Our little buddy

That has been our affectionate title for Ryan for a while now that and "our friendly monster". Everyone always says that nobody had more pictures in their baby book than the first child. In Ryan's case, I know that's probably the case because he's our first baby with a digital camera and well the "digital images" are on the memory stick not in the album. So I thought I should put together a little scrapbook for him.

I am not sure that the book I'm currently reading, "Managers of the Home" would approve of the last hour I've spent playing with Smilebox and my pictures. Maybe this should qualify as a "hobby".

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

Catching up on the past

Thanks to some great detective work by Circuit City and the persevering spirit of my wonderful husband, I am now officially back in business and better than ever! They were able to figure out the problem with Philip's laptop/my adapter and I can post all the pictures I want now. Even better than fixing Philip's computer, is the new church computer that Philip has installed. A good friend of mine introduced me a while back to "smilebox". This is my first time using it as I thought a slide show of the pictures unseen was appropriate. Smilebox was really cool and if I really figure it out you might see more links to come. Enjoy and get ready for some more pictures!

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

Wiener Works

I just wanted to give a quick shout out to my fellas from
pilgrimage. This was one of the places that we hung
out at a lot. And we really liked the color scheme.
Please notice the muscles from those strapping young
bucks --- all thanks to wiener works!

This post is written by Philip --- but DeAnne was
the one that took this picture.

A busy Saturday

I think I have discussed this before but in case I haven't, Saturdays are a little hard for me to get my head around. You see Philip has to work all day Saturday in order to prepare for the service on Sunday. It is hard to know that it's a Saturday but also know that I won't be lounging in my PJ, having eggs and grits cooked by Philip and having some time to run errands unaccompained by children. I have pretty much abandoned the idea of having school on Saturdays for now.

So this morning, I decided that we will try our hardest to get the house back in order after the time away. After looking at the sleeping bags, I realized that there was truly no other way to clean them up than to take them to the laundry mat. They were soaking wet and muddy. So I threw them into the van along with our comforter and headed to the laundry mat. There weren't many people there and my children immediately noticed the TV so we parked ourselves near it! The cartoons playing weren't not what I wanted the kids to see. Since mine were the only children, I decided to change the channel which meant squeezing myself between the coke machine and the vending machine and reaching on my tippie toes. I turned it to PBS but there were NO cartoons....I couldn't believe it. Why wouldn't cartoons be on PBS. I left it there in fear of getting stuck between the machines and we made the best of it.
I promised the kids a snack after I made sure I had enough change left over!
After the hour and half at the laundry mat we headed home for lunch, a nap for everyone and 3 more loads of laundry. I think I might have at least one more load tomorrow then the campfire smell should be gone from the house!

Grades are in...

Congrats to Philip on this semester's grades:

Exegesis of Luke: B
Christian Theology: A-
Making Disciples in the Wesleyan Tradition: A-

We're home!

For those of you who are following our recent trip away, we are home. The kid campers are now warm, clean, dry and asleep and Philip is here as well but he's a little sore from sleeping on the gravel! I have the first load of laundry complete with more to come tomorrow. I might even venture out to the laundry-mat to have the sleeping bags cleaned. There was a "flood" that occurred last night when they discovered that their tent wasn't as waterproof as they thought. Maybe next year Uncle Pete will bring the camouflage- waterproof mats for everyone.

So far the stories that I've heard sound like they had a blast. We'll get some pictures posted as soon I get them from Uncle Pete. I can tell that after 2 and a half days in the woods and lots of fun with their father and uncle, Peter and Emma will need to have a little bit of "refining"!

Pictures from Gram and Puppas

I found some pictures that Gram and Puppa had that needed to be added to the blog!
This is the kids with their cousin Caleb, Puppa and Gram over Thanksgiving.










Here's Emma in the tree but I think this were taken over the summer.










Here's Ryan "loving" on Peter.

Camping and Charlotte!

It's Thursday afternoon and the campers have been gone for over a day now. I received a call from Philip yesterday morning letting me know that there was a slit change of plans. Due to the State wide burning ban (including camp fires), they found a private campground open in Boone. They are not really roughing it though because there are hot showers and bathroom facilities available but they can have a campfire. I received another call Wednesday night from Emma who was missing her mommy! By the time I realized I missed her call and returned it, she was feeling better and enjoying roasted marshmallows.

