event per month, as opposed to just a Christmas performance and end-of-year recital. I think the performances have really motivated the kids to practice and learn new, more challenging songs. We've already missed a few events, but we have plenty more coming next year. Ray wants Connor to learn a pretty difficult classical piece to perform with a full orchestra in the Spring, and Connor has been playing piano only for about two and a half years.

Well, back to the recital. Tyler, as usual, was chomping at the bit to do something because he gets bored really easy. So, Ray let Ty go first. Tyler would've gone first anyway because Ray always has the kids play in order of the difficulty of their music. Tyler was very happy to go first. He played his song, and he played it almost perfectly. He started piano in January of the year, and he's already playing chords and playing both bass and treble clef simultaneously. When finished, as soon as he sat down, he turned to me and asked if we could go home now. That's my Tyler :o) We still had five more performers to go.

Kenzie went next. She had three songs to play. The first two were perfect. She stumbled a bit in the third one, but she hung in there, didn't panic, and finished the performance. She's got more guts than most adults and she's only 8. Like Tyler, she has no fear. Well, I think she does, but she hides it so well, you'd never know.

Connor went next to last. Just going this close to then end of the program shows how far he's advanced in a very short time. He played two pieces. The first one (don't ask me titles, I can never remember them) was pretty hard; he worked very hard to learn it, and he did very well. He keeps saying he made mistakes, but the only thing I heard was that he played a little too fast through the easier sections and a little too slow in the hard section. And he was much more comfortable performing this year than last, when he couldn't play his second song because he was too upset and nervous.

And here's the giant poinsettia tree that Vicki mentioned:

Black Friday

Click on the top picture to watch the sun rise:

I have more to say about Black Friday that I hope to get to later. For now, here's the results of our sunrise walk. Next time I do this, I'll take my tri-pod. Here's a good one of the last frame:

Pre-Holiday Frenzy

Busy, busy, busy. Everybody's cleaning today. It's a good day for it; rainy, dreary, cold, and just yucky. Kenzie decided it was too cold for our sunrise walk, and that was fine with me because there was no sunrise anyway. We have been cleaning the whole house in preparation for tomorrow. Vicki's family's coming for dinner. They're used to our house being a mess, but it was decided that Thanksgiving deserved a special effort. Plus, the kids have been really really bad lately, so they've been doing penance with especially difficult assignments. Alex, who got angry at Connor yesterday, and threw a pencil at him (hitting Bekah in the face with it), had to clean all three of bathrooms by himself yesterday; and they had to be done top to bottom, and be spotless when he finished. It took most of the afternoon and he actually did a pretty good job. Then Connor got angry at Alex last night and, yes, threw an eraser at him (yes, only hours after the pencil incident). Today, Connor is cleaning all the walls, by himself, in all the common areas of the house. Trust me, with so many short people in the house, the walls get pretty dirty from the four foot level, down. The rest of us are doing the regular cleaning duties that should get done way more often than they do.

To top it of, my insurance guy just came by to talk about our policies. I knew he was coming, but his visit put a crimp in Kenzie's schedule. She had all the chairs moved out of the kitchen so she could sweep and mop. Well, I needed the kitchen table, so she had to put it all back together until we finished with the insurance talk. I can never understand insurance policies. I'm not a stupid person, but I can NOT figure out insurance stuff. Even though this guy (a new agent from our old one) explained things clearly for the first time I can remember, five minutes after the agent left, I was getting things wrong again. Vicki insisted on writing notes to ourselves, in our policy, so we'll remember what the heck it all means ten minutes from now. Now at least, Kearsyn has some life insurance, so that makes seven. I still need to set her up with an annuity fund like all the other kids have, but I can only handle so much of this policy stuff at a time.

The Nor-easter finally arrived. We just had a wind gust of 31 mph, and it's raining pretty good. I'm glad I'm not travelling today. To all you who are, please be safe, and everyone please have a

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Not-So Peaceful Morning

Compare to yesterday's serene view. The waves are bigger than they look, and the wind chill, about 25 ^oF, is many degrees lower than yesterday. This is looking across the river, just outside the marina on a morning they say we have a Nor'easter approaching (I believe it, the waves are coming at us from the northeast). Brr. Time to move farther south. Oh, except Vicki doesn't like the size of the bugs that grow down there.

