Saturday, April 25, 2009

Mayo Lake

We have been talking about taking a bike ride with some friends at Mayo Lake for sometime. Jeff is a big biking guy and he hooked Philip up with all he needed. This was Peter's first mountain bike ride; I heard that it was a 4 mile loop.

Emma, Ryan, Diane and myself hung out with their dog Lady at the park, by the lake and went for our own walk through the woods. It was a beautiful day.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

defining nothing....

Somehow the conversation at our dinner table finally turned from superheros to "what is nothing". For those that don't know my hubby well, this is one of his favorites! I can't remember how it started but for a good 20 minutes Emma and Peter were diligently and earnestly trying to explain to their father what "nothing" is. Peter started off with showing his dad a potato skin. He said, "This is a potato skin". Then he threw it in the trash and then he said, "now there is nothing". Of course this was no where near satisfaction for Philip. So the conversation continued. Emma joined in with reminding her father of the story of creation when God said there was "nothing". On and on they came up with examples, used props, got the dictionary all in earnest desire to convince their father of what "nothing" is. Peter even threw in a bribe of sharing some of his Easter candy if he would just understand.

One of the things that I think about on a consistent basis is whether or not the kids are learning "what they are supposed to". After just listening to this conversation, I was truly amazed by their analytical skills, their ability to formulate a position and their ingenuity in their answers. It was one of those conversations that I would have loved to secretly turned on a hidden camera so we could keep it forever.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Soccer begins

The preschool soccer "clinic" began this morning! It couldn't have been a better morning to be outside. This is Emma's second year taking the class. I was really proud of the way she ran right out on the field and never looked back. It's not often that she gets to do something that the others don't so I'm glad she had her turn.
The kids were gathered around the coach recieving the end of practice instructions!
Ryan enjoyed the morning outside especially the airplanes!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Duke Gardens

We spent Good Friday relaxing together after a long week. Philip had the brunt of the busyness with a meeting on Monday and Tuesday night, a field trip to Durham with his SPRING kids on Wednesday, a 15 page paper due on Thursday, a Maundy Thursday service, a community Good Friday service and a wedding on Saturday. He'll wrap "Holy" week up with 3 Easter morning services and then we'll all ride together to Charlotte for Easter dinner with his family.
All I had to do was survive until Friday when I knew we would have a break for a family day. We started the day off at Babies R Us and then did a little shoe shopping. We stopped by Duke Gardens to have a picnic and enjoy the beautiful flowers before heading back to Roxboro.
It's hard to believe how quickly time is going by. We have less than 9 weeks or 2 months until there will be a newborn in the house. The reality of what that means has yet to really sink in.
My thoughts are staying mostly in the here and now. What do I need to do to today and this week. It's almost as hard to believe that in 2 1/2 weeks Philip will have completed his 3rd year at Duke.

Easter Egg Hunt


This is what happens when you leave a birthday party and head straight to the Easter Egg hunt at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. No time for a nap and no nap yesterday!
He was somehow able to recover from the minor melt down and find a few eggs.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Ponies

Peter and I were working on something in the kitchen this morning so that left Emma and Ryan to play on their own. After a while I began hearing Emma trying to recite Psalm 23. Since they were playing together so well, I sneaked around the corner to see what was actually going on. This is exactly what I found. Come to find out she and Ryan were trying to teach the ponies about God.
Since I have practically no artistic talent, I was quite impressed when I saw what Emma had drawn in her journal this morning. She was looking at a book and copied what she saw.