Ryan and I have enjoyed our time in Charlotte. Yesterday we baked lots of Christmas cookies. Ryan was very cooperative once I laid him down for an early nap! He spent the evening with Puppa while the ladies went out to dinner. He loves his Puppa and calls for him and Peter throughout the day! We visited with a good friend and her children this morning. Becky and I grew up across the street from each since we were about 5 years old. It was great to see her and her beautiful children! This afternoon Ryan will get to meet his Great Gram who just moved from Arizona to an assisted living center in Charlotte.

camping time

We leave tomorrow to head to Charlotte for the first leg of the camping trip! I just checked the weather. It's definitely going to be cold but thankfully not rain in the forecast. So everyone PRAY for them as often as you think of it!!!

Have I mentioned yet what Ryan and I will be doing during this time?
While the campers will be toasting marsh mellows and making smores, we will be baking Christmas cookies.
While the campers will be eating MREs (meals ready to eat that Uncle Pete will provide courtesy his military connections), I will be dining with the ladies of the Chryst family at PF Cheng and Ryan will be bonding with his Puppa.
While the campers will be roughing it in the wilderness and exploring the sites of the Appalachian trail, Ryan and I will be visiting friends, shopping and being spoiled.

I'm not sure who's in for more of a treat the campers or the city folk.

Beaver Dams

In preparation for Philip, his brother (Uncle Peter), Emma and Peter's camping trip coming up on Wednesday of this week Philip took the kids on a really long hike. They started off in the woods behind the church and followed a creek along to a road that I eventually picked them up on when I received their call. They were out for about 2 hours hiking and exploring. They found 3 beaver dams and about an acre of woods that had been demolished by beavers. It's still hard for us to believe that we are living in a place where their is so much wildlife surrounding us.

The campers will be leaving from Charlotte Wednesday morning and heading to Boone for three days and two nights. While talking to Philip recently about the trip he said, "What's the worst that can happen? We end up having to get a hotel room." I am truly married to an optimist. I am thankful that Uncle Peter is an army man with extensive training for this kid of adventure. Uncle Peter doesn't have kids so that also makes him a bit more "sensitive" to what they are can handle.

Time with the laptop!

It's been a while since I've posted a good summary of the week so I thought I would take advantage of the time I had with Philip's laptop. Sometime last week, I messed up the churches desktop (my computer!) and lost Internet connection so I was void my link to the outside world for a bit. Now, it's Sunday afternoon, Philip's out visiting someone in the hospital, Ryan is napping, Peter and Emma are busy! They usually take naps right after lunch on Sunday afternoon but the time indoors the last few days is starting to show. Even though it's a blustery 30 degree day, they are enjoying the fresh air and I am enjoying some time with a keyboard!

My goal of teaching the Christmas symbols has been going well, not quite as great as I envisioned but it's always good to have high expectations. We've enjoyed learning about the Poinsettia, the Star, Advent wreaths and the color purple. I have a stack of Christmas books that I picked up from the library for some more "learning opportunities". I am very thankful that so far, they have continued to focus of the birth of Christ as the reason for Christmas and not the gifts.

We celebrated Philip's completion of the semester Friday night with another Student Pastor and his family whom we live near. We had a great visit with the Hunter's. I was able to talk to Anna-Lisa quite a bit about homeschooling as she has upper elementary students of her own. I have been questioning myself lately as to if Peter is getting enough of an education in the sciences, math and so forth. Anna-Lisa reminded me of that a lot of education at this age (apart from reading and writing) is "guided exploration". We certainly to our fair share of "guided exploration" around here and it was a welcomed reassurance that I'm on the right track.

3/8 done

In honor of Philip's completion of his 3 semester at Duke, I thought it was fitting to post this picture took of him in DC. During our trip this summer, as we were walking (a long ways) from the metro to the Lincoln monument to begin our day, we happened upon the Albert Einstein monument! Thus the picture you have here.
So far the only grade that has been reported to me is a "B" in his Exegesis of Luke class. I know I spelled that wrong so it's a good thing he's taking the class and not me!
More grades to come as are revealed!