Peaceful Morning

What Are The Odds...

What are the odds that this picture would be featured on page two, the National section, of our local newspaper on the same morning of our fatal hawk attack? We've been so busy lately, I finally got around to reading Thursday's paper, today. There wasn't even an article about it; just the picture and caption. It just struck me as really weird, that's all.

With the sun finally returning to our neighborhood, I could get a good picture of our improved chicken run. You can see, pretty well, how the whole space is covered up. The only problem now is that it's hard to visit the chickens if you're over four feet tall, and I like to go sit and watch them once in a while. It's kinda like watching fish in a fish tank: there's a therapeutic effect to it. Well, no more nasty hawks are going to get our birds now!

I tried to do some Christmas shopping today. For the past seven years I've done most or all of my shopping online. This year I thought I'd give stores another try. BIG MISTAKE. I bought one thing for a gift, and it wasn't even anything I planned on buying. Back to online shopping, for me. I can almost always find what I want, somewhere on the internet; and, I can compare prices without driving all over the place. Plus, the kids use the internet to make their wish list so if they can find what they want, so can I.

I did have to go to a store the other day for Bekah's bed, and they tried to sell me something I didn't want. Boy that irritates me. I went in, said I wanted the mattress/box set in the store flyer, priced at $129. Not in stock. I just got flyer that previous day! How can they be out of stock the next morning? I made them ship the items I wanted from their warehouse. I would have gone to another store just on principle, but we don't have many choices around here for that kind of thing.

Connor was a little perturbed with the Terps today. They got beat pretty bad. In their first two possessions they fumbled the ball that was returned for a touchdown both times. They were losing 14-0 in the first five minutes of the game. That's when I leave a game. Connor is loyal enough to watch, in agony, as his team get slaughtered. Not me; I admit, I'm a fair-weather fan. But for Connor's sake, I hope the Ravens do better tomorrow.

Bekah's New Bed

Since we took the day off today for the chicken thing, I decided to get some other things done, as well. This included getting Bekah her first bed. This is necessary because she has been attempting to climb out of her crib, succeeding only in getting herself stuck in various gaps in the rails.

After I got the bed home, I went food shopping. As I did that, Vicki began disassembling the crib in Bekah's room. This sent Bekah into a frenzy of excitement. She just knew this meant it was time for her to move up. I don't think any of the other kids caught on as fast as she did; at least they didn't show it. Once her bed was ready, we had a hard time getting her out of it. I bet she'll have no trouble finding her way out of it in the middle of the night, or when she's not in the mood for her nap.

Chickens Have No Memory

Despite the drizzle, wind, and tornado watch (ugh), Kenzie and I just finished covering the chicken run with bird netting. I'd show it to you, but it's almost impossible to see it, especially in a picture. This was one of our fastest projects ever. We opened the chicken door, and those idiot chickens just pop back outside as if their comrade never existed, let alone became bird food just four hours ago. And that evil bird of prey is still circling overhead. I bet if she had a slingshot, Kenzie would take care of that thing in short order.

A Sad Day In Chicken World

Kenzie and I had just gotten back from our morning walk when I noticed something strange in our chicken run. One bird was out, and was staying in one place. Chickens don't normally stay that still. It was still a little dim outside so I had to walk back to see what was going on. I discovered a hawk having a chicken breakfast. One of our favorite (definitely the nicest) new hens. Chicken Girl (and the rest of us) is very sad. I think we'll take off school and go buy some bird netting for the top of the run, and try to put it up before the rain comes today.

>:o(

Kids Answer the Challenge

The kids attempted to answer the erasercar challenge. I have to say, they came close. The only thing that stopped them was they used nickels, which are much thicker than pennies. Here are the results of Kenzie and Alex.

Kenzie's Erasercar.

Alex's Erasercar.

A Nickel Cross.

We all got up in the attic last night to get down our Christmas decorations. With this awful, rainy, foggy, dreary weather, I need to be ready to put up the outside decorations at a moment's notice, especially since it hasn't been very cold lately. I tend to wait one too many weekends before putting up the lights, thus missing the last decent day of the year, and not doing it at all. The kids are old enough now where they can be very persistent about doing the decorating. Hopefully, we'll have pictures before Christmas.

And, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAYLOR AND TYLER! I'd do that thing with the birthday lists, you know, the 7 things I like about them in honor of each of their seven years, but I'm really busy now.

We're In The Paper

Remember I told you about our trip to clean up the beach the other day? Well, one of the mom's sent a picture I took to the local papers and we got published. Connor's kicking himself for being lazy that day and staying home.

Alex's Answer To The Challenge

I think he kinda cheated, but he calls this his erasermotorcycle. I guess I have to give him credit for creativity.

Another Sunrise Walk

As expected, the whole crew, or most of it, once it got wind of a good thing, had to tag alone on this morning's walk. It wasn't too bad. The morning was beautiful again, and this time I have pictures to prove it. The picture on the left is looking out, over Macum Creek. The little island you see is all that is left from a "land bridge" that was there when we moved in to our house twelve years ago. Back then, you could walk all the way to the other side without getting your feet wet. This might be why some folks are saying that our island is sinking, but I think it's just erosion (which I guess could be ascribed to the sinking of an island :o). This is also where we do the majority of our fishing in the Summer and where Tay got his weird needlefish this year. The picture on the right is just a few steps away, across Chester River. This is where we usually catch those Cownose Rays, which Kenzie can't get enough of, in the Summer.

Out With The Old...

It was time to say goodbye to the foster chickens. Boy, that time just flew by. I can't believe our babies are already six weeks old (actually, Sunday will be be six weeks) and we've had those roosters since August (or was it September?). Our friends came and picked up their chickens tonight, to go get butchered tomorrow morning. Several families are all sending various fowl to get butchered tomorrow. Lots of roosters, a few hens, and even some turkeys are going to have a very bad day tomorrow. Kenzie was a little sad about sending off her favorite one (he may be back, in the form of a chicken dinner, since our friends said they'd send us some in appreciation for helping to raise them), but now she's got fifteen new ones to take care of, including Hawkface and Nugget, who took right to his new home in the coop. He took over the top perch as soon as we put him in.

Kenzie and I took advantage of this most gorgeous day of almost 70^oF to clean the coop. We started the day off at 6 AM with a father/daughter sunrise walk. She got up, as usual, to take care of the chickens, and I told her I'd get up early so we could go for the walk. Now, the rest of the kids, having heard about it, all (except Connor) want to get up at 6 AM to go for a walk. We'll see how that works tomorrow. I really hope they all forget, and sleep in. I need to actually get some exercise without corralling all the kids that early in the morning.

I can't believe how nice the weather was today; and it's supposed to be better tomorrow. I sense a field trip coming on, maybe to the Veterans' Day ceremony down in Centreville. It will be too nice to get much school work done, that's for sure.

Can you do this?

I was waiting for Tyler to get over one of his grumpy episodes and since it's raining outside, prohibiting me from hanging laundry as therapy, I occupied myself by making this. I now have a standing challenge to the kids to duplicate it. No Glue Allowed! And, yes, in this house, I have my name on MY eraser. And my pencil, my pen, my scotch tape, and whatever else the kids might claim as their own.

Long Night For Me

Twenty eight cliches in honor of the 28 (so far, still counting some districts) seats lost by Republicans in the House of Representatives:

1. the worm turns.
2. the pendulum swings both ways.
3. every dog has his day.
4. the changing of the guard.
5. what goes around, comes around.
6. what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
7. all good things come to those who wait.
8. some day your ship will come.
9. it could be worse.
10. tomorrow is another day.
11. as welcome as a skunk to a lawn party.
12. it has to get worse before it gets better.
13. this too, shall pass.
14. it's not the end of the world.
15. no pain, no gain.
16. the devil made me do it.
17. it seemed like a good idea at the time.
18. if all else fails, manipulate the data.
19. when all else fails, dazzle them with B.S.
20. stuff happens.
21. every cloud has a silver lining.
22. after the rain comes the rainbow.
23. between a rock and a hard place.
24. bit the dust.
25. brought down to earth.
26. every stick has two ends.
27. out with the old, in with the new.
28. when God gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Life Is Good

At our Baptism party, yesterday, I was talking to a family friend about where life takes us. She joked that she hasn't figured out what she wants to be when she grows up, and asked me how I thought my life turned out, compared to my expectations from youth. As if I were participating in one of the word-association exercises, my immediate response was: Better! I hadn't even thought about it. That was the first, instinctive, response I had to that question. I just thought that was neat.

Baptism Pictures

You can visit Vicki's blog (as you probably already have) for Baptism details. I just thought I'd add a few more pictures...

On other fronts, Connor got to see both the Terps and the Ravens win! I really hope none of you are Steelers fans, because we get extreme pleasure from watching their demise this season.The only other team we enjoy watching lose almost as much is the Redskins, although they did win yesterday; but that's okay because they were playing against T.O. who deserves to lose every game he plays in.

A big thank you goes out to my Canadian friends, who held back the coldest of that Canadian air on Saturday. It didn't quite get down to freezing and was almost up to the mid-thirties for our first game. No popsicle kids, but they were happy to get back home and drink some hot chocolate.

Alex had a big payday on Saturday. His reffing pay was a couple weeks backed up and it felt good to get that lump sum. It's pretty sad, though, that now my thirteen year old son makes more $$ than me, isn't it? He still needs to split up his pay into 'charity', 'savings', and 'spending', but I think he's still enjoying the feel of earned cash in his hands.

I see everyone is here, waiting for the start of our school day so I'll talk to ya'll later.

Velda, Keep Your Canadian Air!

Brrrr. It's supposed to get down into the 20's tonight. The first time we may go below freezing this season. I wouldn't mind that too much, except we have two 8 AM soccer games and one 9 AM game. We are all going to be popsicles before lunch. I hope the chickens out in the coop will be okay; I haven't winterized the coop yet. I was waiting until next weekend, when my friend will pick up the foster chickens and my babies can move out there. Speaking of my chicky babies, they are growing fast. Here's some pictures I just took. They are five weeks old and have most of their feathers. I still can't tell if two of my hens are really hens, or not. The roosters have a definite comb, like "Nugget" here, the brown one with Bekah. And the obvious hens definitely have nothing like a comb. But some, like this black and white one have a sort of cross between the two. In case you're wondering, yes, we did name this one chicken Nugget, since this is probably the one rooster we'll keep for breeding purposes and he won't get eaten, at least for a while. But if we do decide to eat him, at least his name is Nugget. Kenzie, for some reason has also been calling one of the hens "Hawkface" because it does look kind of like a hawk from the neck, up. Kenzie's very happy that Hawkface appears to be a hen because I don't think I could have convinced her to eat her favorite chicken, even smothered in her favorite sauce, Ranch salad dressing.

Right now, Connor is sitting in the room with me, staring at the ceiling, while all his siblings are watching a movie. I think he's trying to make me feel guilty for punishing him (no TV/Electronics for the rest of the week, starting this past Monday). He's being punished because he kicked, and broke, Bekah's chair because he got mad at Kenzie. Breaking the chair was bad enough, but then he didn't tell me about it (I explained to him, what if Bekah got in that chair and it fell apart). It was the cover up that got him in the most trouble, as always. My kids always get in more trouble for not 'fessing up than for the actual crime. With the University of Maryland football team on TV tomorrow, and the Ravens on TV on Sunday, I have to figure out how bad I want to torture him. Connor will do almost anything to watch his football. And on Sunday, we may all miss the game because Kearsyn is getting baptised at the same time. I should have thought of that before I scheduled her Christening, but I guess it really shouldn't be put off until after the Superbowl.

All right, I'm starting to ramble and I have a little girl to put to bed, so I'm outa here.

Quick Update

I've been a little overwhelmed lately so I haven't posted as much as I usually do. Still busy, but I wanted to add some pics of recent events. Connor and Kenzie performed for the county's tricentennial at the Kent Island Music Festival on the past, cold, weekend. See Vicki's post for details. It warmed up nicely in time for Halloween. Here's what Halloween Soccer Zombies look like; and one little pumpkin.