Gone are the days

As I was deboning the chicken I had cooked for dinner, I began thinking back to when Peter was 1. At that time when I would cook a chicken for dinner I would be able to make at least 2 full meals- one night Chicken and Dumplings and the next Chicken Pot Pie and perhaps something else. It actually wasn't even just the three of us eating but our friend Mandy was living with us at the time so that's 3.5 people eating for 2days. Well as I was deboning today, I was preparing this chicken for only one meal....chicken and pastry. It was now 6 people that I would feed; our family of 5 plus our friend Branden. I was actually surprised to find that we had some left over but gone are the days of 2-3 meals out of one chicken. I wonder what it will be like when the kids actually have adult size appetites!

Pictures...hopefully

My dad was preparing one of his famous cherry pies when Emma found him in the kitchen. She loves to bake and she loves to help! She loved helping Poppop bake his pie!



The first day we were at my parents, Ryan screamed in terror when either of the cats came near him. The fear quickly faded and he became midly obsessed with them. He wsa constantly wanting to "play" with them, watch them, chase them, find them and of course Roar at them. I think if he didn't roar so much the cats would have warmed up to him a bit more. This is Ryan and Mickey!

This was our outing at the beach. I really took this picture for Philip because I thought he'd be proud that they were wearing their boots at the beach. I didn't realize that Emma's eyes were shut until just now. With all the technical difficulties I've been having....I'm thankful to have the picture!
The boots were actually great. They were able to stay pretty dry while still being able to jump in the puddles.

Overcoming challenges

We are only a week away from the completion of Philip's semester which means a variety of things for me. One is that hopefully, he'll get his computer fixed so I can get back to using more pictures on my blog. However, I'm spending a few days at my parents so I am going to try to catch up a bit on the pictorial story of our lives....Remember when we made an apple pie?
Here is is....

I spoke too soon....I was so close but I can't seem to get it to work.
So here's the unpictorial story of our time at the beach.
We made homemade sugar cookies with Granny while Ryan was napping. You know the kind where you use cookie cutters! It was fun. Then after dinner we iced the cookies. Just a little more sugar can't hurt too much.
I went to Wilmington and did a little shopping. I feel blessed to have happened upon two bag sales. One was at a children's thrift shop that I frequented when we lived in Wilmington. They are going out of business and had a bag sale. I scored on that one. The other was in Hampstead- I got Emma a shirt and winter coat for $5.00!
I took Peter and Emma to the beach today. It was a beautiful day. I was smart enough to have them wear their rubber boots but not quite smart enough to bring myself a beach chair and a book.
Peter has enjoyed riding his bike through the neighborhood. My parents are one of 2 families that live here so the streets are very quiet!
We're heading back to Roxboro after church at Faith Harbor tomorrow. It's been great to be here but there's no place like home.

How to make an Apple Pie

As I mentioned earlier, we studied with the book, How to Make an Apple Pie and see the World this week. It was a delightful book about a girl who travels the world in search of ingredients for an apple pie because her local market was closed!
We had a fun week learning about the different types of apples and lots of things. We finished the week off with going to a local produce stand and purchasing all the different type of apples available and enough to make an apple pie. We came home, had a taste test and spent the afternoon making a homemade apple pie...pictures to come...it was great!

We went meatless...

for a total of 5 days!!! It kinda happened by accident but then it turned into a personal challenge so I have to report it!
On Sunday, I began assembling my meal plan and grocery list for the week. After consulting the grocery ads to see what "meat sales" they had or better put what they didn't have, I decided that I would just go with out and see how it worked. So I planned for a week of vegetarian meals.
Monday- Black beans and Rice
Tuesday - Minestrone and homemade bread (bread machine...but it almost caught on fire.. so the bread didn't come out just right)
Wednesday - Chile potato enchiladas, yellow rice and chips and salsa
Thursday - Vegetable stew with homemade dumplings
Friday - well, another potential post...I was prepared to make homemade pizza but I didn't allow enough time for my dough to rise so we went out for pizza instead. So this may not officially count b/c Ryan and Peter had pepperoni on their cheese-less pizza....close enough for me.
So tonight we will enter back into the meat world (hamburger was on sale at Food Lion) with sloppy joes!
I guess I should confess that there were two nights that Philip brought out the "beef stick" for a post dinner treat!
It was fun and great on the food budget....we'll have to do this again